460 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1741. 



The 3d set were performed before the Society, Thursday, Aug. 29, 1741, 

 to the following effect. 



Dr. D. having found, by several of Mr. Gray's experiments, as well as some 

 of his own, that water is receptive of electricity, so as to be raised up in a little 

 cup, to emit a vapour towards the rubbed tube, to snap, and to give light ; 

 having also found, that when a dry tube, suspended horizontally, will not con- 

 duct the electricity of the rubbed tube applied to one of its ends ; and yet, 

 when blown into, will conduct it strongly all its length, because the electricity 

 runs along from one moist particle to another, though those particles are not 



contiguous he thought that electricity might impregnate a whole jet of 



water, whether perpendicular, oblique, or horizontal : and supposed also, that 

 if at any time there be electrical effluvia in or above a cloud, that virtue may be 

 communicated by the falling rain, to any thing that the rain falls upon. How 

 far this conjecture is true, will appear by the following experiment. 



Having properly suspended, that is, suspended by some electric body, as 

 here cat-gut, a copper fountain with the spout downwards, the Doctor opened 

 the cock, and let the water spout into a vessel underneath: then, having excited 

 a great tube to electricity, he held it over the copper fountain, while an assistant 

 held the thread of trial, that is, a thread hanging from a stick, near several 

 parts of the jet, which attracted it sensibly : he then applied the rubbed tube 

 near the falling jet, which attracted it strongly, so as to bend it into a curve, 

 and sometimes cause it to fall out of the vessel below. 



Concerning an Extraordinary Venereal Case. By John Huxham, M. D., F.R. S. 



N° 460, p. 6Q7. 



Mr. R. B. aged about 27, of a bilious, dry constitution, had for some years 

 before his death, contracted a virulent gonorrhoea, which was scarcely well 

 cured before he got a 2d, and at length a 3d. To complete his misery, being 

 in the fleet at Portobello, he had frequent impure conversation with some of the 

 negro women, who probably laboured under the worst species of pox, called 

 the yaws. 



He returned with a very troublesome itching all over him, though no pustules 

 appeared ; was much thinner than usual, and had a horrible stinking breath, 

 and spit frequently a foul, corrupt matter. As he had no running, ulcer, bubo, 

 or nodes, he thought all safe. But not many days after his arrival at Ports- 

 mouth, post impurum cum impur^ coitum, a violent green-coloured gonorrhoea 

 appeared. For this he put himself under the care of a surgeon, who, after 

 much pains to no purpose, endeavoured to salivate him, but that also in vain. 



