VOL. XLII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 7^7 



Concerning a Child of a Monstrous Size. Bij Mr. Geoffroy, F. R.S. and Member 

 of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. N° 471, p. 627. 



Normandy furnished, some years since, a child, monstrous by its size, and 

 a strength which its age could not naturally afford. It was born at Rouen, and 

 is a prodigy of virility, of 3 years and 2 or 3 months of age, and is now in the 

 hospital at Rouen. It has a very large neck, the breast very broad, and the 

 belly larger than in its natural state. The upper part of the thighs is rather 

 thickish, the rest is conformable to its age. He has hair only about the privy 

 parts; the penis is 3 inches long when there is no erection, but of 6 when 

 there is. It has been found that he has emissions. The fact fs very true, and 

 M. le Cat. F. K. S. a surgeon at Rouen, has fully traced it out. 



Two remarkable Medical Cases, one of an extraordinary Hcemorrhage, the other 



an Ascites cured by Tapping. Communicated by Henry Banyer, M. D. 



N°47i, p. 628. 



In January 1729, Daniel Goddard, a gardener, about 24 years of age, at 

 Wisbech in the isle of Ely, received a slight puncture from a rusty nail in the 

 sole of his right foot. And, notwithstanding there was not wounded any 

 tendon, or blood-vessel, larger than small branches of veins, the whole foot 

 was immediately swelled to a very unusual degree, without any fever, or other 

 apparent cause for it. It was also attended with great pain, and an extraordi- 

 nary pulsation on the part, as in wounds of arteries, and so distended as if 

 the blood would burst out of its vessels. 



After 2 days, on opening a superficial sinus, to enlarge the wound, there 

 rushed out immediately such an obstinate flux of blood, as would not yield to 

 any styptic means, longer than the bandage was held on by some strong hand. 

 And though, by this incision, no vessels were wounded, but capillary veins; 

 yet this haemorrhage continued as violent as at first, for 6 days successively, 

 whenever the necessary means were relaxed. On which, for the sake of revul- 

 sion, the patient had a vein opened on the arm of the opposite side; and it had 

 such a sudden and surprising effect, that the flux of blood in the foot instantly 

 ceased, and the wound healed very soon without any further trouble; but the 

 flux of blood, consequent on venesection, became equally as difficult to re- 

 strain, as that in the foot for the space of 4 days; all which time it would have 

 continued to flow most violently without the strictest bandage, or the same care 

 of the hand, as before. Perhaps the period of this haemorrhage might have 

 been much longer, if Dr. B. had not suffered the ligature on the arm to be 

 loosened now and then, as he judged the redundancy of blood required, for the 



