VOL. XLIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Sfig 



even up to the stomach ; and the inner membrane of this organ, towards the 

 pylorus, was in the same condition with that of the great intestines of the fore- 

 going patient. The duodenum, jejunum, and the beginning of the ileum, 

 were sound; the end of the ileum was inflamed, and the large intestines were 

 gangrened. In another, the same intestines were all mortified; the caecum, 

 and half the colon, were as large as a stomach distended with wind. Their 

 canals were full of a bloody matter, and their inner membrane separated very 

 easily. The gangrene seemed particularly to affect this coat. The stomach and 

 small guts were sound; yet his death was preceded by the hiccough. In some 

 others, the gangrene had seized all the coats of the intestines; and sometimes 

 these canals were so far pierced by the eschars, as to let the faeces pass through 

 into the cavity of the belly. And in some the bladder itself partook of the dis- 

 orders observed in the great intestines. 



A few bleedings at first, cooling liquors, as whey, chicken-water made into 

 an emulsion, emollient clysters often repeated, and paregorics given properly, 

 and in small quantities, were the most sovereign remedies for this disease. Pur- 

 gatives were generally hurtful. Ipecacuanha succeeded with some; and an Eng- 

 lish pupil, Mr. Greorge Ross, made very successful trials with boluses of vitrum 

 antimonii ceratum. Whenever blood was taken away in an over great quantity, 

 the patient in 3 or 4 days fell into the agonies of death. Anodyne drops given 

 too fi-eely, instead of quieting, occasioned restlessness, and increased the fever 

 and inflammation. 



M. le Cat was himself struck with this disease, as if with lightning, and 

 passed, in a few hours, from a good state of health into a sinking and insensi- 

 bility, which indicated a gangrene coming on, and the utmost danger. Two 

 bleedings, close on each other, brought him to himself; but his insensibility was 

 succeeded by the usual colic and flux, which was the principal distemper: then 

 14- oz. of diacodium freed him from this painful and dangerous condition, as 

 speedily as the infected air had thrown it on him. 



In the following season, and even in the year 1744, when this distemper pre- 

 vailed no longer epidemically, there happened some very extraordinary circum- 

 stances. A woman, the 30th of November 1743, being of a robust habit of 

 body, and in perfect health, was suddenly seized with a violent colic in her sto- 

 mach, and died in 3 hours, He found 3 gangrenous places at the upper orifice 

 of the stomach. He doubted whether ever any distemper could have deserved 

 the name of a plague more than this, if it had been epidemical. 



In the course of the year 1 744, they had a great number of gouty rheumatisms, 

 with fevers. The patients were deprived of the use of their limbs; the miliary 

 eruption often came on, and seemed to relieve them by restoring their limbs. 

 In some, their pains went off by forming phlegmons and erysipelases on the ex- 



VOL. X. 4 D 



