slight adhesion at the posterior part of the left lobe. The trachea was perfectly sound. The pericardium adhered pretty firmly to the heart in its whole compass. The stomach and intestines seemed, externally, sound; but on opening the sophagus, a morbid appearance presented itself. About two inches above the cardia the epidermis of the œsophagus was abraded in irregular points, and exposed an inflamed surface of a dark red colour: still lower the abrasions became linear, and extended into the stomach itself. The edges of the epidermis, surrounding the abrasions were unequal and elevated. A similar affection was traced along the lesser curvature of the stomach, but fainter in its progress to the pylorus, where it was least discernible, and about which it seemed to terminate. The whole of the inflamed parts bore a striated appearance, darkest in the cesophagus, and lightest and more indistinct towards the pylorus. The stomach was half full of a dark-coloured fluid, which smelt strongly of musk. The other viscera were in

a natural state.

As no more than four hours and a half elapsed between the patient's death and the dissection, I believe the abrasion observed may be fairly considered as the effect of the disease, especially as the stomach contained a considerable quantity of fluid; but although the preternatural irratability, produced by this specific inflammation, completely explains the peculiar sensibility to cold water and cold air, yet the dread of water, though constituting

the diagnosis, can only be regarded as the symtom of a symtom. The local inflammation, even when considered in connection with the slight effusion visible in the brain, is very inadequate to the explanation of the patient's death.

The relief from the difficulty of swallowing liquids, observable towards the close of this case, is not a solitary instance; the disease has even been said to exist without any horror of water, or difficulty of receiving it into the stomach.

The ease with which solids were swallowed by our patient admits an obvious explanation. In the irritable state of the esophagus, the comparitively small degree of contraction, necessary for the descent of solid food, is performed without difficulty. For the deglutition of liquids a very strict contraction is required, which strains and irritates the inflamed parts, and consequently occasions great distress.

Little information respecting the practice in hydrophobia can be drawn from this case; yet if other observations should confirm the opinion, that a peculiar inflammation exists in the stomach and œsophagus, in all instances of this disease, I concieve that some measures should be taken to counteract it, though it appears to be only a symp tom of the general disorder. Blis ters applied to the throat, or between the shoulders, might be useful; and if another similar case should unhappily occur to me, I should certainly employ them. Our patient had a recent blister on his side,

Lieutaud

Lieutaud® enumerates very extensive appearances of inflamation and suppuration in the stomach and bowels of hydrophobic patients discovered on dissection, and other writers have mentioned inflamation of the stomach, in such cases, in general terms; but perhaps ours is the most satisfactory examination yet obtained, on account ofits nearness to the death of the patient. Lieutaud mentions the adhesion of the pericardium to the heart, among other appearances.

I should conceive blood-letting to be a very ambiguous remedy in this complaint: with us it was prohibited by the state of the pulse, the advanced period of the disease, and the free use made of it, a few days before, by the patient.

The large use of mercurial frictions is said to have been successful in hydrophobia. It has perhaps been suggested by the determination to the salivary glands, so remarkable in the course of the disease. I own I have some doubts respecting the propriety of using a remedy which produces so great a degree of irritability, in the state of high irratation attending hydrophobia. The appearance of the inflamed parts approaches to the erysipelatous state; and the whole train of symptoms seems to require the aid of the cold bath, and the free use of bark and opium.

Manchester, Dec. 12, 1790.

cruize, measures forty eight feet from the head to the extremity of the tail, and twenty-six in the largest circumference, which is at the head. The head is a little more in length than two-fifths of the whole body; the opening between the two branches of the tail, is a little less than the length of the head, with two feet and a half in depth; the breadth of the fins is three-eights of that of the tail; and their length a little more than their breadth. The jaw bones, uniting before in an eliptical form, are eighteen feet each; the gums are fourteen in length, and contain the roots of the beard or whalebone attached to the upper jaw, whose extremity forms the snout or muzzle of the fish. The eyes are placed laterally on each side of the head; the orbit from one corner of the eyelid to the other is five inches; and the eye-ball, which is three inches in diameter, is covered with a kind of retina, shewing the black of the pupil partially in the form of a vertical oval. At one foot distance behind the eyes stand the ears, with a very small tube not exceeding the bore of a tobacco-pipe; the orifice of the tube, which creeps in a spiral line across the flesh and fat, seems loaded with the humours of the ear

The nostrils are seated five or six feet before the eyes, but in a high plane, and run across the upper jaw; their orifice forms the arch of a circle, whose radius is seven inches; but the nasal duct gradually diminishes, and at the distance of a foot, internally, does not exceed five. The nostrils are separated by a membrane two inches

creases

creases in dimension further up; the skin round the orifice is soft and flexible, with the capacity of closing for the purpose of excluding the water; the intermediate membrane is likewise formed to dilate and contract, in such a manner as to open and shut the canal; the use of the nostrils in this, as in other animals, is respiration, which the whale performs by blowing the water backwards.

The navel and the general structure of the parts of generation, are very much the same in the whale as in quadrupeds. We observe in the male an eliptical cavity or sheath about four feet in length, and eight inches in depth; which, from a rotundity in the flesh, appears almost close. Three or four inches from the commencement of this cavity, backwards, are two holes, which contain the testicles, and near which is the penis. The penis extends the whole length of the sheath or cavity, and terminates in a point, in which is a small perforation for the purpose of animal evacuation. At the distance of a foot behind these parts is the anus, or excremental duct, presenting an opening of three inches.

In the female we find two teats, placed laterally before the parts of sex, and nearly six inches in diameter; the nipple is hard, and shrinks under the surface of the teat, which is somewhat globular in its formation; the nipple is two inches in length, by one and a half in diameter, and terminates in a point. The lacteal canal winding near the -surface, leads to a small bason orreservoir, and has its termination at another of greater dimensions. The external distinction of sex consists in a longitudinal slit of eleven

inches; and is formed inwardly of a hard substance approaching to the consistency of bone, covered with a fine kind of flesh. A little within the aperture is a fold of cartilaginous substance of a rough and irregular surface, before which is the urinary passage, and behind it a canal of a smaller size; close to the longitudinal, slit behind is the

anus.

In the structure of the mouth we find only three bones, the two bones of the lower jaw and the nasal bone, to which are attached two large lips covering the beard, and a vast tongue of a soft substance, fourteen feet in length, six in breadth, and three in thickness.

The palate is composed of the whale-bones arranged in plates on each side of the upper jaw, to which they are attached by a white substance of the nature of hard tallow, but finer and more compact in the grain. The plates run parallel to each other, but a little curved, and, making a sweep on each side the mouth, towards the throat, present the appearance of a vault or gothic arch. They are from ten to eleven feet in length, by five inches -and a half in their common breadth, with two lines in thickness. They are disposed surface against surface in the manner of leaves presenting their edges to the eye, so that the breadth of the plates becomes the depth of the palate. The pa late is covered with a kind of hair, which is about fifteen inches longat the extremity of the plates, and seems to be nothing more than the continuation of the small fibres of the whale-bone. The plates become smaller as they approach the lip of the jaw, where they terminate in a point. This provision of

nature

nature is meant to answer the pur pose of teeth; the plates enable the animal to bruise as well as to collect her food, while the hairs acting like a net, detain small substances, and allow the water to escape.

I am unable to say what constitutes the food of the whale, though generally it seems to consist of substances of a small size, not very solid, and probably of an aqueous kind, as the elasticity of the whale-bone certainly would not yield to any thing either hard or tough. I made the sailors hoist up a small whale to the capsterns, in order that I might have an opportunity of examining her stomach; but the tackle by which she was suspended giving way, and the men in the boat below having narrowly escaped being hurt, I abandoned my design. Some pretend to affirm that the whale eats a species of polypus of the small size of a bean; others, that she lives on a fleshy excrescence, which I was shown, as large as an egg, and nearly in the shape of a melon. The longitudinal fibres that embrace its spherical surface, give it very much the ribbed appearance of that fruit; while red threads, traversing it internally, render its colour of a reddish hue; the rest of it consists of a kind of mucilaginous substance. But I am very doubtful how far we may reasonably ascribe the nourishment of the whale to this excrescence; for having exposed it to the sun, I found there remained of it in a dried state next to nothing, and yet, as the excrements of the animal, which are of a saffron colour, are by no means destitute of consistency, it seems natural to suppose, that her aliment, whatever it may be, is of VOL. XXXIII.

a more substantial kind. My own opinion is, that the whale feeds upon shrimps; for I afterwards caught a sea wolf, having his stomach full of them-a circumstance which serves at least to show that the shrimp is in great abundance at the bottom of the sea. Upon the supposition that this is actually her food, Nature's substitute for teeth is excellently contrived for collecting, as well as for bruizing, the means of her support; besides, the arrangement of the plates, or whale-bone, is close enough to prevent such small substances as the shrimp from escaping through their intervals.

I caused a piece of flesh, containing a part of the esophagus, to be extracted from the mouth of the whale; the alimentary canal was about five inches in circumference, and formed at a certain depth a species of bason perforated by a second canal. The orifice of this last appeared protected by a sort of lining, presenting a circular canal ; by which contrivance the food is made to pass round it, and consequently guarded against falling into the second passage. If by accident the food should deviate from its proper direction, it will be received by the circular canal, to be afterwards returned by the coughing of the animal, into its natural course. canal is besides shut by a kind of valve forming three points, one of which, like the point of a triangle, enters wedge-ways betwixt the two others. The valve consists of a cartilage somewhat long but flexible, and is covered with flesh of a fine texture.

This

The canal, formed likewise of a flexible cartilaginous substance, becomes thicker and more capacious at a smaller distance. It seemed, however, no where open Z

in

in a relaxed state, and is probably so contrived as to remain constantly shut, except when the whale chooses to dilate it for the purpose of respiration. The orifice is about four inches in diameter, and the canal itself is, I apprehend, what we call the esophagus; but an anatomist would have understood and executed this part of my diary in a style to which I cannot pretend.

The fins have five cartilaginous bones, with articulations resembling those of the fingers, but very slightly marked; perhaps in the great chain of animated nature, the whale forms that link which connects the seacalf with the scaly tribes.

The strength of the tail is chiefly exerted by means of an assemblage of muscles running on each side of the spine. It consists of six or seven small ones, each of which is three lines in diameter, and the whole is united by a set of nerves, and covered by a membranous sub

stance.

The brain consists of a substance resembling soft tallow, with thread, or filiaments crossing it in all directions. As to the quantity be longing to this species, I can only say in general, that in this instance it was sufficient to fill a large pail. The solid flesh runs in strong fibres like that of the ox, is of a red colour, and about three inches in depth; immediately over the flesh lies the blubber, which in some parts is from eight to ten, and in others from twelve to fourteen inches deep; the whole being covered with a black skin ten lines in thick

ness.

Like all the native animals of cold regions, the whale has a great stock of blood and animal heat. I introduced Reaumur's thermometer into

the carcase of a whale that had been dead about an hour and a half; but after seven minutes it only rose tol7°. In this case, however, besides that I had access only to the fat, as the tail had been cut off, the blood was in a great measure discharged, and consequently I could not regard it as a fair experiment. I thrust my hand into the body of a whale which had been dead some days, and felt, I am sure, a greater degree of heat than had been expressed by the thermometer in the former instance; but in this case I did not choose to measure the heat with the thermometer, as it had dropped into the blubber, and was with difficulty recovered, in the first experiment.

The general colour of the whale is black; the under part and edges of the mouth are white, or black mixed with white; the eye-lashes, the navel, the paps of the female, and the organs of sex, are white; the general effect of the two last is that of a white fleur de lis. The scar of a wound, to which this ani→ mal is extremely liable, particularly on the back, tail, and fins, from the accidents of the ice, and the hostilities of the sword fish, is always white. The white colour is much more prevalent on the body of an old than that of a young whale, and probably depends on this species, as in land animals, on the circumstance of age and the state of the bodily fluids.

Adhering to the skin, and very frequently under the fins, we meet with a species of sea-louse, which feeds and thrives in this situation; it is about the size of a small bean.

The back of the whale is commonly represented higher and more arched than it really is; mistake