Mr. William Woodhams, a gentleman farmer, of a corpulent habit of body,
in the 46th year of his age, now living in the parish of Udimore,
within three miles of Rye in Sussex, was attacked about eight years ago
with severe complaints in his loins, accompanied with an incapacity of
voiding his urine without the assistance of proper medicines, which
were administered to him by a neighbouring apothecary for that purpose.
These medicines had the desired effect: they promoted a secretion, and
an evacuation of urine; which appeared to be loaded with a considerable
quantity of gravelly particles mixed with a _mucus_ of a whitish
colour. In the space of three weeks he had perfectly recovered from
this attack, and continued well for near five years afterwards, without
any return of his complaint, except when he rode hard on horseback, or
drank more freely of strong liquors than usual. At the expiration of
five years he was seized with an acute fever, of which he recovered in
a few weeks.
Very soon after his recovery from this illness, he began to complain
of excessive pain in voiding his urine, or upon going to stool;
which symptoms were so greatly increased for many months before he
submitted to the operation, as to quite disable him from riding, from
walking, or from using any kind of exercise. His urine, of late, was
continually and involuntarily flowing from him in small quantities. He
complained of great pain and soreness in his fundament, attended with
a _tenesmus_. This account he delivered to me on the second day after
the operation; and at the same time he very feelingly told me, that he
had enjoyed but very few and short intervals of ease for the three last
years, till since the operation.
On the 30th of January 1758, I cut him, at his own house in Sussex,
having first prepared him for the operation in the manner, that is
usual upon the like occasion. In the operation, I extracted the four
stones, which I now have the honour of laying before the Royal Society.
The whole surfaces of these stones appear to be rough, not having the
least marks of ever having rubbed against each other during their
confinement in the bladder: but yet I conjecture this must frequently
have been the case, as there was no difficulty in embracing these
_calculi_ with the forceps: for had they been contained in different
cells or pouches in the bladder, which sometimes have been observed
from dissections, this circumstance would, in all probability, have
rendered it impracticable for me to have so immediately got at them, if
at all.
The forceps was introduced only three times into the bladder for
effecting the extraction of the three first stones, and only twice for
the extraction of the fourth stone. Besides these four stones, which
I have presented to the Society for their inspection, I thought it
not improper to produce, at the same time, some other human _calculi_,
for their further satisfaction, each of which was found single in the
urinary bladders of different subjects. The surfaces of these stones
may be observed to be much smoother than the surface of either of the
four stones, that were extracted from Mr. Woodhams’s bladder in the
operation I have just now recited; and therefore it was more reasonable
to expect to find each of these stones accompanied with one or more
stones in the same bladder (according to the received opinion), than it
was to find more stones than one in the case of Mr. Woodhams’s, which
has given rise to these observations.
But as the fact before us does of itself shew the impropriety and
danger of determining from the surfaces of such extraneous bodies,
perhaps it may be thought needless to enlarge upon this subject, to
strengthen those precautions so reasonable to be observed in this
operation. However, as I have already taken notice of the smooth and
polished appearances of the surfaces of such stones, as are probably
never found single in the bladder; I have produced two stones of this
kind, that were extracted from the same bladder, to shew, that these
stones do no more resemble those stones of Mr. Woodhams’s, than a piece
of polished marble can be said to resemble a rough block of the same
species.
_P. S._ I am informed, by a letter from Sussex, dated the 18th
instant, that Mr. Woodhams is perfectly well in health; that the whole
of his urine had passed through the urethra for the last five or six
days; and that his wound will, in all probability, be soon healed.
Joseph Warner.
Hatton-Garden, February 22. 1758.
[Illustration: _Philos. Trans. Vol. L._ TAB. XXII.(a) _p. 584_.
Plate _is an exact representation of the sizes and external appearances
of the four rough stones described in the preceding paper_
_J. Mynde sc._]
LXXVII. _Observations on the_ Limax non cochleata Purpur ferens, _The
naked Snail producing Purple. By_ John Andrew Peyssonel, _M. D. F.R.S.
Translated from the_ French.
[Read Feb. 23, 1758.]
AMONG the fish we meet with in the seas of the Antilles of America,
we find, that this I am going to describe will appear precious, from
the beautiful purple colour it produces, in the same manner, that the
cuttle-fish produces its ink, if a means could be found to procure this
liquor in a sufficient quantity to render it an article of commerce.
These fishes are soft, viscous, without shells, scales, or bones; are
of the nature of the _polypi_, and such other kinds, without feet,
fins, or any thing to supply their places. Their motion is vermicular;
and, like the slugs, they wreath themselves up, and when touched make
themselves quite round.
They fill up certain membranes of the body with water. Their local
motion; _antennæ_, which they lengthen and contract; and a great many
other properties, which they have in common with snails, slugs, and
turbinated shell-fish, made me call them naked snails: and altho’ they
have not the most essential qualities of snails, I thought I might
give them the name; for they have no particular appellation in this
country. Some call them piss-a beds, some sea-cats, and others a less
modest name, _tapecon_, taken from Pliny. The Negroes and country
people disagree upon this subject; and therefore I thought all their
names ought to be rejected, in order to adopt a more significant one,
which I have given them; and that altho’ they are without shells, a
quality essential to snails, they had a right to that class by their
other properties and qualities.
This fish is commonly four inches long, and two thick; of a greenish
colour, spotted with black, each of which forms a circle. The under
part is like that of snails, flat, with kinds of _mamillæ_, or
rugosities, which are adhesive; by means of which they advance in a
vermicular motion; and when touched become round, by retracting their
neck and head; and afterwards protrude them considerably, according to
their motion and progression, crawling upon rocks to seek their food.
The head of this animal has a flatness, or is inclinable to a square or
parallelogram. On each side there are membranes or skins, which form
kinds of ears; and under them others, which at times fill with water,
and are then transparent. Under this thick skin there is a _cranium_,
of a kind of coriaceous or cartilaginous matter; and in the _cranium_
we find the brain, which is a white substance, and very firm. At the
basis of the head its oval wide mouth is placed, being above two lines
long, which often discovers a white hard edge, with which he crops the
fucus’s, and other sea-plants, for his nourishment.
About half an inch from the ears there are two horns, or _antennæ_,
like those of some testaceous animals, which serve them for eyes; and
these _antennæ_ extend and contract at will, turning to either side
also. The _oesophagus_ begins at the upper and inner part of the mouth,
which is a delicate long tube; near which there is another thick one,
and made nearly like the colon, which leads to a bag, or the first
stomach, which may be likened to the craw of a fowl: it is always
filled with fucus mixed with sand. Sometimes this stomach is double, or
at least lengthens itself considerably, and the aliment parts it, as it
were, into two portions. After this craw, or stomach, we find another,
which performs the same office with the gizzard of fowls. The membranes
are thick, and are set with twelve stones, or horny pieces, of a bright
yellow colour, and as transparent as fine yellow amber, ending in
points like a diamond; so that the great side, or basis, is set into
the membrane of the gizzard as a diamond in its socket: others differ
in size, having different figures, that in acting all together they may
be able to break and grind the herbs the animal feeds upon, as well by
the strength of the muscle or gizzard, which puts them into action, as
by the situation of these stones, assisted by grains of sand found in
it, turning the whole by this trituration into a liquor. Afterwards,
what was thus triturated by the power of the gizzard passes into a
third belly or stomach, which is covered by a purple body, resembling
the _parenchyma_ of the liver, and nearly of the same consistence: then
this belly turns into a long tube, which surrounds this _parenchyma_,
and is covered in like manner by a very fine membrane: it is full
of a white liquor, like chyle, and goes to discharge itself into
another reservoir, at the side of which is a yellowish gland, like
a _pancreas_. From these two bodies or glands one of which may be
called hepatic, and the other pancreatic, two conduits pass out; that
of the _pancreas_ is white, the other of a blackish purple: the first
conducts its chyle, condensed, into a reservoir or bladder, which may
be resembled to the _receptaculum chyli_ of Pequet, and from thence
passes to the fecal matter: the other conducts to a body made like the
mesentery, but which is always found out of the common capacity or
cavity, in which all the _viscera_ are contained; which I thus describe:
This common capacity is very large, beginning at the head and ending
at the tail of the fish: it is sometimes filled with a yellowish
water, and is formed by the fleshy body of the animal; which is only a
membrane composed of fibres every way interwoven together, open at the
top, where the organs are situated, which contain the purple juice.
There is a hollow upon the back of the animal, where the canal, filled
with a reddish juice, passes out, carrying it to a fringed body like a
mesentery; and it is there the purple juice is brought to perfection;
and afterwards goes to a long sack lying under a kind of horny plate,
not like the bone of the cuttle-fish, but like the bone of the _sepia_,
or little cuttle-fish, which we call _le couteau_. This bone, or
horny substance, is transparent; and is of a triangular figure, or
approaching the form of a bivalve shell. On the right side it is
fastened by a strong cartilaginous muscle, which binds it to the body
of the animal; and on the left it is open and detached, and easy to be
pulled up: then it is easy to see underneath both the mesenteric body,
and the tube or reservoir of the purple juice. This bone, or horny
plate, is covered by a loose membrane, which is by no means attached to
it, but capable of being filled and inflated with water or wind.
The whole is covered with two membranes, which are continuations of the
flesh of the fish’s body: the membranes are loose, and larger than are
necessary to the bone: they are wrinkled or rumpled over one another,
to cover the whole, and to defend the bone and _viscera_ from all kinds
of pressure; but they are ready to stretch one from the other, and
leave the parts destined for the purple juice uncovered. They begin a
little under the neck, and extend, in the female animal, to the tail,
which is flat; and in the male they do not go so low, but end at some
distance from the tail.
The females are oviparous; for eggs are found in the grand cavity, at
the side of the pancreatic body.
I have already said, that when the animal is touched, he makes himself
round, and throws out his purple juice, as the cuttle-fish does his
ink. This juice is of a beautiful deep colour: it tinges linen, and the
tincture is difficult to get out. It remains at present to try if we
can collect a sufficient quantity of this juice, and to find a means of
preserving the tincture; which would then be certainly of great value:
to which purpose I may apply myself.
When the fish is boiled, or put into spirits, it shrinks up, and
loses two thirds of its size; because all the water, which is in
the interstices of the fibres, is dissipated, and the dried fibres
contract: which clearly appears from dissecting them.
Dated at Guadaloupe, 20 Mar. 1757.
Peyssonel.
LXXVIII. _New Observations upon the Worms that form Sponges. By_ John
Andrew Peyssonel, _M. D. F.R.S. Translated from the_ French.
[Read Feb. 23, 1758.]
THE existence of the nests of corallines and lithophyta, and the
mechanism of their polypi, made me conjecture, that it was the same
with respect to sponges; that animals, nested in the interstices of
their fibres, gave them their origin and growth: but I had not yet seen
nor discovered the insects, nor observed their work. Sponges appeared
to me only as skeletons: but I at length discovered these worms, which
form sponges, in the four following species: