508 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 174}. 



mentj when he considers the seed vessels of a coarse plant so minute as to fly 

 about in the air like vapour, but a little remove from being invisible to a naked 

 eye, framed with such curious mechanism, containing a great number of seeds, 

 too fine to be seen by the acutest sight without the help of glasses. 



In pi. JO, fig. 9 represents a branch of the plant; fig. 7 the seed-vessels; 

 fig. 8 the seeds; <xa a branch of the male fern; j3|3 refer to the leaves, on the 

 backside of which, the excrescencies, like Jews-ears, grow, around which 

 grow the seed-vessels; cc the stalks of the seed-vessels; da shoot from the 

 stalk, producing sometimes another seed-vessel on the same stalk; ee the 

 springy chord, embracing the pod, which contains the seed; ff the pod; g the 

 pod with a crack or chink in it, to represent its being about to be divided into 

 two hemispheres; hh the chord expanded, approaching to a right line; ii the 

 two hemispheres, when the pod is divided in two ; k the seeds ; 1 seeds in the 

 pod, the membrane being broken and turned up. 



uln extraordinary Case of the Heart of a Child turned upside down. By Jos. 

 Ignat. de Torres, M.D. of Gandia in Valentia. N°46l, p. n^. 



The following is a new and surprising prodigy, concerning the heart, the 

 Uke of which was never hitherto observed, till Dr. T. saw it on the 29th of 

 December J 736, in a new-born female infant, of the town of Almoyna. Innu- 

 merable phenomena have been observed in the human heart, some few of which 

 he here mentions. 



Balloni saw a heart so large, that its monstrous size alone, without any defect 

 y in the lungs, occasioned an asthma. Bartholin found caruncles in the ven- 



tricles. Spilemberger observed a small bone in one, which occasioned a phthisis. 



Zacutus Lusitanus relates, from the report of another person, that a * worm 

 was found in the left ventricle, which brought on dreadful symptoms. Its head 

 was yellow, its body white, and its tail split. Riolan opened the body of a man, 

 whose heart was cartilaginous. According to Rayger, the aorta with the valves 

 was found ossified; which was the cause of sudden death, Genesius of Va- 

 lentia, a very able physician, has apprised me in one of his letters, that on 

 opening his young son, he found the heart inverted; that is, the left ventricle 

 on the right, and the right on the left side. Amorosius saw a heart with 2 

 points, which on the outside showed the 2 ventricles. Sirenarius found a heart 

 with its cone in the right side, and there the pulsation was constantly felt, 

 Martinezius, first physician to the king of Spain, observed in a new-born male 

 infant, the heart pushed out of the breast, with its cone and basis lying hori- 



* Rather a polypus. C. M.— Orig. 



