Note 32 — OF THE DYSENTERY.

While this Sheet was in the Press, I received Dr. Pringle’s 4th Edition of his Observations on the Diseases of the Army, and Dr. Baker’s Treatise on the Dysentery which was epidemic in London in the Year 1762. Both these Gentlemen give an Account of the Dissection of the Bodies of some People who died of the Dysentery; where, besides the common Appearances of the inner Surface of the Rectum and Colon being covered with a bloody Slime, and their internal Coats being inflamed, gangrened, or in a putrid State, there were observed on the Inside of the lower Part of the Colon, and upper Part of the Rectum, a Number of little Tubercles, or Excrescences, which resembled the Small Pox, of a flat Sort at the Height of the Disorder; but differed from them in this, that they were of a firm Consistence, without any Cavity: they were believed to take their Rise from the cellular Membrane, which lies immediately above the villous Coat. Perhaps such Tubercles might have been found in the Colon and Rectum of those Bodies we opened; but not looking for them, they may have passed unobserved.

Morgagni, in his Book lately published, de Sede & Causis Morborum, epist. xxxi. is of Opinion, that the Filaments, and Pieces of Membranes, which are frequently observed in the Stools, are often formed of inspissated Mucus and Lymph, and other Liquors; and not the Fibres, or Pieces of the villous Coat of the Intestines, as alledged by many Authors.