74 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l/OS. 



In regard to the cure of the epilepsy after noticing the inefficacy of specifics 

 (the misletoe excepted) he considers the use of evacuants in this disorder, viz. 

 1. phlebotomy; 2. fontanels, and particularly setons ; 3. purgatives; and 4. in- 

 sensible perspiration ; concerning which last he subjoins a discourse at the end 

 of the treatise. 



Remarks on M. LeuwenhoecK s Observations on Green- fFeeds and Animalcula, 



N° 288, p. 1494. 



I observed the same animalculum* Mr. Leuwenhoeck speaks of in N° 283 of 

 the Transactions. I found it the beginning of this month (June) in some 

 clear water, which I took up in a ditch, in which, with my utmost attention, 

 I could discover no more than this single one of the same kind; fig. 13, pi. 3, 

 represents it in one of the postures it appeared the first day (for it varies every 

 moment) and the knob at a, which looked like the gut coecum, was sometimes, a 

 little more hastened : two days after, I could perceive two or three white fibres 

 at the extremity of it; and on the fourth day, the animal lying stretched at its 

 full length, appeared as in fig, 14 ; and I plainly saw, that what I thought an 

 excrescence, was a young one, with 6 horns coming out of the side of the 

 old one ; and the next day I found it in the water entirely separated from the 

 body, being about one third of the length of the parent. The formation 

 of the horns are well represented by Mr. L. and they issue like radii, not from 

 the extremity, but quite round a small knob, which I take to be the head. 

 The horns have a vermicular motion, and are extended or shortened both to^ 

 gether and severally. The other extremity is flat, which it often fixed, like a 

 leech, to the bottom or side of the glass in which I kept it. It also contracts 

 and dilates its body at pleasure, and especially, when touched or disturbed, will 

 bring both body and horns into a small compass, and has then the appearance 

 of fig. 15 and 16. The horns are perfectly white, and the body yellowish, and 

 to a naked eye not easily discernible in the water, it being when extended no 

 thicker than a horse-hair. 



The small plant mentioned in the same Transactions, is the lens palustris, 

 or duck-weed, which floats plentifully on our ponds or ditches. But I must 

 dissent from Mr. L. where he says it does not come originally from the bottom ; 

 for many years since, the late W. Ch. Esq. showed me the manner of its 

 springing out of the mud ; and we often observed, that when the leaves were 

 grown to a competent size, the force of the water easily drew the minute 



• Hydra grisea. Linn, 



