VOL. LV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 177 



a view of the base extremity, which is round like a hemisphere, showing the 2 

 holes, one at the end of each great valve, just where the processes of their 

 smooth portions, and the edge of the round piece, meet. 



The apices of some of these conoide pholades are a little curved; but that of 

 this subject described is straight. Besides these, there were great numbers of 

 cossi, or worms, in the bottom of the Spanish ship; the vestige of one or two 

 of them, as visible in this piece of wood, and the channels they make, which are 

 in all directions, are lined with a thin white incrustation, and are of equal dimen^ 

 sions all along. 



//. The Case of a Young Lady who drank the Sea TVater for an Inflammation 

 and Tumour in the Upper Lip. By Dr. Lavington, of Tavistock, in Devon, p. 6. 



This young lady, aged l6, had a strumous swelling of the upper lip, for which 

 she was advised to drink the sea water, which she did every morning, to the 

 quantity of a pint, for 10 days successively; during which she was as well as 

 usual, till on a sudden she was seized with a profuse discharge of the catamenia. 

 She had also a bleeding from the gums, with innumerable petechial spots on the 

 neck and breast, and many livid spots on the arms and legs. Her pulse was very 

 quick, though pretty full ; her face pale and bloated, and her flesh soft and tender. 

 To stop the bleeding from the gums, her apothecary took a little blood from the 

 arm; from the orifice there oozed blood continually for several days, notwith- 

 standing all endeavours to staunch it. At last blood issued from her nose perpe- 

 tually, attended with frequent faintings, in which she at length expired, 

 choaked as it were with her own blood. But before she died, it was very re- 

 markable, that her right arm was quite mortified from the elbow to the wrist: 

 and it is to be further noted, that though blood drawn from her some weeks be- 

 fore she began the use of the sea water for an inflammation in her lip, was found 

 sufficiently dense, and in a pretty good state; yet that drawn off^ in her last sick- 

 ness was mere putrid dissolved gore. 



To this account Dr. L. subjoined the following queries: — Whether or no, a 

 scorbutic state of the animal juices may not be produced by salt water, as well as 

 by salt provisions ; especially if, as in the present case, it does not pass off" freely 

 by the usual evacuations, which often happens when drank for a considerable 

 time, and the body is accustomed to it? — Whether the thin tender delicate fibre 

 is not a morbid disposition, somewhat different from the too viscid or too lax? and 

 whether to such a constitution, attended with a loose texture of the blood, or a 

 hectic habit, a salt water course may not be likely to increase the acrimony of 

 the blood, rupture the vessels, and bring on a dangerous haemorrhage? and whe- 

 ther, even to strumous patients thus circumstanced, the cortex Peruvianus is not 

 more adapted? 



VOL. XII. A A 



