VOL. XLIV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 207 



blistering plasters to be laid on his neck and arms, which, among other things, 

 he had refused before. 



In 4 hours after the first draught the intermitting pulse was altered to a very 

 calm regular one ; but the hickup continued with the same violence, till he had 

 taken the 5th draught ; and then returned only once in 6 or 7 minutes. His 

 senses were now restored, and he grew chearful and easy, and said he would 

 take no more of any kind whatever : but being unwilling to cease the exhibition 

 of a medicine which bid so fair for his recovery. Dr. P. gave him a glass of sack, 

 into which the 6th draught was privately poured, which took away his hickup 

 entirely. 



The next day he had an appetite to eat, and was indulged by his wife with a 

 large chicken, a great deal of bread, and a pint of beer and ale, which he ate 

 greedily : this overcharged his stomach, and brought on his hickup again, which 

 fatigued him much, before Dr. P. visited him in the afternoon. He then directed 

 a purging draught immediately, which emptied him well, and conquered his 

 hickup, and every other bad symptom. 



Next day he found him well, limited his diet for a few days, with directions to 

 repeat his purge once more, after 3 days ; and in a fortnight he went abroad. 



The blisters might perhaps conduce, in some measure, to do him service ; but 

 as the man was so many days ill, and reduced to a condition very little, if at all, 

 better than that of a dying man, he believes the musk, rather than the blisters, 

 was the medicine that restored him : for he had often seen the latter applied in a 

 greater number in vain, even when the symptoms were not so seemingly des- 

 perate as in this case. 



He took near 105 grains of musk in about 30 hours; but he cannot say he 

 either slept or perspired more than ordinary on it. 



Concerning Electrical Fire. By the Rev. Dr. Miles, F.R.S. N" 478, p. 78. 



Mr. Henry Baker having queried, whether that subtil fire which kindles 

 warmed spirit of wine, be resident in the body from which it evidently issues, and 

 be kindled occasionally ? or whether it comes from the excited tube pervading in- 

 stantaneously the body it is applied to ? or, lastly, whether there are certain prin- 

 ciples in the air, which are thus agitated into an extemporaneous lightning } Dr. 

 Miles here inclines to think the electrical and luminous effluvia to be the same, 

 and not distinct substances. Mr. Hauksbee seems to distinguish them, intimat- 

 ing, that no luminous matter would be communicated from an excited cylinder 

 of wax to his finger, when brought near to the cylinder, though it attracted light 

 bodies ; but it is to be observed, that this cylinder of wax was only a coat of wax, 

 of about half an inch thick, on a wooden cylinder of 4 inches diameter : but Dr. 

 M. always found his stick of wax, which consists of nothing else, to emit lu- 



