320 FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1706. 



of the two oblique muscles, and the fleshy part of the transversalis, between 

 the anterior spine of the os ilium and the pubis, near its commissure, did in- 

 separably join and unite with each other, forming as it were a thick and hard 

 border, from the outer of which, there was continued over the blood vessels, 

 nerves, and muscles, on the fore-part of the thigh, a large aponeurosis, which 

 braced them down; the two laminae of the membrane of the abdomen being 

 expanded on its inside. Now this border is what authors call the ligamentum 

 pubis, and what I have in my Myographia Comparativa, p. 5, supposed to 

 be the firm union of the tendons of these three abdominal muscles with the 

 peritonaeum. 



8. Having perforated the abdomen in the most convenient depending part, 

 there issued out in a rising stream with great impetuosity a vast quantity of 

 slimy viscid water, in colour and consistence very much resembling a brown, 

 thick, and ropy syrup. This water measured between l6 and 17 gallons, besides 

 what was lost on the floor, and imbibed in sponges and linen made use of in 

 drying it up. 



Q. When the water was quite emptied, I fancied it had been all contained in 

 a duplicate of the peritonaeum, and had caused a dropsy in that membrane, 

 because none of the viscera appeared; for in such a case, I have sometimes 

 observed, that the inner lamella of that membrane of the abdomen, being se- 

 parated from the outer, is forced inwards by the weight of the water upon the 

 bowels, to which it closely adheres, contracting the guts and mesentery into 

 a very small volume. But on a narrower view, I perceived that the thick mem- 

 brane, including the water, could be easily separated from the viscera, having 

 freed it from its adhesions by membranous filaments to the peritonaeum, and by 

 blood vessels to the omentum. Now this bag reached from the pubis to the 

 midriff^, and from the left region of the loins to the right; in short, it filled up 

 the whole cavity of the abdomen, distending her belly so far, that a plate could 

 easily lie upon it, when alive. Having gradually freed it from all the neigh- 

 bouring parts, and rolled it up, I found that it adhered inseparably to the left 

 tuba Fallopiana, the spermatic vessels being ramified upon it; and observing no 

 ovarium, which in the other side was naturally disposed, I concluded that the 

 bag was nothing but the membrane of the ovarium covering the ova, preter- 

 naturally thickened and distended by the collection of the abovementioned 

 humour, and that the distemper was a true hydrops ovarii; as all this vast quan- 

 tity of water was included in one bag, being all of the same colour and con- 

 sistence. 



10. All the other viscera in the abdomen were sound, and in their natural 

 state. 1 1 . In both cavities of the thorax there was contained a great quantity 



