VOL. XXV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 287 



cow's udder, when boiled : yet in a few places it was softish, containing a liquid 

 and thick juice. Its colour was chiefly of a whitish yellow, only in some places 

 it was exceedingly red, from its having a greater store of blood-vessels, and in 

 others it was very white. 



In cutting this tumour, I was not a little surprised to hear the edge of my 

 knife grate against something hard, which made me proceed with caution, not 

 to spoil whatever it was that made the resistance ; I therefore pared off all the 

 soft part, and the hard substance that remained I boiled, and then cleared it 

 very well, having left sticking to it at one corner a soft cartilaginous body, which 

 possibly, had the patient lived longer, would have acquired the same degree of 

 induration. It very much resembles a piece of white unpolished rock coral ; 

 but whether it may be reckoned osseous, or if it be rather the viscid humour 

 of the glands hardened and concreted into this irregular chalky or gravelly sub- 

 stance, or whatever else it may be, I leave to others to determine. 



I remember that about two years since, I found in the prostates of a very old 

 man, a great many hard bodies, like white peas, being of a substance exactly 

 like this, only smoother on the outside ; some of these were in the body of 

 these glands, others adhered by small roots to the muscular membrane that in- 

 vests them. 



The first appearance of this large swelling was about 20 years before, caused 

 by the breaking of a vein, as the good woman used to express it, in a hard and 

 very difficult labour. It increased but very slowly, not arriving to any consider- 

 able bulk till a few years before she died ; it was never very painful, being a true 

 scirrhus ; many things by several persons had been used and applied unsuccess- 

 fully. Its size at length became very troublesome, by impeding her swallowing 

 and free breathing ; and at last it quite choked her, by compressing the wind- 

 pipe, upon which it lay. 



But besides this, I observed another remarkable accident, which much 

 hastened her end, being very painful and troublesome for a year or two before 

 she died. The uterus was entirely scirrhous, and distended to that degree, 

 that it filled up the whole capacity of the pelvis. Part of the colon and ileum 

 adhered so firmly to it, that there could be no separation without tearing; both 

 the ovaria and the tubae grew close to it ; and indeed the confusion and mix- 

 ture of all these parts were so great, that if the ovaries had not been swelled 

 here and there with hydatidal tumours, I could not have distinguished them. 

 The neck of the womb was pressed down so low, that on a very gentle dilata- 

 tion of the labia, it offered itself to view, being extremely hard, but yet 

 smooth and even, and so closely shut, that I could pass nothing without cut- 

 ting. It had squeezed the vesica urinaria so close against the os pubis, that it 



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