man might hear well in this way, when the mechanism by which sound is usually conveyed to the auditory nerves was imperfect." Mr. Swan then supposed "that people born deaf and dumb, and who had no defect in the auditory nerves, might be made to hear through the medium of the facial nerves, and thus have their unfortunate condition in some measure ameliorated. 1 judged that this might be done," says he, "from having observed that dumb people could hear a watch when in contact with the face; and likewise from a case, then related, of a musician, who was enabled to play by having part of the instrument between his teeth." But, as to making the dumb understand the various sounds, and thereby enabling them to speak, the author could urge nothing more than probability. An opportunity has, however, since occurred to Mr. Swan of putting his conjectures on this point to the test of experience; and it is the object of his paper to show, by the relation of that case, that what he thought only probable is really practicable.

XI. Case of Amputation of Part of the Tarsus and Metatarsus, and Preservation of the Shape and Usefulness of the Foot. By JOHN Dunn, Esq. Surgeon at Scarborough. Communicated by Dr. ROGET.

A boy, aged 14, belonging to a scrofulous family, was attacked with inflammation in one of his feet, which eventually terminated in suppuration. He suffered in this state for two years, during which time a portion of bone had exfoliated: the discharge became offensive; fever, night sweats, &c. supervened. There were several fistulous sores: the least touch produced pain, and all motion was intolerable. The sinuses were laid open, muriatic acid applied; but the health continued to suffer. Mr. Dunn determined upon excision of the carious bones, as the boy consented to any operation but amputation. Mr. D. proceeded thus:

"I applied the tourniquet to the thigh; divided and reflected the integuments of the instep, which were partly diseased; cut through the extensor tendons of the foot; and, after a formidable dissection, removed the os cuboides, which was so carious as to break in pieces between my fingers during the operation. As the contiguous bone was now discovered to be equally diseased, (for I could only ascertain the extent of the mischief by this dissection,) the external cuneiform bone was next removed. I now thought it prudent to desist, being in hopes that the remaining diseased parts would exfoliate. On relaxing the tourniquet, no serious degree of hemorrhage ensued; the edges of the wound were brought as near together as possible, and the limb bound up with a compress of lint and a roller."

Three weeks after the first operation, a second became necessary, and the boy submitted to it cheerfully. On this occasion, the os naviculare and the two cuneiform bones were

removed, and the diseased tarsal extremities of the metatarsal bones of the second and inner toes were sawed away. So wide was the breach made in the tarsus, that, directly after the operation, the tocs might have been turned back to the heel. The patient, however, recovered; and at the end of two months could walk with a stick, which was soon afterwards dispensed with. This operation, which does infinite credit to Mr. Dunn, was performed in opposition to the somewhat hasty opinion of Mr. CHARLES BELL, who, in his Operative Surgery, says "that it should not be performed."

To this paper Mr. COPLAND HUTCHISON (whose opportunities for surgical operations, while principal surgeon of the Royal Naval Hospital at Deal, have been very numerous,) has added a note recording a case in point, which occurred to himself, and which he has published in his work entitled "Practical Observations in Surgery." Mr. C. Hutchison urges the necessity of pausing ere we amputate a leg for a dis eased state of the tarsal or first row of the metatarsal bones.

XII. An Account of a Case in which numerous Calculi were extracted from the Urinary Bladder, without the Employment of Cutting Instruments. By ASTLEY COOPER, Esq. F.R.S. Surgeon to Guy's Hospital.

Every attempt to obviate the necessity of surgical operations should be received as a great blessing conferred on mankind. Sir Astley Cooper, to the many improvements he has introduced into the practice of surgery, bas here added another, which in importance is, perhaps, entitled to rank first; for, when an individual has the misfortune of being afflicted with calculi, and those calculi are not large, he may be freed from them without recourse being had to an operation, which, though now performed with celerity and more safety than in former times, is always attended with severe pain, and occasionally, too, with consider. able difficulty and danger.

Sir A. relates the case of a clergyman, aged 64, who, suffering from the presence of small calculi in the bladder, as ascertained by sounding, and by the coming away of small white stones in the openings of the instrument, submitted to an experiment, first devised and proposed by Sir Astley, by which eighty-four calculi were extracted from the bladder in the course of a few weeks. The health of the patient had been all that time uninterruptedly good, and the operation unattended by any very severe pain.

Sir A. then proceeds to describe the instrument by which the calculi were removed through the urethra, consisting of a sort of forceps, the blades of which can be opened whilst in the bladder, by means of a stilette, so as to grasp and confine the

stone. This instrument was contrived conjointly by the author and Mr. Weiss, the very ingenious instrument-maker in the Strand; but the original idea of employing a curved sound-like forceps for the extraction of the first eight calculi, in the case related, belong solely to Sir Astley.

XIII. On Sloughing Phagedana. By RICHARD WELBANK, Esq. XIV. An Account of a Case of Tetanus successfully treated in the York Military Hospital, at Chelsea. By M. A. BURMESTER, Esq.

This formidable malady, occurring in a young man nineteen years of age, seems to have been induced by the infliction of a small, and apparently trifling, wound of the integuments covering the metacarpal bone of the index finger of the left hand, near its articulation with the first bone of the finger.

"In this case, had not active remedies been timely resorted to, the patient would in all probability have died; and it would be matter of some difficulty to decide, whether the copious depletion, the mercury, or the warm bathing and diaphoretics, were individually most effectual in promoting his recovery; for I am inclined to believe that neither of these means, singly persevered in, would have produced this favourable result."

Mr. Burmester, in concluding his paper, alludes to another case of tetanus which fell under his observation, and which, he is inclined to think, recovered in consequence of the supervening of gangrene in the wounded hand.

XV. Case of a Separation of a Portion of the Uterus during severe Labour. By P. N. SCOTT, Esq. Surgeon, of Norwich. Communicated by Dr. MERRIMAN.

A married woman, aged thirty-six, in labour of her first child, was seen by the author, in consultation with her attendant accoucheur, after several hours of the most acute suffering. He found her in a most alarming state, and she appeared to be rapidly sinking.

"She with difficulty told me, that, about two hours before, during a most severe pain, she felt something snap, and, to use her own words, that the web of her body had given way;' the noise of which one of her attendants declared she heard: the pains had then suddenly ceased, attended with a discharge of blood, fainting, cold sweats, feeble pulse, and a vomiting of a brownish fluid. On introducing my hand under the bed-clothes, I found there had been a very considerable hemorrhage, and among the coagula I discovered a substance which I put aside for future examination. At this time I found the head of the child so low as to enable me to accomplish delivery speedily with the vectis."

This substance was examined by Dr. Rigby and others, and

was by most of them considered to be a circular portion of the uterus. The explanation of this curious fact (supposing it to be a real rupture of the uterus), supplied by Dr. Merriman to the author, is not accordant with the well-known mechanism of labour. The patient eventually recovered.

XVI. On Lithotomy. By PHILIP M. MARTINEAU, Esq. senior Sur. geon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and Member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.

XVII. Case of Cynanche Laryngea, in which Tracheotomy and Mercury were successfully employed. With Remarks. By WILLIAM HENRY PORTER, Esq. A.M. Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, one of the Surgeons to the Meath Hospital, and County of Dublin Infirmary, &c. Communicated by Dr. ROGET.

XVIII. Case of a large Adipose Tumor successfully extirpated. By ASTLEY COOPER, Esq. F.R.S. Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, and Lecturer in Anatomy and Surgery.

We can only copy the titles of the three remaining papers contained in the present volume, and refer our readers to the originals for the valuable information they contain. Mr. Martineau's paper on Lithotomy will be found, by far, one of the best we have read of late on that subject.

The two Appendices contain abstracts of a paper of Dr. WILLIAM RUSSELL, of Jamaica, detailing a case of adhesion of the labia pudenda, in a negro woman, obstructing delivery; and of a communication from Dr. BRESCHET, of Paris, respecting a child of three years of age, in whem there appeared signs of puberty. We inserted this case at full length in a former Number of our Journal.

On the whole, there is much room for gratulation on the appearance of the present volume of the Transactions, in which we have strong and evident proofs of the continued zeal with which the Medico-Chirurgical Society upholds the interests of the medical profession.

The Influence of Tropical Climates on European Constitutions; being a Treatise on the principal Diseases incidental to Europeans in the East and West Indies, Mediterranean, and Coast of Africa. By JAMES JOHNSON, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Third Edition, greatly enlarged. 8vo. pp. 531. London: T. and G. Underwood. 1821.

WE merely call the attention of our readers to the present edition of a work which must be familiar to them, for the purpose of stating that the author has endeavoured to render it more extensively useful, by placing before his readers a series of analytical reviews of the best works embracing the diseases of

tropical climates. A revision of the whole work has taken place, and some additions have been made, the importance of which will be duly felt by the readers. The author, however, shall speak for himself of both omissions and additions:

"During the last few years, the author has had extensive communication, personal and epistolary, with a very great number of his professional brethren, on their return from various climates of the globe; and he can conscientiously aver that their reports have not given the slightest encouragement to change any of the sentiments or opinions broached in the former editions of the work. This is a source of great gratification to him; and on this fact he may reasonably ground a hope of the permanent utility of the publication to those for whom it is designed.

"To the present edition there is an addition of at least 250 pages of important matter, as will be readily seen on a comparison with the second edition. A few articles have been omitted, and others curtailed, in order that the new matter might not swell the work beyond a single volume. And here the author is in justice bound to acknowJedge the able and valuable assistance which he has received from Dr. Dickson and Mr. Sheppard, in the arrangement and composition of an important division of the work."

CRITICAL ANALYSES

OF

RECENT PUBLICATIONS, IN THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY,

In the Literature of Foreign Nations.

Πατρίδες ἄρα

Ανδράσιν, ὦ παραῖς ἄνδρες, ἀγαλλόμεθα.

Rapport du Comité Central de Vaccine, sur les Vaccinations Pratiquées en France pendant les années 1818 et 1819;—or, a Report from the Central Committee of the Society for propagating Vaccination, on the Number of Children vaccinated in France during the years 1818 and 1819. Paris, 1821. pp. 132. (For private circulation.)

"THEY certainly manage these matters better in France." —The tion of vaccination in their own country, are admirably calculated to attain that desirable object. Foremost amongst those measures we must place those annual festivals and public meetings of the Vaccine Society, at which every class of persons is admitted; and where, after a plain and gratifying statement of the success of vaccination during the preceding year, medals and pecuniary rewards are distributed, with suitable eulogiums, to those individuals, whether of the medical