+

experiment, to the fatisfaction, of the fo ciety, sin the year 1728 viz. that the external coat of the artery may (and does) boften control an impetus of the blood, capable of burting the internal (or digamentous) coat; although this lait is by much the thickest, and, feemingly, the strongest.

In regard to this di tension of the aorta; as his Majefty had, for fome vears, complained of frequent di treiles and finkings about the region of the heart; and as his pulfe was, of late years, obferved Tofall very much upon bleeding; it is not doubted, but that this diftenfion of the aorta had been of long standing, at leaft to fome degree; and as the pulmonary artery was thereby neceffarily comprefied, and a refiftance, greater than natural thereby opofed to the blood's, discharge out of the right ventricle, it is reasonable to conclude, that a diftenfion, and confequent weakness of the pulmonary artery and right ventricle, to fome degree, were nearly coeval with that of the aorta. But that the aorta had fuffer⚫ed a more extraordinary and violent diftenfion, immediately antecedent to the bursting of the ventricle, is evident, from the recent fiffure of the aorta, and the confequent extravasation of blood between its coats. Now, as this increafed and violent diftenfion of the aorta must have been attended with a proportionate preffure upon the pulmonary artery, and, confequently, an increafed oppofition to the paffage of the blood out of the right ventricle; fo that diftenfion of the aorta muft be confidered as the immediate caufe of the right ventricle's being furcharged with blood, and confequently of its bursting.

The immediate caufe of this diftenfion of the aorta, as likewife of its being de termined to that particular time, are naturally explic.ble, from his Majefty's having been at the neceffary ftool; as the office then required cannot be executed, but by fuch a preffure on all the contents se of the lower belly, and, confequently, on the great defcending artery, as mut, of necellity, fubject the trunk of the aorta, and all its upper branches, to a furcharge with blood continually increa mg, in proportion as the preffure may happen to be continued longer, or exerted with greatFever violence, in confequence of a coftive habit, or any other refiitance.

* As to the fecond queftion, viz. How it could happen, that the blood, fhould force its way rather through the fide of

The pericardium is a strong tendinous membrane, inelaffic in every direction, containing the two auricles, the two ventricles, and the two great arteries, as in a purfe it is fixed to its contents at the back of the two auricles, where, by its connection, it furrounds the two vene cava; hence, palling along the arch formed by the aorta, it defcends to the pulmonary artery, and continues round the orifices of the pulmonary veins, firmly attached to thele feveral parts in its paffage. By thefe connections, these parts are all fixed in their feveral stations, incapable of feparating from each other, or fhifting their fituations, however they may happen to be compreffed. The bericardium is generally faid to ferve as a defence to the heart; but that defence feems to confift chiefly, in preventing the right auricle from being ftretched by the depreffions (or complanations) of the dia❤ phragm, in hunger and infpiration, and, by its bearing firmly against the filles of the auricles, to fupport and strengthen them against too great diftenfions; for the cavity of the pericardium feems to be but little more than commenfurate to the bulk of its contents, when one half of them are filled, and the other half empty. This will appear, upon endea vouring to fill the heart, with its au ricles, and its two great arteries, with wax, at the fame time, while it is inclosed in the pericardium;" which experiment, one or other of thefe cavities will be found to have been to comprefied by the pericardium, as to have refufed a free admittance to the wax, and will

3

therefore

nella, cochineal, of each half a drachm, common water four ounces; nutmeg water, balsamic.fr up, of each one ounces and make the mixture marked B [9] the dofe to be two common table (poon, Tufs, Jo use every three or four hours.,

A The other mixtures marked A, C, D, F, 10], may be made in the fame manner, and given to the lick according to the directions in that paper,

5.I may recommend falt-petre to the poureft patient under continual fevers, as an efficacious, as well as cheap reme

dy.

6. I fhall mention one inftance, of its utility. A poor woman afked my advice for her husband, (a man about forty years old), who had a fever, with a violent pain in his fide, and was light-headed at times.

7

7. I advised her to get an ounce of falt. petre, and powder it; then to divide it to four equal parts, and each of them into four others, for fo many dofes, each of which will contain about half a drachm. I directed, that the fhould give one of them, diffolved in a coffee-difh of fage tea, fweetened with fugar to his palate, every three or four hours: and when he had taken this falt, the came and told me that his fever was gone, but that his cough remained. I then adviled her to give him about twenty drops of balfam capivi, with powder-lugar, night and morning, and he happily recovered.

8. Intermitting fevers, thofe efpecialTy whofe fits return every other day, have been often cured with a few dofes of co

chineal, by taking about half a drachm of it in powder, fome time before the acceffion of each fit; and others have been recovered by taking five, fix, or feven grains of the Virginian (nake-root, three times the days of intermiffion, at about four or five hours difence; and I have with fuccefs advifed fome of the poor to drink a coffee-difh, (that is, a quarter of a pint) [a Scots gill, of tea made with the root of burdock, every third or fourth hour, during the intermiffions, weetened with fugar, or

in powder; then to divide it into eight or twelve equal parts; and to take a dole of it every third hour, during the intermillions, beginning as foon as they are quite free from a fit, in the following manner, viz.

11. Mix a dofe of the bark with a teaспр of hot water, with which it will mix eafily; and when it is cool enough, then let the patient drink it, and drink after it a glafs of punch made in the common way, and take his meals at his uluál times. Suppofe the time for taking the bark happens in the time of dining, let him firft take the bark, and then eat his dinner. I have done fo my felf.

12. I advife the patient to take the bark in the night, as well as in the day, which I have done myself feveral times, having a person to fit up and wake me. when the time for taking the bark comes.

13. If the patient can take a drachm of the bark for a dose, without finding his flomach loaded, let that quantity be the dofe; and when he has taken one ounce, though he miffes the fit, yet let the bark be repeated, and the dofes taken at four hours distance.

14. I propofe in my next letter, to confider hectic fevers with coughs, commonly called confumptions.

Nov. 18.

THEOPHILUS LOBB.

An authentic narrative of the death of Mark Anthony Calas, and of the trial and ex ecution of his father, John Calos, for the From the fuppofed murder of his fon. French. [426.]

city of Thouloufe; where he had been fettled, and lived in good repute, forty years. He married an Englishwoman of French extraction, her grandmother being of the family of Garde-Montesquieu, and related to the chief noblele of Languedoc.

[OHN CALAS was a merchant of the

Calas and his wife were Protestants, and had five fons, whom they educated in the fame religion. But Lewis, one of the fons, fome time fince became a Roman Catholic; his father's maid-servant, a religious Catholic, who had lived thirty years in the family, having greatly contributed to his converfion; but the father was fo far from expreffing any refentment or ill-will on the occafion, that he fettled an annuity upon Lewis, and ftill kept the maid in his family.

In October 1761, the family feems to have confifted of the father John Clas

Dec. 1762.

and his wife, one woman fervant, Mark Anthony Calas, the eldest son, and Peter Calas, the fecond fon. Mark Anthony had been educated as a scholar, with a view to his becoming an advocate or counfellor at law; but he was not able toget himself admitted as licentiate, because he muft either have performed fome acts, which, as a Proteftant, he could not have performed; or have purchafed certificates, which he either thought unlawful, or found too expenfive; he could not follow the bufinels of a merchant, because he was not qualified for it by his education, nor his turn of mind; he therefore became difcontented and melancholy, and endeavoured to diffipate the gloom of his mind by playing at billiards, and other expenfive pleatures; of which his father often expreffed his difapprobation with fome warmth; and once threatened, that if he did not alter his conduct, he would turn him out of doors; or exprefled himself in words to that effect. The young man's difcontent and melancholy ftill increased, and he seems to have entertained thoughts of putting an end to his life, as he was continually selecting and reading paflages from Plutarch, Seneca, Montaigne, and many other authors, on fuicide, and could fay by heart a French tranflation of the celebrated foliloquy in Hamlet, which he frequently repeated, with fome paflages from a French tragy-comedy, called Sidney, to the fame effect.

On the 13th of October 1761, M. Gober la Vaiffe, a young gentleman about nineteen years of age, the fon of La Vaifle, a celebrated advocate of Theuloute, having teen fome time at Bourdeaux, came back to Thouloufe to fee his father; but find ing that his father was gone to his country-houle, at lome diftance from the city, he went to feveral places, endeavouring to hire a horfe to carry him thither, No horfe, however, was to be hired, and about five o'clock in the evening he was met by John Calas, the father, and the eldeft fon Mark Anthony, who was his friend. Calas, the father, invited him to supper, as he could not fet cut for his father's that night, and La Vaifle confented. All three therefore proceeded to Calas's honte together; and when they came thither, finding that Mrs Calas was fill in her own room, which the had not quitted that day, La Vaifle went up to fee her. After the firft compliments, he told her he was to fup with her by her hefland's invitation. She exprefed tier la

645

tisfaction, and a few minutes afterwards left him, to give fome-orders to her maid. When that was done,' fhe went to look for her fon Anthony whom he found fitting alone in the hop, very penfive. She gave him fome money, and defired hiin to go and buy fome Roquefort cheese, he be ing always the marketman for cheese, as he knew how to buy it good better than any other of the family.

She then returned to her gueft La Vaiffe; who very foon after went again to the livery-ftable, to fee if any horfe was come in, that he might fecure it for the next morning.

In a fhort time Anthony returned, ha ving bought the cheese, and La Vaiffe al fo coming back about the fame time, the family and their gueft fat down to fupper in a room up one pair of ftairs, the whole company confifting of Calas the father and his wife, Anthony and Peter Calas the fons, and La Vaifle the guest, no o ther perfon being in the house except the maid-servant, who has been already men ment tioned.

The

It was now about feven o'clock. fupper was not long; but before it was over, or, according to the French exprel hon, when they came to the defert, Anthony left the table, and went into the kit chen, which was on the fame floor, as be ufed to do. The maid asked him if he was a cold? he answered, Quite the contray; 1 burn; and then left her. In the mean time his friend and the family left the room they had fupped in, and went into a bedchamber: the father and La Vaifle fat down together on a fofa; the younger fon Peter in an elbow-chair; and the mother in another chair; and without any inquiry after Anthony, continued in converfation together till between nine and ten o'clock, when La Vaifle took his leave, and Peter, who had fallen afleep, was a waked to attend him with a light*.,

On

wards;

On the ground floor of Ca as's houfe abor was a hop and a warehouse; the warehouse was divided from the thop by a pair of folding doors. When Peter Calas and La Vaifle came down ftairs into the Thop, they were extremely thocked to fee An thony hanging in his thirt, from a bar, which he had laid across the top of the two folding doors, having half-opened them for that purpofe. Upon dilcovery of this horrid fpectacle, they fhrieked out, and the cry brought down Calas the father, the mother being feized with fuch a terror as kept her trembling in the palfage above. The unhappy old man ruth. ed forward, and taking the body in his arms, the bar to which the rope that fuf pended him was laftened, flipped off from the folding doors of the warehoule, and fell down. Having placed the body on the ground, he looled and took off the cord, in an agony of griet and anguilh not to be exprefied, weeping, trembling, and deploring himself and his child The two young men, his fecond ion and La Vaille, who had not had presence of mind enough to attempt taking down the body, were flanding by, ftupid with amazement and horror. In the mean time the other, hearing the confuled cries and con plaints of her luftand, and finding no-body come to her, found means to get down ftairs. At the bottom the found La Vaife, and haftily and eagerly demanded, what was the matter? This question rouled him in a moment; and inftead of aniwering her, He urged her to go again up tairs, to which, with much reluctance, fhe confented. But the conflict of her mind being fuch as could not be long borne, the fent down the maid, Janet, to lee what was the matter. When the maid difco vered what had happened, the continued below, either because the feared to carry an account of it to her mifireis, or because the bufied herself in doing tome good office to her mafter, who was flili embracing the body of his fon, and bathing it in his tears. The mother therefore, being thus left alone, went down, and mixed in the fcene that has been already defcribed, with fuch en otions as it would naturally produce. In the mean time, Peter had been lent for La Moire, a lurgeon in the heighbourhood. La Moire was not at wards they spent then evening in a beechamner, having left the cating-ro room with the table fil as icon as they had fupped, for Puer goes thep, and is not cilturbed nithe is wanted to wait upon the guent with a hight." Geht. Arg,

D

home, but his apprentice, M Groffe, came instantly, Upon examination he found the body quite deads and upon taking off the neckcloth, which was of black taffety, he faw the mark of the cord, and immediately pronounced, that the decea fed had been ftrangled. This particular had not been told: for the poor old man, when Peter was going for La Moires cried out, "Save at least the honour of r family; do not go and fpread a report that your brother has made away with hindelf"

9:30

my

By this time a croud of people was gathered about the door, and one Cafing, with another friend or two of the family, were come in, Some of thofe who were in the street had heard the cries and exclamations of the father, the mother, the brother, and his friend, before they knew what was the matter; and having by fome means learnt that Anthony Calas was fuddenly dead, and that the furgeon who had examined the body, declared he had been firangled, they took it into their heads that he had been murdered: and as his family were Proteftants, they presently fuppofed that the young man was about to abjure their religion, and had been put to death for that realon. The cries they had heard, they fancied were thole of the deceafed, while he was refiling the violence that was offered him. The tumult in the ftreet increated every moment fome laid that Anthony Calas was to have abjured the next day; 0thers, that Proteftants are bound by their religion to ftrangle or cut the throats of their children, when they are inclined to become Catholics; others, who had found out that La Vaifle was in the house when the accident happened, very confidently affirmed, that the Protestants, at their left alembly, appointed a person to be their common executioner on thefe occations, and that La Vaifle was the man, who, in conlequence of the office to which he had been appointed, had come to Calas's to hang his fon.

lois

་

The poor, father, therefore, who was overwhelmed with grief for the child, was adviled by his friends to lend Dis of his for the offices of juffice, to prevent his heing torn to pieces for having murdered

him