MM PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1765. 



one drachm and two scruples more of cork, he found himself very able to keep 

 above water, in a living position, without any help from his art of swimming, 

 and that it required some small pains to immerse himself. It therefore results 

 from this experiment, that 12 ounces, 5 drachms, and 1 scruples, or 6lOO 

 grains of cork, supported this man in river water; 6 100 grains of cork are 

 equal to l63f^ cubic inches; which appears, by a calculation drawn from the 

 2d of the foregoing experiments, to be able to support 63 ounces, 5 drachms, 

 and 8 grains of lead, which must be therefore the exact weight of this man 

 in river water. By comparing this calculation with the above experiment 4, 

 made in the sea water, we shall find that this man weighed Qo ounces, 3 drachms, 

 and 21 grains; or 4 pounds, 12 ounces, 3 drachms, and 21 grains, requiring 

 12 ounces and 21 grains of cork to support him in sea water. It must however 

 be observed, as already intimated, that the same quantity of cork which sup- 

 ports a fat, or very plump person, in the water, will not suffice to buoy up a lean 

 person, though their weights out of the water be equal. 



XFII. Of the Disease called Ergot, in French, from its supposed Cause, viz. 



Vitiated Rye. In a Letter from Dr. Tissot,* of Lausanne, to G. Bakerj-f- 



M. D., F. R. S. p. 106. 



In 1762, Dr. WoUaston having presented to the r. s. the history of an extra- 

 ordinary case of a mortification of limbs in a poor family at Wattisham, about 

 16 miles from Bury, in Suffolk, where Dr. Wollaston at that time resided; and 

 about the same time the Rev. Mr. Bones, then minister of the parish of Wat- 

 tisham (whose humanity led him to show a particular attention to the sufferings 

 of that unhappy family) having transmitted to Dr. Baker, every circumstance 

 which he could observe or collect, relating to the disease; these letters were 

 communicated to the r. s., and both accounts were published in the 2d part of 

 the 52d vol. of the Phil. Trans. [Abridgment, vol. 11, page 626, 628, 646.] 



Some time in the winter of 17^3, as Dr. Baker was perusing a work, intitled. 

 Avis au Peuple sur sa Sante par M. Tissot, (printed at Paris in 1762) he ob- 

 served a disease mentioned under the appellation of Ergot, a name borrowed 

 from its supposed cause, viz. vitiated rye. As the phenomena of the disease 

 described (which is said to be frequently epidemic in several provinces of France) 

 are very similar to those of the disease, of which an account was received from 

 Wattisham, Dr. B. wrote a letter to M. Tissot, and requested him to commu- 



• Dr. Tissot practised for many years with great celebrity at Lausanne. He died in 1797. 

 Among the physicians on the continent he was one of the earliest and warmest advocates for the 

 inoculation of the small-pox. His principal works are his Avis au Peuple, his Maladies des Gens du 

 Monde et des Gens des Lettres, and his Trailc de I'Epilepsie. 



f Now Sir George Baker, Bart. 



