268 PROCEEDINGS of the POLITICAL CLUB, &c. June

and the quota of expence, might be fettled; and particular encouragements might be given to all voluntiers who fhould join that army, as well as to every colony that fhould furnish more than its quota,

A

they will, they will be fubject to military laws, which they will certainly think too arbitrary and fevere: Whilft they are marching or acting by themselves, within the extenfive limits of any of our continent colonies, they will be subject to no military laws at all, unless the legiflative power of that colony has proclaimed martial law, and even in that cafe the martial law of that colony may be very unfit for governing fuch an army. For example, in Virginia, how ridiculous would it be to fine a New-England, or a Carolina man, in a hundred pounds of tobacco, or any greater or leffer quantity of tobacco, for any military offence he might be guilty of? And yet we know, that most of the miClitary rewards and penalties in that colony are, by their military laws, made to confift in certain quantities of tobacco.

I have faid, Sir, that I doubt of the king's power by prerogative to eftablish articles of war, even in time of war, for the government of his army, whilft it remains within the British dominions: I think it is certain, that he cannot do fo at all times whilst it remains in England; B for all our lawyers tell us, that whilft the courts of common law are open, and the courfe of justice free, it fhall be deemed time of peace, and that in time of peace the exercife of martial law can never take place: Nay, the preamble to the very bill now before us, exprefsly tells us, that no man can be fubjected in time of peace to any kind of punishment within this realm by martial law, or in any other manner, than by the judgment of his peers, and according to the known D and established laws of this realm. Now as I do not think that our people in America forfeited their right to any privilege they are intitled to as Englifhmen, by going to fettle, or by being born in that country, I do not think that they can be tried or punished by martial law within the limits of any of our colonies, if the courts of common law be open, and the course of juftice free, in that colony where the army may then happen to be; and confequently I must think, that whilft our army in Ame- F rica remains within the limits of any of our colonies, his majefty cannot, by his prerogative alone establish articles of war, or conttirute courts martial for the trial of any fort of

offences whatever.

if this be fo, Sir, what a ftrange condition will our American troops be in? Whilft they are in conjunction with any British forces that may be fent thither, let them be where

E

I must therefore, Sir, look upon the claufe now under our confideration as calculated, furely not with defign, not only to difcourage, but to confound the military fervice in America; and I am convinced, that if you allow the petition now offered to us to be brought up, and fome of the gentlemen of New-England to be heard upon the fubject, they will be able to make this evident to the house, and may fhew you many ftronger reasons than I can think of, against your agreeing to this clause, as they must be better acquainted with the nature of the military fervice in North-America, than I could ever have an opportunity of being, or than any gentleman in this house can pretend to be; and as it is fo early in the feffion, we have the less reafon to refufe what information they can give us in a matter of fo great importance; therefore I hope G the petition will be allowed to be brought up.

[This JOURNAL to be continued in our next.]

A's

1756. Interesting Obfervation of HALLER.

As refuting erroneous Opinions, by Experiment, in phyfical Cafes, muft greatly contribute to the Happiness of Mankind, que shall fubjoin one more of Dr. HALLER's Obfervations, viz. bis 38tb, aubich contains many curious and interefting Particulars, of peculiar Benefit to the Fair Sex.

Hift. 1.

A Laceration of the UTERUS.

HE frequent fudden deaths

THE

of women in child- bed are often very afflicting to whole families. In moft cafes of that kind an hæmorrhage has been blamed, and perhaps not always without reason. But I have difcovered caufes of it, which are still more infuperable. On the first of July, 1747, there was brought to the theatre a woman, who was delivered after a very hard labour, attended with cold fweats. I diffected her about half an hour after her death, and found a large hole in the left fide of the neck of the womb, both in the neck itself, and in the peritoneum which connects the uterus to the vagina. The neck was full of confused valves, the uterus itself almoft fcirrhous, very thick, and tho' thinner at the interval between the Fallopian tubes than elsewhere, yet even there it was a full inch in thickness, and had a number of white tranfverfe fibres. In the middle (pace above the neck, the uterus was almost two inches

thick, compact, and full of fmall orifices of arteries. That part to which the placenta had been fixed, had a great many little portions of the chorion adhering to it. The adhesion of the placenta had been circular, between the Fallopian tubes, which went off below the middle of the uterus, and were pendulous as ufual.

A

B

C

D

One of the ovaria was quite found, in E the other a fmall foramen appeared, together with a vascular pellucid tumour. From the foramen went a pellucid vein, not very small; and an incifion being made into the tumour, it appeared to be a corpus luteum, fpherical, feparable from the ovariem, yellow, vafcular, furrowed, and cluttered like a bunch of grapes, without any fovea. Under it were veffels of a pretty large fize, and in the fame ovarium, there were likewife other fmall ova, as they are called.

F

In the neck of the uterus, a little above its orifice, were a great many large, oblique, mucous finufes. The inferior duct fituated near the middle of the vagina, was about an inch long, and with-G out any gland.

The anterior rugæ of the vagina were found, and the finules at the urethra fuli of mucus. The internal membrane of the uterus was thin, fmooth, adhering

269

very firmly, and here and there porous. Under it was an immenfe number of veins, which were very turgid.

The fleshy substance of the uterus was full of chinks, unequal, lobular, conglomerated, as it were, and of a white colour.

The uterus itself, properly fo called, was of a globular figure.

Hift. 2. On the fourth of September, 1748, another healthy woman died in child-bed. The uterus was

near five inches long, and as many broad, flattened both before and behind, extended a little above the margin of the os pubis, and covered the bladder. A little below the cornua of the upper part of the uterus, not from the middle, came out the Fallopian tubes; and the convexity of the uterus betwixt the two tubes did not exceed that in a woman who is not pregnant. Having injected it with wax, I perceived a hole in the uterus on the right fide of the orifice. Upon farther examination, the spongy flesh at the orifice of the uterus, was found degenerated into a number of grumous, very thin, reticular membranes, without the least appearance of the ring which is commonly found there. In the fame ftate was the contiguous part of the vagina, and where its texture was not quite deftroyed, it confifted of fibres and cellular membranes

cohering weakly together, and variously interfected. The upper part of the va gina was very much dilated, but not fo the inferior. In that fpungy part the uterus was thickest, but at its bottom it did not exceed fix or eight lines. Instead of finuses, I obferved a kind of smooth, cylindrical veins, full of ramifications. The ligaments were alfo of an unusua! thickness.

Hift. 3. On the 8th of November, 1748, I diffected a young woman, who had taken ftrong purgatives, in order to procure a mifcarriage, and died in convulfions within fifteen minutes after the was delivered. The fpermatick vessels, as Vefalius fomerly obferved, were an inch thick; the uterus was raised a few inches above the pelvis, collapsed, firm, pulpy, and thick.

The neck of the uterus was torn, and thro' the lacerated part the head of the foetus had paffed, about an inch above the pudendum. In the found part the ruge had fcarce fuffered any alteration, the internal part of the orifice of the uterus was wide open, appeared to be lacerated, was thin, flocculent, and about two inches broad. The inside of the uterus was full of blood, which being washed off, there appeared a great many

A LACERATION of the UTERUS.

white, ragged, flocky fubftances, as if the neck came to be lacerated. These

things appear to me to be fo evident, as not to require any demonftration. This oblique pofture of the feetus, to which I impute the bursting of the uterus, has been reprefented by Henry a Deventer, f. 37, and 38, but, as far as I rememA ber, without taking any notice of the fatal event which I think is to be apprehended from it. But Muller, who likewife met with a cafe of the fame kind, has given a more full account of it in his Diff. qua cafus rariffimus uteri in partu rupti fiffitur. Bafil. 1745.

In Hiftory 1. of a woman, out of whofe womb a child had been newly taken, I faid that the rugous ring of the vagina was not obliterated; and the cafe was the fame in another body, Hiftory 3. which induces me to conclude, that thefe rugæ are either quickly reftored, even within a few minutes after delivery, which feems scarce probable, or that they are not entirely defigned for the more Ceafy extenfion of the vagina, by their dilatability.

1756.

VAMPYRES accounted for.

vex. But as in pregnant women the tubes are almoft pendulous, and therefore parallel with the uterus, hence it feems to have happened, that Deventer, Lum. obftet. p. 400, and other anatomical writers, have made the tubes dur. ing that state to go out a long way below the upper part of the uterus (compare A Comm. Boerh. p. 218) Dr. Parfons likewife obferves, that there can be no fuch thing as a fuperforation, because in pregnant women the tubes come out below the fundus of the uterus, and cannot reach to the ovaria (of Mufcular Motion, P. 77. n. 15.) But thefe affertions are proved to be falfe by many experiments which I have lately made. For it is cer- B tain, that fuperfotations do happen, and in pregnant women I have feen the tubes of fuch a length, as to be capable of reaching the ovaria very easily.

D

The corpora lures, I have fo frequently met with in women, that I now look upon them as nothing uncommon; yet I hall add a few remarks upon this fubject. And, 1. I never faw two corpora lutea in one woman. 2. I never faw a corpus luteum where the woman was not preg. nant, or even for any confiderable while before the time of labour, and confequently never before puberty; all which is very different from the doctrine of Valifnerius, Generaz. dell. Uomo. II. c. n. 16, 25. c. 5. n. 8. and elsewhere, fee p. 140. Comment. Boerh. V. p. 1, 3. The corpus luteum does not confume all the ova; for I have feen great numbers of them along with the corpus, contrary to what feveral authors have afferted, Comm. Boerh. I. c. p. 142, 143. 4. In the human foetus, and indeed before the age of puberty, I have never met with E any ovula, the ovaria before that age being long, narrow, fat, without any prominence, and in their figure, and dry texture, very different from thofe of adult females. Thefe truths invalidate the obfervations of Valifnerius and fome other authors of reputation, who deftribe the ova even in færufes and new born ani

mals, as if they had really feen them. Comm. Boerh. I. c. p. 148.

F

Those women who expire after a very hard labour, oppreffed with faintings, cold fweats, and exceffive weakness; thofe women, I fay, for the most part do not owe their death fo much to the violent hæmorrhage (which I do not believe to be fo fuddenly mortal, from the exam-G ples of perfons who have been wounded) but rather to a laceration of the uterus. For in w men who have had that part wounded from different caufes, as has appeared after their death, I have ob

271

ferved the very fame fymptoms to happen, as in those who too often are carried off within half an hour after delivery but whether the rafhnefs or unfkilfulness of midwives, or incurable diseases, prove fatal to the patients, the grave for the moft part prevents our difcovering.

In women who have died of acute and fpotted fevers, I have often feen the blood ooze spontaneously out of the mouth; and this has given birth to the story of the Vampyres, which lately made fo much noite all over Europe, and was first propagated by fome Imperial troops quartered in Hungary, viz. Perfons who had died of acute difeafes, and efpecially women who had perifhed in child-bed, and been hastily buried, as ufual in hot climates, were found upon opening the graves, with their mouths foaming with blood. The other particulars were the fruits of imagination. The first account I met with of this epidemical fuperAition is in Anthony Galatheus de Situ Japygiæ, reprinted in a late voluminous collection by Peter Vanderaa. The caufe appears to me to be no other than the expansion of the elastick air contained in the lungs, which forces upwards the blood, with which that viscous is overcharged towards the end of thofe fatal difeafes, from the broken small veffels refembling, in fome measure, the foaming of fermenting liquors. This morbid ftate of the uterus and vagina, thews these parts to confift of a common cellular membrane; for nothing can more resemble the common cellular structure, than the lacerated and mortified fibres of thofe, which have no certain direction, nor any confiderable length, but on the contrary are short and interwoven with one another in all directions. The fame ftructure likewife obtains in the tendons, as appears from thofe of the flender kind; for example, that of the plantaris, or palamaris muscle, the expanfion of which forms a membrane, refembling that which in the bladder, or ftomach, is called nervous, and which Albinus has demonstrated to be of

the nervous kind.

The finufes of the uterus in Comm. Boerh. Tom. V. p. II. p. 47, & feq. were communicated, as well as feveral other obfervations, by perfons of diftinguished reputation. Thefe, after other repeated experiments, which at that time were but few, I claffed among the veins in fome effays fince published; and this opinion I have fince confirmed by five or fix late diffections of women who had died in child-hed. For they are continued with the veins, branched like thea, and fubdivided into fmaller ramifications,

272

RURAL COLLOQUIES.

cations, and laftly, evidently sheathed in
that thin tender membrane which covers
the veins. The caufe of the inaccurate
description formerly given of thefe finuses,
feems to be owing to their larger fize,
their unequal and easily extended dia-
meter, and the unaccountable largeness
of their orifices opening into the cavity of A
the uterus. By injecting the veins withi
wax, models are formed of thefe finufes;
but they are very irregular, as is ufual in
the veins; and here the more fo the far-
ther that the veffels recede from the natu-
ral ftate of the pregnant uterus. Nei-
ther is that extraordinary dilatation ob-
ferved to take place equally in all parts of
the uterus. But whether the finufes, B
which Malpighi has defcribed in the ute-
rus of a cow, are of the fame kind with
thefe, or rather whether they are true fi-
nufes, I fhall not yet take upon me to
determine.

June

before concerning the fibres of the uterus, feems now fufficiently confirmed; and it is the fame thing to me, whether they are termed mufcular fibres, or a muscle. Thus most anatomical authors speak of the mufcular coat of the bladder, but Fabricius, Cowper, and fome late English anatomifts, have called it the detrufor mufcle. I the more readily quote this inftance, from having obferved a very great affinity between the fibres of the uterus about the time of labour, and thofe of the bladder. But that the delivery of the remains of the placenta may be affected by these fibres, is a point justly queftioned; for it is very certain, that clots of extravafated blood, tho they are loose and evidently lefs compact than the placenta, are frequently confined in the womb, and condensed into fibrous maffes, which fometimes ar jaft adhere to the fides of the conftricted uterus; and I have often found the chorion, several months after pregnancy, grown firmly to the uterus. By what mechanism these fibres can expel the placenta when it adheres to the uterus, I cannot conceive; tho' I am far from denying, that when it floats loofe in it, they may be capable of forcing it out, in the fame manner as they do clots of extravafated blood.

The laceration of the vagina I attribute to the want of dexterity in the midwife, who, in order to extract the foetus, had forcibly thrust both her hands up the va- C gina; for it could not be owing to the fætus alone in its paffage, feeing every body knows how easily it makes the rest of its way, as foon as it has paffed the internal orifice of the uterus.

Moft authors have alledged, that the orifice of the uterus becomes thinner in the time of labour; but it is only to be D understood in this fenfe, viz. the thick and annular portion of the uterus which is produced into the vagina, the larger that the opening of the orifice is, the more it refembles the part of the uterus, and both the prominence of the uterus into the vagina, and the circumfcribed circular furrow between the upper part of the vagina and the circular production of E the uterus, difappear at the fame time, Thefe remarks I have thoughr proper to add to note 5. p. 389. Comm. Boerh. Tom. V. p. 11.

I have frequently feen the muscular fibres of the uterus in women who have died in child-bed, but never more beautiful than in this fubject of which I now F write. There is no doubt but Ruysch faw the fame, and called them the muscle of the uterus. They are true layers of parallel mufcular fibres, lying upon one another in different directions, which I never have been able to reduce to any regular order. Between these fibres are a great many interftices both large and G Imall, of no determined figure, opening into the cavity of the uterus; and thefe are the orifices of the abforbent viens of the uterus, at this time dilated to their largest diameter. So that what I faid

Justice Wrongbead, Chairman; Fribble bis Son, at bis right Elbow, Jufice Shallow, the Rev. Dr. Puzzle Caufe, Juftice Miflead, and Juftice Brainless.

Fribble.

Enter Whetstone the Farmer.

ATHER! why father! Mr.

FChairman: there comes that impudent fellow farmer Whetstone, our tythingman, look ye? do you see him?

Wrongbead. Ay child, I fee the fellow : Here, you fellow Whetstone, how now firrah, what are you just ceme, ha ? Sirrah, you're a pretty fellow indeed, to make a court wait for you. Come, Sir, where's your returns? come let's fee them instantly, or I'll fet a fine on you, I will; 'tis good to make examples of fuch fellows as you,

Brainless. So 'tis Mr. Chairman; I fay

fine him.