VOL. Xm.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 575 



tending 2 above it, and 4 below it. By its situation, resistance to pressure, and 

 the unevenness that from under the skin was communicated to the touch, its 

 disappearing when he was in an erect posture, and its not being diminished by 

 discutient fomentations, it was judged to be a scirrhous tumour, which had 

 long existed there unobserved by the patient, till it increased too much to be 

 longer undiscovered. The emplast. de ran. et cum mercur. was applied out- 

 wardly ; and concluding there was an internal cancer. Dr. B. was encouraged, 

 from the preceding case, to order him hydrargyr. §j every morning. On which 

 there was such a remission of his pains, that during almost a fortnight, he got 

 more rest without opiates than before with them; insomuch that being greatly 

 revived, and regaining some appetite, he got down stairs 2 or 3 times. Think- 

 ing the plaster increased his pain, indigo blue linen was applied in its stead. 

 The mercury came away by stool, and he had now one almost every day, and 

 sometimes twice a day, without a clyster. His grand complaint now was of a 

 most troublesome cardialgia, especially when he lay down, which was somewhat 

 mitigated by powders of cret. britan. cum pauxillo sal. absinth. From the first 

 use of the mercury he seemed to be recovering, till after about 12 days, when 

 omitting it for a few days, he relapsed into his former or a worse condition; 

 and though he was somewhat easier on the repetition of it, the good effects 

 lasted not long. He drooped daily from the 4th of January, and on the ]3th 

 died, emaciated and almost exanguis. 



On dissection, nothing preternatural appeared in the integuments, abdominal 

 muscles, or peritoneum immediately under them. But under all these, where 

 the protuberance had been observed, and immediately under the omentum, 

 which was destitute of fat and its lower part mortified, there came in view 

 an anomalous substance in situ, seemingly as large as a very large potatoe; 

 which, when the circumambient viscera were removed, was found to be a scir- 

 rhous, fungous, cancerated excrescence, rooted, as it were, to the left side of 

 the vertebrae, quite from the diaphragm down to the pelvis, of a monstrous 

 bulk, occupying near one-half of the abdomen, lying like a tortoise with its 

 head towards the pelvis, and its back to the umbilicus. It was in the upper 

 part covered by and firmly cohered with the colon, which in the whole conti- • 

 guity was black and mortified. It was strongly attached to the peritoneum on 

 the left side of the lumbal vertebrae, having displaced the left kidney, and 

 brought it forwards to the left side of the navel, so that it came in view as soon 

 as the omentum was removed. It likewise removed the aorta descendens, the 

 left emulgent, and meseraic vessels, quite out of their natural situation ; all of 

 which were found pervading the centre, nearly, of this excrescence, and 

 smaller than natural. It adhered to the kidney strongly where the emulgent 



