VOL. L.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 53 



XLIL Of some Extraordinary Tumors on the Head of a Labouring Man in 

 St Bartholomeius Hospital. By James Parsons, M. Z)., F. R. S, p. 350. 



This poor man, whose name was John Tomlinson, gave this accomit of him- 

 self: that he was about 25 years of age : that when he was a boy of 4 or 5 years old 

 at play with other children, he received a blow from one of them on the top of 

 his head, and believes that hurt he then received was the beginning of the tu- 

 mours. The tumour on the top of his head however grew first, and after 

 having spread all over the vertex, extended gradually downwards over his right 

 shoulder, and forwards over the os frontis, on the same side, till it stretched 

 downwards into a lax flabby substance all over the right side of his face and 

 shoulder : then the upper of three anterior tumours arose from the large one ; 

 the middle one from the ala nasi, pulling it down by its weight : and the lower 

 one was pendulous from the inside of the great tumour by a narrow neck. These 

 were the appearances which presented themselves at first sight ; but those under the 

 great tumour were no less extraordinary ; for on lifting up the great tumour, and 

 looking up under it, his right eye came in sight, with which he saw very well, 

 and the eye was clear and sound ; but the under lid was pulled down and stretched 

 to 6 or 7 inches long, to which a tumour hung also, as large as that anterior 

 one at the chin, the lowest of the three ; besides several flaps and rugae of skin 

 and smaller tumours. 



The hairy scalp was so stretched by the vertical tumour, that the hairs were 

 driven asunder ; so that the tumour was in some places bald, and the whole was 

 rugged and uneven. At its basis all round, till arriving at the extended part 

 that went away to the right shoulder^ a bony edge might be distinctly felt, as if 

 the skull was depressed at the top : and yet probably there was no depression of 

 the arch of the inner table, because the man was from his childhood ever very 

 healthy ; being never troubled with those symptoms which usually attend a de- 

 pression of the cranium. From this seemino- edge the os frontis shot out a great 

 way over the ossa nasi, perhaps to 2 or 3 inches beyond the frontal sinuses ; 

 and was the basis from which the great pendulous tumour hung downwards and 

 forwards. 



From the root of the nose under the upper of the 3 smaller tumours arose a 

 large trunk of a vein, which ramified up to the vertical tumour, and to the right 

 over the upper part of the great pendulous one : these were very conspicuous, 

 and served to bring back the residual blood from the tumours : nor was it unlikely 

 that the arteries bore a proportion with these veins in their size, in order to 

 supply the tumours with the matter which had given them their great increase ; 

 but these lying concealed, could not be spoken to with any certainty. 



X 2 



