When, or in what manner she may please to disclose them; whether she will surrender them voluntarily and in connection, or whether they are to be unfolded singly, and by seeming accident, and at distant and irregular intervals, remains equally a mystery. Possibly the learned may avail themselves of the instance I am about to relate, either to elicit or extort from her many valuable secrets. With that view and hope it is submitted to them. It will be faithfully and accurately related, and can be in all its material parts substantiated by many persons of unquestionable veracity.

On the 7th of April, in the county of Washington, I was called to visit a female child, the daughter of John Milbourn, jun. The child was two years and nine months old, and was supposed to be affected with the ascites. She died about three hours after my arrival.

Her parents gave me a detailed account of her case, and its various symptoms. I was by no means satisfied that it was a real dropsy, though there was great tumefaction and tenseness of the abdomen, and fluctuations were evidently felt in it when pressed by the hand. But as some of the symptoms could not be referred to that complaint, and others were equivocal, I could not but suspect that her disease had been mistaken. I prevailed on her parents to permit an examination. The operation was performed in the usual way, by a longitudinal incision, passing from below the sternum and reaching nearly to the pubes, and a transverse one passing from the umbilicus to the anterior and superior spinous process of each ilium. A cavity was opened, about half the distance between the abdominal cavity and the exterior surface, that discharged between three quarts and a gallon of yellow water, which smelled like rotten eggs. Within the cavity was found a monster, or imperfect child, and also an animal substance of a whitish colour. The monster weighed one pound and fourteen ounces the substance weighed two ounces, was rather of an oval figure, and was connected to the child, from which

it was taken, by a cord that had some faint resemblance to the umbilical. On one extremity of the substance is a small teat or protuberance, about half an inch long, and between onefourth and one-half of an inch in diameter; and immediately by it is hair of a darkish or auburn colour, about an inch and one-fourth long. The substance is covered by an epidermis.

The monster occupied part of the epigastric and the umbilical regions. It was not connected to the inner surface of its cavity by a cord, or any visible medium. Whether a cord or other medium of connection had existed and been destroyed by putrefaction, (which, from the smell of the fluid and other appearances, had commenced) could not be positively ascertained. That there must have been some medium of connection I am confirmed, as well by the universal course of nature and analogy on this subject, as by an appearance at the articulation of the cervical and dorsal vertebræ, resembling faintly the divided funis.

The position of the monster in its envelope was awkward; its thighs drawn up to its abdomen, and attached to it in places; the left resting on the shoulder, and reaching as far as the back part of the head; the right resting or pressing on the back of the right hand. The bones of each thigh have perforated the flesh at the knee, and are about half an inch out. The left leg is imperfect, lies back along the thigh, to which it has grown. The right leg is also imperfect, its foot is suspended over the head. On one foot are three toes; on the other a small appearance of two. From the knees to the shoulders there is considerable perfection of form. Its sex is indistinctly marked; the indications are feminine. The left arm should rather be called a stump than an arm; it has no hand at the end of the stump is a nail. The right arm is large and long; it has three fingers and the thumb. The head is very imperfect; it rests upon the breast between the knees. It has neither ears nor eyes, or appearance of any substitute for either-no mouth, nor any thing that has a near resemblance to it. There is on the left side of the face, or rather that

region of the head which the face should occupy, a small prominence, which contains three teeth, a canine and two incisores; they are about the size of the teeth of a child of two years old. This prominence or mouth, if it may be so called, has no aperture. On the back part of the head was hair of a dark, or rather of an auburn colour, eight or nine inches long. The body of the monster was seven inches long, and ten inches in circumference: the thighs six in length, and eight in circumference: the arm is five; the stump not quite four inches in length.

The interior of the cavity which contained the monsters resembled the membrana decidua. There was no vestige of membrane peculiar to the monster discovered. Having explored this cavity, and dislodged its contents, I extended the incision through the muscular partition into the abdominal cavity, and examined the viscera. They were rather pale, otherwise natural.

The little girl that those monsters were taken from for about nine months was healthy. Her parents discovered, when she was only a month or two old, something hard within the abdomen, which continued to increase. After this time she became less healthy; but her complaints were those incident to all children. About nine months prior to her death she began to decline, and became emaciated; her appetite continued strong; her longings and desire for ardent spirits were great; she would become intoxicated if indulged in the free use of them; it took a considerable quantity to affect her; she drank freely an hour before her death. I believe it was the use of spirits in part that supported her so long. She was of the ordinary size of children at her age, had dark hair and eyes, and would have been handsome but for a gloom and melancholy that sat upon her countenance, which made her appearance peculiarly interesting-She looked like he child of grief. Her countenance exhibited evidences of a good understanding, and her little tongue confirmed it.

EDWARD B. GAITHER.

I certify, that I examined with anxiety and attention the monster above described, and also the substance, and believe the description to be accurate. I also conversed with the young gentleman who was present and assisted at the operation-his statements were correspondent with the above narration of facts and circumstances. In the veracity of the Doctor and young gentleman with whom I conversed I have most absolute confidence.

April 26, 1809.

JNO. ROWAN.

I, THOS. J. COCKE, do certify that I have examined the above described monster, and that it answers to the description given; and that I have the fullest belief of the whole of the facts as related.

April 28, 1809.

I do certify, that I have particularly examined the monster above described, and it corresponds with the above statement; and I have the fullest confidence that all the circumstances as stated are correct.

April 28, 1809.

JOHN CALHOON.

Note. Tumours containing hair, teeth, bones, &c. have been frequently discovered in the examination of female subjects after death. Mr. Coleman, the veterinary professor in London, showed that such tumours were not peculiar to the female sex or human race, he having met with one of that nature in dissecting an horse. After that, a case occurred in France, in which something very like a fœtus was discovered in the abdomen of a lad. Any attempt to explain these phenomena in the present state of our physiological knowledge must, we fear, be abortive. We know, indeed, that arteries, under certain circumstances, have the power of secreting bone, where it does not naturally exist; but we can hardly conceive that the monster described by Dr. Gaither was the production of mere morbid action in the blood vessels of the part. Editors.

A CASE of MORTIFICATION arrested by the application of Blisters. By J. AUGUSTINE SMITH, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the University of the State of New-York, and Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London.

ON Thursday, the 23d of July, 1807, I was requested to visit a Mrs. Gressit, living in Gloucester county, Virginia. It not being in my power to go that day, I did not see her until the next. When I arrived, I found the lower part of her right leg and ankle very much swelled, particularly the latter, which had likewise numerous vesications filled with a bloody serous effusion: these did not extend beyond the part where the tendo achilles commences. Her pulse was small, and about ninety. The account I received was as follows; that returning on the preceding Wednesday from church, in stepping from a piece of timber about eighteen inches high, her foot turned, and she fell. That her foot was so twisted by the accident from its natural position, that her companions thought it was dislocated, and proceeded to reduce it, in which they supposed they succeeded. That she was then carried to the nearest house, and that brown paper and vinegar were immediately applied. That on the next day she took a dose of salts, which operated freely.—Her health, she said, had been indifferent for two years past, at which time her menses had disappeared; and that since she had been occasionally affected with sores, which were healed with difficulty.

Under these discouraging circumstances I gave a very unfavourable prognostic, being apprehensive my patient could with difficulty escape, even with the loss of her leg. I directed her to take as much of the cinchonæ flavæ as her stomach could bear, to drink freely of brandy and water, (as wine could not be procured) and to eat as much stimulant diet as she could. As she suffered no pain I did not administer opium. Her leg I directed to be dressed with the ung. resinæ flavæ.

25th. She had slept well, and the bark agreed with her