VOL. XXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 237 



to a concert, or to church, not knowing before-hand what music is to be per- 

 formed, yet he may soon discern that it was composed by Corelli, Baptist, 

 Bassini, Charissimi, Blow, Purcell, &c. And so upon reading an ancient 

 author, a sagacious and learned person may find, that he writes according to 

 the manner of such an age, that the style imitates such another, or that the 

 book, though it bears such a man's name, yet might, perhaps, be more truly 

 ascribed to another, with whose style it more exactly agrees. As for instance, 

 that piece of S. Cyril's, published from the Escurial MS. by Barthasar Corderius, 

 is thought (by reason of the analogy in point of style) to be Origen's: but then, 

 whether all this can be always done, done easily and without errors, is the 

 doubt. And it seems yet a greater difficulty, certainly to discover how old the 

 painter, musician, poet, orator, or other author was, when he finished any one 

 piece of his works, unless a man is plainly told so : this being a sort of know- 

 ledge, that those who have been otherwise sufficiently experienced in their 

 several arts and professions, have not as yet pretended to. 



Of a Person who died of a Scirrhous Tumor in his Breast. By Mr. Thomas 

 Greenhill, Surgeon. N° 300, p. 2OO9. 



Mr. J. D. was supposed to have died of a consumption, because 14 months 

 before he had been violently seized with an inflammation of his lungs, accom- 

 panied with a sharp fever, difficulty of breathing, cough, acute stitches, and 

 pleuritic pains, with a spitting of blood, &c. He was bled largely in the begin- 

 ning; which was often repeated during his sickness ; and he continually took 

 such proper medicines as were prescribed him. But about Easter, there ap- 

 peared a tumor on the breast-bone, pap, and pectoral muscle, of the left side, 

 with a fulness under the axilla : from whence there was conjectured to be a col- 

 lection of purulent matter in the cavity of the thorax, and that the sternum 

 was foul: the first, from the aforesaid tumors, and his spitting a bloody and 

 purulent matter; and the latter, from the rising and inequality of that part. 

 But opening him, I found his case very different, and surprising ; for soon re- 

 moving the common teguments of the thorax, I found, instead of a rising of 

 the bone with cariosity, only an oblong tumor, about 4 fingers in length, and 

 2 in breadth, and a proportionate thickness, weighing about 3 ounces ; it ex- 

 tended itself perpendicularly, on the surface of that part of the sternum, which 

 joins with the cartilago ensiformis. I separated it easily with a knife, from the 

 breast-bone, and found it to be of that sort of wens, or encysted tumors, 

 called atheroma, containing a pappy substance, like sodden barley. Next ap- 

 peared a very large tumor on the left side of the thorax, covering the whole 



