( *99 ) 
I. An Extract from the Minutes of the Royal 
Society, March 16 , 1731, containing an 
uncommon Cafe of a Diftempered Skin, hy John 
Machin, Sec. S. <&• Prof. Aflr. Grefh. 
A Country Labourer, living not far from Eujton- 
Hall in Suffolk, (hewed a Boy (his Son) about 
Four teen Years of Age, having a cuticular 
Diftemper, of a different Kind from any hitherto men- 
tioned in the Hiftories of Difeafes. 
His Skin (if it might be fo called) feemed rather 
like a dufky coloured thick Cafe, exactly fitting every 
Part of his Body, made of a rugged Bark, or Hide, 
with Bridles in fome Places, which Cafe covering the 
whole excepting the Face, the Palms of the Hands, 
and the Soles of the Feet, caufed an Appearance as if 
thofe Parts alone were naked, and the reft cloathed. 
It did not bleed when cut or fcarified, being callous 
and infenfible. It was faid he (heds it once every Year, 
about Autumn, at which Time it ufually grows to the 
Thicknefs of threeQuarters of an Inch, and then is thruft: 
off by the new Skin which is coming up underneath. 
It was not eafy to think of any Sort of Skin, or na- 
tural Integument, that exactly refembled it. Some 
compared it to the Bark of a Tree \ others thought 
it looked like Seal-Skin j others like the Hide of the 
Elephant, or the Skin about the Legs of the Rhinoceros ; 
and fome took it to be like a great Wart, or Number 
of Warts uniting and overfpreading the whole Body. 
The briftly Parts, which were chiefly about the Belly 
and Flanks, looked and ruftled like the Bridles, or 
R r Quills, 
