VOL. XXXIII.] I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SS 



water, and when the thermometer is come to the same degree as before, open 

 the screw at top, and observe the liquor in the barometer. 



The Doctor's scale, for the barometer, is 10 inches long, and divided into 

 lOths ; so that such an instrument will serve for any heights not exceeding 10 

 feet, each 10th of an inch answering to a foot of height. 



N. B. The Doctor has not made any allowance for the decrease of density in 

 the air, because he did not propose this machine for measuring mountains, 

 though with proper allowance for the decreasing density of the air, it will do 

 very well, but for heights to be known in gardens, plantations, and the conduct 

 of water, where an experiment, that answers to 2 or 3 feet in a distance of 

 •20 miles, will render this a very useful instrument. 



Inlestinum Partitriens, or a very uncommon Case wherein the Bones of a Foetus 

 came away per Anum ; communicated by John Lindelstolpe, M. D. Reg. Coll. 

 Meet. Stockholm Assessor. From the Acta Literaria of Sweden for the Year 

 J723. An Abstract from the Latin. N°385, p. 171. 



Under the quaint title of intestinum parturiens an account is here given of a 

 woman, aged 4 1, who, after having been married 4 years, became pregnant in 

 July 1720, and continued enlarging for 7 months (during which time the 

 menses occasionally appeared in small quantity) expecting in due time to be de- 

 livered of an infant ; but after the 7th month the enlargement disappeared, a 

 weight only remaining in the right side. She became pregnant again, and in 

 Dec. 1721 she was delivered of a dead child. She was confined to her bed 

 until the month of June following. But in the month of May, as she went to 

 stool, she felt so great a pain in the anus, that siie thought the intestinum 

 rectum had entirely fallen out. On applying her fingers to relieve herself, she 

 brought away part of a cranium, of the size of a Swedish crown piece (called a 

 dubbel carolin) and afterwards found in the close-stool 2 ribs. In the course 

 of a fortnight there came away, by the same exit, the remainder of the bones. 

 She afterwards recovered her health, and has since had 3 children, all of whom 

 are living. — Several instances are cited from different authors of foetal bones 

 coming away by abscesses, from the navel (Albucasis Chirurg. lib. 2, cap. 7, 

 and Marcellus DonatusHist. Med. Mirab. lib. 4, cap. 22); from the hypochon- 

 drium (as mentioned by Wepfer) and, as in the present case, from the intestinum 

 rectum (Marsilius Cognatus Obs. lib. 4, cap. Q, and Joh. Langius Epist. Med. 

 lib. 2, epist. 39). Reference is also made to the case related by Littre, in the 

 Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1702.* 



* In Ihe case above related by Dr. Lindelstolpe, it is probable (as indeed the author himself 



