VOL. XXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 17 



blisters were kept running as long as could be; and when they were dried up, 

 Julv 19, he gave her the same purge as before. July 22, she had continued 

 very well, without any return of a fit; but on cutting an issue in her arm, she 

 fell into a third fit, in which she continued near 1 hours; but then came to 

 herself, and was well that evening. July 29 the purge was repeated. August 

 6 she complained of ,a pain in her head, sickness in her stomach, and some 

 days before she had the menses, and had vomited near 1 lb. of blood, and was 

 costive; Mr. R. then advised her to take 2 spoonfuls of tinct. sacra every, or 

 every other night, going to bed, as she found it necessary, and 40 of the fol- 

 lowing drops: R spt. c. c. opt. jiij. tinct. helleb. nigr, 3V. to be taken twice a 

 day in camomile tea. She took these medicines about 3 weeks, which an- 

 swered expectation, and he left her well. He saw her about 12 months after, 

 and she told him she had continued very well ever since. 



Sennertus, Med. Pract. lib. 1. c. 30, says, that a catalepsy is so rare a case, 

 that it is supposed hardly one physician in a hundred has seen a cataleptic 

 patient; so that when this disease occurs, its history is carefully to be noted. 



Thoughts on the Operation of the Fistula Lacrymalis. By Francis Joseph 

 Hunauld,* M. D. F. R. S. and Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at 

 Paris; in a Letter to Tho. Slack, M. D. N° 437, p. 54. 



Mr. H. omits giving the history of the fistula lacrymalis, of the different 

 species of the distemper, or the various methods of treating it, as things suffi- 

 ciently known; and only remarks that the intention in destroying theos unguis, 

 and saccus lacrymalis, through which the tears naturally distil into the nose, is 

 to procure them a new passage thither, by the hole thus artificially made. In 

 order to keep the sides of this hole asunder, to prevent its filling up, and render 

 the flesh, which forms its circumference, hard, and as it were callous, a tent 

 made of prepared sponge, &c. is put into this new passage, where it is con- 

 tinued a month or two. Notwithstanding this precaution, it happens but too 

 often, that the tears, instead of keeping the road prepared for them with such 

 care, flow over the lower eye-lid, as before the operation, and occasion a weep- 

 ing, which is now become past remedy. 



It is easy to prove, that those very means, which are used after the operation 

 to make the tears distil into the nose, are generally the cause of the subsequent 



• M. Hunauld succeeded M. du Verney in the anatomical professorship at Paris. He wrote a 

 treatise on the bones of the cranium, besides various papers inserted in. the Memoirs of the French 

 Academy of Sciences. He was possessed of a good collection of anatomical preparations, which was 

 purchased by the academy after his death. This happened in 1742, when he was in his 41st year. 

 His fort lay in osteology and the diseases of the bones. 



VOL. VIII. D 



