406 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO J 753. 



/r Ir 



aurons Ir: Ir := l\ : Iv, ou -- = -. Ou bien mettes v = r~, et k cause de /v = 



»lr, on aura — = -, ou h = alR, et partant v = r . 



Voila done le fondement du principe, que j'ai employe dans ma piece, qui me 

 paroit encore inebranlable; cependant j'en soumets la decision a 1' illustre Societe 

 Royale, et 4 votre jugement en particulier, ayant I'honneur d'etre avec la plus 

 parfaite consideration, Monsieur, &c. &c. 



XLIF. A remarkable Case of Fragility, Flexibilily, and Dissolution, of the 

 Bones. By John Pringle, M.D., F. R.S. p. 297. 



Mary Hayes, of Stoke-Holy-Cross, near Norwich, gave the following account, 

 June 21, 1752. That she was born Jan. ] 1, 17 18, and never married, nor was 

 addicted to any kind of intemperance; that her father was unhealthy a great 

 part of his life, but she knew not what disease he was subject to; that her mo- 

 ther died when she was a child; but she did not remember having ever heard of 

 her being unhealthy; that she herself was always considered as a healthy strong 

 girl, till about 15 years of age; then fell jnto the green-sickness, and took va- 

 rious medicines, to no purpose ; that this disease, as far as she could recollect, 

 was all she had to complain of; doing the ordinary work in a farmer's house, till 

 October 1748; she then was seized with pain universally, attended with feverish 

 symptoms. Thus she continued some weeks; after which the pain was chiefly 

 confined to her thighs and legs, but not increased by external pressure. In Sep- 

 tember 1 749, she broke her leg, as she was walking from the bed to her chair, 

 without falling down, and heard the bones snap. The fracture was properly 

 treated, and regard had to her disposition; but no callus was generated, the 

 bones growing flexible from the knee to the ancle in a few months, as did those 

 of her other leg. Soon after, those of her thighs were visibly afl^ected in like 

 manner. Both legs arid thighs then became very cedematous, and subject to 

 excoriate, discharging a thin yellow ichor. The winter after breaking her leg, 

 she had symptoms of the scurvy, and bled much at the gums. 



Many eminent physicians, who were of opinion that this disease of the bones 

 might arise from acidity abounding in the blood, prescribed for her, but without 

 efiect; unless the regularity of her menstruation for the last 18 jnonths may be 

 attributed to a chalybeate medicine; though medicines of that nature had no 

 such effect formerly, when she was in a condition to take exercise, and regularly 

 persisted in the use of them. 



For some considerable time past she had found little alteration in her com- 

 plaints in general; thought her appetite and digestion rather better, but that the 

 difficulty of breathing, which she had long laboured under, gradually increased; 

 and the thorax appeared so much straitened, as necessarily impeded the expan- 



