Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 054.pdf/38

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[ 16 ]

Mounsey, with a farther account of the case of this same Mr. Butler.

Dr. Mounsey's Letter to Mr. Baker.

Dumfries, Mar. 4th, 1763.

Dear Sir,

IAM ashamed that I have delayed so long performing my promise to send you the sequel of Mr. Butler's case, which you thought would be very agreeable to the Royal Society: but I partly waited to see if any thing farther remarkable would follow, and also I was for a long time after that so hurried with affairs, that I scarce had a moment to myself. I remember you wrote me word, that the Society does not much attend to theory and conjecture; so I shall omit to give my opinion of causes and their way of operating, and only send a simple narration of facts, in the same order they happened, extracted from my notes taken upon this occassion.

In my former account of Mr. Butler's case, it is said, that he had recovered his perfect health and strength: yet after that he was often subject to ailments of the nervous kind, and became sensibly affected not only by the smell of paints, but even the handling of some kinds of metallic inodorous bodies gave him anxiety, tremor, faintings, and many other uneasy symptoms.

The handling of verdegris, vitriol, and the like, threw him into these disorders; and he assured me, that the handling copper or iron had the same effect

on