Part 16

_A Letter from the Rev. Mr._ Simson, _Minister at_ Pencaitland, _to Dr._ Adam Austin, _Physician in_ Edinburgh.

[Read April 28, 1757.]

Dear Sir,

ACcording to your desire, I send you the history of my case; which is as follows:

I was of an healthy constitution till the year 1730, when I was seized with a frequent inclination to make water, without any previous pain in the kidneys or ureters. This symptom continued till the year 1733, without giving me much uneasiness.

In June 1733, as I was riding from Edinburgh to my own house at Pencaitland, I was seized with a great difficulty and pain in making water, which went off when I got home.

In the month of July, having again got on horseback, I was seized with the same complaint, but more violent; for then some drops of blood came away. From this time, if I rode eight or ten miles, I passed some blood, but without pain.

In September I made a journey of 60 miles on horseback; but every two miles was obliged to dismount, and made some bloody water.

I continued much in the same way all the year 1734, as the preceding; only had one additional complaint, of a pain in the glans after making water, and likewise in the neck of the bladder. The only thing I did for it was, to drink plentifully of warm milk and water; and gave over riding, on account of the bloody urine.

In the month of August I was sounded by my nephew, Dr. Simson, professor of medicine in the university of St. Andrew’s; but he found no stone, which he attributed to a wrong posture I was in, when he sounded me.

During the winter, if I walked more than usual, I was sure to have a return of the bloody urine and strangury.

In November 1735, I was sounded by Mr. Balderstone, surgeon, in Edinburgh, a gentleman very expert in that operation, and likewise by Dr. Drummond of Perthshire. They both distinctly felt a stone: and I myself took hold of the catheter, when it was in my bladder, and felt the stone as distinctly, as if it had been in my hand.

About Christmas I was seized with a pain along the left ureter, and violent vomitings; but, upon using a turpentine clyster and opiates, it went off.

During the year 1736, I continued much the same as the preceding year, always drinking great plenty of milk and water; which gave me great relief, as to the bloody urine.

I was advised by my nephew, Dr. Simson, to go to London, and be cut by Mr. Cheselden; the rest of my friends advising me to be cut by Mr. Smith, a lithotomist at Perth. However, I deferred the operation, and continued much the same all the year 1737, having severe fits now and then.

In the year 1738 Sir Alexander Gibson, of Addiston, informed me, that he had been in my condition, had passed several small stones, and had found incredible service from the use of soap pills: for, from not being able to get out of bed, in the space of two months after using the soap he was able to go a hunting. However, for some time I was afraid to try the soap, not knowing what effects it might have on a confirmed stone; Sir Alexander Gibson’s case being only that of small stones. But the Rev. Mr. Lundie, of Salton, by experiments convinced me of the efficacy of soap in dissolving a confirmed stone out of the bladder; for the stone gradually grew smoother and smoother, and at last was quite dissolved.

On the 12th of February 1739, I first began the use of the soap, and in the beginning took only a drachm in the 24 hours. The first week it made me a little qualmish: however, I gradually increased the dose; so that in six weeks I took six drachms a day, without its disagreeing in the least with me. I made it up into pills, and washed them down with a draught of warm milk and water.

From the time I began to use the soap, my gravelish symptoms gradually abated; but, upon walking two or three miles, I made bloody urine. However, that symptom gradually abated; and in the year 1743 all the symptoms of a stone quite vanished, insomuch that I could walk, ride, or go in a machine, as well as ever.

From February 1739, to July 1743, I took every day five or six drachms of soap: but after that time I diminished the dose to half an ounce; and never after had any return of a gravelish symptom, tho’ I still imagine the stone is not intirely dissolved; for after sitting some time, I find as it were something come to the neck of the bladder, but which gives me no uneasiness.

This, Sir, according to the best of my memory, is my case: and if it can be of any benefit to you, in the cure of this painful disease, it will give great pleasure to,

Dear Sir, Your most obedient Servant, Matthew Simson.

Nov. 20th, 1749.

_The Extract from Dr._ Austin’_s Letter to Dr._ Pringle.

[Read April 28, 1757.]

THE Rev. Mr. Simson’s letter to me as written in the year 1749; about which time he told me, that he had ridden 40 miles in a day, without any bad symptom ensuing.

In the year 1752 he broke his thigh-bone at the neck; by a fall from his horse, and continued for six weeks in great pain; but after that time he grew easier, and was able to put his foot to the ground. One day, as his servant was helping him to walk across the room, he let him fall; upon which Mr. Simson felt a severe pain: the broken leg became then evidently shorter than the other; and by that misfortune he was confined to his bed for near two years. However, about six months before he died, he was so well recovered, as to be able to go to church, and to perform divine service.

About the beginning of May 1756, Mr. Simson was seized with a diarrhæa, which resisted all medicine, and carried him off in the 83d year of his age. From the date of his letter to his death he had never discontinued the use of the soap (except during the time of his last illness), tho’ he had not been troubled with any painful symptom of a stone since the year 1743.

I obtained leave of his friends to open the body, but found no stone or gravel in the bladder; that part appearing to be, in every respect, in a natural state, except at the neck, where the coats seemed to be schirrous, and were about a quarter of an inch thick.

It is probable, that the stone had been of a softer texture, and more easily dissolved, than ordinary; otherwise five or six drachms of soap taken daily, even for so long a time, could not have dissolved it intirely; for many have used that medicine in much larger doses, and at the same time have drank lime-water plentifully, without obtaining such effects; tho’ all their painful symptoms were removed by that course, as Dr. Whytt has shewn in his treatise on this subject.

I shall only add, that Mr. Simson’s son, who is now minister at Fala, was present at the opening of the body, and can attest, that there was no stone found in the bladder.

Adam Austin.

Edinburgh, 15 April 1757.

_A Letter from Dr._ Adam Drummond _to Dr._ Adam Austin, _relating to the Rev. Mr._ Matthew Simson’_s Case. Communicated by_ J. Pringle, _M.D. F.R.S._

[Read June 23, 1757.]

I Have yours; and was present when Mr. Balderstone sounded Mr. Simson; and both of us perceived, very distinctly, a large stone: and Mr. Simson himself felt it; which we were the more sollicitous he should do, as he was sounded before by Dr. Simson, who had declared there was no stone. But the particular magnitude of it we could not well determine at the end of a long catheter; tho’ I remember Mr. Balderstone, who was well versed in that business, conjectured it to be pretty large. He was sounded only once by us, as the urethra was a little hurt by turning the catheter. There is only one circumstance in the case, which Mr. Simson seems to have omitted; that, from the first symptoms of the stone, he passed a great deal of _mucus_ mixed with _pus_, as well as blood; and great quantities of gritty red sand, all in single grains, never any concreted into small stones. I take the more notice of this, as I do not remember, that, after he used the soap, he ever passed any sand, but a good deal of _mucus_, in which the soap was discoverable by its frothing. Could the gritty particles of sand be again suspended in the urine, so as to become invisible? or were they wrapt up in the soapy liquid, so as to escape observation? I have seen several stones of a soft consistence dissolved into mucilage by soap: but the sand passed by Mr. Simson, before he used the soap, seems to indicate his stone of a harder nature, tho’ indeed it felt obtuse at the end of the catheter.

I shall rejoice, if many instances of this kind are found afterwards: but this seems to be the only one yet, of a stone in the bladder being dissolved by soap alone. I am,

Dear Doctor, Your most humble Servant, Adam Drummond.

Bandeeran, June 5. 1757.

XXVIII. _An Account of the Impressions of Plants on the Slates of Coals: In a Letter to the Right Honourable_ George _Earl of_ Macclesfield, _President of the R.S. from Mr._ Emanuel Mendes da Costa, _F.R.S._

[Read April 28, 1757.]

My Lord,

I Have the honour to address this letter to your Lordship, in order to be communicated to the Royal Society, if your Lordship deems it worthy the attention of that learned and illustrious assembly.

The impressions of various kinds of plants are frequently, I might say always, found in some of the strata lying over coal; but more particularly in a stratum of earthy slat, which, in my History of Fossils, page 168. Species IV. I have synonymed _Schistus terrestris niger carbonarius_, and which always lies immediately upon the coal-stratum, not only in the coal-pits of this kingdom, but of many other parts of Europe, _e.g._ France, Saxony, Bohemia, Silesia, _&c._

Most of these impressions, my Lord, are of the _herbæ capillares et affines_, the gramineous, and the reed tribes: but, however, among them many rare and beautiful impressions undoubtedly of vegetable origin, and impressed by plants hitherto unknown to botanists, are not unfrequently met with.

Besides these, my Lord, found over coal-pits, there are likewise found in some parts of this kingdom, as at Robinhood’s-bay in Yorkshire, Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, _&c._ many curious impressions of the fern tribe in regular nodules of iron-stone; and, in the latter place, not only impressions of plants, but even the cones or iuli of some kinds of trees are met with, very perfect and fair, and curiously imbedded in masses of iron-stone.

The most part of the impressions of ferns, grasses, _&c._ are easily recognizable, they so minutely tally to the plants they represent. Others indeed, tho’ they do not exactly answer any known species, yet have characters so distinctly expressed, that they are easily arranged under their respective genera[139]. Therefore I shall not trouble your Lordship with any further remarks on all such, but shall only touch on those elegant and extraordinary impressions, probably of unknown vegetables, above-mentioned: for that they are the parts and impressions of vegetables, I think clearly evinced, if we attentively and with a philosophical mind consider them, and reflect on the various circumstances, which attend them in the places, where they now lie buried.

I have therefore the honour, my Lord, to exhibit the drawings of seven such extraordinary impressions, and the fossiles themselves, for your Lordship’s and this learned body’s inspection (_See_ TAB. V.). The impressions figured Nº. 1. is from Mr. Mytton’s collieries at Drilt, near Oswestry, in Shropshire; as are also those figured Nº. 2, 4, and 7: they are found sometimes two feet in length, and are generally covered with a thin crust of coal. The specimina Dr. Woodward exhibits, Catalogue B, pages 106, 107. specimina _q._ 22. and _q._ 32. are analogous to this, tho’ not exactly the same. The Doctor’s fossiles were from Haigh in Lancashire; and he imagines the impressions to be made by vegetables of the fir kind. Volckman also, in his _Silesia subterranea_, tab. 22. fig. 2. figures a branch with a rhomboidal work on it, and with three long narrow leaves, which seems akin to this impression.

Nº. 2. seems of the reed tribe: the knobs placed in rows, which are like the vesicles on the _quercus marina_, and some other _algæ_, are very remarkable. Woodward, Catalogue B. page 9. specimen _a._ 1. exhibits an impression akin to this, which he imagines to be of the fern kind.

Nº. 3. from a coal-pit in Yorkshire. I cannot but think this impression is owing to somewhat of the fir kind. Dr. Woodward, who exhibits such a like impression, Catalogue B. p. 16. specimen _a._ 108. imagines the same: his words are, “The impression is much like what might be made by the branches of the common fir, after the leaves are fallen or stript off.”

Nº. 4. seems to be of the same kind as Nº. 2.

Nº. 5. This extraordinary impression is from Mostyn-colliery in Flintshire. It is a little obscured; but, when attentively viewed, exhibits a reticular impression, the meshes whereof are rhomboidal hollows, and the sides of the rhombs, or the net-work, are raised, or in relief.

Nº. 6. is from Newcastle. Volckman, ibid, part 3. tab. 4. fig. 9. seems to be of this kind.

Nº. 7. The same author, Volckman, figures a somewhat-like impression, ibid. fig. 5.

Only these seven extraordinary impressions I have presumed, my Lord, to treat of at this present time; but I have many more in my cabinet equally curious, some few of which I here exhibit to the Society, without taking any further notice of them: only I shall add, that many extraordinary impressions occur in Woodward’s and other collections, and many are iconed in authors, worthy the attention of the curious.

These impressions, my Lord, are not only met with in small pieces; but large evident branches, some feet in length, have been found. I have, in the collieries of Derbyshire, frequently traced branches with (what seemed to me) long narrow leaves proceeding from them, and parts of other vegetables, above a foot’s length: but the hardness of the substance they are immersed in renders it impossible to get them out without breaking them to pieces[140].

As these remains of vegetables are very extraordinary, I would recommend to the curious in botany to take notice of them, as an _Appendix Plantarum adhuc incognitarum_. For my part, I am so very little skilled in botany, that I hardly presume to offer my opinion; which is, that they are impressions and parts of species of the firs and pines, of the tithymals, the cereus’s, and other arborescent plants, and of large reeds; for some of the said kind are embellished with ribbed, studded, and reticulated works; _e.g._ the Hercules’ club, or _rubi facie senticosa planta Lobelii_, described by Dr. Grew, _Museum Reg. Soc._ p. 221. the _cerei, &c._

I further exhibit to the Society some few specimina of iron-stones with cones or iuli imbedded in them. These, my Lord, are from veins of ball iron-stone, in the lands of Lord Gower, at Okenyate, a village on the Roman road of Watling-street; and from the iron-works at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. The cones are frequently met with in fragments, but rarely so intire, and are never found but in the strata of iron-stone. I have added to these a figured fossile body, much like a cone, found sometimes in our chalk-pits in England, but chiefly in the pits at Cherry-Hinton in Cambridgeshire. Dr. Woodward, Catalogue B. p. 22. specimen _b._ 72. calls them cones seeming to be of the larix; and imagines they were not come to ripeness or maturity. They certainly have some resemblance to cones, tho’ I much doubt them to be so; but they most exactly resemble the roots of the _cyperus rotundus vulgaris_ of botanists.

I shall finish this paper, my Lord, by acquainting your Lordship and the Society, that I firmly believe these bodies to be of the vegetable origin, buried in the strata of the earth at the time of the universal deluge recorded by Moses. It is, I must confess, with regret, that I find there are some, who reject the burial of these bodies at that fatal catastrophe, but substitute partial deluges to account for it. Did those gentlemen consider, or maturely weigh, the many remarkable and strong evidences of an universal deluge, every-where obvious in the bowels of the earth, they certainly would abandon their imaginary system: for, my Lord, it is not only the immense quantities of marine remains, dispersed in all terrestrial strata, which are to be considered (that circumstance alone might give some reasoning to their system of partial deluges), but the following more weighty circumstances are likewise to be added and flung into the scale. 1º. The heavings, displacings, trappings, and breaks of the metallic veins, and the loads of rubble, met with at vast depths, and where no marine remains were ever found; and such heavings, _&c._ are not rare in metallic or mineral works: of which, to give your Lordship an idea, I have presumed to sketch the following plan of such a phænomenon.

2º. If these effects proceed from local deluges, recedings of the sea, gulphs atterrated, _&c._ we should then indeed find marine remains: but how will that account for the vast quantity of remains of terrestrial vegetables and animals, equally met with, and in like manner as the marine remains, in the bowels of the earth? And, 3º. Were local or partial deluges the cause, we should then find only the animals and plants of the climates or places, where such deluges have happened; whereas in these fossil remains it is quite the contrary: the remains of those plants and animals, we know, are of animals and plants, the inhabitants of the most remote climes from those, where they now lie buried; _e.g._ the rhinoceros-bones, in the cave called Baumans-hole, in the Hartz Forest in Germany; the strange bones in the Antra Draconum in Hungary; the horns of the moose-deer, and other prodigious horns, and elephants bones, found in England, Ireland, Germany, Sibiria, and even America, _&c._ of vegetables, parts of the arbor tristis in France; bamboo’s, or great Indian reeds, frequent in England; with numbers of other such examples. And of those remains even of the marine shells, yet unknown to us, all appear exotic to the climes where they now lie deposited; _e.g._ the cliffs at Harwich in Essex abound with a species of _buccinum heterostrophum_, and other shells, never yet discovered in the adjacent waters. The _ammonitæ_ of so many species, and the innumerable variety of _conchæ anomiæ_, with which this island abounds, are yet unknown to be inhabitants of our seas, and appear exotic to this climate. Therefore, my Lord, I reasonably conclude partial or local deluges could never have produced such effects. However, unprejudiced to any opinion, if the learned, who favour the system of partial deluges, will either confute these my assertions, or give solid reasons for the facts alleged to be producible by local deluges, atterrations, _&c._ I will joyfully embrace the truth: but till then, my Lord, I would recommend to those systematical gentlemen, not to pervert that excellent maxim of the great Lord Bacon, and, instead of _Non fingendum neque excogitandum, sed inveniendum quid natura faciat, aut ferat_, not to corrupt it into _fingendum atque excogitandum, non inveniendum quid natura faciat, aut ferat_.

I am, with great submission and respect,

MY LORD, Your Lordship’s Most devoted, and most obliged, humble Servant, Emanuel Mendes da Costa.

London, 27 April, 1757.

XXIX. _A Catalogue of the_ Fifty Plants _from_ Chelsea Garden, _presented to the_ Royal Society _by the worshipful Company of Apothecaries, for the Year 1756, pursuant to the Direction of Sir_ Hans Sloane, _Baronet, Med. Reg. & Soc. Reg. nuper Præses, by_ John Wilmer, _M. D. clariss. Societatis Pharmaceut._ Lond. _Socius, Hort._ Chels. _Præfect. & Prælector Botan._

[Read April 28, 1757.]

1701 ABronanum campestre incanum Carlinæ odore. C.B.P.

1702 Abrotanum humile corymbis majoribus aureis. H. Reg. Par.

1703 Acer platanoides. Muntingii histor.

1704 Amelanchier. Lobel.

1705 Anchusa lutea minor. J.B. 3. 583. Buglossum luteum annuum minimum. Tourn. 134.

1706 Arctotis ramis decumbentibus foliis lineari-lanceolatis rigidis subtus argenteis flore magno aureo pediculo longissimo. Miller’s Icons.

1707 Ascyrum magno flore, C.B. 280.

1708 Asphodelus Allobrogicus magno flore Lilii H.L. 65.

1709 Aster caule ramoso scabro perenni foliis ovatis sessilibus pedunculis nudis unifloris. Miller’s Icons.

1710 Astragalus repens minor flore cæruleo, filiqua Epigottidi simili. Index Plant. Boerh.

1711 Barleria inermis foliis ovatis denticulatis petiolatis. Lin. Sp. Plant. 637. Barleria solani folio flore coccineo. Plum. nov. gen. 31.

1712 Blitum Kaly minus album dictum. Kaly minus Ger. Emac. 535.

1713 Campanula maxima foliis latissimis. C.B. 94.

1714 Caryophillus montanus umbellatus floribus variis, luteis ferrugineis Italicus. Barrel obs. 648.

1715 Cataria Hispanica Betonicæ folio angustiore flore cæruleo. Tourn.

1716 Celastrus spinis nudis, ramis teretibus, foliis acutis. Hort. Cliff. 72. Lycium. Boerhaav. Ind. alt. 2. 237.

1717 Ceralus racemosa sylvestris fructu non eduli rubro. H.R. Par. Cerasia racemosa rubra. 2. Tabernamont. Icon, 987.

1718 Chamædrys Hispanica tenuifolia multiflora. H. R. Par. Tourn. 205.

1719 Cherophyllum palustre latifolium flore albo. Boerh. 70. Myrrhis palustre latifolia rubra. Tourn. 315.

1720 Chenopodium Stramonii folio. Vaill.

1721 Cirsium foliis non hirsutis floribus compactis. C.B.P. 377.

1722 Cirsium maximum Asphodeli radice. C.B. 377.

1723 Colutea foliolis ovatis integerrimis caule fruticolo. Phil. Miller’s Icons.

1724 Convallaria foliis sessilibus racemo terminal composito. Lin. Sp. Pl. 315.

1725 Conyza mas Theophrasti major Dioscoridis. C.B.P. 265. Major Monspeliensis odorata. J.B. 2. 1053.

1726 Coriandrum majus. C.B. 158. Officinar. 145.

1727 Cornus Orientalis sylvestris fructu teretiformi. T. Cor.

1728 Crithmum, sive Fæniculum maritimum, minus. C.B. 288. Offic. 152.

1729 Crocus sativus. C.B. 65. Officinar. 152.

1730 Cyclamen vernum minus orbiculato folio, inferne rubente, flore minore ruberrimo. Mor. Hist. 3. 551.

1731 Elichrysum graveolens acutifolium alato caule. Hort. Eltham.

1732 Gramen spica aristata. Lin. Sp. Pl. 83. Gramen loliaceum spica longiore lolium Dioscoridis. C.B.P.

1733 Leucanthemum Tanaceti folio, flore majore. Boerh. 107. Matricaria Tanaceti folio, flore majore, semine umbilicato. Tourn. 493.

1734 Meadia. Catesby Hist. Car. 3. p. 1. Dodecatheon. Lin. Sp. Pl. 144.

1735 Medica magno fructu, aculeis sursum et deorsum rendentibus. Tourn. 411.

1736 Moscatellina foliis fumariæ bulbosæ, de qua Cordus. J.B. 2. 206. Radix cava minima viridi flore. Ger. 933.

1737 Narcissus Illyricus Liliaceus. C.B.P. 55. Pancratii Monspeliaci Hemerocallidis Valentinæ facie. Lilio-narcissus, vel Narcissus tertius Matthioli. J.B. 2. 613.

1738 Osmunda vulgaris et palustris. Tourn. 547. Filix ramosa non dentata florida. C.B.P. 357.

1739 Papaver laciniato folio capitulo hispido rotundiore. Tourn. Argemone capitulo rotundiore. Park. 369.