40 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l/OS. 



there is a considerable dimunition of them, the continual and indispensable 

 necessity of their motion very much hindering the coalition of the vesiculae. 



Several parts of the body afford a proper cement to unite and repair them, 

 when hurt or diminished. Carious and broken bones send forth a callus; when 

 the skin is consumed by ulcers or burns, the parts afford a cicatrix, which 

 pretty well supplies the defect of the skin. The lungs separate a viscid pituita, 

 which will be expanded into flakes like a membrane ; Mr. Stringer, Sarah 

 Deeping, and some other patients, have brought up great quantities of them; and 

 a little boy at Kensington coughed up several pipes, formed exactly like the 

 bronchia, and its divarications, and at first view seemed to be the internal mem- 

 brane. This child, two years before, had an ulcer in the right side of his 

 lungs, and they adhered to his back; when I separated them, I found a cicatrix 

 near 3 inches long, but very little, if any defect in his lungs. I am of opinion 

 this pituita or mucus serves to re-unite the parts of the lungs, when there is a 

 solution by an ulcer. 



Consumptive persons generally flatter themselves, that they have no ulcer in 

 their lungs, because they do not feel a soreness, as in the ulcers of other parts ; 

 and this opinion keeps them from making a timely application to physicians, 

 while they might receive a speedy and easy cure. When Mr. Cowper touched 

 the sound or ulcerated parts of the patient's lungs with the probe or finger, she 

 discovered no sense of feeling, which may confirm the opinion of physicians and 

 anatomists, that the lungs have little if any sensation. But when he touched 

 her heart with his finger, though not for the 20th part of a minute, she grew 

 very much disordered, pale and ready to faint; which shows that nature cannot 

 suffer the least alteration in its pulsation, without great prejudice and in- 

 convenience. 



It is the opinion of some physicians, that the fever which attends consump- 

 tive patients, arises from some particles of the pus, which being received into 

 the blood, and circulating with it, causes that effervescence which we call a 

 hectic. This patient had no fever from Christmas to May, and then there came 

 a continued fever, with a rash, which left her feverish every afternoon, with those 

 symptoms which attend a hectic. 



1 have observed for many years, that if I could preserve my consumptive 

 patients from that hectic fever, or relieved those who already laboured under it, 

 I could cure them, though their expectoration was very plentiful and foul. I 

 do not doubt but some part of her lungs adheres to her side, and it is probable 

 that a small portion of them does not receive the air in inspiration ; but I believe 

 that defect is very inconsiderable, because she can run up stairs, and is no more 



