VOL. XLII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 581 



clavian and carotid arteries, but very little down the aorta. One of the semi- 

 lunar valves of the aorta was become bony. 



There were likewise found very great polypi in the right and left cavities of 

 the other heart, of the same colour, firmness and tenacity, but hot quite so 

 large ; and they respectively branched their appendices a great way into the 

 pulmonary artery, aorta, &c. 



More of the sailors dying in the very same way soon after, the thorax of 

 another was opened, that of a young man about 20. In the right auricle and 

 ventricle of his heart was found a large tough subrubicund polypus, not quite 

 so white as those mentioned before; but there was no such concretion in the left. 



Now though Kerkringius and others have endeavoured to explode the notion 

 of the formation of true polypi in the heart and blood-vessels ; yet Malpighi, 

 Bartholine, Tulpius, Pechlin, and others, have given us incontestable instances 

 of the existence of true polypi in the heart, in the strictest sense ; and we 

 have here 3 unquestionable evidences of the like nature : such, indeed, espe- 

 cially the 2 former, as Dr. H. never has before met with amidst the very 

 numerous dissections he had ever been present at. 



Dr. H. adds that he had the first lieutenant and purser of the Dunkirk under 

 his care in very severe pleuro-peripneumonies, whose blood was as viscid as he 

 ever saw; and they were with very great difficulty saved, nor could they be 

 brought to expectorate till the 7th day of the fever. 



It may be observed also (Dr. H. continues) that the above ships came home 

 from a very hot climate into a very cold one, in the midst of winter, and that 

 a long continued course of north-easterly winds kept on, and even increased, 

 the cold to a great degree ; that pleurisies, peripneumonies, &c. are commonly 

 the effects of such a constitution of air; that the blood of such as labour under 

 these disorders is always extremely sizy ; and that the heat of the weather in 

 the West Indies, and large and long continued use of spirituous liquors, had 

 greatly condensed the blood of these men ; and that, in the blood-vessels of 

 the thorax of such as die of these distempers, polypous concretions are not un- 

 commonly found. 



jin Extract of a Topographical* Account of Bridgnorth in the County of Salop; 

 containing an Account of the Situation, Soil, Air, Births and Burials of that 

 Place, and of some Tumuli Sepulchrales near it. Communicated by the Rev. 

 Mr. Stackhouse. N° 464, p. 127. 

 Bridgnorth is situated on the River Severn, on the west of the ancient forest 



• Taken from the original papers of the Rev. Mr. Richard Cornes, late minister of the parish of 

 St. Mary Magdalen in Bridgnorth. — Orig. 



