“Upon opening this Kidney, we found it quite full of a white chalky matter, like plaister of Paris, and all the fleshy substance dissolved and worn away, by what I called a Nephritic Cancer. This had been the source of all his misery; and the symptomatic vomitings, from the irritation on the consentient Nerves, and quite starv’d and worn him down. I have narrated the facts as I saw and observ’d them deliberately and distinctly, and shall leave to the philosophic reader to make what inferences he thinks fit: the truth of the material circumstances I will warrant.”
In this gentleman’s case we may observe, that the contractile power of his Fibres was very much weaken’d, their sensibility in a great measure destroy’d, and his vital energy far exhausted, by the long and severe irritation in his Kidney; and that, when he composed himself on his Back, the motion of the Blood through the Lungs was easily stop’d, in the manner above-mention’d, viz. by the pressure of the Heart upon the left Auricle and Pulmonary Veins; to, which may be added, a small degree of volition in restraining the organs of respiration. In this dead state, we are told, he lay half an hour; in which time the greater part of Blood was drove into the Veins, as generally happens soon after respiration stops. Hence the right Ventricle must have been greatly distended and severely stimulated by the refluent Blood, ’till at length it was brought into a strong contraction, which put the Blood again in motion through the whole Body, and a small spark of vital vigour still remaining, continued it so for eight hours afterwards.
The Mind too, in this case, as in many others of the like kind, was probably tir’d of its communication with the Body, and was willing to take its flight from an habitation in which it felt so much pain.
I have offered this account to the curious, not because I think it altogether satisfactory, but hope, that its insufficiency may induce others to give one more adequate.
If colonel Townshend had not compos’d himself on the Back, could he have produc’d that surprising effect? If he had been turn’d on his Side, would he not have sooner recover’d? Were not the Doctors very blameable for offering to go away without using some means to recover him?