o 
» 
Scct.VIL Buiis^ Mucosa of the Human Body. 35 
in fome cafes has terminated fatally, or, to fave life, there has been a neccllity 
of having recourfe to the amputation of the limb (r). 
The burfu, in the fame way, have been unavoidably cut in many of the ex- 
periments of Dr Haller and others on the tendons, and have appeared to be 
infenfible. In fome difeafes, likewife, particularly in fcrophula, I have obfer- 
ved them fwelled without confiderable pain. In other difeafes, as in rheuma- 
tifm, where greater inflammation is excited, we may frequently obferve the 
burfe at the wrifts and ankles fwelled with great pain ; which is increafed by 
prefling on thefe parts without bending the joints. 
In the cafe I have defcribed, where many cartilaginous bodies were found 
within the burfa of the flexor pollicis longus, when the burfa came to be much 
fl:retched, and probably flightly inflamed, the patient felt confiderable pain 
when preflure was made on it ; juft as in the cafe of moveable cartilage with- 
in the knee, pain is often felt when the cartilage is lodged in certain places of 
the cavity of the joint. Generally the patient is eafieft when the cartilage can 
be felt at the fides of the joint ; but in fome cafes, as in one I heard mention- 
ed by Mr Middleton in 1756, he is eafieft when the cartilage is lodged under 
the patella and kept from getting out of that fituation by a bandage. 
After extracting the cartilaginous bodies from the burfa, a very fmall fe- 
ton was palTed through it ; as we took for granted, that if the puncture was 
allowed to clofe, the burfa would foon be again diftended with fluid. The 
patient complained little in the time of pafling the feton ; but three days 
thereafter we were obliged to withdraw it, on account of a violent inflamma- 
tion ; which, however, had the effed of creating the union of the oppofite fides 
of the burfa, and thereby accomplifhing a cure. 
(r) See Med. Eff. Vol. IV. Art. XX.^~-Reimarus DeFungo Articul, p. i$. 16.. Dr D. Monro 
on the Dropfy, p. lyo. 
/ 
