An Account of the Case of a Young Lady Who Drank Sea Water for an Inflammation and Tumour in the Upper Lip. Communicated by Dr. Lavington of Tavistock, in Devon, to John Huxham, M. D. and F. R. S.

IV. Is a view of the base extremity, which is round like a hemisphere, shewing the two holes, one at the end of each great valve, just where the processes of their smooth portions, and the edge of the round piece, meet. The apices of some of these conoide Pholades are a little curved; but that of this subject described is strait. We must also observe that, besides these, there were great numbers of Cossi, or worms, in the bottom of the Spanish ship; the vestige of one or two of them, if visible in this piece of wood, and the channels they make, which are in all directions, are lined with a thin white incrustation, and are of equal dimensions all along. II. An Account of the Case of a young Lady who drank Sea Water for an Inflammation and Tumour in the Upper Lip. Communicated by Dr. Lavington of Tavistock, in Devon, to John Huxham, M.D. and F.R.S. Read Jan. 17, 1765. A Young lady of Launceston, aged about sixteen, very tall of her age, and of a thin delicate constitution, very weak and sickly when a child, enjoyed for some years past a tolerable state of health. However being incommoded moded now and then with an inflammation and swelling of the upper lip, which was thought strumous, was advised to drink sea water, which she accordingly did every morning, to the quantity of a pint, for ten days successively; during which she was as well as usual, till on a sudden she was seized with a profuse discharge of the catamenia. This continued so immoderate and alarming that Dr. Lavington was consulted. Upon inquiry, he found not only that the uterine flux was excessive, but also that she was perpetually spitting blood from the gums; and likewise had innumerable petechial spots on her neck and breast; and withall a great many large livid spots on her arms and legs. Her pulse was very quick, though pretty full; her face exceedingly pale, and somewhat bloated; and her flesh in general was very soft and tender. She was often taken very faint, but soon recovered tolerable spirits. The flux from the uterus at length abated, but that from the gums increased to such a degree, that her apothecary took a little blood from her arm. From the orifice blood ouzed continually for several days, notwithstanding many endeavours were used to staunch it. At last blood issued from her nose perpetually, attended with frequent faintings, in which she at length expired, choaked as it were with her own blood. But before she died, it was very remarkable, that her right arm was quite mortified from the elbow to the wrist: and it is to be further noted, that though blood, drawn from her some weeks before she began the use of the sea water for an inflammation in her lip, was found sufficiently dense, and in a pretty good state; yet that drawn off in in her last sickness was mere putrid dissolved gore. To this account Dr. Lavington subjoined the following queries. Whether or no, a scorbutic state of the animal juices may not be produced by salt water, as well as by salt provisions; especially if, as in the present case, it doth not pass off freely by the usual evacuations, which often happens when drank for a considerable time, and the body is accustomed to it? Whether the thin tender delicate fibre is not a morbid disposition, somewhat different from the too viscid or too lax? and whether to such a constitution, attended with a loose texture of the blood, or a hectic habit, a salt water course may not be likely to increase the acrimony of the blood, rupture the vessels, and bring on a dangerous haemorrhage? And whether, even to strumous patients thus circumstanced, the Cortex Peruvianus is not more adapted? To which Dr. Huxham replied nearly as follows: "In many cases I have known very good effects from a course of sea water, when drank in pretty large quantities, and long continued; but it was when it purged gently, and now and then puked somewhat. With the thin, tender, and hectic, it seldom agrees. The gross, heavy, and phlegmatic, commonly bear it with advantage. I have known it bring on colical pains, diarrhoea, dysentery, and bloody stools, cough, hectic heats, wasting of the flesh, and an haemoptoë. It generally renders the body liable to very great constipation, after it hath been drank for a considerable time." Sea Sea salt is a kind of neutral salt, that will not pass off through the pores of the skin (except perhaps in an ammoniacal state some of it may). Its proper outlets are by stool and urine. It appears by experiments to be very little alterable by the powers of the animal economy. If so, when not duly discharged by these passages, in a course of drinking salt water, the marine salt must be greatly accumulated in the mass of blood, make it continually more and more acrimonious; and by the mutual attraction of its particles, when so abundant, run into molecules too large to pass the minutest vessels, occasion stagnations; and by irritating these capillaries increase the impetus a tergo, and often bring on ruptures of those vessels, extravasations, blotches, spots; in a word, all the symptoms of the scurvy in the highest degree. Indeed it is very well known, that the most healthy sailors cannot long live in drinking mere salt water for common drink.