Royal Society of London. 373 



13. Extraordinary Surgical Operation. 



The most surprising and most honorable operation of sur- 

 gery is, without any contradiction, that executed by M. 

 Richerand, by taking away a part of the ribs and of the 

 pleura. The patient was himself a medical man, and not 

 ignorant of the danger he ran in the operation he had re- 

 course to, but he also knew, that his disorder was otherwise 

 incurable. He was attacked with a cancer on the internal 

 surface of the ribs and of the pleura, which continually 

 produced enormous fungosities, that had been in vain at- 

 tempted to be suppressed by the actual cautery. M. Rich- 

 erand was obliged to lay the ribs bare, to saw away two, 

 to detach them from the pleura, and to cut away all the 

 cancerous part of that membrane. As soon as he had 

 made the opening, the air rushing into the chest, occasion- 

 ed for the first day, great suffering, and distressing shortness 

 of breath ; the surgeon could touch and see the heart 

 through the pericardium, which was as transparent as glass, and 

 could assure himself of the total insensibility of both ; much 

 serous fluid flowed from the wound, as long as it remained 

 open, but it filled up slowly by means of the adhesion of 

 the lungs with the pericardium, and the fleshy granulations 

 that were formed in it. At length the patient got so well that 

 on the twenty-seventh day after the operation he could not 

 resist the desire of going to the medical school to see the 

 fragments of the ribs, that had been taken from him, and in 

 three or four days after, he returned home and went about 

 his ordinary business. — Thomson's An. 



14. Royal Society of London. 



Dr. Wollaston has been chosen ad interim President* of 

 the Royal Society of London. It would be difficult to 

 name any philosopher of the present day, who excels him 

 in acuteness of perception, as well as depth of attainment. 

 A paper by him was read before the Royal Society in June 

 last, on sounds inaudible to human ears. On observing that 

 the ears of a person were insensible to the sound of a small 

 organ pipe which was far within the limits of his own hearing, 



* Sir Humphrey Davj has since been chosen president. 



