VOL. XLVII.] VHXLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 65 



had in the hypogastric region, darted up towards the midriff on the right side : 

 and now the mucus of the intestines came away with the clysters. He had bad 

 sweats, and made foul urine, without sefliment. 



On the 15th a consultation was held ; and as his thirst and fever were abated, 

 and the medicines hitherto prescribed for opening a passage, and taking down 

 the swelling, of the belly, which seemed ready to burst, had proved ineffectual, 

 it was agreed to make him swallow 6 oz. of crude quicksilver, with oil of sweet 

 almonds, and syrup of violets ; and soon after to throw in several purging 

 clvsters. 



In 9 hours a passage was opened, and he voided much black liquid excrement, 

 without the least grain of quicksilver. A little after that, he vomited much ; 

 and in what he threw up there plainly appeared excrements, and globules of 

 mercury. This was soon followed by thirst, a little slow fever, very troublesome 

 gripings, no sleep, red high-coloured thick urine, in very small quantities, 

 breaking of wind without any ease, vomiting of every thing he took, great 

 weakness, and partial sweats in the forehead and breast. Under these symptoms 

 he languished to the 20th day, and then died. 



The appearances, on dissection, were these: the omentum was consumed; 

 and the colon was inflamed in several places, and so distended with wind, that it 

 nearly filled the whole abdominal cavity. Its ligaments or bands were so tho- 

 roughly effaced, that there was not the least sign of them remaining. The 

 caecum was so stretched, as to occupy the whole capacity of the pelvis ; and that 

 part of it, which is touched by the thick gut, was gangrened, and perforated 

 with a small opening. Having cleared it of the excrements, there were no inter- 

 nal rugae at the insertion of the ileum, nor any traces of the valve of the colon, 

 or of its braces, to be observed. For it was quite smooth on the inside, as well 

 as the colon, by the destruction of the cellules, which it has in a natural state. 

 The quicksilver was dispersed all over the cavity of the abdomen, in such quan- 

 tities, that it was easy to perceive, that none had been discharged by stool. 

 Every thing else contained within both the cavities, was in its natural condition. 



XVII- On the Variation of the Magnetic Needle. By Peter Wargtnlin,* Sec. 

 of the Royal j^cad. of Sciences in Sweden. BVom the Latin, p. 126. 



Dr. Halley suspected that there was some correspondence between the aurora 

 borealis and the magnetic needle. And Celsius and Hiorter found by experi- 

 ments that the needle was greatly disturbed, and unsteady, whenever the north- 



* Peter Wargentin was a Swedish mathematician, but chiefly distinguished as an astronomer, and 

 particularly for his tables for computing the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, which have been much used 

 by astronomers. He was born in 1717, and died at the observatory at Stockholm in 1783, at 6()' 

 years of age. 



