more or less perverted. Lastly, it may be mentioned that the pressure on the bust is very often productive of great suffering. The glands are so squeezed, and especially the nipples are so flattened, from an early period after puberty, that when the time arrives for nursing an infant, the young mother finds either that she cannot suckle at all, or must do so in great misery, from inflamed nipples, abscesses, &c.

Altogether, a more totally indefensible sin against the laws of health and good taste than tight-lacing could not be found. If there be a spark of right and honest feeling left among our women, of whose purity of character we are so fond of boasting, now is the time for them to show it by refusing to listen to the impudent sophistries like those to which we have referred.—Medical Record.

Pathology of Epilepsy.

ANATOMICAL investigation has hitherto failed to give any explanation of Epilepsy: every kind of lesion has been discovered in every organ of the body; and, on the other hand, every organ and part of organ has been found in perfect health. The observations of Wenzel, those of M. M. Bouchet and Cazauvielle, and the later researches of Dr. Schroeder Van der Kolk, have shown the existence of disease in the pituitary body, in the white substance of the brain, and in the medulla oblongata; but the changes that each of these anthors has described are inconstant, and some of them quite exceptional. We must, therefore, admit the disease to be what is termed "functional," using that word in the sense. strictly defined in the first volume of this work. It is believed that "nutrition " is changed, but that its alterations are too fine for detection by our present modes of examination.

Bearing in mind all the facts of Epilepsy, and proceeding to their interpretation by the aid of physiology, we arrive at the following conclusions:

1st. That the seat of primary derangement is the medulla oblongata, and upper portion of the spinal cord.

2d. That the derangement consists in an increased and perverted readiness of action in these organs; the result of such action being the induction of spasm in the contractile fibres of the vessels supplying the brain, and in those of the muscles of the face, pharynx, larynx, respiratory apparatus, and limbs generally.

By contraction of the vessels, the brain is deprived of blood, and consciousness is arrested; the face is, or may be, deprived of blood, and there is pallor; by contraction of the muscles which have been mentioned, there is arrest of respiration, the chest walls are fixed, and the other phenomena of the first stage of the attack are brought about.

3d. That the arrest of breathing leads to the special convulsions of asphyxia, and that the amount of these is in direct proportion to the perfection and continuance of the asphyxia.

4th. That the subsequent phenomena are those of poisoned blood; i. e. of blood poisoned by the retention of carbonic acid, and altered by the absence of a due amount of oxygen.

5th. That the primary nutrition change which is the starting point of epilepsy may exist alone, and epilepsy be an idiopathic disease, i. e. morbus per se.

6th. That this change may be transmitted hereditarily.

7th. That it may be induced by conditions acting upon the nervous centres directly, such as mechanical injuries, overwork, insolation, emotional disturbances, excessive venery, &c.

8th. That the nutrition change of epilepsy may be a part of some general metamorphosis, such as that present in the several cachexiæ, rheumatism, gout, syphilis, scrofula, and the like.

9th. That it may be induced by some unknown circumstances determining a relative excess of change in the medulla, during the general excess and perversion of organic change occurring at the periods of puberty, of pregnancy, and of dentition.

10th. That it may be due to diseased action extending from contiguous portions of the nervous centres, or their appendages.

11th. That the so-called epileptic aura is a condition of sensation or of motion dependent upon some change in the central nervous system; and is, like the paroxysm, a peripheral expression of the disease, and not its cause.-Reynolds' System of Medicine.

Treatment of Ascarides.

THREE Correspondents write to the Lancet as follows, in reply to an inquiry as to the best treatment for ascarides. (Quoted by the Medical Gazette, New York.)

1. First, empty the intestine as thoroughly as possible by injecting with warm soap-and-water, then (supposing the

patient to be a child of five or six years of age) throw into the bowel two drachms of tincture of iron dissolved in two or three ounces of very strong infusion of quassia, and repeat it at intervals of two days, if necessary. The state of the general health must be improved, and the vitiated mucus secretion of the intestine, in which the worms burrow, be dislodged by a few grains of calomel (or, what is better, podophyllin), at bedtime, followed by a dose of salts in the morning. Afterwards tonics, as the syrup of the phosphate of quinia, strychnia, and iron, will most likely be required.

2. Tincture of perchloride of iron (B. P., 1867,) five drachms; infusion of quassia, fifteen and a half ounces; mix : two tablespoonfuls to be taken three times a day. Two drachms of tincture of perchloride of iron, to be used as an injection in half a pint of thin starch, every night.

3. The most prompt and effectual is the best olive oil, one tablespoonful at bedtime, with jalap powder and scammony in the morning; doses according to age. I have treated many cases in this way, and have never known it to fail. The dose given twice a week will be quite sufficient.Buffalo Med. and Surg. Journal.

Period of the Growth of Man.

PROFESSOR B. A. GOULD, from statistics derived from the register of 2,500,000 men in the United States army, has disclosed the fact that men attain their maximum stature much later than is generally supposed. This takes place commonly at 29 or 30 years of age; but there are frequent instances of growth until 35, not very noticeable-a yearly gain of a tenth of an inch, perhaps--still a growth. After 35, the stature subsides in similar proportions, partly from the condensation of the cartilages, partly because of the change in the angle of the hip bone. The age for maximum statures come earliest to the tallest men, as if it were the necessity of unusual development. Foreigners were shorter than men of native birth. The heights of men seemed to depend on the place of enlistment. A Massachusetts man enlisted in Iowa was an inch taller than if he had staid at home. As we go West, men grew taller. Out of one million, there were 500 who measured more than six feet four inches; but men of such stature do not wear well. In Maine, men reached their greatest height at 27; in New Hampshire, at 35; in Massachusetts, at 29; in New Jersey, at 31. The

tallest men, of sixty-nine inches, come from Iowa. Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, and Missouri give us men a little over sixty-eight inches, and the average of all shows the Americans to be a very tall people.

While on this subject, we may mention that the Journal des Connaissances Medicales noticed a book, not long since, published by Dr. Froissac, on the influence of climate and physical agents on man. The author maintains that the human race is cosmopolitan, since it can live everywhere, and by its intellectual powers. neutralize the evil effects of physical agents on its organism. To this Dr. Caffee demurs, objecting that man does not perpetuate his race under all climates; that he may live, it is true, in any climate to which he is taken in the prime of life, but that sterility is often the consequence, and that at any rate his offspring will die at an early age. However this may be. Dr. Froissac's book contains much interesting matter, and the chapter on stature contains a great many new and interesting facts. On this subject Dr. Latour, in his review of the volume, expresses himself as follows:

"No one will maintain that good soldiers are not to be found among small men. During the campaign in Egypt, Moorad Bey's vexation would break out whenever he made a few of our brave voltigeurs prisoners. "What!' he would exclaim, are these the men that have beaten us? Shall I never be able to vanquish those little fellows?""

6

Yet Dr. Froissac maintains, on the strength of highly reliable historical records, that the inhabitants of ancient Gaul, who were victors and conquered by turns, but always terrible on the field of battle, were tall and fine men, contrary to Dr. Broca's opinion. To the lower or middling stature of Alexander, Napoleon, and Gustavus Adolphus, he opposed the gigantic proportions of Philopomen, Pyrrhus, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Conde, Peter the Great, and Charles the Twelfth. Most of the generals of the Republic and the marshals of the Empire, such as Championnet, Kleber, Pichegru, Massena, Soult, Bernadotte, Kellermann, Bessieres, and Murat were very tall, or at least much above the common standard. Dr. Froissac not only finds the latter condition fulfilled in the case of military men of note, but also in that of great political characters, orators, poets, learned men, and generally of most men representing intellectual power; whence he concludes that, save in the case of deformity, genius and talent are independent of physical conformation. Scarron and Pope seem to nullify even the above saving clause.

On the Action of Aconite and Quinine in Neuralgia.

DR. II.M. JONES, in the Medical Press and Circular, thus speaks of the good effects to be obtained from a combination of these two powerful drugs. In cases where as yet I have had to use aconite, such as in the varying shades of facial neuralgia, cephalalgia, &c., I have invariably combined it with quinine, and with astonishing good effect; that is to say, to cases that quinine was administered in without any result, on combining aconite with it I afforded relief.

Now, before answering the question, as far as pathology and physiology will allow us, how far do aconite and quinine combined, or aconite alone, affect a neuralgic patient, we must first decide what is neuralgia; and here is the first difficulty. Without entering into varied discussions, we may take as the results of the researches of those interested in this curions affection, that it is due to some morbid change in the nerves of parts often not recognizable after death, as slight thickening, vascularity, or pressure from tumors in their immediate neighborhood, these changes being the active causes which are set in motion by external or internal agencies, as atmosphere in the first case, or stomach and intestinal disorders in the second, both alike giving rise to intense suffering, traceable often to no cause but this external or internal agency, which produces, in some unknown manner, a state of increased sensibility of the nerves of sensation of certain regions, not even evidenced by any visible changes in these parts, or, again, to some low state of vitality of certain peripheral nerves, consequent on a disordered condition of surrounding structures, or the direct result of any injury.

Looking now practically, as to the manner in which aconite given internally can be a remedy for any of those morbid states: 1st. As a contra-stimulant, either by a direct action conveyed to parts by the blood, as evidenced by the numbness and diminished sensibility, this influence being felt by parts preternaturally excited before acting on the system generally (Fleming). 2d. By a direct sedative action on the circulation, as shown by its action on the heart's pulse. 3d. By diminished power of sensibility of the brain-it, being, as Bouchardat states, a stupefying agent, less powerful than belladonna or opium. We may thus make a twofold division of its mode of action on a neuralgic part:

1st. Reducing any increased vascularity and excitability. 24. Exercising a healthy influence on the nerves of the part, and deadening sensibility in the nerves of the affected