VOL. XXXVl.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 400 



tained about 3 quarts of a gross muddy water, or serum, intensely yellow, or 

 highly tinged with gall. All the guts and contents of tlie abdomen were high- 

 ly tinged with this yellow liquor ; but no other part of his body, out of the 

 contact of this liquor, had the least appearance of it. No inflammation ap- 

 peared in any part of the guts, or in any of the viscera, or contents of the 

 abdomen, which were all sound and healthy. The obliquity of the wound 

 through the integuments, muscles and peritoneum, made it impossible for the 

 external air to enter into the cavity of the abdomen that way. 



In order to make some use of this case, it must be observed, that the great 

 apparatus in the liver and spleen, two of the largest viscera in the body, de- 

 signed for the preparation and secretion of the bile ; and the place of the in- 

 testines, into which it is immediately deposited, afford indeed a strong argu- 

 ment for its universal use in the animal economy. But this singular case, 

 which must have happened very rarely, if ever before (in which none of the 

 viscera, but the gall-bladder only, was wounded, and by that wound nothing 

 but the gall was lost or misplaced) by showing how many functions in the ani- 

 mal economy were impaired or destroyed by the sole loss or want of it, at the 

 same time points out the use and necessity of it towards health, or the per- 

 fection of these functions ; and perhaps may lead to some indications of cure, 

 in cases wherein it is known to be deficient, faulty, or redundant. 



There was no other apparent or assignable cause for these various symptoms 

 during his life, or of death itself, and of those several appearances in the body 

 dissected after death, but this wound in the gall-bladder: and as this wound 

 could not affect any of the parts, nor produce these symptoms in any other 

 sense, than as it gave vent to the gall into the cavity of the abdomen, and de- 

 prived the cavity of the intestines and the blood o( it; therefore from this loss 

 and misplacing of the gall, all these symptoms and appearances may justly be 

 concluded to arise, and I think may be accounted for from that cause in the 

 following manner. 



1. The abdomen was distended, as in a tympany, or ascites, from the be- 

 ginning, and the guts appeared inflated to their utmost diameters. It is true, 

 that this inflation and distension happens to most a few hours before death, 

 and to all soon after death. But the inflation and distension here spoken of, 

 was several days before death, and it seems the very next day after he received 

 the wound, though the pulse was apparently strong and equal, and therefore a 

 defect of blood and spirits not to be suspected. Hence it may be justly con- 

 cluded, that the influx of the gall into the cavity of the guts, is as necessary 

 to the strength of their contraction, and perfection of their peristaltic motion, 

 as that of the blood and spirits into their sides; and that these three are the 



VOL. vix. 3 G 



