its horizontal growth. In response to this message the elongating portion curves at right angles in the hope of thus getting the tip of the root round the opposing structure. But it is unconscious that a trick is being played upon it, that the root is fixed in the and that the curvature, instead of pushing the root horizontally forwards, acts upon the shoot, pushing this horizontally in the opposite direction. vertically downwards, while lateral roots | cally downward, and this is necessitating under the action of the same stimulus grow in a very much more oblique direction. If now the plant be tilted, the growing end of the tap-root turns vertically downwards, while the lateral roots curve in such a manner as to restore what may be called their normal direction. If by any mischance the tap-glass tube unable to move forwards, root gets broken off or destroyed, the want is supplied by neighboring lateral roots, which now behave towards gravitation as did the tap-root, and change their sloping direction for the vertical. Another instance of gravity causing a member to grow in a definite direction, making an angle with the vertical, is afforded by the daffodil. The daffodil always hangs its head. This depends not on the weight of the flower, but on the stimulus of gravity, for no matter how the stalk may be placed, the flower always makes the same angle with reference to the direction of gravitation. When a part of a plant responds to an external stimulus the whole plant need not necessarily know in which direction the stimulus tends. In the case of roots a certain part is increasing in length, and this is the portion in which curvature takes place under the action of the stimulus of gravitation. But this is not the part which knows which way gravity is pulling. Near the tip of the root, just behind the rootcap, is a very small patch of tissue which perceives the stimulus. Cut off the tip of the root, and with it this little patch of irritable tissue, and invert the plant, and the root, which is thus placed uppermost, grows vertically into the air. A very interesting experiment in illustration of this fact, and one easily tried, is as follows: Take a thin glass tube shaped like a boot, the toe being rather short, not more than two millimetres long. Allow the root of a seedling to grow into this, fixing the plant at the open end of the tube. The root grows vertically down the tube, and when it reaches the toe it turns horizontally along it. The tissue at the tip of the root sends a message up the plant that there is something preventing it from responding to the stimulus of gravity and growing verti The berries of some foreign species of mistletoe show a remarkable be havior in their endeavors to penetrate the trunk of a tree. The sticky berry fastens itself to a branch and sends out a root, which curving over meets the branch again and forms a saddle-like mass of tissue. It attempts at this point to pierce the bark. If unable to do so, the berry becomes detached from the branch, the root curves over in the opposite direction, and the berry is deposited a little farther on. The saddle now becomes detached, and, by another bending of the root, is placed once more on the branch beyond the berry. If roots can penetrate in the new station, all goes well; but if not, the plant performs another somersault. One berry that was made the object of continued observation performed five jumps in two nights and three days. A number of unfortunate berries were once seen hopelessly traveling along the telegraph wires in Ceylon, vainly endeavoring to find a profitable resting-place. The sensitive plant and the Venus fly-trap furnish two examples among many others of restlessly irritable plants which react violently to the stimulus of con tact. It is a curious and but little known fact that the Venus fly-trap only responds to the stimulus when one of the hairs on the centre of the " trap" is touched twice. No effect is observed after the first touch. The wonderful purposefulness of these habits and mechanisms forever dispels the idea that botany treats of inert, objectless plants. It is instead a science of life and living things, each one of which is endowed with marvelous and different powers of making the Dr. A. Marmaduke Shield, in clinical lecture at St. George's Hospital, goes over this subject very carefully and clearly. The question involved in the accurate diagnosis of this condition is such an important one that a careful study of the symptoms as observed in the large experience of Shield is valuable. be found in some families. He calls attention to the fact that certain obscure conditions coming on in elderly women, such as an insidious pleurisy, hydrothorax, supposed "rheumatic" pains about the thorax or bones, or, of still greater importance, spontaneous fracture, or severe pains in the spine, terminating in paraplegia, may be due te cancer, and that in all such cases the breast should be carefully examined, as the discovery of scirrhus nodule may explain a very mysterious illness. He insists upon a very careful examination of the breast, lungs, and He states that out of seven hundred abdomen, especially of the liver, for and fifty cases of breast-diseases of all secondary growths, as having important kinds at St. George's Hospital, between bearings on the question of operation. the years 1875 and 1895, three hundred-International Med. Magazine. and fifty-three, or about one-half, were carcinomatus. In making the examination he advises that the thorax be completely undressed. The examination should be made with the flat of the fingers, and not by roughly pinching up a portion of the gland. The following points are to be noted: 1. The age; the most likely age is between forty and fifty-five. 2. The character of the pain, which is neuralgic, not throbbing and is not accompanied by heat or redness. 3. The onset is insidious. 4. The contour is rarely globular, usually it is obtuse or irregular. 5. The hardness is stony, and is one of the most striking and reliable characteristics of scirrhus. 6. The growth does not move in the breast substance, but moves with it. 7. Retraction of the nipple is an important symptom, but it may be absent. 8. The dimpling of and the pig-skinlike condition of the skin are of the utmost value. 9. The presence of enlarged glands. is important, but their absence is not proof that the disease is innocent. In cases of doubt the author is strongly in favor of exploratory incision. He believes that there are peculiarities of structure or of growth in certain individuals which may be sufficiently pronounced to become hereditary, and thus a predisposition to carcinoma may Fowl Drunkenness. The oddest, and perhaps, the funniest lawsuit of recent record, occupied the attention of a Scotch court at Oban, on November 18, 1896. John Turner, a poultry raiser, claimed damages in £50 from a local distillery company because it had been the cause of his hens and chickens becoming habitual drunkards. A little brook flowed from the distillery through the plaintiff's farm, and on six days in the week, he asserted, the water was so polluted with alcoholic refuse that the poultry which drank from it became regularly intoxicated. Turner told the story of the moral and physical downfall of his ducks and hens in lugubrious detail. It was a new hen which he had bought in Laggan that had led the whole flock astray. The defendant's lawyer interrupted at this point to suggest that the poultry were afflicted with "gapes," which had been introduced by the Laggan hen. "Yes," responded the plaintiff, "whisky gapes." He went on to say that on Sundays, when the distillery was not in operation, the condition of his flock was pitiable, but Mondays were their worst days, for then they drank excessively and fell into the water frequently, and he had to employ a boy to look after them. They would take no food until they had first paid a visit to the brook. In fact, their conduct was thoroughly reprehensible, and the ducks were no better than the hens. When they came back from the brook they spent the day in sleeping and fighting alternately. Turner admitted that he had some sober hens, but the drunken ones broke their eggs, and, all in all, the demon alcohol had quite destroyed the profits of his business. At the conclusion of his testimony the plaintiff triumphantly produced the wicked Laggan hen in court. The dissolute creature was brought in in a large wicker cage and placed upon the bench in front of Sheriff Mactavish, who presided. This colloquy then took place. The plaintiff's lawyer asked: "Was this hen at the distillery brook this morning?" "Any one could see that," responded Turner. "Is it sober?" "It is not." The behavior of the bird seemed to justify this answer. It sat on the bottom of the cage, stretched its neck up through the bars, and crooned to itself in what the plaintiff termed "a maudlin style." "How are the other hens to day?" "Worse than this one." "Was this the only one you could bring to court?" "Yes." "The rest were too drunk." "So that, on the whole, the Laggan hen is not the worst?" "That is so." "How do you account for that?" "She can stand it better." began cackling at a great rate, to the intense amusement of the bystanders. Such is, in substance, the version of this extraordinary case printed by the local newspapers. Scotch newspapers were never known to tell a lie, at least not so ingenious a lie as this. At all events, if the story is not true, it is quite good enough to be true.-Legal Adviser. Use of Minute Doses of Pilocarpine for Excessive Sweating. Skilled physicians are fully aware that the effects of drugs can be varied very materially by the size of the dose, and that in some instances results diametrically opposed to the general physiological action of a drug when given in large doses may be obtained by employing comparatively minute quantities. Illustrative of this is the use of small doses of ipecac for the purpose of controlling vomiting which is induced by a condition of atony of the stomach. The irritant ipecac in small doses acts as a stimulant to the gastric mucous membrane, whereas if it were given in large doses its emetic effects would be nanifested. We are all of us familiar with the employment of pilocarpine in the dose of one-eighth to one-fourth of a grain for the purpose of producing profuse sweating-an action due to the influence of the drug upon the peripheral ends of the nerves in the sweat glands and upon the sweat-glands themselves, rather than to any centric nervous influence. In all probability a certain number of cases of excessive sweatingsuch, for example, as the night sweats of phthisis-depend upon a condition of lowered vitality or atony of the sweatglands and cutaneous blood-vessels, and for this reason it is possible that the administration of pilocarpine, by stimulating these parts, may bring them up to their normal degree of tonicity, with the result that the sweating will stop. Of course it is possible that in tubercu losis and other forms of sepsis accomAfter adjournment of the court panied the court panied by sweating, the the excessive somebody offered the wicked Laggan glandular activity is an effort upon the hen half a glass of whisky, which it part of the system to get rid of certain began to imbibe greedily. Soon it impurities, or that the poisons which The counsel for the defense wished to read an article by Andrew Lang referring to a somewhat similar case. The other side objected, as Mr. Lang was not present. The counsel replied that Mr, Lang had been summoned, but had failed to appear. The court ruled out the evidence. When both sides had finished, Sheriff Mactavish confessed himself puzzled, or rather he said that the case being a peculiar one he would reserve his decision. just as effective, to rely on leeches, heat, and cathartics. Beware of stabbing in the dark; don't forget the proximity of the internal carotid, and that it has been punctured in some cases. If in an adult you have punctured the drum, and matter only presents without extruding, inflation by the Politzer apparatus will assist to remove the pus. are developed in the body so influence | a sensitive child, with an ear exquisitely the sweat glands or their supplying tender, and with much swelling of the nerves that excessive sweating ensues. external canal, it will be far safer, and Be this as it may, we have found that in a certain number of cases of tuberculosis the use of minute doses of pilocarpine, such as one-sixtieth to one-thirtieth of a grain, seems to control the sweat, at the same time not increasing salivary flow or depressing the patient as the drug so frequently does when full doses of it are administered. This depression after large doses is one of the chief reasons for the limitation of the popularity of jaborandi or its alkaloid. As night sweats are a symptom which frequently resist many plans of treatment, it is well in desperate cases to think of this remedy. We have, in an earlier number of the Therapeutic Gazette, asserted our belief that camphoric acid in the dose of twenty grains is the most efficient anti-sudorfic in use, and we still have the same belief, only recommending pilocarpine in the minute doses named as a remedy to be thought of when camphoric acid and other well tried remedies have failed: Therapeutic Gazette. Acute Otitis Media. Dr. Muzzy, in the N. Y. Medical Journal of July 4, 1896, concludes an article on this topic as follows: In treatment, the first point is the pain. The more acute, however severe, the more sure will be the benefit from leeching, whether with the natural or artificial leech. The artificial is applied more speedily, draws more steadily, creates more surface irritation, and is comparatively clean. Next to leeching comes heat-dry, moist, or liquid: hot water injected slowly and gently; hot meal, sand or the Japanese hot box. Try the dry form of heat first. The employment of laudanum or other anodynes is useless and wastes precious time. Cathartics as derivatives, mercurial or saline, should be used early. Many of the best authorities speak of puncture of the drum, a very valuable procedure: close watch should be kept, and this incision be made as soon as the inflammation bulges the membrane in a definite portion. But if your patient is After-treatment-that is, after disappearance of pain-consists in cleansing and the use of astringents, pure fifteen-volume peroxide, followed by a swab of alcohol, and dusting or even a heavy coating of powdered borax, but never a filling of the canal, as was recently much in vogue. The inflammatory process may at any time spread to the mastoid cells. This is heralded by an increase in the severity of all the symptoms: the pain that had gone down or disappeared reasserts itself and spreads over the side of the head, and changes in character; the discharges may in a few hours disappear altogether; swelling over the mastoid takes place (though this is uncertain). Tenderness to light tapping or firm deep pressure by the finger is a safe but not infallible guide to indicate the presence of inflammation of the mastoid cells. The Cause of Death in Serum Adamkiewicz (Wien med. Presse, No. 1,847, 1896) discusses the possible reasons of the fatal issue in a recent case at Berlin. Langerhans attributed the death to the poisonous action of the antitoxine upon a healthy subject when unneutralized by a pre-existent toxin. This seems a priori improbable considering the large number of cases of suspected diphtheria which have been treated by antitoxine without ill-effects, and in which the suspicion has been proved unfounded. Nor does the evidence show that the injection of serum into a vein is in all cases per se an element of danger, since the blood is able to tolerate the introduction of considerable quantities of indifferent sub Some Considerations in Regard to the stances with impunity. That the fatality | account for the death under considerawas due to the amount of carbolic acid tion.-British Med. Journal. in the injection is not in accordance with the known effects of that substance, and the death was far too sudden to have resulted from poisoning by the serum itself, serum intoxication having been shown by Eulenburg to be always a more or less chronic process. The entrance of the serum into a vein and its employment in too concentrated a form having also been excluded, one is compelled to seek another cause for the intensification of its action in this case. This Adamkiewicz finds in a disturb ance of the adaptive mechanism of the organism. The living body is provided with a self-regulating apparatus which protects it against noxious influences within certain limits; once these are passed the animal is lost. In his recent experiments with "cancroin" he found that several patients showed, without apparent reason, alarming signs of collapse after injection, and by careful exclusion was forced to conclude that the cause was sudden passage beyond the bounds of the regulating mechanism. This was confirmed by the discovery that no such effects resulted when the injection was gradually given so as to allow the organism time for adaptation; in consequence of this, Adamkiewicz now injects "cancroin" in tenths of a cubic centimetre, allowing some seconds after each injection for the self-regulating mechanism to act. He further extended his experiments to the injection of atmospheric air into the veins of the guinea-pig, and found that a considerable quantity could be taken up and elimated without danger if it were given in small doses; thus 10 ccm. injected in this way produced no illeffects, while 2 ccm. were instantly fatal when injected at once and forcibly. Any substance, serum included, may have a double noxious action when introduced into the body, proportional to, first, the force with which it is injected; and, secondly, the specificity with which it acts on the blood or through the blood, on other constituents of the body. The virulence increases with the force of injection, and this may well Vinay, in Lyon Médical, April 12, 1896, points out that arsenic may be given by the stomach, subcutaneously, or by the rectum. The gastric mode of entrance, the one most commonly resorted to for the administration of full doses, very frequently produces burning in the epigastrium and loss of appetite. Nevertheless in many cases of pernicious anemia and pseudo-leukemia these full doses are necessary. By the hypodermic method these symptoms are avoided, but it is necessary to avoid local accidents by the most careful antisepsis. It is well to use Fowler's solution diluted with a little cherrylaurel water, but it must not be forgotten that such an injection is very apt to produce a good deal of local irritation as well as much pain. Probably it is better to use a solution of arseniate of sodium. For rectal injection: One drachm of this may be injected into the rectum night and morning, and after four days' treatment it can be given three times a day, namely, morning, noon, and night. If the medication is not pushed too forcibly and frequently, it does not produce rectal tenesmus.Therapeutic Gazette. The Diagnosis of Valvular Disease of the Heart. Too much reliance ordinarily is placed upon the presence or absence of a cardiac murmur in the determination of organic heart disease. Not oniy is a murmur sometimes wanting, in valvular lesions particularly, but in mitral obstruction of aged patients distinct bruits are often functional (in acute infectious diseases) and accidental, as from the nervous excitement of physical examination. Or a true organic murmur may be disguised by other sounds, pulmonary, pleural or pericardial, or by the tumultuous action of the heart itself. Dr. James B. Herrick, in the October number of Medicine, properly calls |