474 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO J 740. 



it is indifferent what kind of electricity its supporters are endowed with, pro- 

 vided they are but electric. 



Concerning an Extraordinary Hernia Inguinalis. By John Huxham, M. D. 



F. R. S. N° 459, p. 640. 



Mr. Burman, a taylor of Plymouth, about 40, had from his childhood la- 

 boured under a small inguinal rupture on the right side ; but about 6 years 

 before his death, from a blow received in his groin, the hernia became very 

 large, and the gut always remained down in the scrotum ; for he wore no bag, 

 truss, or the like, to support it. The day before his death, he was following 

 his work, as usual, with his pressing-iron, without any violent jerk or strain- 

 ing ; when, about 10 in the morning, all at once, he felt a very great pain in 

 his right inguen ; which, continually increasing^ in 2 or 3 hours threw him 

 into vomitings, cold sweats, &c. His apothecary gave him a clyster, which 

 brought off a small matter of thin stool ; but gave no relief, though it had 

 been formerly very serviceable to him in the like disorder. 



About 8 in the evening Dr. H. was sent for, and found him in cold sweats, 

 with scarcely any pulse. The hernial tumour was prodigiously large, and exceed- 

 ingly hard ; the pains extremely violent, which caused excessive languors. 

 He ordered, that he should be placed in a proper posture, that a warm aromatic 

 emollient fomentation should be frequently and long applied, and that a reduc- 

 tion of the intestine should be attempted ; or, if that did not succeed, that the 

 operation for the bubonocele should be performed. The fomentation was tried 

 a long while, emollient terebinthinate clysters injected, and the reduction at- 

 tempted, for an hour or two, by a skilful surgeon, but in vain ; nay, the swel- 

 ling increased considerably during the application ; and the pain became, if 

 possible, more aggravated all over the hernia, which before was chiefly at, and 

 near the rings of the abdominal muscles ; and this too, though he took, with 

 an easy cordial, and mulled wine, Laudan. Solid, gr. ij 3iis horis. 



Early the next morning, Dr. H. saw him again ; and finding that he had 

 not slept a moment, the tumour considerably increased, and excessively hard, 

 though not discoloured, and the patient exceedingly weak and pained, he ad- 

 vised the operation forthwith, as the only possible means of saving him : but 

 the patient was unwilling to admit of it, and we were all indeed diffident of the 

 success. While a fresh fomentation was getting ready, the poor man expired 

 in agonies. 



About an hour or two after they opened the scrotum, which in so short a 

 space of time appeared all livid, and the blood vessels were extremely turgid 

 and varicose. On cutting through the teguments, part of the colon and ilium 



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