VOL. LX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQl 



lately incontestable. We may therefore conclude, that the princess whose head 

 appears on all these medals was queen of Malta and Gozo, before the Cartha- 

 ginians were settled in either of those islands; though the time when she swayed 

 the sceptre tliere cannot, for want of sufficient light from ancient history, with 

 any precision, be so easily ascertained. But, from various circumstances, we 

 may, he apprehends, safely enough place queen Philistis in the interval between 

 Dyonysius I. and Gelo, kings of Syracuse, and even somewhere near the earlier 

 of those princes, as her silver medals so much resemble Grelo's silver coins. If 

 therefore it should be supposed probable, that the pieces of Gozo, adorned with 

 Phoenician letters, were struck in that island, about 450 years before the com- 

 mencement of the Christian aera; the learned would not, Mr. S. flatters him- 

 self, refuse their assent to such a supposition. 



XI I. A Letter from Mr. Tho. Jf'oolcomb, Surgeon, on the Case of a Boy, who 

 ' died of a Gun-shot IVound. p. 94. 



Dec. 17, 1763, in the forenoon, Mr. W. was sent for to the assistance rf 

 John Kitt, a lad of about 15 years of age, who had just received a considerable 

 wound by the unexpected going off" of a gun loaded with small shot, held near 

 his arm. He found the shot, by being so near, had acted altogether as a slug, 

 had lacerated much, and made a pretty large perforation through the biceps and 

 brachiaeus internus muscles, had bared the os humeri, and in fine penetrated 

 quite through the arm from below upwards. 



By the time Mr. W. arrived, which was almost immediately after the acci- 

 dent, he found little or no hasmorrhage, which made him hope the humeral 

 artery had not been divided. On examining the wound, and finding no extra- 

 neous substances lodged, but the passage quite pervious to the probe; he dressed 

 up with dry lint, digestive, &c. ordering the whole limb to be wrapped up in a 

 warm poultice made with oatmeal, stale beer, and a good deal of oil. Returning 

 in the evening, he found the patient tolerably easy, but applying his fingers to 

 the artery of the wrist of the same hand, was not a little alarmed to find he 

 could not perceive the least pulsation. It was but too easy" to apprehend the 

 cause of it; that in all probability the artery was divided, and if so, the limb 

 perhaps would not be saved. 



Mr. W. made his report to the friends accordingly. However, as no threat- 

 ening symptoms attended, he was willing to see whether, if the artery was 

 divided, the blood might not, as after the operation of the aneurism, find a pas- 

 sage by the collateral branches, and thereby the circulation be kept up. He was 

 apt also to think, as there had been no hasmorrhage of the wound, that it might 

 not be divided, butthe course of the circulation be impeded only by some spas- 

 modic constriction, which possibly by the morning might relax and give way; at 



D 1 



