left side. She replied, "I think you are mistaken." He asked her why she thought so, and she answered, "If it had been in my right side I would come nearer believing that you are correct." As she was very ill, and as the outlet to the left pelvis was but two inches antero-posteriorly, and one and a half laterally, labor was induced by ergot and the introduction of the sound into the left uterus, which had to be passed twice. Next day she was delivered of a perfectly formed fœtus, "of ordinary size for three and a half months' term." She made a good recovery. It is evident that a monster with fissure of the axis in the dorsi-lumbar region is more likely to grow to maturity, and to perform physiological functions, even gestation, normally, than the most perfect case of parasitic fœtus. The uterus existed in the right pelvis in this case, and the patient had menstruated regularly from both sides, simultaneously, till her pregnancy. From the patient's observations, it seemed that the right genitals were the most frequently used functionally. Unfortunately, the original notes of the case were lost, and no indication is given as to how far the pelves were fixed or separate. According to teratologists, the case would be classified under the head posterior dichotomy," subvariety schizorachis.-Brit. Med. Jour. -THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER.-Dr. George Baxter Phillips gave some remarkable evidence at the adjourned inquiry respecting the mutilations found on the body of Mary Anne Chapman, who was found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel, on the morning of September 8. He expressed the opinion that the length of the weapon, which must have been very sharp, was at least five or six inches, probably more. The mode in which the knife had been used, he said, seemed to indicate some anatomical knowledge. The reports published in the daily press are incomplete; it is therefore desirable to state that the parts removed were a central portion of the abdominal wall, including the navel; two-thirds of the bladder (posterior and upper portions); the upper third of the vagina and its connection with the uterus; and the whole of the uterus.—Brit. Med. Jour.

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-CARBONATE OF LIME FOR CANCER.-Nearly twenty years ago Dr. Peter Hood published a communication on the value of carbonate of lime in the form of calcined oyster-shells as a means of arresting the growth of cancerous tumors. In the Lancet for May 7, 1887, he publishes a second communication on the same subject, in which he states that although his opportunities for employing it in suitable cases have not been large, the results which he has attained through its use have been extremely satisfactory. He refers to several cases in which a persevering use of the calcined shell powder arrested the growth and pain in tumors undoubtedly of a cancerous character. Dr. Hood urges the persistent and fair trial of this remedy in cases of cancer where the nature of the affection is early recognized. It can do no possible harm, it need not interfere with other remedies for the relief of pain, its action can be referred to an intelligible and probable hypothesis, and it has been of utility in a sufficient number of cases for warranting us in reposing some confidence in its use.

An advantage of the treatment is that it may be readily prepared at home by baking oyster-shells in an oven, and then scraping off the calcined white lining of the concave shell. The substance thus obtained is to be reduced to a powder, and as much as will lie on a silver quarter

taken once or twice a day in a little warm water or tea.-Therapeutic Gazette. This remedy, you see, is not claimed to be a new discovery. It is as much as twenty years old, so says the allopath. How long has Homœopathy been using it, anyway?

—LATE MARRIAGES constitute another social evil, the penal inflictions of which involve both sexes alike. Pride and luxury determine long engagements or deferred proposals. Marriage, it is believed, necessarily involves an establishment, a display, a retinue of servitors. The good old notion of two souls being united in wedlock for the purpose of being mutual helpmates, and patiently together working up from modest beginnings to affluence, seems to be entirely at variance with the modern idea of this relation. In the mean time the young man is betrayed into unlawful sources of gratification, alike destructive to moral and physical purity, the pollution of which incontinence is often subsequently communicated and perpetuated to wife and offspring. I would not dare to say how many cases of this nature have been entrusted to my professional confidence, though I doubt not my experience does not differ from that of many of my professional brethren whom I address. It is under such circumstances that many of those infective inflammations of the Fallopian tubes, as salpingitis and pyosalpinx, arise, and which entail the most serious deterioration of health.--D. HAYES AGNEW, M.D., in Polyclinic.

-THE BIBLE IN CHILD-BIRTH.-Sir James Simpson long ago disposed of the argument, now revivified, which charges the woman who accepts anæsthesia in childbirth with evading the Biblical injunction of pain. An indignant Frenchwoman has revived an old argument with some flippancy, but not without a reckless wit. "You quote," she says, some verselets of the Bible against us: but let me remind you that the only one of your sex who took his part in the act of giving birth profited by anesthesia: for when Adam gave up a rib toward the creation of Eve, he was first thrown into the deep sleep of insensibility." Brit. Med. Journal.

-TREATMENT OF SPRAINS.-Every doctor has been perplexed with the treatment of sprained ankles or wrists or knees. The treatment must often be prolonged, and the pain and swelling often remain for a long time, until the patient, who is apt to be an active, restless, healthy business man, becomes no longer patient, or your patient, as he consults some other medical man,who may inform him that his great mistake was in not consulting him at first, as all valuable (?) measures have been neglected.

Liniments in these cases are of but little use. Relief from pain is the first essential to be procured in a way which will further the process of cure. This may be done by stimulating the circulation of the part, thus preventing blood stasis and engorgement about the part. Immerse the injured joint in hot water, or hot salt and water, for from twelve to eighteen hours if necessary. As soon as the major portion of the swelling and the pain has abated, apply to the afflicted part a light plaster of Paris or starch dressing, to insure immobility, and be assured that the cure in most cases will be very speedy and remarkably satisfactory. The writer has tried this in several cases, and he has yet to have a single unsatisfactory result. The only remedy necessary, if any is used, is

arnica, diluted with five parts of water or sweet milk, applied for a few hours before the permanent dressing.-DR. C. A. WEST, in Chicago Medical Times.

-REMOVAL OF TATTOO MARKS-Dr. Variot operates as follows: The tattooed parts are first wetted with a concentrated solution of tannin, and with a set of tattooing-needles the skin is punctured all over the colored portions to the depth usually adopted by professionals. All the parts tattooed with tannin are next rubbed over with the lunar-caustic pencil, the silver salt being allowed to act upon the epidermis and derma until the needle-pricks have turned a deep black. The excess of liquid being now wiped off, things are allowed to follow their natural course. The whole surface treated will soon turn black. The pain, quite moderate during the operation, will be slight for the first two days, and accompanied with some local inflammation. After the third or fourth day no more pain is felt, and, unless for large marks, no dressing will be necessary. After fourteen or eighteen days the eschar will fall off, and leave, instead of the tattoo-marks, a reddish superficial cicatrix, which will gradually turn paler, and after two months almost disappear. On close scrutiny it will probably remain always perceptible, but it will otherwise be scarcely noticeable, and, at all events, the skin will show no trace of the former emblems, more or less artistic.-Extract from Paris correspondence of the Therapeutic Gazette.

-" About two years ago, Mrs. Benjamin Baughn, of Atlanta, Ga., cut the hair from the head of her little two-year-old child, and saved one curl about an inch and a half in length. A few weeks later the child became ill and died. One day last week Mrs. Baughn opened the box in which she had laid away the little ringlet, and was astonished to find that it had grown to two feet in length. No one had touched the box, and Mrs. Baughn is certain that the curl is the same one she put away two years ago." Why not have said "two miles" instead of "two feet"? One would be quite as credible as the other.-Medical Register.

—AN ODD WAY OF TRANSMITTING SYPHILIS.-Tepliachine states (Satellite Medical Annual-May) that in Russia it is a popular custom to attribute all affections of the eyes to foreign bodies in them. Their method of removing the same is to stick the tongue into the eye and swab it around till the foreign substance is removed! That was the way a woman, who claimed to be a physician, treated all of her cases of sore eyes. She thus frequently communicated syphilis to her eye patients. Within two months, this writer says, he had in his hospital eight cases of syphilis of the lids, all traceable to this woman's treatment. An examination proved her to be syphilitic. In a neighboring town the same writer discovered 68 syphilitic cases, 13 per cent. of the whole population; one half of these had been inoculated by the same woman. In my own experience I have met with only one case in which the tongue was used to remove a foreign body from the eye. A laborer thought he had something in his eye, and had a fellow-workman stick his tongue into it for the purpose of removing it. The effort was a failure, because the man had a sore eye, which felt as if something was in it. St. Louis Med. and Surg. Jour.

-Fourthly, the method of Schroeder-which I give in his own language: "I consider it the best procedure in the placental period, after

the expulsion of the child, not to rub or press the uterus, but to wait quietly until the diminution and ascent of the uterine body and the protuberance of the symphysis indicate that the placenta is expelled from the uterine cavity, then by gentle pressure to expedite its passage through the vulva.' The observations of Cohn show that the spontaneous expulsion of the placenta out of the uterine cavity into the "lower uterine segment ". requires for its completion five to fifteen minutes. After this is accomplished further delay is unnecessary, as the placenta can be removed now without injury, and left alone might remain undelivered hours, nay, for days. The manipulation which Schroeder employed was to place the side of the hand in the furrow underneath the uterine body, and then to exert a gentle pressure downward. As this procedure requires a good deal of practice and skill, Schroeder recommended subsequently the gentle pressure of the fundus uteri down into the superior strait. As Cohn remarks, the contracted uterine body acts like the piston of a syringe, which drives everything movable in front of it. This method of Schroeder I have found perfectly satisfactory in practice, and would urgently recommend its general adoption. The method of Credé I would reserve for the cases in which the placenta does not become detached, or those in which it has been separated in the way described by Duncan, and consequently has remained with the upper edge fixed in the uterine body. When there is some obstacle which prevents the placenta from escaping completely out of the uterine body, as, for example, might occur when a very large placenta. had to pass through a moderately contracted "ring of contraction," this method would be indicated. I concur entirely in the views expressed by Credé in regard to the innocuousness of the membranes of the ovum and decidua when retained in the uterine cavity, provided the conduct of the labor has been aseptic.-GEO. T. HARRISON, M.D., in Gaillard's Med. Jour.

-A PLEA FOR SMALL DOSES.-Dr. John Aulde, of Philadelphia, has published his experience with small doses of medicine. The following serve to show what small doses will do: Quinine in doses of onetenth of a grain, to those who, on account of idiosyncrasy, can not take larger doses, will often be found sufficient. One drop of tincture nux vomica, or one-twentieth grain of the extract, are frequently as serviceable as a tonic of larger doses, while strychnine in doses of one-sixtieth or one-hundredth of a grain will accomplish all that is desired, and be much safer than larger doses. Cannabis indica, in half-drop doses at intervals of five minutes will cause the pain of trifacial neuralgia to quickly disappear. Profuse diaphoresis may be produced by the frequent administration of half minim doses of extract of pilocarpus. Phosphorus, in doses of 150th of a grain, given three times daily, will produce such an effect that it may be tasted by a susceptible patient for several days aftewards. Morphine, in tablets containing one-fiftieth of a grain, can be given in many instances with marked benefit. One drop of a one per cent. solution of the fluid extract of rhus toxicodendron is often an efficient remedy in stubborn attacks of sciatica and other affections of a like character. One-tenth of a grain of calomel, given every hour, it is well known, will produce an effect on the bowels equal to ten grains given at one time. Corrosive sublimate, one-fiftieth of a grain three times daily, is an excellent remedy in disease of the stom

ach with fermentation and eruction of gas. It is doubtful if we have any better remedy for the treatment of boils and carbuncles than small doses of calcium sulphide, one-tenth of a grain every two hours.Practice. Our friends of l'école antique are "coming around," it would seem, though still a little tardily.

GLOBULES.

-COLOR.—A pale pink color indicates that the animal was diseased. A dark purple hue is evidence that the animal has died with the blood in its body, or has suffered from some acute febrile affection. Good beef has but little odor, and is elastic to the touch. Meat that is wet and flabby should be discarded.-PROF. VAUGHAN, in Sanitary Era.

-THE DOCTOR.—The lawyer, the soldier, the merchant, and the tradesman are only too ready to forget their respective callings and throw off as irksome their daily avocations. The statesman is only too glad to enter on a theological discussion in the magazines or to write a translation of the Iliad; the medical man is said to betray his profession sooner than any one else, because his whole mind is so engrossed and permeated by the intense interest of his work that he finds it impossible to divest himself of it.-STONHAM.

-HOW TO PRESCRIBE.—I can say to Dr. Holmes that I can probably prescribe off-hand as well as any one in this room; but I have learned by experience the danger of doing that in the majority of cases. I carry not only a book, but carry a heavy satchel of books, so heavy that it requires my man to carry it for me, and I have never been degraded nor been looked upon with any disrespect for doing so. On the contrary, the good work that results from the use of those books is appreciated, even by those who are not considered the most intelligent. -J. A. BIEGLER, M.D., in I. H. A. Trans.

—A VENTURE.-I had not brought my library with me, as I had been called in a great hurry, and besides I had loaned my wheelbarrow to a neighbor. I did not have time to go to my office and study the case. What was much more fortunate for the patient, I had committed to memory in my spare moments quite a slice of the materia medica, and hastily reviewing the case I found there were so many symptoms indicative of veratrum album, that I ventured to try it, although I fully realized it was in opposition to the well-founded belief of many of the leading members of our I. H. A.-H. P. HOLMES, M.D., in Hom. Physician.

-IS CONSUMPTION CONTAGIOUS?-After the study of nearly twelve thousand cases, Dr. Herman Brehmer, an able German physician, rejects the theory of the contagiousness of pulmonary consumption. He finds the disease to be due to deficient nutrition of the lungs, which may result from many causes. He believes that the operation of all the causes may produce such changes that it may be possible years in advance to predict with great probability which members of a family will be afflicted with pulmonary consumption, and which will remain healthy.-N. Y. Med. Times.