VOL. LXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 357 



interment, where there was no appearance of any art having been used. And 

 doubtless some constitutions are more prone to putrefaction after death than 

 others; these circumstances may be dependant on age, sex, and last disease; to 

 which predisposing causes, thus attending persons to the grave, are to be added 

 the soil and situation in which they are deposited. Could we be masters of all 

 these particulars, in the few dead bodies hitherto discovered greatly free from the 

 usual putrefaction, it would lead perhaps to the probable cause of the pheno- 

 menon, and Doint out a proper method of imitation. And till that is done, it 

 is difficult to know how much merit is to be assigned to the art or mystery of 

 embalming, and how much to the power of natural causes. 



XXXIF. A Letter from Richard Pulteney, M. D., F. R. S., to JVm. JFatson, 

 M. D., F. R. S., concerning the Medicinal Effects of a Poisonous Plant exhi- 

 bited instead of the Water Parsnep. p. 469. 



Some circumstances having lately come to my knowledge (says Dr. P.) relating 

 to the effect of a poisonous plant, I thought them rather too remarkable not to 

 merit further notice; and, I address them to you with the more propriety, as 

 you have already laid before the public some observations* concerning the dele- 

 terious qualities of the plant in question, which holds a distinguished place 

 among the poisonous ones that are indigenous in Britain. 



Mr. H n, an attorney of this place, now upwards of 40, at the age of 



15, began to be affected, after taking cold on violent exercise, as he thinks, with 

 what is usually called a scorbutic disorder; which showed itself more particularly 

 on the outsides of his arms, about the elbows, and on the outsides of his legs, 

 from the knees to the ancles, as well as in botches on other parts of his body. 

 It had the appearance of a dry branny scab or scurf, which every night fell off", 

 more or less in scales, as is visual in leprous cases. At times it pushed out 

 more than usual, and thickened the integuments of the limbs considerably, after 

 which the separation of scales would become very abundant. 



For several years past he had been trying a variety of things commonly recom- 

 mended in such cases, particularly the quack medicine known by the name of 

 Maredant's drops, which he continued for near a year, without finding the least 

 sensible relief: also an electuary of flos sulphuris and cremor tartari, which he 

 had persevered in for near 3 years, without finding any other alteration, than 

 that of its preventing costiveness, to which he was habitually subject. In the 

 winter J 770, this disorder increased very rapidly, without being able to assign 

 any reason, from any accident that had happened to him, or from any irregularity 

 of his own in point of regimen, in which he was always very exact. At this 



* See Phil. Trans, vol. 44j p. 227, and vol.50, p. 856, of these Abridgments, vol. Lx. p. 256, 

 jmdvol. xi. p. 311. 



