480 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1720. 



but without any relief. After many fruitless efforts, the surgeon, to try whe- 

 ther the patient had any feeling in his leg, which to outward appearance was 

 become very brown, made about 37 incisions over the whole leg, of which the 

 patient was not at all sensible, unless when the instrument happened to grate 

 on the bone, the periosteum being as yet sound. The leg, however, became 

 daily blacker, and the pain continued both in the periosteum and in all the 

 bodies of the upper and lower part of the leg. At last a black circle was seen 

 round about the muscles of the hip, as an indication of an approaching morti- 

 fication. This circle appeared so visibly, as if it had been cut off with a knife 

 from the other part. It has ever since spread itself, and come to such a head, 

 that without any other help and cure the flesh began gradually to rot away from 

 the bones; and at last quite fell away from the upper part of the leg, which has 

 preserved its soundness. After this, nothing was seen but the bare tendons or 

 sinews hanging down like so many strings or cords. There also remained a 

 piece of the inferior muscles of the hip, fastened to the upper part. At last 

 the tendons, becoming dry, consumed away, and after all, the leg itself, I 

 mean the os femoris, wholly dropped off in such a manner, that there remained 

 about 4 inches between the bones and the flesh, hanging loosely down from 

 them. The flesh is at last grown up to the bones, and without any help has 

 fastened itself to them. And in this sound part the patient feels a great pain, 

 whenever the weather proves tempestuous. It is remarkable that at the same 

 time he perceives also a swelling in tarsus of the right foot, the matter of which 

 discharges itself through the toes, and is of so corrosive a nature, that it has 

 consumed all the toes except the little one. The surgeon has at last healed up 

 this wound; but there is as yet but little feeling or warmth in the foot. 



This man was married about 7 years since to a woman, whose bodily consti- 

 tution is almost as remarkable. She is now in the 41st year of her age. In 

 her younger years she had the misfortune to be gored by a wild boar under the 

 short ribs of the left side. This wound became fistulous, and what food she 

 eats discharges itself half concocted through this aperture, so that you can 

 distinguish what sort of food it was; however she has, notwithstanding this, 

 her daily evacuations per anum. 



jin Experiment before the Royal Society^ to show, by a new Proof, that Bodies 

 of the same Bulk do not contain equal quantities of Matter ; and therefore 

 that there is an interspersed Vacuum. By J. T. Desaguliers. N° 365, p. 81. 



I took 3 lb. of mercury, which by measure filled three times a small glass jar 

 exactly full, and poured it into a thin Florence flask ; then having poured the 

 same quantity of water, that is, three of the same jars full, into another such 



