drain marshy grounds, or other useful purposes, where no head of water can be procured, and the current runs very slowly: circumstances which render most other engines useless.

The axis of the first mover is cut into the form of an hexangular prism, of dimensions suitable to the force required, as is represented by the letter a, fig. 2, pl. 4. Into this, several sets of holes are mortised, as BBB. These are intended to receive different sets of sails made of iron plates, one of which is represented at c; all which sails are weathered in the same manner as those designed for windmills; only in these, the extremity of their ends stands parallel to the planes of each end of the axis; viz. those ends which are farthest from the centre. This hexangular axis, when employed, must be placed parallel to the moving stream, and may lie even with its surface: but the engine will act most vigorously, when it and all the sails employed are entirely under water, as is easy to comprehend.

Each set of the sails before described contains 6 in number, and are so contrived as to be put in and taken out at pleasure. Whence it follows, that when a single set of sails is made use of, the engine produces a single effect; when 2 sets, a double; and so on, till the desired momentum is acquired, with the same quantity of running water, provided there be room, to fix a sufficient number of sails.

It is further to be observed, that when this engine is placed with its sails, made and weathered as above directed, they will move with equal velocity, even supposing the current should change its course, and come upon them in a quite contrary direction; as the case really happens in rivers where the tide ebbs and flows; where most other engines yet invented are of little use.

About 6 weeks ago a model of this engine was tried. It was fixed in our river, in a place where the water, moved only 27 feet in 20 seconds; in which, time the first mover made 6 revolutions. Its diameter was no more than 2 feet 2 inches; yet it would have lifted 14 pounds 2 yards high in the above-mentioned time, had not a misfortune happened to its case, which made it not perform quite so much.

It appeared somewhat extraordinary, that the circumference of its first moyer, viz. any determined part of it, passed through a space of 42 feet in 20 seconds; which is nearly twice as fast as the motion of the water: and as the momentum will be in proportion to the number of the sets of sails that are employed, its force is capable of being greatly augmented with the same quantity of water: a thing not to be admitted without sufficient experiment, but what seems extremely plain in theory, and what probably will answer when brought to practice. This engine, when once seen, requires little skill for constructing it, is made at a small expence, and easily kept in repair.

Dr. Salter, one of the prebends of Norwich cathedral, writes, in a letter to Mr. Arderon, that, on seeing Mr. Baker's communication of the use of the jelley, or rather rob, of black currants in curing sore throats, Trans. N° 459, he thought it might be of service to take notice of the following effect of the Jesuit's Bark: the Doctor used to be subject easily to take cold, and in consequence to be subject to have a sore throat to a very great degree; but the last time, above 15 years ago, after his recovery, he was advised by Sir Benj. Wrench, to take 2 oz. of the bark, after due preparation by bleeding, or purging, or both, when he was altogether without complaint, every spring and fall. This he said would more effectually guard him against taking cold, which he has found so far to answer, that he is now able to go 500 miles with less hazard of cold, than he could go 20 before; and he has never since had what he can strictly call a sore throat.

A third Account of the Distemper among the Cows. By C. Mortimer, M.D. Fell. of the Royal Coll. of Physicians, and Secr. R. S. N° 478, p. 4. During the Christmas holidays Dr. M. sent for some milk, as usual, to the Vineyard in St. James's Park, none of the cows belonging to that house having as yet caught the distemper, though 3 had already died in the Park: part of the milk was used for chocolate, and part was set by for cream for the next morning. The milk had a rank sourish smell and taste, like rank butter: the cream next morning was more so; they boiled the milk, which did not curdle; so they used the cream with tea, though the taste was not very agreeable. The boiled milk curdled in the tea; neither any of Dr. M.'s family, nor a friend who drank of it, found any inconvenience from it. On sending the morning following for more milk, the people refused selling any, saying one cow was taken ill, and another was nearly dry. This was the cow whose milk Dr. M. had had, and she died in 48 hours. Next day another fell ill, and was knocked on the head by the public officer, in about 48 hours after her being seized. Dr. M. had the curiosity to see this cow opened, which was done the next day but one. The inflammation in general in this creature was greater than what he had before seen any of those which died of the distemper; this cow had been blooded about 3 weeks before she was taken, and once as soon as taken: the caul was greatly

in

See the 1st and 2d account at p. 171 and p. 177 of this abridged volume.

+ Dr. M. sent for some of the milk of the sick cow, after she had been about 12 hours ill: they could not get above 2 oz. which was as thick as cream, and yellow like cheese: it curdled, being put into bohea tea next morning. In about 3 days keeping, it turned of itself into a substance like cream cheese, without separating any serum. In 8 days it dried away to a hard cheesy substance, and in 14 days became quite dry, like the rind of Gloucester cheese; it smelt like rank butter at first but never corrupted or stunk.-Orig.

inflamed, the paunch inflamed, and the inner coat peeled off, especially that of the (abomasum) faidle; the guts were all inflamed; the liver was much inflamed in some parts, in others was turned livid; the gall-bladder was very large, and the gall very liquid; the lungs adhered, in many places, to the pleura, were greatly inflamed, and turgid with blood, and were in many places quite black; he did not find any of the watery bladders on the surface of these, as he did on all the others he had seen opened.

Here is an instance of the most surprisingly quick progress of this distemper, and to such a violent degree, that he does not think it in the power of medicines to have prevented death; but he thinks this case is still a further confirmation of the necessity of plentiful bleeding as soon as a beast falls sick, especially if shortness of breath ensues: this cow was not come to the stage of purging.

From the distemper getting into the Park, he thinks there is reason to conclude it cannot arise solely from any fault in the food, because the pasture is always good there, and, from the great number of horses, always kept low; and the soil never dunged or manured; and the cows have plenty of hay in winter. How it got into the Park is very strange; there having been no fresh cows brought in there since Welsh fair in August. And this is further very observable, that though this distemper seems so very infectious among the cow-kind, yet he did not hear that any of the deer had fallen ill; which is much more likely to happen to them than to the horses, because they chew the cud, these do not. He therefore suggests whether it would not be the most likely means to put a stop to the spreading of the distemper, to forbid any cows or calves being brought to market to be sold alive, or that any farmers should buy in any fresh cattle for 6 months, or till it is found, that the distemper is entirely ceased; and that all fat cattle should be kept carefully separated from the cows and calves, and that under severe penalties.

An Appendix to the foregoing paper.-On reading the foregoing paper, some gentlemen present favoured the company with the following information and remarks.

Mr. Theobalds, a worthy member of the Society, and a diligent observer of remarkable occurrences, informed the gentlemen present, that the first infection of this dreadful distemper among the cow-kind was brought over from Holland, in April 1745, by means of 2 white calves, which farmer at Poplar, near London, sent for, in order to mix the breed, and that the infection was got to Maidenhead in Berkshire, by 2 cows brought out of Essex, and sold at the fair there; that there was observable a very disagreeable smell in the clothes of persons, who had been very conversant with sick cows; and that the infection had been propagated by means of sheep, who, it is presumed, carried it in their wool. On the mention of this scent in clothes, Dr. M. remarked, that Dr. Lobb, in his late book, intitled, "Letters relating to the Plague, and other contagious Distempers, London 1745, in 8vo, in his letter to John Milner, Esq. p. 388," recommends to persons conversant about sick cows to wear a linen garment, over their other clothes, wetted with a mixture of salt and vinegar; and, p. 383, he gives many prudent useful rules to farmers for the management of their sick cattle.

Dr. Parsons, another ingenious Fellow of the Society, said, that the cattle in the high grounds about Hampstead, Highgate, Millhill, and Hembdon, had hitherto remained free from the infection; but that it had spread all about in the lower grounds.

Mr. Hoffman, a learned Danish gentleman present at this meeting, said, this infection was first carried into Denmark by raw hides of cattle dead of this distemper, rubbed with wood ashes, in order to preserve them fit for tauning, which were brought from Flanders; that some cows sickened in a few days after the unpacking of these hides in Denunark; and that they have lost above 50,000 head of cattle in that kingdom.

At another meeting, Mr. Collinson, a member greatly deserving of the Society, acquainted the company present, that a farmer in Essex, who had the distemper among his cows, invited a neighbouring farmer to come and assist him in giving drenches to some of his sick cattle; the good natured man went accordingly, and spent best part of the day with his neighbour, to lend him his help in his distress, little dreaming of what ill consequence this friendly act was about to prove to himself; for, being so many hours conversant with the diseased cows, so much of the infectious effluvia adhered to his clothes, that as he was walking home, which was about a mile and half, his way lying through a field in which several of his own cows were feeding, he no sooner entered the field but the cattle all left off their grazing, ran to the farther end of the field snorting and flinging up their noses, showing the greatest uneasiness at their master's approach, and endeavouring as much as possible to avoid him, as though they smelt something very disagreeable; and so indeed it proved to them, for the very next day many of them fell sick, and died in a few days.

A certain cow-keeper in Tothill-fields, Westminster, had 30 cows, out of which number 4 only have survived, 2 never took the infection, 1 had it and recovered; and he said, that one had the distemper 4 several times; for that, as soon as she was well for a week or 10 days, she relapsed, and went through all the stages of the disease, but now continues well.

În St. James's Park are kept 17 cows, of which number 4 were bought in new at Welsh fair; out of these 11 are dead; 4 never had the distemper, and 2 recovered from it. These are the cows which were so plentifully blooded, mentioned in the former paper, No 477, and one of them, then said to be very big with calf, being recovered, went the proper time, had a living calf, and is well and thrives; indeed they knocked the calf on the head, because they wanted the milk.

Dr. M. was informed, that a farmer at Little Chelsea, who had but 10 cows, has not had any fall sick, though his neighbours had cows sick all around him. His management was, not to let any of his cattle have any communication with his neighbours, to keep them within doors, littered like horses with clean straw, to feed them with good hay, and give them plenty of clean water to drink; to turn them out every day at noon into his yard to air themselves; and, in the mean time, to clean out the cow-house carefully; removing all the litter, washing the pavement clean with a birch-broom, laying clean litter, and keeping them warm a nights.

As a contagions distemper among the cow-kind is no new thing, Dr. M. thought proper to look into the Auctores de Re Rustica; but found none so full in the account of the pestilence among cattle as Columella is, in lib. 7, cap. 5. He advises, as soon as any signs of an infectious distemper are perceived, to drive the cattle immediately into a different air, at as great a distance as can conveniently be done, to separate the sick from the sound; and that there should be no intercourse between them, lest the infection be carried to the sound. If these cautions only were strictly observed by our farmers, Dr. M. thinks there is reason to hope the contagion would soon be extinguished. He would advise the building several small huts with faggots and broom, at a distance from each other, in some fal-' lowed field, and there keep a man constantly to attend the sick cattle, and to have every beast, as soon as it begins to sicken, removed into one of these huts, as into an infirmary; by which means the cow-house will be kept clear from infection: and never let this man go near the well cattle, but keep them in the most distant pastures, and let them have huts run up likewise to shelter themselves under from the inclemencies of the weather, providing them with clean straw to lie on. He heartily"

wishes we had the experience to say with Columella, Evincendi sunt autem quamvis pestiferi morbi, et exquisitis remediis propulsandi. He recommends a drench made of a wheat-mash made with allheal, eringo-roots, and fennel-seeds; and he says he has known as an immediate remedy, a rowel made in the ear with the roots of the larger black hellebore; and he says, that Celsus advises the pouring into the nostrils wine, in which misseltoe-leaves have been bruised.

These infectious diseases have not been confined to the cow-kind alone, but sometimes the contagion has been so virulent as to attack all sorts of brutes, as well as men. Ovid mentions a dreadful instance in his Metamorph. lib. 7, 1. 536.

And ibid. 1. 538.

Strage canum prima, volucrumque, oviumque, boumque.

Concidere infelix validos miratur arator ·

Inter opus tauros; medioque recumbere sulco.

Virgil gives an account of such another contagious sickness in his Georgic. lib. 3, l. 515.
Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere taurus

Concidit, et mixtum spumis vomit ore cruorem,
Extremosque ciet gemitus:-

Lucretius, mournfully describing the plague at Athens, of which Thucydides has left us so ample a relation, records the infection being likewise spread among the cow-kind: see lib. 7, l. 1129.

Consimili ratione venit bubus quoque sæpe

Pestilitas, etiam pecubus balantibus ægror.

Soon after the times of Constantine the Great, one Severus Sanctus, a Christian poet, left a mélancholy account of a murrain then reigning among the cows, in a Latin eclogue, intitled, Carmen de Mortibus Boum, which was reprinted at Leyden, in the year 1715, 8vo.

In the beginning of his poem the author describes the sudden destruction that distemper carried with it, and the progress it made in Europe, so like what it has now done.

We see, by these accounts of the murrain among beasts and cattle, that this dreadful distemper has often accompanied or preceded the plague among the human species: what pains therefore does it behove us to take to prevent the spreading of this disease among brutes? and what warning ought man to take, lest the pestilence should come home to him?

Of a Rupture of the Diaphragm, and Displacement of some of the Viscera, observed in the Body of a Girl 10 Months old. By Dr. John Fothergill. N° 478, p. 11. An Abstract from the Latin.

A delicate lady, about 21 years of age, after miscarrying of her first child, and recovering with much difficulty from the weakness consequent to the flooding, became again pregnant, and was in due time delivered of a perfect, but small and delicate female infant. From the moment of its birth the respiration of the child was observed to be more frequent than natural; and soon afterwards there came on a defluxion of a mucous humour from the mouth, eyes, and nose, so that the child was almost suffocated when she attempted to suck, and hence would cry and burst out into fits of passion, so violent as to threaten immediate death. The defluxion was in some degree relieved by proper medicines; but the child continued to be troubled with vomitings, which came on more suddenly and more frequently than is usual with infants. Its bowels were likewise a good deal disordered; and there was much difficulty of breathing, especially at night.