VOL. XLVII,] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOKS. 153 



tained from the dip, continued liquid, and remained on the outside of the wound 

 made by the arrow in piercing the flesh. Therefore time must be allowed for 

 the poison to become hard on the instrument, which is intended to be used ; 

 that so, entering into the wound together with the weapon, it may be there di- 

 luted, and carried in the course of the circulation to those parts which it must 

 effect, in order to cause death. 



XIII. The Case of a IVoman, from whom the Bones of a Fetus were extracted. 

 By Mr. Thomas Debenham, Surgeon, at Debenham in Suffolk, p. 92. 



On the 25th of April 1749, this woman, aged about 34 years, being preg- 

 nant of her 8th child, had all the symptoms of a woman in labour. Accord- 

 ingly a midwife was sent for ; who, from the violence of the pains, expected 

 that she would soon be delivered ; but, to her great surprize, nothing ensued 

 but a loss of blood, and the pains were considerably abated. A fever immediately 

 came on, which cast her into an excessive faintness, and loss of strength, ac- 

 companied with a nausea. 



May 26, Mr. D. was desired by her husband to visit her ; and by the ac- 

 count she gave him he much suspected that she must have miscalculated with 

 regard to her time ; and he proposed to examine her : but she, out of a mis- 

 taken modesty, not complying, he contented himself with cooling injections, 

 mild cathartics, and cordial powdeps, &c. ; by the use of which medicines she 

 got better ; and, on the 26th of March following, undertook to walk a journey of 

 15 miles. 



He heard no more of her for some time; but on the 27th of April 1750 the 

 pains returned, very much like those of labour ; which obliged her husband to call 

 Mr. D. out of bed. He immediately gave her an anodyne, which abated her 

 pains, and composed her to rest. 



On the 14th of May she felt a pricking pain in her navel, with a swelling and 

 redness, which in a few days appeared like a boil ; when, being desired to in 

 spect the tumour, he applied an emollient cataplasm. The next morning, on re- 

 moving the dressings, a fetid matter ensued ; then dilating the small sinus with 

 the scissars, the scapula of a foetus presented itself. On the 25th of July, by 

 the direction of a physician, he undertook, by making a circular incision round 

 the navel, to enlarge the orifice into the cavity of the abdomen, in order to ex- 

 tract the foetus that way : but the woman being very weak, and much emaciated, 

 he could only take off the scapula. 



The next day, he extracted one whole arm, some ribs, part of the vertebrae, 

 &c. and the day following the greatest part of the remaining foetus, except the 

 cranium, which seemed to adhere to the intestines. This determined him to 

 proceed very cautiously, and not to attempt the removal of it at once, but piece- 



VOL, X. X 



