278 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO1705. 



ing he had slept above a night, nor could he be persuaded he had lain so long, 

 till going out into the fields he found every body busy in getting in their har- 

 vest, and he remembered very well, when he fell asleep they were sowing 

 barley and oats, which he then saw ripe and fit to be cut down. 



There was one thing observable, that though his flesh was somewhat wasted 

 with so long lying in bed, and fasting for above 6 weeks, yet a worthy gentle- 

 man his neighbour iassured me, when he saw him, which was the first day of 

 his coming abroad, he looked brisker than ever he saw him in his life before; 

 and asking him whether the bed had not made him sore, he assured him that 

 he neither found that, nor any other inconveniency at all; and that he had not 

 tfie least remembrance of any thing that passed or was done to him all that 

 time. So he fell again to his husbandry, as usual, and remained well from that 

 time till August the 17th, Anno 1697, when in the morning he complained of 

 a shivering and coldness in his back, vomited once or twice, and the same day 

 fell into his sleeping fit again. 



Being then at Bath, and hearing of it, I took horse on the 23d, to in- 

 form myself of a matter of fact I thought so strange. I found him asleep, with 

 a cup of beer and a piece of bread and cheese on a stool by his bed, within his 

 reach: I took him by the hand, felt his pulse, which was at that time very re- 

 gular; I put my hand on his breast, and found his heart beat very regular too, 

 and his breathing was easy and free; and all the fault I found was, that I 

 thought his pulse beat a little too strong. He was in a breathing sweat, and 

 had an agreeable warmth all over his body. I then put my mouth to his ear, and 

 as loud as I could called him by his name several times, pulled him by the 

 shoulders, pinched his nose, stopped his mouth and nose together, as long as 

 I durst, for fear of choaking him ; but all to no purpose, for in all this time he 

 gave me not the least sign of his being sensible. I lifted up his eye-lids, and 

 found his eye-balls drawn up under his eye-brows, and fixed without any mo- 

 tion at all. Being baffled in all these trials, I was resolved to see what effect 

 spirit of sal ammoniac would have, which I had brought with me, to discover 

 the cheat, if it had been one ; so I held my phial under one nostril a considera- 

 ble time, which being drawn from quick-lime, was a very piercing spirit, and 

 so strong I could not bear it under my own nose a moment without making my 

 eyes water; but he felt it not at all. I then threw it at several times up the 

 same nostril; which made his nose run and gleet, and his eye-lids shiver and 

 tremble a very little; which was all the effect I found, though I poured up into 

 one nostril about a half ounce bottle of this fiery spirit, which was as strong 

 almost as fire itself. Finding no success with this neither, I crammed that 

 nostril with powder of white hellebore, which I had by me, in order to make 



