532 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 /O^. 



some years, and I now prepare copper plates of about a foot long, and 7 inches 

 broad; one end of >yhich, of the extent of an inch, I bend, and at the other 

 end I make a square hole of 5 inches long and 2 broad, in which I put small 

 glas<plates, as clear and as thin as lean possibly procure them: on such a glass 

 plate I lay one of the smallest eels I can get, which is sometimes as thick as a 

 finger ; I then blind the head and the best part of the body of the eel about 

 with a linen cloth, to bind it, for then it will lie more still on the copper-plate ; 

 and the tail is laid upon the glass : and that part of the body of the eel, that is 

 wound about with the cloth, is also fastened to the plate with a wire, that the 

 eel may not wriggle itself off. 



The eel being thus placed on one side of the glass, in the copper- plate, the 

 microscope is fastened by wires and screws on the other side, in such manner 

 that it may be moved in every direction. And this I take to be a better method 

 concerning the circulation of the blood than my former ; which if other persons 

 would use, I doubt not but they might observe the same thing in an eel as I 

 have done : and if they would also view the arm, and with great care consider 

 the pulse in the. veins, they would certainly discover that the blood, which 

 causes the pulse, proceeds from the hand. 



On the Bones of a dead Calf taken out of the Uterus of a Cow ; and of a Callus 



that supplied the Loss of Part of the Os Femoris, By Mr. B. Sherman, of 



Keldon, Essex. N° 323, p. 450. 



The cow being unwell, had continued a great while in a lean condition, and 

 became so reduced, that it was concluded she would die ; when on a sudden 

 she began to eat her meat, and to thrive so very fast, that in 6 or 8 months 

 she was so fat as to be sold to the butcher ; who, when he killed her, found 

 dry bones in her uterus, there being no manner of moisture in the bag (as he 

 called it) in which the bones were contained. The same digestive humour, 

 which dissolved the skin and muscular parts of the calf, might, I presume, 

 reasonably enough be supposed to dissolve the cartilages, and perhaps even part 

 of the bones. It seems there are many such instances in anatomical writers ; 

 and particularly one of a woman, whose foetus dissolved so perfectly, that some 

 of the bones came through the abdomen, and, what is more surprising, the 

 same woman had children afterwards. 



I may here add an observation in my own practice, viz. of a compound frac- 

 ture, which happened on the thigh of a young man about 17 years of age. 

 I was obliged to take out about 2 inches of the whole substance of the os 

 femoris ; and yet, by keeping a due extension, nature in four months' time sup- 



