VOL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ff 



great endemic of all marshy countries, and rage most after hot summers, with a 

 close and moist state of air. They begin at the end of summer, and continue 

 through autumn ; being at the worst, when the atmosphere is most loaded with 

 the effluvia of stagnating water, rendered more putrid by vegetables and animal 

 substances that rot in it. At such times all meats are quickly tainted ; and dysen- 

 teries, with other putrid distempers, coincide with these fevers. The heats dis- 

 pose the humours to acrimony ; the putrid effluvia are a ferment ; and the fogs 

 and dews, so common to those climates, stop perspiration, and bring on a 

 fever. The more these causes prevail, the easier it is to trace this putrefaction 

 of humours. The nausea, thirst, bitter taste of the mouth, and frequent eva- 

 cuations of putrid bile, are common symptoms and arguments for what is ad- 

 vanced. We shall add, that in moist countries, in bad seasons, the intermit- 

 tents not only begin with symptoms of a putrid fever, but, if unduly managed, 

 easily change into a putrid and malignant form, with livid spots and blotches, 

 and mortification of the bowels. But, as a thorough discussion of this question 

 might carry him too far from the present subject, and be unseasonable here, he 

 refers it to its proper place, and only remarks, that whatever medicines (be- 

 sides evaqjiations and the bark) have been found useful in the cure of intermit- 

 tents, they are, so far as he knows, all highly antiseptic ; such are myrrh, cam- 

 phire, camomile-flowers, wormwood, tincture of roses, alum with nutmeg, vi- 

 triolic or strong vegetable acids with aromatics. 



Thus far are only related experiments on flesh, or the fibrous parts of animals ; 

 he next intends to shew what effects antiseptics have on the humours ; for 

 though from analogy we may conclude, that whatever retards the corruption of 

 the solids, or recovers them after they are tainted, will act similarly on the fluids ; 

 yet, as this does not certainly follow, he judged it necessary to make new trials ; 

 which, with some experiments on the promoters of putrefaction, the reverse of 

 the former, will be given hereafter. 



Concerning a Flat Spheroidal Stone having Lines Regularly Crossing it. By Mr. 

 Joseph Piatt, of Manchester. N° 496, p. 534. 



A man found a stone at Ardwick, 7 feet deep, near this town, in driving a 

 slough through some gret stone. It is what is called a nodule, of a close, com- 

 pact, smooth matter ; was incrustated with coarser earth, or soft stone ; is 3 

 inches and a half diameter ; formed not unlike one of the echini marini ; except 

 the papillas or small protuberances, which it wants. It had 4 white seams, 

 about the thickness of a horse-hair, which quarter the stone very correctly. 

 The angles are exactly the same, and correspond so well, that it would require 

 thp nicest mathematical head and hand to draw the like. 



