VOL. XXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 247 



right inguen, and then several bones of a dead child were expelled. The 

 woman has a great swelling now in that groin, where she feels something very 

 hard, which she suspects are bones. 



An Abstract of a Book, entituled, Nsx^oxn^aa; or, The /4rt of Embalming, ^c. 

 Part I. with a Map and fourteen Sculptures. By Tho. Greenhill, Surgeon, 

 Ato. London, 1705. N° 302, p. 2101. 



An extraordinary Case of a Costive Person. By Mr. B. Shermari. IVith a 

 Note on the same, by Mr. fVilliam Cow per, F.R.S. N° 302, p. 2110. 



Thomas Phillips ofEasthorp, in Essex, was in perfect health till he was 

 a year and a quarter old, when a strange and almost continual rumbling in his 

 intestines seized him; the consequence was a violent looseness, for which all 

 the physicians near the place could find no remedy: but at last, when they 

 despaired of the child's life, the looseness terminated in such an unusual ob- 

 struction, that he did not go to stool for 2 or 3 weeks together, and from 3 

 weeks it proceeded gradually to the intervals of 17 or 18 weeks, and so con- 

 tinued till he came to be about the age of 15, when his body resumed its 

 natural temper, which lasted 4 or 5 years; but then the obstruction returned, 

 and continued, or rather increased till he died; for it was customary with him, 

 in the last years of his life, not to evacuate any manner of excrement under 

 the interval of IQ or 20 weeks, and sometimes (twice at least) he had no dis- 

 charge for 21 or 22 weeks together. He lived to be near 23 years of age, and 

 walked about almost to the hour of his death ; for he was suddenly seized with 

 very sick fits, but could not vomit, two or three of which fits carried him off 

 in a few hours; and when he died it was Q weeks after he had any stool. The 

 patient never vomited, nor ever felt any excrementitious taste in his mouth; 

 neither did he sweat much, nor make more urine than in proportion to his 

 drinking. When he <5id go to stool, he evacuated many times in a day, and 

 that several days together, until he had emptied himself; and throughout his 

 whole life he never discharged any other than very thin faeces. 



Before his time of evacuation came about, he was of an extraordinary size 

 for many weeks, unless he could break wind, which he often endeavoured to 

 do, by laying his body on the edge of a table or stool, but often to no pur- 

 pose. He declined the use of all medicines for many years before he died, 

 contenting himself with going to stool once in 3 or 4 months, or J Q or 20 

 weeks, as abovementioned. But what was surprising, was, that he generally 

 had a pretty good appetite, and eat and drank as the rest of the family did; 



