354 
Mr. Wilson's Description of a 
dressed it, I found that the heat, so far as could be judged by 
the feeling, (for it was not tried by the thermometer,) was in 
no respect different from that of other children ; and that the 
colour of the skin was perfectly natural, except that, on the 
day on which it was born, and a short period before its death, 
the lips occasionally had something of a livid appearance ; but 
that this did not last any time, as they were generally pale. 
This occasional lividness would happen to a child in that state, 
should the heart and circulation be in no way different from 
what they naturally are. 
I could meet with no other remarkable circumstances, either 
in the history of the mother during pregnancy, or in the child 
after birth. It cried occasionally, like other children, but seemed 
weak, and in pain ; it slept ; it sucked heartily, even a few 
hours before its death, and had apparently healthy evacuations 
of urine and feces. 
Its death can be satisfactorily accounted for, from another 
cause than the extraordinary formation of its heart and blood- 
vessels. The membranous covering, on the fore part of the ab- 
domen, did not appear to possess sufficient vascularity to retain 
its life after birth ; for it immediately lost its living principle, 
and became putrid and mouldy in parts. Previous to the child's 
death, a process of separation had begun, between it and the 
living parts to which it was connected, and a line of inflam- 
mation was distinctly seen. Had this process been completed, 
and the slough thrown off, the heart would have been exposed ; 
but, before this, the heart itself had inflamed ; which was proved 
from its being found covered with a coat of coagulable lymph 
recently thrown out, and from this inflammation its death 
must have arisen. 
