32-8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO IJOQ. 



hydrophobia, a name not very proper for the distemper, (see Essay on Poisons) 

 is the effect of a particular kind of inflammation in the blood,* accompanied 

 with so great a tension and dryness of the nervous membranes, and such an 

 elasticity and force of the fluid with which they are filled, that the most com- 

 mon representations are made to the mind with too great effect, and the usual 

 impressions of objects on the organs cannot be suff^ered : hence proceed the 

 timorousness, unaccountable anxiety and inquietude, which are always the 

 forerunners of the dread of liquids; as did also tlie pain in making water, and 

 the strange aversion observed in the boy at the sight of any thing white ; the 

 retina being really hurt by the striking of the rays of light, upon it. Nor is it 

 hard to conceive, that when the salival liquor is hot, and the throat inflamed 

 and dry, the swallowing of drink should cause such an intolerable agony ; no 

 more than when things are wrought up to this wretched condition, the dismal 

 tragedy should not last above 3 or 4 days at most, in which the patient is per- 

 fectly fatigued and torn to death by the violence of his actions and efforts. 



u4n Experiment attempting to produce Light on the Inside of a Globe-Glass lined 

 with, melted Flowers of Sulphur, as in the Experiments of Sealing- fVax and 

 Pitch. By Mr, Fr. Hawksbee, F. R. S. N° 323, p. 439. 

 I melted in a ladle about half a pound of flowers of sulphur, and pouring it 

 into a glass globe, I used it in all respects as in the other experiments with sealing- 

 wax and pitch; and when it was exhausted, and motion and attrition given it, I 

 expected, as before, to have seen a light on its inside ; but all that we could do 

 had no effect on it, to produce such an appearance, either when it was exhausted, 

 or when replete with air. Nothing was observed but a very weak light, which, 

 after long rubbing, showed itself in that part where the hand touched the glass. 

 But when I looked upon it, I found the sulphureous lining all in a body dis- 

 engaged from the concave surface of the glass. As to the electricity of the 

 globe lined with this sort of matter : after its attrition had been continued for 

 some time, and the glass was become pretty warm (at the same time being full 

 of common air) the ring of threads was held over it ; but the attraction was 

 very inconsiderable on the lined part, though on the transparent side the 

 threads were pretty vigorously directed ; yet not with such force, as when the 

 glass is quite clear within, as this was not ; because the fumes of the melted 

 sulphur adhering to it, made it appear somewhat cloudy. 



A Repetition of the foregoing Experiment with Common Sulphur. — I repeated 



* Yet the hydrophobia is not curable by venesection and the so termed antiphlogistic remedies, 

 the writer of this note has shewn in a separate tract on this subject 



as 



