the 2d and 3d stomach, or the omasum, as also the fourth stomach or abomasum, were almost empty, but looked well; the liver was firm, well-coloured, and sound, except a few scirrhous knobs about the size of nutmegs: the gall bladder was exceedingly large, and full of very fluid gall; the guts were inflamed in many places, the colon and cæcum livid: he had the curiosity to have them measured; from the anus to the insertion of the cæcum, there were 12 yards (the cæcum was an ell long), and from the cæcum to the pylorus, there were 52 yards. The midriff was much swelled and inflamed: the lungs were swelled, inflamed, adhered in some places to the pleura, and almost wholly covered with bladders of water: there was no appearance of any inflammation on the pleura, or in either the internal or external intercostal muscles: the windpipe was inflamed greatly throughout its whole course, especially its inside; but the gullet, which lay so near it, was not in the least inflamed: the heart was of its natural size, the pericardium full of very fluid blood, probably from the bursting of some branch of the coronary artery, caused by the extraordinary accumulation of blood in the right ventricle; for the vena cava, and right ventricle of the heart, were turgid, and full of black coagulated blood, though this cow had been dead but 12 or 14 hours; the lungs were likewise turgid with blood, but little or none was found in the left ventricle or aorta; the obstruction seemed to have been so great in the lungs, that very little blood could pass through them from the right to the left ventricle of the heart, and therefore evidently evinces the existence of a confirmed peripneumony. All the membranes lining the nostrils, and the spongy bones there, were quite turgid with blood, and in the highest state of inflammation. The greater and less brain looked fair and well, seeming no way distempered. Dr. M. had not seen, in any cows he had examined, any cutaneous sores or exulcerations, nothing like the boils, carbuncles, &c. described by authors as the constant concomitants of the plague in men: nor does there seem to be any attempt of nature to fling off the distemper by any internal imposthumation, or discharge, unless by the running at the nose, and by the bilious stools, or bilious urine. The few, which had recovered, had been such as had been kept within doors very warm, had been blooded once, twice, or oftner, had had warm mashes of malt and bran given them, and warm drenches of warm herbs, such as rosemary, wormwood, and ground-ivy, with honey or treacle, and had neither purged at all, or but little; and when they had not purged at all, their urine had been observed to be as high coloured as Porter's beer. He was informed, by the farriers and cowleeches, that a horse or a cow would bear to have near 2 gallons of blood taken away without fainting. One cow he had seen, within about a month or six weeks of her calving-time, was taken with the running at the nose, and shortness of breath; the owner of her immedi ately took away out of the neck 5 quarts of blood by measure, and gave her a warm mash of malt once in 6 or 8 hours: next day he cut her tail, and let her bleed 2 hours; the day after he took away 2 quarts from under the tongue, and so continued bleeding her, at 14 or 15 hours distance, for 7 times. She did not purge at all; her urine was as high-coloured as coffee at first, but grew paler and paler every time of bleeding: she soon recovered, afterwards ate heartily, looked brisk, and had not slunk her calf. The concern the cow-keepers were under for the loss of their substance, the various methods offered to them, and their want of judgment either to chuse the most rational, or their want of accuracy in making experiments, and following directions, were quite discouraging, which was the reason why none of them have pursued any regimen so steadily as to give us an opportunity of making conclusions from it: indeed several owned that they were quite bewildered, not knowing which way to turn themselves, or whose advice to follow, what one said being quite contrary to the directions given by another. Some to whom he had given his directions had blooded once, had given the purge once, but had not given the oily drench; or had given this once, and had not repeated it; others had given the chalky drench once, and not repeated it; and had not followed the other parts of his instructions; so that he was sorry to find that he could have no satisfactory experiments made: yet, as the state of the disease seemed so evidently to be a peripneumony, or inflammation of the lungs, windpipe, and nostrils, attended with a redundance of gall, he could not forbear urging to the public the following method. "Give to all cows in general, while well, 4 oz. or 1 oz. (according to the size of the cow) of crocus metallorum. As soon as a cow falls off her meat, give her another dose of crocus metallorum; and give her warm mashes of malt, bran, &c. When she runs at the nose, lay a bag of malt-meal, wetted with boiling water, on her forehead and nose, tying it to her horns morning and evening; pour warm vinegar and salt into the nostrils: if a short cough, or difficulty of breathing, come on, bleed her one quart twice a day, for 3 or 4 days, and 6 hours give the oily drench: if a purging come on, give another dose of the crocus metallorum; if it continue, give the chalky drench every 6 hours, and if it do not abate in 24 hours, inject the same mixture by way of clyster; and if the husky cough continue with the purging, give the oily drench one 3 hours, and the chalky drench the next 3 hours.' every Most of the cows, which have recovered from this distemper, recover their milk again, as their appetites mend; but they are observed to have scabby eruptions come out in their groins and axillæ, that itch much; for a cow will stand still, hold out her leg, and show signs of great pleasure, when a man scratches these pustules or scabs for her. He was informed, that some cow-leeches had given coloquintida and salt of tartar, each 1 oz., in a quart of warm ale; but he imagined it must be too griping a purge, and improper where the guts are inflamed. Indeed he had not heard of any cows recovering which took it. As for the cause of this distemper, he was still at a loss: he thought it could not be owing to the food, because the cows which had it first in Essex ate only grass, turnips, and hay or straw; the cows about London ate, some, grass; all grains and hay, some, little or no grass, but lived chiefly on grains, turnips, off-falls from the garden-grounds, and hay. He was in doubt as to the air; the spring and summer were very wet, and the ground very damp; the autumn was very dry and cold; the beginning of winter very damp and cold. The cows in Essex had the distemper in summer; it first began about London in autumn: it had spread itself equally among cows which had lain in the fields a-nights, and those which stood in stables or sheds: it spread itself in Essex, at first into such farms where they bought in strange calves, or lean cows, at market, which they did not know where they came from; but most probably from the hundreds where the disease first broke out; but how it got thither, whether by importing any cattle from Flanders, he knew not; for surely there is too wide a tract of sea for any infectious miasmata to be wafted over to that part of the country by the winds! This was certain, the viscera con cerned in respiration are the parts chiefly affected. Its spreading in England had been progressive; and therefore one may reasonably think it was not constitutional in the air, for then it ought to be universal every where; but that it was contagious, and propagated by infected cows being mixed with well cows: therefore the not buying in calves, or strange beasts, but every farmer keeping his herd by itself, must be a great means of preventing the propagation of it: and housing the cows a-nights might be a proper preservative against it. An Account of the Weaver's Alarm, vulgo Larum. By Mr. Arderon.. Nothing is more true, than that necessity is the mother of invention; among the many instances of which, the useful contrivance described below may serve as one remarkable instance. This little apparatus goes commonly by the name of the weaver's larum, from its being chiefly or originally made use of by persons employed in that trade, who have frequently occasion to rise very early to their work: and Norwich may boast of its first appearance there, though the inventor's name be not known. However, the simplicity of the thing itself, and the singular service it may be of to multitudes of people, render it not undeserving notice. The materials necessary to compose this little time-piece or monitor, are no thing more than a small candle, of 14 or 15 inches in length, a piece of thread. or packthread, a graduated board, and a common stone, or any other ponderous body: but the drawing here added, fig. 1, pl. 4, will fully explain it. A represents a board, which hangs commonly against a wall, divided and figured according to the size of the candle made use of.* B, a little shelf to place the candle on. cc, a thread or packthread, tied fast at D, and hanging over a pulley. at E, to which a weight is hung at F. By sliding the spring of the candlestic G, up or down, as occasion requires, the flame of the candle is raised as many hours above the thread as the person that adjusts it designs to lie before he is called up. At the desired hour the candle burns the thread in two, the weight falls, and by its noise seldom fails to wake the person. But if the man, who makes use of this contrivance, happens to be of a more than commonly sleepy disposition, in such a case another thread is tied to that part of the line cc which is next the pulley, and its other end is twisted round the thumb or wrist of the sleepy person; by which, when the candle burns the line, and the weight falls, he receives such a sudden pull as can hardly fail to wake him; as the drawing will easily explain. If the line for a few inches on each side of the candle be wire, with a short thread only just in the middle where the candle is placed, there can be no danger of doing mischief by the fire running along the line.. And thus may the poorest mechanic provide himself with a useful servant at a very small expence. Of some Human Bones, Incrusted with Stone, now in the Villa Ludovisia at Rome. Communicated to the R. S. by the President, Martin Folkes, Esq. N° 477, p. 557. Something like the body of a petrified man being mentioned by several authors, as preserved in the Villa Ludovisia at Rome, and the same having been lately referred to in a discourse read before this Society; he thought that a drawing o. that curiosity, which he procured at Rome might possibly deserve the notice of the gentlemen, especially, as it will hence appear, that the several accounts hitherto given of it are not very accurate, or at the best convey but a very imperfect idea of the truth.. The following passage occurs in the journal-book of the Society, for April 17, 1689. "Mr. Henshaw related, that he had seen, in the Villa Ludovisia at Rome, the body of a man incrusted with a sort of a white marble or alabaster case, supposed to have been a man frozen in the alps, and after, in long process of time, this incrustation to have grown upon him; and that one of his arms was. broken off, purposely to show that it was no imposition." * For want of such a board a common ruler is frequently used, to set the number of hours between the flame of the candle and the thread.-Orig. Mr. Richard Lassels, in his Travels to Italy, printed at Paris in 1670, p. 180, tells us, that in the lesser Casina, belonging to the Ludovisian villa, he saw, "in a large square box lined with velvet, the body of a petrified man, that is, à man turned into a stone; one piece of the leg (broken off to assure an embassa dor doubting of the verity of the thing) showed plainly both the bone and the stone crusted over it. The head and the other parts lie jumbled up together in "Spectatur Father Kircher says, in his Mundus Subterraneus, 1. viii. ch. 2. et hic Romæ in horti Ludovisiani palatiò, corpus humanum totum in saxum conversum, ossibus adhuc integris, et lapideo cortice obductis." And in the following page he gives an imperfect sketch of the same thing, under the title of "Sceleton humani corporis in saxum conversum, ex palatio Pinciano principis Ludovisii." But the truth is, there is nothing like the body of a man, but only a cluster of disjointed bones, cemented together by the same matter that incrusts them over. Mr. Misson in his Travels has more truly described them, when he says, that "in the same room they show a small heap of bones, said to be the skeleton of a petrified man; which is a mistake, for the bones themselves are not petrified, but there has gathered about them a sort of candied crust, or stony incrustation, which has made them pass for being of real stone." Mr. Wright also, in his late observations made in travelling through Italy, &c. has taken notice, that in the Villa Ludovisia "they showed some bones of a human body all crusted over with a petrified substance." When Mr. F. was at Rome in the year 1734, he saw this curiosity, which is still preserved in the same casina of the Ludovisian gardens; and in the very square box lined with velvet, mentioned by Mr. Lassels, and represented by father Kircher. The stony substance that joins the bones together, is of a whitish colour, and the same as that which incrusts the bones themselves: small fractures in several places discover the natural bones; and the size of the whole mass may be judged of, by considering the skull, which is of the common dimensions, as a scale to the other parts. END OF THE FORTY-THIRD VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL. Description of a Water-wheel for Mills. And concerning the Bark preventing catching Cold. By Mr. Wm. Arderon, F.R.S. N° 478, p. 1. Vol. XLIV. Anno 1746. Mr. Philip Williams, chief engineer to our water-works at Norwich, a man of great ingenuity, who, in his time, has been author of many curious inventions, has contrived lately a machine for the raising of water to supply cities and |