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Siste, viator

Clauditur hoc tumulo, qui tumulavit

Plurimos

Princeps Corporis tui coquus et

Arbiter,

Hepar notum seculis,
Sed

Ignotum naturae,
Quod

Nominis majestatem et dignitatis

Fama firmavit,

Opinione conservavit

Tamdiu coxit,

Donec cum cruento imperio seipsum.
Decoxerit

Abi sine jecore viator
Bilemque hepati concede
Ut

Sine bile bene

Tibi coquas, illi preceris.

Stay, Traveller,

In this tomb is He confined who entombed a multitude

[or sent many to the tomb]

Chief Digester and Judge of thy Frame
THE LIVER

known to the generations of men

(But Nature knew him not).

Who by rumour built up the glory of his name and honour, by baseless fancy established it. So long did he digest, till he digested himself and his gory empire into nothingness.

Hence

Liverless traveller,

To the Liver surrender thy bile that bileless thou mayest enjoy good digestion, and for him breathe a kind prayer.

[Or, Depart Traveller, without Liver-without spleen—and leave gall to the Liver, so that without spite you may enjoy good digestion yourself, and say a kind prayer for him, i.e., the Liver.]

CARMEN OF TURRIUS ON THE BLOOD-GIVING LIVER.

Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood found many opponents and for diverse reasons-not only at home, but also in the great School of Paris, where Riolan headed the opposition. The exchange of letters between Riolan and Harvey we may leave aside at present. The picturesque comes in with Joannes de Turre, who was greatly distressed at the sad plight of the Liver, for these new doctrines had sapped the foundations of its glory and its imperial position. His conservatism and his conscience could not brook the scandal brought by the innovations of Harvey, Pecquet, Bartholinus and others to such a "glorious body" as the liver. The proud and imperial liver was apparently deposed from its high estate. Not only was this so, but the heart, the old school, even old Galen himself, and what Turrius calls the "dogmes succulents" and the "magnifiques theses" all alike were ruined and degraded by these pestilent new discoveries. While Bartholinus in 1653 chanted the De profundis over the liver, and solemnly interred its hitherto undisputed and majestic reputation, Turrius in 1666 reinstalled the "glorious organ" and sang its praises and pronounced its apotheosis in the following Carmen or Verse in defence of the blood-giving Liver."

Pro sanguifico Hepate Carmen.
Quid viator abis

Sicque gravi censes insontem, marmore claudi
Cujus et imperio purpura digna fuit
Siste

Laeserat heroem Pecquetus sanguine dempto
Addiderat tumulum Bartholus ultro quidem

Sed

Eia

neque sub saxo jecoris nunc umbra moratur
Ipsi nam vitam Turrius ipse tulit

En

Sanguine non solum ditavit Turrius hepar

Singuinis et sceptrum reddidit immo dedit.

COUNTERBLAST FOR LIVER, THE BLOOD-BESTower.

Why, traveller, away?

[Why dost thou hasten to depart ?]

Think'st thou that the guiltless is entombed beneath so great a load of marble, whose purple flow well befitted Empire? [or Imperial rank] Stay,

Pecquet had done the Hero wrong,

Bartholin all unprovoked [though no one asked him] robbed him of blood and gave him a Tomb.

Ah me!

But the ghost of Liver skulks not beneath this stone.

de Turre himself hath given the Hero life.

Lo! not only did de Turre enrich the Liver with blood and restore to Him the Realm of Blood; 'Twere better to say that Turrius himself gave it to Him.

FRANKLIN'S AUTO-EPITAPH.

While dealing with epitaphs we may recall the following which Benjamin Franklin composed for himself, and requested that it. should be inscribed on the tombstone:

The Body
of

Benjamin Franklin, Printer,

Like the Cover of an old Book,

Its contents torn out,

And stripped of its Lettering and Guilding,
Lies here, food for Worms:

Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will, as he believeth,

Appear once more

In a new

And more beautiful Edition

Corrected and Amended

by

THE AUTHOR.

The accompanying illustration showing the Anatomical Theatre of Bartholinus in Copenhagen is taken from Th. Bartholini, Domus Anatomica Hafniensis, brevissime descripta, Hafniæ, 1662.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

Clinic.

MYASTHENIA

GRAVIS WITH

OPHTHALMOPLEGIA:

WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON OCULAR PALSIES.

By W. B. WARRINGTON, M.D., M.R.C.P. (Lond.), Physician to the David Lewis Northern Hospital, Liverpool; Demonstrator of Pathology in the University.

C. M., a married woman, æt. 25, came to the hospital on the 25th February complaining of progressive weakness in the limbs which had first become noticeable about 18 months ago, the patient then being pregnant at an early period. The weakness rapidly progressed, and was very marked when the child was born. For some months the patient had noticed a thickness and difficulty in her speech; there had also been trouble in swallowing with occasional regurgitation of fluid through the nose. She was a well-nourished woman, with a healthy complexion. The attention was at once arrested by the peculiar aspect of the face, characterised by a fixity of expression, the lips were constantly kept just apart, the neck bent slightly back and the upper eyelids somewhat drooping. In speaking it was obvious that a rather distressing effort was needed, the words at first being indistinct and nasal; it seemed as if there was an initial difficulty in closing the posterior nares by the soft palate. The attempt to swallow was also attended by painful spasmodic movement. The aspect at once suggested the condition of myasthenia, and I will now give a description of the symptoms:

The gait is slow and rather waddling in character, recalling the gait of pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis. The patient very soon tires, she can only walk about ten yards, and requires a little support to prevent herself falling. She is unable to raise herself from a chair to the standing posture when the arms are folded across the chest, and one knee cannot be lifted over the other; the movements of the leg and foot are, however, fairly strong, the weakness being chiefly in the ileo-psoas and gluteal groups of muscles. The muscles are well developed without any wasting. The knee-jerks are brisk and do not tire; they were elicited one hundred consecutive times without any enfeeblement in the response. The ankle-jerks are present, and the plantar reflex is flexor in type. In the upper limbs the weakness is even greater, the grasp very feeble and soon after several attempts disappears altogether, the fingers hardly closing on the observer's hand. Abduction

of the arm to the right angle cannot be performed, though it can be raised for a short time in the sagittal plane and held out against feeble resistance; elevation to the vertical line is impossible. The other movements of the shoulder girdle and forearm are also feeble. The

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