034 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1/49. 



weaker, till nature was quite spent, he expired, with the utmost serenity of mind, 

 on the 7 til of August. 



His body, pursuant to his request, being opened in the presence of Dr. 

 Scarling, and 3 or 4 surgeons, the coats of the stomach were found changed into 

 a uniform, white, inelastic, almost cartilaginous substance, which was -^ of an 

 inch in thickness. Besides this strange alteration in its coats, the stomach was 

 so contracted, as to be incapable of holding more than 5 or 6 oz. and its inner 

 surface was besmeared with a various coloured matter. The rest of the viscera 

 seemed to be quite unaffected, and every thing was in its natural situation, ex- 

 cept the omentum, which, besides being, as it is in all tabid bodies, vastly 

 wasted, was necessarily drawn upwards by the contraction of the stomach. The 

 following remarks are subjoined : 



It is highly probable, that this gentleman's disorder, whether constitutional or 

 acquired, was at first an obstruction in those glands, which separate the humour 

 that serves to defend the villous coat from the acrimony of what is taken into the 

 stomach, and to prevent its being stimulated by the aliment in digestion; for 

 want of which it was so subject to irritation, that scarcely any thing would stay on 

 it. The matter voided by stool was undoubtedly formed in the stomach, because 

 he never complained of considerable pain in any other part; besides, had it been 

 from an abscess in the intestines, or any other of the viscera, the seat of it would 

 in all likelihood have been apparent. The looseness, which in the latter part of 

 his illness, always attended him when the vomiting ceased, plainly shows, that 

 the stomach had at that time acquired a great, if not its greatest degree of con- 

 traction ; for which reason, as it could contain but little, any quantity of food 

 must, if not thrown up, go immediately downwards. The going off of the pain 

 some weeks before his death, was owing to the sensibility of the coats of the 

 stomach being in a great measure, or quite destroyed. The bilious dejections, 

 that frequently attended him, may be ascribed to want of digestion ; which, as 

 little or no chyle was sent into the duodenum, rendered the bile useless. The 

 consequence of this was a non-secretion of that humour, an accumulation of it 

 in the liver, or gall bladder; its being reconveyed into the blood ; or its going 

 off by stool. If the first or third had been the case, it would have shown itself 

 in a jaundice ; if the second, there would have been an abscess in the liver or 

 gall bladder; so that of course it must run off by stool. Spirituous liquors might 

 help to bring on this contraction, inelasticity, and insensibility of the stomach : 

 but it seems pretty clear that they were not the sole cause; otherwise immo- 

 derate drinkers of them would generally be affected in the same manner. 



