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half in length. He was attacked by feveral difeafes; but there were no marks of any other difeafe on the fkin, befides the finall.pox. He was now fix years of age: hi therto his food had been gardentuff, bacon, and potatoes; his height was about fifteen inches, and he did not weigh more than thirteen pounds; his perfon was agreeable and well proportioned; he was in perfect health, but there was little appearance of intellect. At this time the King of Poland ordered him to Luneville, gave him the name of Bebé, and kept him in his palace.

Bebé thus exchanged the condition of a peafant for the luxuries of a court; but he experienced no change either in his body or his mind. He had no fenfe of religion; was incapable of reafoning'; could learn neither mufic or dancing; was fufceptible, however, of paffions, particularly anger, jealoufy, et le defir ardent.-When fixteen years old, he was only twenty one inches in height; he was still healthy and well propor. tioned; but at this time, la puberté produifit fur les organes de la generation un trop grand effect; his ftrength began to decreafe, the fpine became crooked, the head fell forwards, the legs were enfeebled, one fhoulder-blade projected, the nofe was greatly enlarged; Bebé loft his gaiety, and became a valetudinarian; and yet his ftature was increafed four inches in the four fucceeding years. M. le Comte de Treffan, foretold that this dwarf would die of old age before he was thirty; and in effect fo it was, for at twenty-one, he was fhrunk and decrepit; and, at twenty-two, it was with diffi

culty he could make an hundred fteps fucceffively.-In his twentythird year, he was attacked with a flight fever, and fell into a kind of lethargy; he had fome intervals, but fpoke with great difficulty: For the five laft days, his ideas feemed to be more clear than when he was in health. This disease foon proved fatal. --At the time of his death, he measured thirty-three inches..

New experiments concerning the putrefaction of the juices and humours of animal bodies. By M. Jean Baptifte Gaber. Tranflated from the Memoirs of the Academy of Turin.

THE great Lord Chancellor

Bacon, who may be confidered as the reftorer of philofophy, was well apprifed of the great advantages which medical and natural knowledge would derive from a judicious hiftory of putrefaction founded upon experiment. I fhall not, however, attempt such a work in its utmost extent, nor even to furnish materials for fuch a work, with refpect to all fubjects, for fear my attention fhould be too much divided among a great variety of facts to be properly employed upon any. I fhall confine myself to the animal juices; and, indeed, my experiments have been made only on the most confiderable of them, or fuch, at least, as appear. ed to me to be the most proper to throw light upon the internal caufes of many diseases, upon their effects or fymptoms, and the indications of cure.

1. A man aged about fifty years, died of an inveterate jaundice with

out

out a fever; and his body having lain about 24 hours in a cold place in winter, was then opened. The Jarge inteftines were found infarct ed with afh-coloured excrements; and the fmall ones contained here and there a kind of yellow mucus; the gall bladder was diftended with a great excefs of bile, nearly black. Some of this bile I received in a glafs, from an aperture which I made in the vesicle, and found it not very fetid, but fomething glewy and tenacious. I put a fmall part of it into another veffel, and poured upon it a drop or two of aqua-fortis; the mixture immediately effervefeed, and feveral air bubbles rofe to the furface, with a hiffing which was audible when I brought my ear close to the veffel, and the mixture became fenfibly

warm.

2. I divided the remainder of the bile into three parts, which I placed in open glaffes, where they were expofed to different degrees of heat, which anfwered to the 35th, 25th, and 10th degrees of Reaumur's thermometer. At the end of twenty-four hours I mixed them with acids: The bile which had been placed in a degree of heat anfwering to 35, was moft diluted, and gave very flight indications of effervefcence; that which had stood in 24, was alfo diluted, and the acid produced a more fenfible effervefcence, but still very flight; and the bile, which having been expofed only to the temperament of the air, which might perhaps vary from seven to ten, preferved its tenacity, and fermented as forcibly as in Experim. 1. This experi ment was repeated a few hours af terwards, in the prefence of feveral

eminent perfons, and the effect was the fame.

3. Some blood which was taken from a vein of the dead body at the fame time, appeared to be of a yellowish red. Some of this blood being immediately mixed with spirits of nitre, effervefced, but much lefs than the bile. This mixture being left to digeft for fome hours, a yellow ferum feparated from the blood, and covered its whole furface; this blood being fubjected to the fame heat as the bile, and for the fame time in the ftove, appear. ed more difpofed to effervefcence than the bile; but this difpofition afterwards gradually diminished. 4. From thefe experiments the following obfervation may drawn.

1. That in difeafed bodies the humours may become fo alkalefcent as to effervefce with acids; for it is not probable, that the humours, on, which thefe experiments were made, effervefced in confequence of any alteration they had fuffered after the body was dead; it having been kept only 24 hours in a cold place, and in cold weather, where the fame humours taken from a healthy body would fcarce have acquired fuch a degree of alkalef. cence in many days.

2. That a very flight degree of putrefaction and fetor, which is not fufficient to produce alkalefcence out of the body, as appears by experiments related in the fequel, will produce alkalefcence in the body.

3. That alkali formed in the body, and contained in the bile, is extremely volatile, fince a heat of 25 degrees made the greateft part of it evaporate; and that the fame

alkali contained in the blood, be ing a little more entangled with other elements, is, confequently, lefs volatile; fince the fame degree of heat, continued for the fame time, diffipated but a very inconfiderable part of it.

4. This obfervation inclines me to fufpect, that, in other experiments upon putrefaction, in which fome operators affirm, that they have feen indubitable proofs of the prefence of an alkali; and others fay, they have fcarce difcovered any indications at all; the difference is the effect of different degrees of heat, the ftalenefs of the fubftance expofed to the heat, or the different volatility of the alkali, arifing from its cohesion with other principles.

5. The fame experiments that I made upon morbid bile, I made alfo upon healthy bile, upon blood, and upon ferum. I divided each of thefe liquors into three parts, which I feparately exposed to the three different degrees of heat mentioned above; and having fubmit. ted them feverally to the action of mineral acids, I found the bile moft difpofed to effervefce; and Baglivi has obferved, that it corrupts fooner than any other humour. I found that human bile was more difpofed to effervefce than the bile of an ox; that corrupt blood ferments with acids ftill flower, and that ferum ferments flower than blood. In all these

experiments, the effervefcence was attended with the fame phænomena that are related, (Par. 1.) Putrefcent humours not only effervefce with mineral acids, but with very weak diftilled vinegar. The feveral portions of thefe humours that have been expofed to artificial heat, become fetid, and effervefce fooneft, and fooneft arrive at the laft ftage of fermentation. When this happens, the fermentation ceafes*, though the heat is continued; and the fmell, which till then is intolerably fetid, becomes herbaceous, and is not difagree. ablet. The fetor manifefts itself fooner, and lafts longer, than the alkalefcence.

6. To put the effervefcence of putrefcent humours with mineral acids beyond a doubt, I must now obferve, that the aqua-fortis which I ufed in my experiments was very weak, and fuch as produced no motion in common water; and this effervefcence is fo far from being the effect of concentering the acidst, that, in my opinion, the acids may be fo concentered as to render the effervefcence lefs, principally because the animal humours refift effervefcence, in proportion as they unite with acids fpeedily and intimately; for when I made ufe of diftilled vinegar, not ftrong enough to coagulate the putrefcent humours, I obferved that the effervefcence was equally violent, and I have feen diftilled vinegar ope

rate

7. When I was reading Dr. Pringle's experiments upon this fubject, I obferved that he fometimes expofed putrefcent fubftances to an heat equal to the 100th degree of Farenheit's thermometer*, which is nearly the fame with the 30th degree of Reaumur's.-Now, it is certain, that at this degree of heat, animal humours very foon become putrid; but then they lofe as foon the alkalefcence which they derive from putrefaction, if this degree of heat is continued; fo that as the corrupting humours manifeft their alkalefcent quality for a very fhort time only, it might eafily happen that no fign of alkalefcence appeared in this experiment, if it was not made in the critical moment: I mean, if he examined the putrefcent humours a little before the alkali was formed, or a little after it had evaporated. And fuppofing the experiment to have been critically made, ftill, as the ambient heat would have caufed the alkali to evaporate almoft entirely as foon as it was formed, Dr. Pringle would have perceived very flight tokens of effervefcence, though with a lefs degree of heat, they would have been confiderable: confequently, if that ingenious and accurate obferver had made his experiments with a degree of heat juft equal to that with which I made mine, the refult, cætaris paribus, would have been the fame.

8. I received fome blood as it iffued from the arm in a vial; and having diffolved it, or broken its

texture, by continual agitation, I left it to putrify. I obferved that its fine florid red colour infenfibly faded to a blackish brown; but this change did not take place in the whole mafs at the fame time; it began at the furface, and gradu. ally defcended.

9. Blood in this ftate does not putrify fo foon, nor fo foon give figns of alkalefcence, as the red part feparated from the ferum, becaufe the ferum putirfies more flowly than any other animal hu mour.

10. After having difcovered, by the foregoing experiments, that the alkali flies off with a flight de gree of heat, I was defirous to try if I could recover and retain it. I therefore put into an alembic of glafs, fome ferum which had feparated from blood taken a few hours before from a feverish patient, and I placed it in a degree of heat between 25 and 28 of Reaumur's fcale: I paffed the neck of the alembic through a hole which was made for that purpose, in the wooden covering of the flove, that the head of it might be in the fame temperament with the air of the chamber, which was equal to about the roth degree of the fame fcale, and that the exhaling vapour might condenfe there into liquor: to the fpout of the head of the alembic, I luted a bottle as a receiver, and at the end of every two days I had about two drachms of this diftilled liquor, upon which I poured acids, with different effects. That part which came over firft, had the smell and taste of ferum; it was clear and transparent,

and did not effervefce either with acids or alkalies. The next portion was flightly fetid, but nearly of the fame talte and tranfparency as the first; the third differed little from the fecond; but the fourth was extremely fetid, foul, opake, and of a pale colour; it did not, however, effervefce, but acids flightly tinged it with red; the fifth, which came over after the tenth day, and was clear, effervefced with acids, and produced a hiffing which became fenfible when the ear was brought clofe to the veffel: it alfo produced bubbles and froth: the fixth portion was equally limpid, but effervefced more flightly, and when I perceived that nothing more would come over with this degree of heat, I broke the alembic to examine the refiduum: I found it a viscous cruft, refembling wax, of a reddish colour, and extremely fetid, but the affufion of acids produced not the leaft figns of effervefcence. This experiment, I thought, proved to de. monftration, that alkali evaporates with a degree of heat from 25 to 28; that being collected in a receiver, it will effervefce, and that the refiduum is a mafs extremely fetid, wholly deftitute of alkali, and, confequently, no effervefcence is to be expected by pouring acids upon it.

11. Some blood which I kept in a glafs veffel clofe ftopped, retained its alkalefcence a long time, though it was expofed to a degree of heat equal to 25; but upon unftopping the veffel, it flew off with, great violence, in a vapour extremely fetid. The explofion was probably caused by the expanfion of the air, in confequence of the putrefaction; and this experiment fhews VOL. X.

why the humours that are contained in the veffels of the human body ~ become alkalefcent while they are yet fcarce fetid, at the fame time that drawn from the body, and kept in open veffels, they became fetid before they give figns of alkalefcence. As foon as they begin to form alkali in the véffels, the alkali is retained, but as it exhales from a veffel expofed to the air, a greater quantity must be formed than exhales, before it can become fenfible.

12. As ferum fubjected to the experiment in a found ftate did not give up its alkali in less than ten days, it may be fairly inferred that it does not in lefs time become corrupt, it being certain, in the first place, that humours corrupt flowly in a clofed veffel; and, in the fecond place, that of all humours, the ferum continues longest uncorrupt.

I did not doubt, but that ferum, already corrupt, would, in diftillation, give up its alkali immediately, I therefore made the fame experiments upon corrupt ferum, that I had made upon found: My principal view was to determine, exactly, the time when the alkali would begin to fly off, and after having collected the diftilled liquor, to try whether it would change the blue vegetable colour of violets to a green, which the flownefs of the preceding experiment had prevented me from attempting. I took for this purpose fome blood in fuch a ftate of pu trefcence as to effervefce with acids, and having put it into a glafs alembic, I expofed it to the fame degree of heat with the fame precautions and apparatus as in the preceding experiments. The firtt day I collected two drachms of the

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