VOL. XXXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 06/ 



be removed by a passage to be made for it, without any great pain, and with 

 safety to the mother. He offered to undertake it, and assured them that this 

 was the only opportunity ; and that if she neglected it, it would hereafter be 

 out of the power of art to give her the relief; she must languish till death, 

 unless favoured by some unlikely and extraordinary accident. 



This advice, however, was not complied with. A year after this, Dr. Hous- 

 toun was again desired to visit her. He found her much disordered by a grow- 

 ing imposthumation in her belly : he ordered her some cordial stomachics, 

 cassia, and gentle lenitives ; and they succeeded beyond his expectation : so 

 that by aid of a regular diet, and the watchful exactness of a very tender mo- 

 ther, and a nurse of above 30 years experience, he restored her to such strength, 

 that she went cheerfully abroad, and again applied herself to business. 



But about 15 months from the time when he visited her first, her mother 

 came again to intreat his assistance : she complained of great pain in the lower 

 part of her abdomen ; and he found a tumour of a conical form, projecting 

 about an inch beneath the umbilicus : its inflammation with tension, and a fe- 

 verishness attending it, so plainly indicated suppuratives, that he was not sur- 

 prized to hear, in a few days, that it had broken. 



He proposed to lay it open, both to give a free emission, and prevent its 

 becoming fistulous ; but she was apprehensive, that he would, as she called it, 

 cut open her belly : so that not being able to prevail with her, he ordered an 

 unguent, and some plasters. 



The ulcer soon grew fistulous, and so continued till she died, which was on 

 the 23d of March last, in the 41st year of her age. 



For above 5 months before her death, she voided her excrements by this vent, 

 and all the soft parts of the foetus, with some small bones of its fingers. But 

 the rest of the skeleton remaining entire. Dr. H. took it out of her body, to 

 gether with the vagina, uterus, rectum, &c. wherein it had involved itself. 

 She was full Q months gone in August 1717, and she died the 23d of March, 

 1723, on which day Dr. H. took the skeleton out of her body.* 



An Account of a Roman Inscription, found at Chichester. By Roger GalCj Esq. 



F.R.S. N°397, p. 391. 



This inscription, fig. 15, pi. 16, as curious as any that has yet been dis- 

 covered in Britain, was found at Chichester, in digging a cellar under the cor- 



* In the original, this account is accompanied with an engraving, which, however, is here pur- 

 posely omitted, not only in consequence of the bad representation it exhibits, but also because the 

 description is sufficiently intelligible to medical readers without it, 



4q 2 



