[ *99 ] 
lobes of the lungs on this fide were not fo much 
wafted as I expected they would have been, from the 
great degree of prefture which they had fo long fu- 
ftaincd from the prodigious quantity of matter, that 
was confined in the oppofite cavity of the thorax ; 
nor was there any extravafation in the right cavity of 
the thorax. 
The lobes of the lungs on the left fide were almoft 
intirely deftroyed : in this cavity there was near a 
quart of foetid matter ; the whole of its internal fur- 
face was ulcerated, and the two inferior ribs wer® 
carious in the neighbourhood of the fecond opening. 
In every other part the ribs were found * fo was the 
fternum. 
The pericardium and heart appeared in their natu- 
ral ftate. The injury done to the internal furface of 
the left cavity of the thorax was fo great, as to have 
•deftroyed almoft the whole of the intercoftal mufcles 
on that fide of the trunk. 
N. B. It may be worth remarking, that this pa- 
tient did not any time fuffer the leaft inconvenience 
from the prefture of the external air, which entered 
into the cavity of the thorax thro’ the incifions, as 
has been faid by authors to have happened in a great 
degree in the like cafes ; but as that effedt was not 
produced in this, or any other inftances of the like 
kind, which has come under my infpedtion, I am 
inclined to conjecture, that the bad effects of the 
prefture of the external air, when admitted thro’ an 
opening made into the cavity of the thorax, is fuch 
an inconvenience as may rather be fuppofed to be 
likely to happen, than has been really known to hap- 
pen often ; the aCt of breathing having never been 
in 
3 
