VOL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 645 



3d day there appeared plainly a beginning of suppuration, and a separation of 

 the eschars. On the gth day there was a complete suppuration, and the rege- 

 neration of the flesh was even so far advanced, that the singularity of it raised 

 the curiosity of some of the first surgeons of Paris. At last, on the 15th day, 

 the patient found himself in a more favourable state ; which, according to the 

 testimony which M. Morand, an assiduous spectator of the cure, publicly gave 

 of it, ' gave hopes of a recovery in a case that had hitherto been thought des- 

 perate.' 



The suppuration, the separation of the eschars, and the regeneration of the 

 flesh, being all that a surgeon can desire in a like cure, he then thought that 

 his mission was fulfilled, and that he might return home, whither he was called 

 by more material affairs. He had reason to repent of this journey : his patient 

 having naturally a very voracious appetite, he had confined him to a spare diet ; 

 but he could hold out no longer; and, by the connivance of his nurse, he took 

 various food, and that plentifully too. This conduct had soon ruined their 

 progress. M. le Cat returned to Paris ; his representations were useless : the 

 patient had shaken off" the yoke of the faculty, and of reason. Indigestions en- 

 sued one upon another. The looseness, which never left him after, totally sup- 

 pressed the suppuration, and made him void the matter quite crude by stool, and 

 at last he died. 



The following are the particulars of this case : 



From this, and some other cases. Dr. le Cat infers, that the common opinion, 

 that it is impossible radically to cure the dry gangrene, is as false, as the ordi- 

 nary method of treating it is bad. He does not establish his method as infallible; 

 but asserts, that in 8 or 9 years practice it has not failed curing any persons who 

 exactly followed it, and observed the regimen prescribed. 



Then follows M. le Cat's description of a surgical instrument of his invention ; 

 with a forceps for the extirpation of tumours too remote from the surgeon's 

 fingers. When the fingers can lay hold of an excrescency, the surgeon need not 

 think of making use of machines for it ; he will never find any convenient 

 enough ; but all tumours that are to be extirpated are not within the reach of 

 the fingers : there are even many of them which the fingers can reach, but 

 where they cannot lay hold of them, nor work as the extirpation requires. Such 

 are the excrescences situated a little deep in the anus, in the vagina, in the 

 throat, &c. For the like extirpations M. le Cat had been obliged to invent the 

 forceps now described. 



Fig. 4, pi. 11, represents the forceps shut, as they are when the instrument is 

 closed, or when it holds a small excrescence : it is of silver, pliant as far as aa, to 

 enable the cheeks to take the different figures which those of the tumours to be ex- 

 tirpated may require. The inside of these branches is lined with a slip of buff- 

 skin, or close chamoys (as at kk, fig. 5.) to prevent the tumour's slipping when 



