cous
membrane of bronchial divisions, when freed from the black matter, was
swollen and eroded as far up as the bifurcation of the trachea. At
several parts these passages were considerably contracted.

The heart was enlarged, and dilated in all its cavities. The valves of
the right and left ventricles wore thickened, from congestion of very
minute veins, and were granular to the feel. The substance of the heart
was soft. There were eight ounces of effusion into the pericardium,
resembling that formed in the cavities of the thorax. The liver and the
spleen were large; the former peculiarly yellow and oily. Several very
large veins, containing inky-looking blood, were seen ramifying its
substance. The spleen was very friable. The kidneys were small, and
apparently healthy.

Brain not examined.

This case comes under the third division of the disease. R.'s case is
peculiarly striking, from the length of time (twenty years or more) that
the carbon was concealed within the pulmonary tissue, and also because
he had never been engaged, as far as known, as a stone-miner; so that
this case, along with others, illustrates the fact, that where the
morbid action is the result of lamp smoke, from the combustion of coarse
oil, and not gunpowder smoke, the disease is much slower in its
progress, but ultimately fatal.

* * * * *

CASE VIII. R. D., aged 37, at his death, 1839. He was the brother of
George Davidson, subject of the first case in this Essay. He began to
labour as a miner, with his brother, in early life, at Pencaitland
coal-work. He first began as a coal-miner, and after being so engaged
for five or six years, he removed to Penston coal-work, which adjoins.
He continued healthy for a considerable length of time, and at his
brother's death, December 1836, he was free to all appearance from any
affection of the chest. He returned, 1836, to Pencaitland coal-work,
where he engaged as a stone-miner, knowing that such employment was
destructive to life; and from that change he dated the commencement of
his disease. Cough, palpitation, dyspnoea, headach, quick pulse (90 in
the minute), made their appearance, soon after he began trap labour, and
these symptoms gradually increased, till he was laid aside in the course
of two years, (1838,) when he first expectorated black sputum.[14] As
his exhaustion advanced, the carbonaceous expectoration became more
copious, and he discharged from the lungs