and for the last eight months of his
life, he suffered occasionally from severe attacks of gastrodynia,
which, when present, had the effect of considerably modifying the
thoracic irritation, and allaying the cough. There was nothing very
remarkable in the character of the urine; the quantity voided was small,
and very high coloured, with occasionally a lithic deposit. The faeces
were natural, and smeared with dark blue mucus. On examining the chest
with the stethoscope, the crepitant ronchus was heard in the upper part
of each lung. There was general dulness throughout the lower part of
both, with the exception of a small space at the inferior angle of the
left scapula, where pectoriloquy was distinctly heard, from which was
concluded the cavernous state of a portion of that lung. The heart's
action was languid, and often intermitting, producing vertigo and
occasional syncope. The pulse was gradually becoming slower; and at this
time, (Nov. 1836,) it was _forty-three_ in the minute. I was informed by
this man, that his chest affection first became manifest, after being
engaged with a difficult job in a newly formed coal-pit at Huntlaw,
where he had very little room to conduct his mining operations, which
were carried on with the help of gunpowder, and where he experienced a
sensation of suffocation from the confined nature of the pit,[7] which
did not permit of the exit of the evolved carbon, and ever after, his
cough and difficulty of breathing had been increasing rapidly. During
the greater part of the period he was under my charge, he continued to
expectorate black matter, of the consistency of treacle, mixed with
mucus in considerable quantity, and I would suppose, taking the average
of each week, that he expectorated from ten to twelve ounces daily of
thick treacle-like matter. I had the curiosity, during my attendance on
this patient, to separate the mucus from the carbon, by the simple
process of diluting the sputa with water, and thereafter separating and
drying the precipitated carbon. I was enabled by this means to procure
about one and a-half drachms of a beautiful black powder daily, and in
the course of a week, I had collected near to two ounces of the
substance. This process I continued for some weeks, till such time as I
had procured a sufficient stock of this remarkable product of the
pulmonary structure, and I am certain that the same quantity, if not
more, could have been obtained till his death, in Dec.