and large intestine, especially in region of transverse colon; irritation of kidney and bladder, with retention and suppression; pain in the course of the ureters.

Drew off the urine, small in quantity, but loaded with bile; applied hot fomentations over the abdomen and pubes; gave internally to arrest vomiting and allay spasms, the following:

Alc. Fld. Ext. Gelsemini xx. ; Alc. Fld. Ext. Dioscorea, "xi.; aquæ, iij. 3i. every 15 minutes until relieved. No vomiting after 1st dose, after 4th dose all spasms ceased, and flatus subsided; slept for half an hour.

Alc. Fld. Ext. Agrimonii, 3 ss.; Hyoscyam., 3ij.; Tinct. Serpentaria Co., 3 ss. 3 ss. every hour until suppression of urine is relieved; the Gelseminum and Dioscorea to be kept up between doses; after third dose, patient slept well; on awakening passed large quantity of urine; irritation of bladder gone, and less tenderness in region of the kidneys; severe headache still remains, with distress in right side, and gastric region passing to shoulder; gave Pulv. Jalapæ Co., gr. xxx.

August 5.-Powder acted well, all symptoms moderated; considerable soreness of intestinal canal; tongue coated; repeat powder.

August 6.-All irritation gone; tongue clean; stomach and intestines SORE; pulse 60, and soft; slept well last night; very weak.

Alc. Fld. Ext. Hydrast. 3iij.; Alc. Fld. Ext. Xanthox., 3 iss.; Alc. Fld. Ex. Dioscorea, 3 ii.; Alc. Fld. Ext. Gentianæ, 3 iij.; Glycerine, 3 vi. 3 ss. every 3 hours, increasing gradually to 3i., with generous supply of beet tea; patient up and out the following day.

PERISCOPE.

Syphilis.-On some Exceptional Modes of the Transmission of Syphilis.

IN a paper on this subject, read before the Med. Soc. of London," Mr. Victor de Méric urged the value of etiological investigations that are easily undertaken in cases of communicable diseases. Though the history of the propagation of syphilis is generally well understood, there is yet much obscurity as regards some modes of its transmission, and especially as to the phenomena following contamination by secondary manifestations; moreover, at the outset it is diffi cult to understand why primary lesions affect certain parts of the generative organs in preference to other parts equally exposed. The evidences of contamination are usually slight -so slight sometimes that we fail to discover them. The author related seven examples to illustrate his remarks, which are briefly as follows: 1. A lady, aged 60, infected by her grandchild. 2. A gentleman of 40, covered with secondaries, no trace of primaries ever manifest. 3. Wife, aged 23, communicating disease to husband by buccal symptoms, no affection having followed cohabitation. 4. Mucous tubercles on vulva of girl, psoriasis palmaria following, no initial symptoms. 5. Insidious secondaries in young girl, habitually watched and examined, no primaries. 6. Unexplained mucous signs in anal region of child. 7. Severe syphilis in a newly married lady, husband ever free from disease. Mr De Méric concluded by stating that we should not (at once) attempt to explain exceptional cases by uncharitable surmises, but study the facts indicating unusual modes of transmission of which experience convinces us.

"Mr. Henry Lee advanced an important theory, to which observation had led him--that pregnancy seems to awaken a power of transmission in the dormant virus, as if the disease germs, under such new condition, attained a higher vitality. The author replied, and in answer to Mr. Levy, stated his opinion, that the assumption of a urethral chancre was not a feasible explanation of doubtful cases, for such could scarcely exist without local symptoms leading to its discovery. (The Medical Press and Circular).—Dental Cosmos.

The Danger of Mercurials.

DAVID S. H. SMITH, M.D., L.R.C.S., Edin., says: No therapeutical agents have been used so extensively and in .

so great a variety of diseases as the preparations of mercury, yet none, on the whole, have yielded less satisfactory results. It is related of Mr. Colles, of Dublin, that he advised his pupils to give calomel whenever they were in doubt as to what medicine to prescribe. Unfortunately for the health of the public and the credit of the profession, the advice has been strictly followed by numerous practitioners who never heard of Mr. Colles.

It has been laid down as a maxim almost infallible, that in mucous inflammations our sheet-anchor ought to be tartarized antimony; in serous inflammations, miercury. The rapid absorption of the lymph effused upon the anterior surface of the iris in syphilitic inflammation of the eyeball, as soon as the gums become tender under the use of calomel, has been considered a sufficiently important fact to warrant the application of the same remedy to all inflammations attended with the effusion of coagulable lymph. The deductions from this important fact have been false, and have led to numerous errors in practice. The effusion has been caused by the presence in the blood of a foreign body-the syphilitic poison. The mercurial preparation has stimulated the various excretory organs to such a degree that they have eliminated the foreign body from the system. The irritant being removed, no more lymph is effused, and that which has been effused becomes speedily absorbed. It by no means follows that because calomel cures a serous inflammation dependent upon a syphilitic taint, it will therefore cure a serous inflammation dependent upon any other cause. Such a belief is fraught with the greatest danger in practice; for although in a serous inflamination the mineral diminishes the amount of lymph effusion, it does so by impoverishing the blood, by diminishing the fibrine a third, the albumen a seventh, and the other solid constituents a sixth. The blood being diminished in plasticity, a tendency in it towards serous effusion becomes developed. It is in inflammations of serous membranes, the pleura, the pericardium, and the peritoneum, that we prescribe a medicine. which directly promotes that which we desire most to avoid -the effusion of serum. There is no doubt in my mind that many cases of hydrothorax and of hydropericardium have been brought about by the lavish and injudicious use of calomel. Opium, in large doses, has been found most potent for good in peritonitis. I have found it very beneficial in pleurisy. Practitioners will, at no distant day, lose their their dread of the drug in meningitis and in pericarditis.

In conclusion, then, let me draw the attention of the pro

fession to the important fact we have developed, that we prescribe, even to the saturation of the system, a medicine which directly promotes that which we least desire-the effusion of serum. Opium and its alkaloid act most beneficially in all cases (except the syphilitic) in which our textbooks advise us to use mercurial preparations.-Boston Med. and Surg. Journal.

Petrifaction of the Human Body.

W. P. BAIN, M. D., writes as follows to the Lancet, on the subject of Dr. Marini's preparations of the human body:

Having handled some of his preparations in Florence last autumn, I am able to say that he is the inventor of a mode of turning the human body or any part of it into stone, in any attitude that may be desired. I inclose the photograph of a senator of the Italian Parliament taken four months after his decease, in which he is represented seated in his chair, with his clothes on, just as when alive, his eyes retaining in an astonishing degree the vivacity of life. I also inclose the photograph of a table, the slab of which is formed of pieces of the human body-brain, muscles, &c.,-all turned into stone, and which, when struck by me, sounded as a marble table. I also inspected a lady's foot, likewise petrified, and which had every appearance of marble, until upon close inspection the texture of the skin was apparent. Dr. Marini showed me, too, some specimens of the human body, which were in a moist and perfect condition, preserved for years. He assured me also that the week before, he had dined off a duck which had been killed months previously. The foot of a mummy was in his apartment at the time of my visit, in which the color assumed that of life, and the toes were perfectly flexible.

I am perfectly certain that these inventions are genuine, and of high value; and when Dr. Marini arrives here, I hope to be able to introduce him to the heads of the profession. The Emperor of the French, with his usual fact, has expressed himself warmly to Dr. Marini in approbation of his inventions.

Croup Treated by Sulphur.

M. LAGAUTERIE (Half Yearly Abstract) gives in croup teaspoonful doses, every hour, of a mixture of sulphur and

water (a teaspoonful to a glass of water) with effects which he describes as wonderful. The cure, in seven very severe cases, was accomplished in two days, the only symptom remaining being a slight cough. An observation of the effect of sulphur on the oidium of vines, led to its use in croup.

A Wonderful Skull..

Ar a meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society held recently, Dr. John M. Harlow reported the following remarkable case:

On the 13th of September, 1848, Phineas P. Gage, foreman of a gang of men engaged in blasting a deep cut in the continuation of the Rutland and Burlington road, had a tamping iron blown through his brains, and recovered within sixty days, living twelve years after. The case caused great discussion when reported by Dr. Harlow in the medical journals at that time, and it was largely disbelieved, many eminent surgeons declaring the occurrence, as described, to be a physiological impossibility. Dr. Harlow, in presenting the paper, justly said, "that it is due to science that a case so grave, and succeeded by such remarkable results, should not be lost sight of; and that its subsequent history should have a permanent record."

Gage was a perfectly healthy, strong and active young man, 25 years of age, of nervo-bilious temperament, 5 feet in height, average weight 150 pounds, possessing an iron will, as well as an iron frame; muscular system remarkably well developed, having had scarcely a day's illness from childhood up.

As described in the paper read, it appears that a drilled hole had been charged with powder, and he was about tamping it in, (or, more popularly, ramming it down,) when his attention was called for a moment. Looking over his shoulder at his men, he at the same inoment rammed down the iron, supposing his assistant had poured sand on the powder, as is the custom. The iron struck fire from the rock, the charge exploded, and the iron was driven up into his cheek and out of the top of his head, high in the air, and was afterwards found several rods distant, smeared with blood and brains.

The tamping iron was 3 feet in length, 14 inches thick, and pointed at one end; the taper being seven inches long, and the diameter of the point a quarter of an inch. It