taken after it; and the next day he found her pains continued, which now appeared like a tenesmus; though so violent, as to prevent her rest all that night. He then ordered her a repetition of the clyster and paregoric; and the next day, finding her in great pain, and still without any rest, and beginning to be a little feverish, he ordered 8 oz. of blood to be taken away, and continued the paregoric, which he likewise ordered her to repeat as she found occasion; from the use of which she sometimes rested tolerably well; but as the power of the opiate went off, her pains always returned.

Several days having now passed without any alteration, he again examined her, and found the os tincæ still as close as ever; but, on à stricter inquiry, he felt Comething, which seemed to be the head of a child fluctuating in its membranes.

He told her his thoughts of her case, and that it was not in his power to help her; but that nature must take its course, or at least point out a method how to act. She seemed very much surprised at his opinion, and asked, if ever he had met with such a case before? He told her, he had been engaged in the practice of midwifery upwards of 20 years; in all which time he had never met with a case of the like nature: being positive he felt the head of a child, but could not absolutely determine whether it was in the uterus or extra uterum.

He then told her, he would desire the favour of Dr. Bamber to give her a visit; which he did; and the next day they went together; when, on examination, he confirmed what he had before asserted; but seemed more inclinable to believe the child was extra uterum. Indeed he proceeded in his inquiry at that time further than before, having passed his finger into the anus, where he could distinguish the head more plainly. They then both left her, after having ordered her to repeat the paregoric, when in more pain than ordinary, and once in 2 or 3 days to take a gentle lenitive purge, to keep her body soluble; because the continual use of opiates would naturally tie her up.

In this manner she went on for about 3 weeks longer; when he waited on Dr. Nichols, and desired the same favour of him as he had before asked of Dr. Bamber, that he might have his opinion also of a case which appeared so very singular. The next day they went together; and when they came, he desired he would examine her, which he did; and after having heard all her complaints, said, he was of opinion, that there was some abscess forming in, or in contact with, the uterus, which very likely in a little time would break and discharge itself; but as, at that time, nothing of a child could be perceived by the touch, so he was obliged to submit that to the credit of his opinion, who had before frequently felt it.

Thus she continued for about a fortnight after this visit; when, calling on her one day, she told him, she was much easier than she had been; and that someQ

VOL IX.

thing came constantly draining away by the anus, of a very offensive smell, which on examination appeared to be true pus. He now began to think Dr. Nichols's opinion of her case the most eligible, and the rather, as it was not inconsistent with his own sentiments, that there had been a child; which, being now dead, might have given occasion for the forming such an abscess.

In this state of violent pain she continued to the time of her death, which happened on the 28th of January, being 13 weeks from the first of her illness; when, by her particular desire, he opened her. After having divided the integuments of the abdomen, every thing, at first view, appeared in a healthy state. On turning aside the intestines, he found the uterus sound and perfect, and of a size common to women who have had children; but, in the place of the right Fallopian tube, there appeared a large tumour, formed by the expansion of the tube extending itself from the os ilium towards the extremity of the sacrum. Opening it, he discovered a mass of fetid pus, in which the bones of a fœtus, of about 5 or 6 months old, were buried. These bones were, for the most part, wholly divested of their flesh; so that the edges of the thin bones must, of necessity, cut and irritate from every motion of the body. The pus had made its way through the rectum, in which there was a small passage a little above the sphincter.

On examining the bones, after having washed them in water, a new matter of surprise appeared; viz. the inferior jaw was consolidated with the os temporis and superior maxilla; and 6 of the ribs, with their correspondent vertebræ, were united into one bone,

Concerning a Rotatory Motion of Glass Tubes about their Axes, when placed in a certain Manner before the Fire. By the Rev. Granville Wheler, F. R.Ş. N° 476, p. 341.

About 4 years before, Mr. Charles Orme, of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, acquainted Mr. W. that in drying the glass tubes for his diagonal barometers, he had observed a rotatory motion about their axes, and at the same time a progressive one towards the fire. And a little above a year since, Mr. W. making some stay at Ashby, he went to see the experiment, which answered fully to the description: the tubes, which were about 4 feet long, and half an inch over, moving at 6 or 8 inches distance from the fire, not only progressively, and about their axes along the side-wall they leaned against, but along the front-wall of the chimney, which made an obtuse angle with the other; so that they seemed to move up hill, and against their weight.

Surprised at this, he thought the case deserved a little further examination; and proposed placing 2 tubes horizontally, parallel to each other, and at right angles to the face of the fire, to be supporters to a third, which was to be placed upon them parallel to the fire. They did so, and with pleasure observed the supported

tube turn about its axis, and move on towards the fire in such a manner, as made him still less inclined to think either of the motions owing to the draught of the. fire, and certainly not to the whole weight of the moving tube; a fine spirit-level informing them that the supporting tubes leaned from the fire; so that the motion was a little up-hill.

This success determined him to go on further; and, furnishing himself with tubes of several lengths and thicknesses, he made several trials; and found, that with a moderate fire the experiment succeeded best, when the supported tube was about 20 or 22 inches long, the diameter about of an inch, and had in each end a pretty strong pin, fixed in cork, for an axe to roll with upon the supporting tubes; which, to lessen the contact, had nearly the same diameter with the moving one. Under these circumstances the tube would begin to move at 18 inches distance from the fire; and continue to do so, with little intervals, till it touched the bars; and moved much in the same manner, when a little ball of cork, an inch or more in diameter, was fixed in the middle of it. But what surprised him still more, and seemed to take off the objection of the draught of the chimney, was, letting it once stay a little while against the bars, its still continuing its motion about its axis in the same direction.

sup

This put him on making little rings of wire, to fix on and move along the porting tubes, so as to stop the moving tube at any distance from the fire. Stopped with these, the motion of the tube about its axis still continued. ***,

Desirous to try what would be the effect in or near an upright position, he made the pin at one end of the tube rest on a China plate, that at the other turn in a silver socket (that carried his pencil) fixed in a horizontal arm of wood, but so as he could slip it up and down, to adapt it to the length of the tube. Here he found, that if the tubes leaned to his right hand, the motion was from east to west; but if they leaned to his left, the motion was from west to east; and the nearer he could get to the perfectly upright position, the less the motion seemed to be either way.

He now placed the tube horizontally on a glass plane, a large fragment of a coach-side window glass. The tube, instead of moving towards the fire, moved from it, and about its axis, in a contrary direction to what it had done before. Observing that this glass plane was broader at one end than the other, and that the rotation backwards was more sensible when the narrower end was towards the fire, he placed a triangular piece of the same glass with its vertex towards the fire nearly horizontal, but rather rising from the fire; so that its base was a little higher than its vertex; and on it a tube of glass, about 22 inches long, and of an inch diameter, near the vertex and the fire. This tube receded from the fire, moving about its axis till it came to the distance of 8 inches; which is 4 inches

more than it receded the day before on the same piece of coach-glass, before it was broke into this triangular form.

He was naturally led now to make use of 2 supporting tubes, instead of the triangular glass plane. These were about 18 inches long each, and of am inch in diameter, and placed parallel to each other at the distance of about 2 inches, so as to support the moving tube near the middle of it. When very nearly horizontal by the level, the supported tube moved from the fire about its axis to the distance of 13 inches: when the supporters were a little raised at their remote ends, so as manifestly by the level to descend towards the fire, it receded to the distance of 10 inches, moving as before about its axis; but in this latter case the fire had declined a good deal; otherwise probably the tube would have receded farther though up-hill.

The next day, the same tube, when the same supporting tubes were 8 inches distant from each other, receded nearly as before: when 124 inches from each other, it stood still; and when removed to the distance of 16 inches, the supported tube very manifestly changed its motion, and went towards the fire; as it did afterwards, when the inclination of the supporting tubes was altered, so as to ascend towards the fire.

When the tube had 4 others under it, all supporting, one near each extremity, and one on each side of its centre, no motion at all was perceived; and when 2 of them on the same side of the centre were taken away, the supported tube moved into an oblique situation with regard to the fire, the unsupported half receding from the fire. So that on the whole, it appears sufficiently plain, that the stream of air up the chimney is not the cause of the rotation.

Mr. W. next made an experiment or two, to show that the motion is not owing to any attraction or repulsion in the tubes. He suspended two fragments of small tubes,, 8 inches long, and about of an inch in diameter, near the fire, from 2 pins, by blue silk lines, which had each a loop at one end, were tied at the other to the top of the tubes, and hindered from slipping off by a little sealing-wax. The tubes came together at the upper end, and receded manifestly from each other at the lower, appearing to be in a state of attraction above, and a state of repulsion below: but suspecting this to be owing to the sealing-wax, which soon began to melt, he scraped it off both, leaving only as little as was possible, to hinder the silks from slipping. The consequence then was, they came together at the lower ends, and very near so at the upper; and when suspended from one pin, so that the loops of the silks touched each other, the tubes seemed equally close all the way down, without any appearance either of attraction or repulsion. But imagining still that a repulsive power in the heated supporting tubes, 'when placed nearly together, might possibly be the occasion of the receding of the upper tube at contact with them. To put the matter out of all doubt, he wet the 3

very

tubes all over; yet the regressive and rotatory motion was still manifest, with little, if any difference; not more than might be well accounted for, from the increase of resistance by wetting.

These 2 experiments fully convinced him, that neither attraction nor repulsion would be of any assistance in solving the rotation. On considering therefore the matter further, he found nothing was wanting, but that the moving tube should swell towards the fire; and indeed he thought he could perceive such a swelling in Mr. Orme's long tube of 44 feet, which he saw first placed near a good fire in the manner before described. For, allowing such a swelling, gravity must draw' the tube down, when supported near its extremities horizontally; and a fresh part being exposed to the fire, and swelling out again, must fall down again, and so on successively; which is, in other words, a rotatory motion towards the fire.

When the supporting tubes are brought near each other, as well as near the centre of the supported tube, then the parts hanging over on each side, being larger than the part which lies between the supporters, will, by their weight, draw downwards, and consequently force the middle part, resting on its two fulcra, upwards; and being less advanced towards the fire, as being less heated, will, by their oblique situation, draw the middle part backward also from the fire: which effects, being successive, will exhibit a rotatory regressive motion, quite contrary to what the tube had when supported near its extremities: and when a single tube lies inclining opposite to the fire, either to the right-hand or the left, out of a plane perpendicular to the surface of the fire, gravity will not permit the curved part to rest, but draw it down, till it coincides with a plane perpendicular to the horizon; and consequently as new curves are generated, new motions will be so too; that is, the tube will be made to move about its axis; but with this difference, when the tube inclines to the right-hand, the motion about the axis will be from east to west; when to the left-hand, from west to east. The justness of this reasoning is made manifest with a very little trouble; only bending a wire, and supporting it first near its extremities, then near its centre on each side, afterwards inclining it to the right, and then to the left; the bending in every case representing the curved part of the tube next the fire. And that this solution is the true one, seems further probable from hence, that when 4 supporters were made use of, one at each extremity, and two near the middle, there was no motion at all either backward or forward. Now is it of any service to object here, that the increase of contact hinders the motion?, because, on the plane of glass, so large as to have a much greater contact with the tube, both a rotatory and regressive motion was manifest.