38 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1703. 



flesh, which was wasted in her illness; the menses returned, and she continued 

 very well from July till near Christmas. 



In January I was called to see her, and she gave this account of herself. That 

 about three weeks before Christmas she found herself a little short winded, 

 which increased daily, with a fulness and weight in her left side ; that she lay 

 well on the left side, but when she turned to lie on her right, she felt as if a 

 weight fell from the left to the right side, which gave her a shortness of breath 

 and made her cough. Thus it continued increasing till Christmas, when she 

 began to raise a considerable quantity of strong stinking pus ; she said she ate 

 her victuals well enough all this time, and was not feverish. At first she was 

 under the care of another physician, who told her relations that it was an ulcer 

 in her lungs, and he believed incurable, upon which they again committed her 

 to my care. When I saw her, which was towards the middle of January 1 701, 

 she threw up a considerable quantity of stinking pffensive pus, which was as 

 fluid as the pus of other parts ; her flesh was a little abated, but she was at no 

 time feverish; she ate and slept pretty well, and had the catamenia duly. I 

 prescribed such medicines, as abated that purulent expectoration several times, 

 and she often gave me hopes of her recovery, continuing to have the menses 

 regularly, and being still free from an hectic, but on every little cold, she again 

 raised that fetid pus in a considerable quantity. She generally continued pretty 

 free from coughing several hours together, till she perceived something of a 

 fulness in her breast, which would oblige her to cough, and after she had once 

 begun to raise, she could not cease, till she had brought up two spoonfuls or 

 more of that fetid pus. This she did chiefly in the morning, afternoon, and at 

 night. I apprehended she had an abscess in the left lobe of the lungs, and 

 made her lie on the bed, with her head reaching to the chamber floor, leaning 

 on her left arm. In this position she could at any time, after a little cough, set 

 the pus a running out of her mouth till the whole was discharged: then she 

 would get up, and seemed to be as well as another person, till it was almost 

 filled again. 



In the beginning of May last, Drs. Torlesse and Pitts favoured me with their 

 kind assistance. They saw her lie in the position I have described, and saw 

 more than 2 spoonfuls of stinking pus or corruption run out of her mouth, after 

 a little coughing. This made it so apparent that there was an ulcer in her lungs, 

 that they immediately approved of what I had before proposed, the making an 

 aperture in her side, where we could apprehend the lungs grew to it, for that 

 seemed unquestionable, from the posture of discharging the matter, and from 

 some little pain she felt in her side. About a week before, the pus had begun 

 again to increase, and she was taken with a chillness, after which her pulse be- 



