years, and has been a widow for 15 years. From still rode on horseback, and went out at all hours, in the exercise of her function as a midwife. Her son, Frederico M., reached the age of over 100.

her marriage she had 11 children, of whom eight are now living; she has 48 grandchildren, 142 great grandchildren, and 20 great great grandchildren; thus showing a descendence of 218 persons, who are all now in the full enjoyment of their mental faculties. She has a son who is past 80, residing in Arroio Grande, from which he comes every year to visit his old mother, making the journey, without much fatigue, in a single day; two sisters, each over seventy, accompanying him.

many of her friends; on the day of visiting the graves, she goes to the cemetery, and returns from it on foot, and in like manner she attends the festals of the Menino Deus. She numbers sons, grandsons and great grandsons. Ditosa senhora !”

Still more of the Macrobiotic sort. Within the present year (1882), there died in the vicinity of S. Francisco de Paula, a Brazilian named Antonio José da Silveira, aged 132 years, and an African named Goncalo, aged 100, both enjoying to the end their complete faculties. There lives in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande, South, in the street Riachuelo, No. 160, a lady who was born in In the same locality, there are, of less ages, the 1773. She married at 25, the Governor D. Diego following persons :-Donna Maria Pereira das de Souza being a witness. in the year 1798; she Neves, aged 95, and Donna Muela das Neves, is therefore now 109. She has the perfect use of aged 93, who are both industrious, and occupy her faculties; converses with much decision; themselves in domestic work. Raphael dos Santos, travels on foot through the whole city, visiting aged 94, who is able to do some work; Donna Marenciana da Rosa, aged 90. There are in Povo Novo an unusual number of persons, in comparison with the entire population, from 70 to 80 years old. It is there no rarity to hear of persons of 100 years or over. From 1840 to the present date the following persons have died at this advanced period: Anna Veladoa, 114 years; Maria de Barros, 113; Joao da Rosa, 113; Diego de Barros, 104; Luiza de Barros, 106; Anna da Rosa, 107; Domingos de tal, 106; Rosa Rogado, 104; Maria Joaquina da Conceico, 102; Manuel dos Quadros, 101: Caetano Silveira and his wife died on the same day, and were reckoned to have each passed 100 years of age. Donna Damazia de Barros, in spite of her 100 years, is able to work with the hoe from morning till night. Albino de Barros, her son, is 87; he resides near Arroio de Palma, 12 leagues from his mother, whom he visits every year, on horseback. The youngest son of this woman, Manuel de Barros, is 56. Mathias de Barros, the husband of Damazia, died 16 years ago. A few days before his death he shouldered a heavy burden, and trotted off with it like a strong boy. He related that he had danced at the ball given on the occasion of his wife's baptism. In this family Perhaps no malady of those that are popularly many of the members are above 60 years old. classed as trivial and undeserving of medical aid, is Maria de Souza is 108; D. Monoela da Rosa is so pregnant with results destructive of the very actiabout 100; D. Maria Soares, the mother of Lieut.-vities most required by the class of persons oftenColonel J. Soares, is 95; Eugenia Nunes de Sousa, est afflicted with it, as Chronic Constipation. is 83; Justino Luiz de Lima is 88, and his wife is It is the sedentary man, the man who lives by his 90; Antonio Ilheo, is above 100; Polydoro Pe- brain, that suffers most; and it is his brain, his reira died at over 100; D. Joanna Mendes died mental faculties, that he finds chiefly impaired. at over 100; a short time before her death she Every student knows the value of a laxative dur

Some of our modern Thomases may be dis posed to question the accuracy of the preceding figures, simply because they do not comport with their own experience, which is a form of argument no less cogent than that of the African who denied the possibility of water becoming solid, because he had never seen frost. It is, no doubt, quite true that old people have but weak memories, and from having no reliable record of their births, or having forgotten the dates, they may fall into the error of exaggeration, and by frequent repetition become at last sincere believers in their own assertions. Some, however, of the preceding Brazilian records appear to have fair pretensions to accuracy.

HINTS ON CHRONIC CONSTIPATION.

BY T. ARNOLD HAULTAIN, M. A., PETERBORO, ONT.

6

ing examinations; Carneades, the most celebrated | evening meals; and if this last consists of tea, of the later Academic philosophers, I believe it after supper also. was, who was accustomed to take a strong purgative before arguing against the Stoics; and I once heard of a commandant of a regiment who vowed he knew no better incentive to the invention of a new manœuvre than an anti-bilious pill.

The particular species of constipation to which I refer, is that due to the impairment of the contractile power of the muscular coat of the large So many influences tend to diminish the patient's efforts to cure this habitual form, that, in nine cases out of ten, only by spasmodic and soon-discouraged endeavors can he be persuaded to undertake remedial measures. Its persistency; the expense and trouble of procuring drugs, the use of which cannot be long continued; the perceptibly waning efficacy of many of these very drugs; the want of time to persevere daily in such mechanical contrivances as enemata, suppositories, lengthened attempts at evacuation; the absolute impossibility to the majority of sufferers-in this country at least-of procuring throughout the year such articles of diet as are almost a sine qua non; the inability to devote to defecation the time best suited to the system, these are some of the causes that lead to a cessation of the employment of measures, such as, even to procure a moderate amount of success, demand untiring pertinacity. This being the case, the simpler the remedies, and the more suited to the habits and circumstances of the patient the better. I do not hesitate therefore, to suggest the following remedial-I will not as yet say curative-plan as an adjunct or auxiliary to the conventional treatment.

This is the induction of a greater number of evacuations per diem than that to which the patient has been accustomed. The intestinal canal has been subjected to abnormal and long-continued distension; nutrition of this organ has been diminished; its muscular fibres are probably somewhat atrophied, and the nerve plexuses do not fulfil their function. If then we can eliminate the causes of distension we shall have accomplished everything; and the less unnaturally the elimination is effected

the better.

This augmentation of the number of evacuations may, I think, best be provoked by :

1. Regular attempts at defecation, not only after breakfast as usual, but also after the mid-day and

2. Employment of the measures adopted or prescribed in the medicinal and mechanical treatment at times calculated so that these will exert their effects after the mid-day and evening meals, leaving the first to nature.

or

3. (a). The ingestion of a glass of cold water, better still, cold tea or coffee, before luncheon, and (b). Supplementing the last repast—which ought to be light-with a small quantity of spirits diluted with hot water. This, so common a custom amongst the lower and middle classes in England, exerts a great influence on the peristaltic action of the intestines, and is preferable—at all events to the palate !-to any stomachic.

4. Kneading the abdomen with the fingers, especially along the course of the descending colon, sigmoid flexure and rectum, while at stool, in the intervals of the expulsion of feculent matter. By these means I believe (and, I may add, not on theoretical grounds alone) the bowel may soon be made to understand that it is expected to divide its daily task of expulsion into three or more portions.

The theory on which the success of the method depends is, of course, that the colon, rectum, etc., do not become distended to the extent that they otherwise would be and are, were there only the usual single evacuation in the twenty-four hours. And it seems plausible to imagine that, the quantity of food ingested remaining the same, the amount of nourishment extracted and assimilated remaining the same, then, if the excreta are expelled instead of being allowed to be retained for twenty-four hours there cannot obtain that same ennervating distention of the bowel.

RETENTION OF A DEAD FOETUS FOR
NINE YEARS.

BY A. D. M'GILLVARY, SYDNEY, N. S.*

It is an old saying that "truth is stranger than fiction." I submit to you the following history, extracted from my note-book, not for any very great advantage it may be to my professional brethren so much as to show how much the human system can endure at times.

* Read before the Cape Medical Society, Feb. 13th, 1883.

Dr. McKay then put the patient under ether, and I removed the impacted bone from the canal, that I could not remove on my first visit. My sound passed into the cavity about six inches. I found no solid body, but a mass of semi-solid material that grated on the sound as it passed through

On the 1st of November last I was called quite rest and high up I could not remove. I then, a distance into the country to see a patient who with difficulty, passed a gum catheter into the gave me the following account. Her name was uterine cavity and removed three pints of most Mrs. J. McL., aged 36 years, has been married foetid pus; afterwards I washed out the cavity eleven years, her husband still living. During the with a solution of permanganate of potash. I put first year and nine months after being married the her upon sulphate of quinine, and as the perspimenstrual flow was regular and normal; at that rations were so very profuse I gave her a soluperiod her courses stopped, and for the next six tion of sulphate of atropia. months she had all the symptoms of pregnancy On November 3rd, accompanied by Dr. Wm. with quickening in the fourth month. About the McKay, of Reserve Mines, we visited the patient. end of the sixth month she received a severe in- Found the pulse 120, temperature 102°; the genjury in the back while driving in a waggon over eral condition much the same as on previous visit. a broken bridge. Immediately after the injury From the fœtor of the discharge the air in the room she was attacked with vomiting, and from that was almost unbearable. I had the patient placed time her health began to fail. In a fortnight's on a table, then passed a catheter into the uterine time her feet and legs began to swell and the ab- cavity and removed nearly a pint of thick pus, not domen became flaccid and uncomfortable. A quite so offensive as the first. month after the injury she had severe intermittent pains for twenty-four hours, followed by a discharge of water and a little blood. About a month from this date she awoke in the night, flooding. A doctor (save the mark) was called, who gave some medicine and left. This flooding continued for six days, when it stopped, and a white purulent it. I immediately began to dilate the neck, using discharge began, which has continued ever since. the blades of a pair of forceps as a dilator. In a A year after the purulent discharge began she con- short time I was able to pass a pair of placenta sulted a second doctor, who gave some more me- forceps and with them removed a quantity of dicine, and ordered vaginal injections. At the end broken down tissue mixed with bone. Having of two years from the time the discharge of pus emptied the uterus I washed out the cavity with began, or about three years from the date of preg- the permanganate solution as before. The patient nancy, small pieces of bone began to come away-came out from under the ether very slowly, she these continuing to pass at irregular intervals for being an hour and a half under its influence. over six years. Eighteen months ago she con- During the whole operation there was not two sulted a third doctor, who ordered injections again. ounces of blood lost. The patient being placed At the time of my visit her condition was as fol- in bed, I left the following instructions: Hot lows: Pulse, 130; temperature, 10334-very much turpentine stupes to be applied occasionally to the emaciated—and very nervous; has had hectic fever abdomen; opium to be given if there should be and profuse night sweats for over a year. Has much pain or tenderness, and sulph. quinine had diarrhoea and vomiting for the last three to be continued and largely increased should the months; is unable to take any solid food. The temperature rise high. abdomen is enlarged to about the size at seven November 6-Visited patient again; pulse 96, month's pregnancy. The uterus feels soft and temperature 101°, general condition much imboggy, marked tenderness on the upper portion, proved; night sweats still troublesome, but not so particularly on the right side. On making a va- bad as formerly. The abdomen was markedly reginal examination I found the uterus low down, duced in size, with very little tenderness on presthe os slightly dilated, the cervix very much hyper- sure. The discharge is still copious but not so trophied, and the cervical canal impacted with foetid. I introduced a No. 12 catheter and drew pieces of bone, some of them deeply imbedded in off about four ounces of very thick pus, after which the tissue. With a pair of forceps I removed I washed out the cavity as on the other occasions. some eight or ten pieces, but one larger than the I gave sulph. quinine and tinct. ferri mur., and

instead of the atropia solution I gave tinct. of early date, and that the only safe and effectual reergot. This was my last visit.

HYDROPHO-clear