644 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1749. 



the most cruel pains : if you attack those parts with the cutting instrument, you 

 increase the irritation of the solids, the constriction of the vessels, the want of 

 fluids, the exsiccation, and hasten death. 



On the contrary, the general indication, which this distemper affords us, is 

 therefore to soften, to relax the vessels, to draw thither the liquors by topics, 

 while inwardly all remedies must be given that are capable of bringing the blood 

 and the spirits from the centre to the circumference. If this method be not 

 successful, death is inevitable ; for even supposing that the amputation was not 

 liable to the dismal consequences just specified, there is no room for this opera- 

 tion in an internal defect, which depends on the whole habit, as the case is with 

 the dry gangrene. And supposing that there are dry gangrenes purely local, as 

 the critical depositums of certain malignant fevers, you may be sure that the 

 very same nature which has caused this crisis, if you assist her but a little, will 

 be able also to separate this mortification from the sound parts ; and she will do 

 it more gently and more dextrously than man. 



These were the notions he had formed to himself of these 1 sorts of gangrenes; 

 he only waited for opportunities to make the trials which this theory suggested 

 to him. He did not find any before 1738, in the person of a wood merchant, 

 one Mrs. Foumaise. She was then 65 years of age, extremely corpulent ; the 

 gangrene seized her at the heel, by a black and round blotch, of 1 inches di- 

 ameter, without any tumour, with some small scorbutic spots,, great pains, and 

 a little fever. 



The plethora made him begin with bleeding and purging ; the latter he re- 

 peated every 8 days. He applied all over the foot and part of the leg, a poultice 

 made of herbs and farinas, emollient, resolving, and aromatic, the suppurative 

 - ointment, and storax. He gave inwardly diaphoretic ptisans : in the morning, 

 broths of vipers, of cray-fish prepared with proper herbs, and above all with 

 water-cresses : in the evening a bolus of theriaca. In short, he followed entirely 

 the theory he had formed to himself about the dry gangrene, and in 9 or 10 

 days he saw the suppuration formed ; so that his patient was perfectly cured in 

 about 2 or 3 months. This success was followed by many others, both in the 

 town and hospital of Rouen. 



The report of these cures having spread itself as far as Paris, he was sent for 

 thither in February 1746, to attend M. Ronde, treasurer-general of the fortifi- 

 cations of France, who was at the last extremity, by a dry gangrene, which had 

 sphacelated his foot ; the cause of which had kept him in a languishing way for 

 4 years. M. Ronde was in a dreadful condition, and Mr. le C. was vexed at 

 having been sent for in so desperate a case : he declared it to his relations, and 

 to the eminent surgeons who attended him : he therefore applied his remedies to 

 the patient, at the request of his relations, only by way of trial, which he pub- 

 licly declared to be most doubtful. However, contrary to expectation, from the 



