c 58 0 
good deal of pain to the patient. The blood iffu’d 
forth with great impetuofity, and the wound was 
fome time before it heal’d ; but, at length, it form’d 
an elevated and hard fear. 
By continuing the emollient diet and vapour bath, 
in about forty days the fkin of her legs began to grow 
foft ; in which part, according to the relation of the 
patient, the hardnefs laft fhew’d itfelf. But as often 
as fhe expos’d herfelf to the frefh and cool air, the 
fkin, which had begun to grow foft and flexible, was 
obferv’d to grow again hard, and imperfpirable. It. 
was therefore thought proper, towards the end of 
September, to place her in a warm room, where the 
air was kept of an equal degree of heat. This had 
the defir’d effedt: For by flaying in her room, and 
from time to time repeating the vapour bath, and bv 
drinking, at her meals, a decodtion of the woods, the 
perforation was conftant and moderate; and the foft- 
-nefs of the fkin, which began in the legs, extended 
itfelf upwards, and was in fome degree perceptible m 
the arms. 
Five months were now elaps’d fince'the beginning 
of this treatment, when it was believ’d, that, without 
fome more efficacious medicine, capable, by its mo- 
tion, weight, figure, and divifibility, of circulating 
with the blood, and of penetrating into the mod re- 
mote and fubtil receffes of the veffiels, it would be 
impoffible to refolve and open the obftrudtions, which 
were form’d in the vafcular ftrudture of the fkin, and 
which, by hindering the fluids from circulating thro’ 
their refpedtive canals, had depriv’d them ©f that 
humidity, which nature hath made neceffary for their 
flexibility and foftnefs. It was therefore thought pro- 
4 E per 
