VOL. XLI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4|| 



Suffolk, aged 6o, was naturally of a gross, fat, and relaxed constitution, and 

 constantly given to drinking strong liquors; she laboured for many years under 

 an ill habit of body, as the rheumatism, which had caused a contraction of 

 some of her fingers, with some nervous affections in her head, often causing 

 some fits of vertigo, &c. And though she had formerly some child-bearing 

 weakness, viz. a procidentia uteri, yet there could not be found any other 

 scrophulous symptoms, than that she observed, when about 30 years of age, 

 soon after her delivery of a son, a little hard swelling on the muscle biceps, 

 and posterior, inferior and external lateral part of the thigh, a little above the 

 ham, without her knowing any cause of it; which at first went on slowly, but 

 after proceeding more quickly, till it increased to the bulk of near a foot in 

 circumference, being somewhat of a globulous and a little longish figure from 

 its basis, which was lax, like a peduncle, or stalk, and about half the circum- 

 ference of the tumour, like a neck to the head of a child hanging down. 



From the first appearance of this tumour to the excision of it, there were • 

 more than 30 years; she had excessive pains and uneasiness in it, and at last 

 its bulk and weight had in some measure intercepted the nourishment to it, so 

 that an ulcer had affected the inferior part of it, very putrid and sinuous, of 

 about 6 months standing. 



Mr. M. wished to have made a total extirpation of this excrescence; but 

 being near large vessels, and among the tendons of the muscles, he was content, 

 as Dr. Turner advises, " To level it, by escharotics, repeated as the sloughs 

 throw off, till as much of the gland or substance shall have been consumed as 

 may be safely adventured : when some powerful desiccative may induce a cica- 

 trix," &c. &c. 



Therefore, July 7, 1735, Mr. M. made a ligature about its basis, with a 

 slip-knot, which he gradually constringed once or twice a day, as the patient 

 could suffer it, without causing any ill symptoms, till the 17th of the same 

 month, when she was taken with strong convulsions, a slow fever, syncope, 

 her teeth set in her head, and a loss of her senses, which lasted that whole day 

 and the night following; from which time he did no more constringe the 

 tumour, but prescribed cordials, volatile drops, a purging enema, and a pare- 

 goric draught at night, which had so good an effect, that by the next day she was 

 much recovered, and came to her senses. The ligature began to make a sepa- 

 ration in the neck of this preternatural sprouting excrescence; and on the 20th 

 he extirpated the whole outer tumour, without any great haemorrhage. He 

 was induced to use the ligature, in order to prevent the too great effusion of 

 blood, which might otherwise have happened, thinking it not very safe to make 

 a ligature of the body of so large an artery as is in the ham, from fear of iu- 



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