A Letter from Mr James Young, F. R. S. to Dr Edward Tyson, F. R. S. concerning a Ball, Extracted from a Person, Who Had Suffered by, It 30 Years,in Which Was a Plumb-Stone

IV. A Letter from Mr James Young, F. R. S. to Dr Edward Tyson, F. R. S. concerning a Ball, extracted from a Person who had suffered by it 30 years, in which was a Plumb-stone, Plymouth, Sept. 6. 1702. Worthy Sir, When I had last the Honour to be at a meeting of the Royal Society in Gresham College, there happened in a discourse concerning Plumbs, which gave me occasion to tell you of one detained in the Guts of a Woman above 30 years, causing strange and grievous accidents, till I drew it out ex Ano. According to my promise then, I send you now a more particular account of that wonderful case and cure than I could give by meer memory. Her name is Sarah Swayn, of a thin habit and middle stature, who when but six years old, was first afflicted with a violent pain, together with a large hard swelling on the left side of her Belly, which lasted twelve hours, and then went off without use of any Remedy or sensible evacuation; and at the end of three months returned, lasted and went off as before. Several years it observed that Period, and then changed its intermission from 3 months to 3 weeks, and so continued till she was 35 years old, in which time she married, and bore one Child, the pain of which she averr'd to be much less than what these Paroxysms gave her. During her pregnancy, her Pains nor Intermissions had no alteration, and in her whole Life she found no Diet disturb'd her but Milk and Salt Meats. About 9 months before she was cured, the Pain and Tumour encroated to the bigness of a man's two fists, she endeavoured by many Remedies to get ease, but in vain, till the torment and watching had so weakened her, that she could not rise out of her Bed nor lie down in it. In this deplorable condition she was advised by a Woman to take a dose of Powder'd Jalop, what the quantity was I could not learn, but it operated violently, and suddenly drove the pain from her side down to the Anus, where it resembled a Tenesmus, viz. a constant and violent inclination to stools without being able to force off anything, and after she had been thus crucified four days her Urine also stopp'd, and two days after that the charitable Neighbours, who had all along given her their best assistance craved mine. I perceived by their report of the matter, that something obstructed the passage of her Excrements, and soon found it so by a probe; I then anointed the passage with Populkeum, and taking hold of the substance with a pair of large Forceps, made to extract Stones from the Bladder after Lithotomy, I drew it forth. Abundance of Wind and Excrements gushed out, and continued to flow till her Guts were emptied of all the matter, which had been so long retained; after which I ordered her an Anodine Clyster, and a composing draught, and ever since (being several years) she continueth well. The thing extracted was round, somewhat oblong, having on it some such impressions, as mens Fingers make on Wax or Plaister. It then weighed 10 Drachms, now scarce an Ounce, it was 5 inches in circumference, and altho it felt and otherwise appeared a Stone, it swam on Water, which made me see the inside of it by cutting it in two with a Knife, externally it was black, and smooth as if varnished, and no thicker, which made me before I had considered the whole, think it the expanded skin of the Plumb indurated; next to this thin blackness was a crust of matter like Brick, the thick- ness of an half Crown, within that appeared a substance resembling Paste-board or chewed Paper, and within that lay a Prune or withered Plumb, with the Stone and Kernel cut alunder by my Knife. I have sent it for the R. Society to examin, who I presume will think that all those wonderful accidents, which so long molested this poor Woman, were occasioned by this Plumb swallowed so many years before; but how those different accretions were made to it in such a place as the Intestines? how it ceased to torment her at so many and such different Intervals? where it lurked between those Fits, and how the Pain and Tumour observed such exact Periods for so many years; at first every three months, and afterward every 3 weeks? are questions I am not able to resolve. Many Authors tell us of various Stones ejected by Stool, and of late many of them have been found to come out of the Gall Bladder through the Cholerick Channels of Jaundiced People. I have seen two such bigger than any I have read of, one so big as a Pullet's Egg, which came from a Lady in the operation of a strong Cholagogue taken for a Jaundice that had resisted many other Remedies, the other as big as a large Nutmeg, driven out by the same means from an aged Man languishing in the same distemper, and both of them for many days after those Stones came off, evacuated great quantities of Choler by Stool, and were freed of the Disease. That those two Stones were generated in the Folliculus Fellis or ductus Choledochus, no man will doubt who considers the consequence, and knows that in colour, taste, weight and shape, they resembled such as are found in those parts upon dissection of Jaundiced Bodies. I once saw near an handful of them taken out of the Gall Bladder of the Portugal Ambassador that dyed in London, 1679. and we are lately told by Baglivi, that the famous Malpighius's was full of them, they usually are of subcitrin colour, resemble bright Myrrh, and seem an aggregate of small Stones, which perhaps perhaps are made singly in the vesicula, and Coalesce in the Ductus. The consequence of their coming off shews, that they caused the Jaundice in those two persons I have mentioned, by obstructing the Channels through which the Bile passeth from the common receptacle into the duodenum. It may perhaps seem impossible to some men, that substances of that magnitude could pass through a Meatus so small as the common Ductus is. But it hath been no wonder to me this twenty years, since I dissected a Physician of this place, who dyed of the Jaundice, and found the Ductus Communis large enough to admit my greatest Finger, as 3 Physicians and one Surgeon besides myself, saw to our great surprize. Those Stones which are generated in the Guts are of another sort, and easily distinguishable from those I am Writing of. Beckers speaking of some Stones voided by Stool, said —— Calculos illos in Intestinis genitos esse, quia Colore, pondera & figura a choledobis lapillis distincti Arbitratus sum. Those generated in the Gall cause the Jaundice, those in the Guts, beget Cholical, Splanchnical, Hypochondriacal Pains, and sometimes Nephritical, all which vanish when they are ejected. I have seen Lumps of Stones in a Horse as big as a Tennis Ball taken out of a Bullocks Guts. The Authors of the German Miscellany write of one very much bigger. L. Rivicornis of a man that continually with all his Stools voided Stones like those generated in the Kidneys. T. Bartholine mentions several, one particularly notable, being so big as a Pigeons Egg, which was purged off from a Woman by a gentle Pill. —— in exteriore superficie subcinereum, & dum a me clavo ferreo in duas aquales partes diffingitur interius in sart crystalli albicantem & Rutilantem, ita ut qui olim ex Enni starcore aurum, hic colligere potuisset gemmas. There are many such in the Miscell. Cur. and which resembles mine, vol. 7. obs. 90. but there is one much more more so in *Ambr. Pary*, lib. 25, cap. 19, but neither of them so strange in cause or effects as mine. It's not for want of old Authorities that I have here quoted few but Moderns; I know Galen, Crato, Sennertus, M. Donatus, Z. Lusitanus, Fernelius, G. Horstius, Schenckius, and many more before this Age, who have told the world of Stones generated in, and ejected from the Intestines of diseased people, but none that I know with such surprizing circumstances as this sent you by SIR, Your most humble Servant, James Yonge. The Ball entire is figured No 3, and its inside and Plumb-stones by it. V. Some instances of other persons who were hurt by swallowing Plumb-stones, by the Publisher. The discourse mentioned in the beginning of the foregoing Letter was concerning Plumb-stones which had been swallowed by some persons, and had been the cause of their Sickness or Death. The first was a Man in Lancashire, who being for many years ill of the Colic, and receiving relief from no Med'cine, desired he might be dissected after his Death, to see what might be the cause of his Disease. This was accordingly done, and they took out of one of his Guts a large Ball 6 inches about, of an ounce and half weight made up of a spungy matter which swims in Water, and viewed by a Microscope, appeared to be made up of very small, transparent Hairs or Fibres, wrought together, after the manner of the Tophus Bovinus taken out of the maws of Oxen. In the middle or center of it was a common Prune or Plumb-stone, which had been swallowed, and sticking somewhere in the Guts, had gathered that substance about it which resembled the small Hairs on the skins of several Creatures or Fibers of Plants we eat. Dr Charles Leigh in his Natural History of Lancashire, &c. in his first Table has figured this Fig. 4. He