VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQ 



came a little quicker, and she was rather feverish when the caustic was applied ; 

 this feverish state increased every day, and after some days a rash appeared, 

 which lasted about 14 days before it was quite got off, and left her in a hectic, 

 with redness in her cheeks towards evening, night sweats, continual looseness, 

 extreme wasting of her flesh, and at length a swelling in the legs, though she 

 kept her bed. We felt some little knots between the /th and 8th rib, which, 

 with other circumstances, made us conclude the adhesion was in that part, and 

 would have laid the caustic there, but that it would certainly have spread to the 

 glands of her left breast, which made us lay it between the 6th and 7th rib, 

 reckoning upwards ; as soon as could be it was taken off, and Mr. Cowper 

 gently passed his knife through into the cavity of her breast, whence issued a 

 bloody water, but no pus ; by bending his probe he found the adhesion reached 

 to the lower edge of the 7th rib -, and before the eschar was separated, the pus 

 began to flow at every dressing, and so continued, gradually abating, till the 

 ulcer was cured; during which apart of the inside of that rib, above an 

 inch long, exfoliated, and after that another lesser piece of the outside of the 

 rib. Towards the latter end of the cure, she complained very much of a pain 

 at the cartilago ensiformis, which was so great that she sometimes plucked out 

 the hollow tent, which we conceived was occasioned by its pressing upon the 

 nerve. During the first 7 or 8 days of her rash, she raised very little, if any 

 of that pus, nor did it discharge itself then by the orifice, nor was there a col- 

 lection of it in her breast, which made me apprehend, that the fever did so 

 alter the state of her blood, as not to permit it to separate its impurities into 

 the abscess. For (3 days before the fever began, she had the catamenia verj 

 orderly; by August she was cured, her side healed up, for she would not suffer 

 it to be converted into an issue; by October she recovered her flesh, and the 

 catamenia returned, which had been wanting ever since May; and now she is 

 plump, fleshy, clear and fresh complexioned, has little or no cough, and no 

 foetid or tabid expectoration, and seems, and I believe is perfectly cured, having 

 for many months taken no medicine. 



There are several circumstances in this case, which I cannot forbear making 

 some remarks on. That there was an ulcer in the lungs, and that it has ad- 

 mitted of a cure, contrary to the general opinion of physicians. That this 

 ulcer contained at least two spoonfuls, and must have been as large as a hen's 

 egg. That this abscess arose from a collection of purulent matter, with an in- 

 discernible, if any, fever at all; and so continued from Christmas till about the 

 10th of May. The tender membranous or vesiculary composition of the lungs 

 seems to justify this opinion, that it is almost impossible for them to heal, when 



