Spry "with a hoarse voice, scarce to be heard, that melted lead had run down his throat into his body" and was experiencing severe internal pain. Dr. Spry found Hall's claim unbelievable as he felt no person could survive having swallowed molten lead let alone live for hours afterward and be towed through water. Dr. Spry also noted that Hall was not exhibiting any other symptoms and reasoned that the trauma of the accident and Hall's advanced age were causing him to make wild claims. Dr. Spry later noted in a report sent on 19 December 1755 to the Royal Society in London that Henry Hall was "aged 94 years, of good constitution, and extremely active for one of that age". Death In the days following the fire, Hall was able to eat, drink and swallow medicine. He continued to tell Dr. Spry of the lead in his stomach and also told a friend who visited him. Hall seemed to be on the mend but by the sixth day, Dr. Spry observed that Hall's condition was declining. By this time, Hall could no longer eat or drink and began to rapidly worsen. He died on Monday, 8 December 1755, aged 94, at his home in East Stonehouse, Plymouth after "being seized with cold sweats and spasms of the tendons, he soon expired". Dr. Spry conducted an autopsy on Hall noting that, "left side of his body, below the short ribs, in the breast, mouth and throat ... left side of the head and face, with the eye extremely burnt". The autopsy revealed that "the diaphragmatic upper mouth of the stomach greatly inflamed and ulcerated, and the tunica in the lower part of the stomach burnt; and from the great cavity of it took out a great piece of lead ... which weighed exactly seven ounces, five drachms and eighteen grains". Dr. Spry gave the following written account of how Hall and his two colleagues had explained to him how the lead came to be in Hall's stomach: "It will perhaps be thought difficult to explain the manner, by which the lead entered the stomach: But the account, which the deceased gave me and others, was, that as he was endeavouring to extinguish the flames, which were at a considerable height over his head, the lead of the lanthorn being melted dropped down, before he was aware of it, with great