insomnia, cough, etc., it frequently relieves few drops of ether are added to the oil, the these; and it is probable that its employ- faculty of shining in the dark is instantly ment, regulated with prudence, would stopped. Sulphide of carbon and turpentine sometimes prevent the occurrence of con- possess this property, but essences of thyme, vulsions. 4. It should not be administered rosemary, and mint, and alcohol do not posto infants when suffering from diarrhoea. sess it. The vapour of ether alone is quite 5. In certain exceptional cases in which sufficient to stop the phosphorescence.— the nervous erethism is predominant, its Med. Press and Circular, Sept. 2, 1868. action is prompt and decisive.-Medical Times and Gazette, Dec. 12, 1868.

Therapeutic Value of Olive Oil.-At the last meeting of the Harveian Society Dr. On Phosphorized Oil.-M. C. MEHU RAMSKILL read a paper on the Therapeutic writes upon the above subject in the Journal Value of Olive Oil. The paper consisted de Pharmacie et de Chimie. The oil is used of a history of two cases of gout, which he in paralysis and other diseases. M. Méhu considered types of the kind of disease, and says that the preparation of the French especially as to the stage of it in which the codex (Huile Phosphorée) is a bad prepa-internal administration of olive oil was most ration; both uncertain in its composition useful. The first type was presented by a and changeable. patient affected with apparently acute at

One of the causes of this instability is the tacks, reappearing with very short interimpurities in the almond oil. He, there-vals, and making little or no way towards fore, heats the oil in a porcelain capsule convalescence. Bark, quinine, iron, had during one-fourth of an hour to a tempera. frequently failed to prevent a reappearance ture of 1500, and finally to a temperature of the disease. Cod-liver oil was rarely of 200 to 250 for six minutes. borne at all. In such cases, olive oil, given when the patient lapsed in the interval, had answered all the requirements of the case in Dr. Ramskill's hands. Nutrition began to improve, and no more relapses occurred. The second case was a type, also, of a class

It gives off the vapour of water and certain organic substances easily alterable; at the same time the oil becomes completely blanched. It is only necessary to filter it.

One centigramme of phosphorus is then placed in a flask, and a gramme of oil, pre-of cases, where, all acute symptoms having pared as above, is added.

The oil at 1-100 is phosphorescent when the flask is open; the space filled with air exhibits a magnificent phosphorescent cloud, and the vapour of phosphorous acid is formed.

long subsided, vague and uneasy pain re

The phosphorus must be quite transpa-mained in all the joints-associated only rent, and free from red or opaque phospho- with stiffness or difficulty and pain on moverus. The flask is placed upon a salt-water ment. The general health meanwhile bath, and the mouth opened once or twice, slowly deteriorated, with much general to allow the heated air to escape, and finally wasting; and no impression could be made the temperature is raised to 80 or 90° C. on the system by the usual tonics. Here without shaking; the flask is then closed the use of olive oil was more quickly beneand shaken violently, until all the phospho- ficial; but it often seemed to act as a rus is dissolved. The phosphorus is not hæmatogen. In true rheumatoid arthritis, deposited again on cooling. the use of the oil was perhaps more beneficial than most ordinary remedies; but Dr. Ramskill could make no assertion as to the favourable action of any single remedy on this disease. The dose of olive oil should not exceed a teaspoonful at the commencement; it should be gradually increased, until a laxative effect announced the attainment of such a dose as exceeded the absorbent power of the stomach and intestines. Any vehicle containing a few drops of sulphuric ether would then help to assimilate the oil, and prevent diarrhoea. It was important to obtain perfectly fresh and new oil, to insure absence of rancidity, and consequent eructations and disorder of

An oil which does not contain more than two grammes of phosphorus for 1000 does not shine in the dark, and the vessel is no longer filled with white clouds of phosphorous acid.

Such an oil is preferable for daily use to one which is undergoing a partial alteration each time it is opened.

The phosphorescence of any oil is a sign of its alteration in the air. If, however, a

the stomach. Dr. Ramskill considered the patient who was ordered four drachms of remedy as a combination of food and phy- the mixture every two hours, and very sic; but still one unattainable by ordinary shortly after taking the third dose died, food and medicine. It was important to with all the symptoms of poisoning. Therebegin its administration when the patient fore, if this treatment be decided on, I was free from acute attacks, or, at least, would strongly recommend that the pafrom fever. The passage of pale urine, or tient be carefully watched. I feel perfectly of greenish-yellow urine, that suggesting convinced as to its value, even if we conoxaluria, was an indication for its use, espe- sider only the shortening of the disease, cially if accompanied by hypochondriasis, this treatment only requiring from one to general malaise, and weariness and aching three days at the most; whereas the old of joints. Dr. Ramskill said he had found modes require from three to fifteen days to great benefit from the use of olive oil at the combat the disease. I might add that I Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, espe- never give a drop of either wine, spirits, or cially in cases of lead-poisoning, after the beer, for I consider it is only adding fuel to acute symptoms, such as colic, had sub-the flame; but I allow as much beef-tea as sided; always in the malnutrition accom-the patient can take, or meat if it is fancied." panying paralysis of the extensors of the

hands; also, in Cruveilhier's atrophy; and Sleep Disease.-M. DUMOUTIER, who has in epilepsy, associated with great cachexia. {served on the west coast of Africa and at In all these conditions, supposing cod-liver oil disagreeing, and therefore inadmissible. -Brit. Med. Journal, Dec. 12, 1868.

Martinique as a government commissioner for the negro emigration, communicates to the Gazette des Hôpitaux (October 13) an account of the affection vulgarly termed the Digitalis in Delirium Tremens.-G. E. {sleep disease (maladie du sommeil), on GASCOIGNE, Assist. Surg. Royal Artillery, which he says little has been written. It in a paper in Brit. Med. Journal, Aug. affects only the negroes of the west coast, 29, relates five cases of delirium tremens and chiefly those of the territories of the treated by digitalis, and states that the ad- Gaboon and the Congo, becoming more and vantages of digitalis in this disease are: a more rare as we advance towards the north. tonic action on the heart, a sedative on the The first observable circumstance in these nervous system, a rapid induction of sleep patients is an irresistible tendency to sleep, and cessation of delirium. "I have now," the torpidity being unaccompanied by any he says, "treated eleven cases of delirium suffering. There is also a weakness of the tremens with tincture of digitalis, and with limbs, so that their walking becomes vaciluniform successs. The smallest quantity lating, and the tactile sensibility seems perrequired has been four drachms, and theverted, as they are hardly able to lay hold greatest twenty-eight drachms. This last of any object to assist them. During this was taken in thirty-three hours by a man sleep the urine and feces escape involunin Canada; the only effect was that he was tarily. The intellect continues clear, the bathed in warm perspiration and slept respiration is normal, and the digestion regusoundly for two days and nights, with the lar. It would seem that the disease is rarely exception of waking up about every six met with except among the slaves or caphours to drink beef-tea. This was the tives brought from the interior. We are worst case of delirium tremens I have ever aware of the cruelty of the sufferings they seen. It required the united efforts of eight there have to endure at the hands of those strong men to keep the patient from injuring into whose power they have fallen; and exhimself. It was the second attack in sixcessive labour, insufficient food, cruel usage, weeks. I have always remarked that the and moral suffering and despair may serve disease supervening after hard spirit-drink-to lead to this description of slow progressing is extremely severe, and requires more ive paralysis and fatal sleep, which always

treatment.

แ

end in death. In one of the cases that came "Although I have never found any bad under M. Dumoutier's care, he exhibited results from the medicine, I invariably exa- strychnia and tonics, endeavouring at the mine the patient before repeating the dose, same time to dissipate the disposition to as poisoning is possible. This, without nostalgia by amusements and diversion of doubt, occurred five or six years ago to a thought. For two or three days a slight

improvement ensued, but the patient then { preliminary report thus enumerate the con. relapsed into the same state and died. Inclusions arrived at, founded on 1380 cases another case electricity was tried with no better result. At the autopsy neither the brain nor spinal marrow nor their membranes exhibited anything abnormal.-Med. Times and Gaz., Oct. 24, 1868.

Forcible Dilation of Urethra.-On the occasion of M. Ricord's laying before the Academy of Medicine of Paris, in the name of its inventor, a new "divulsor" for the treatment of stricture of the urethra, M. Chassaignac expressed his surprise at the indulgence shown towards such instruments calculated to exert violence on the urethra. These plans of treatment are always revived every few years with the same hopes, to be followed by the same disappointments. For his part, he protested, in the name of true surgery, against these panaceas for stricture, and he thought that M. Ricord should rather strive against their introduction than admit them from mere complaisance to their inventors. One author states that he has cured in this way 550 strictures, while hospital surgeons in the highest repute do not see a tenth of this number. All these sudden violences done to the urethra are dangerous, and resort to them is the more unjustifiable because strictures are so easily

watched and carefully reported on by the various members of the Committee, and on 1051 reported to them on trustworthy au{thority, as to the advantages and disadvantages of the gas. The advantages are, shortly, these: the rapidity of its effects in producing anesthesia, the shortest time being twenty-five seconds; rapidity in recovery; its agreeable nature; its being tasteless and less irritating; almost entire freedom from nausea and vomiting, occurring in less than 1 per cent.; absence of headache and vertigo, as a general rule, after complete recovery from the anesthesia. The disadvantages are noted as consisting in its unsuitableness for long operations, on account of the rapidity of recovery; in the difficulty also the expense of the agent; in its being of making and transporting the gas, and troublesome to make, and requiring unusually complicated apparatus in its administration; in the undesirability of quick recovery in operations followed by much pain; in the administration being occasionder it unsuitable for delicate operations.— ally accompanied by twitchings which renBrit. Med. Journal, Dec. 12, 1868.

Carbolic Acid and the Antiseptic Treatment in Surgery.-Dr. KELBURNE KING, and effectually treated by slow and pro- (of Hull) at a recent meeting of the Medical gressive dilatation. It is only in those very Society of London, read a paper on the rare instances in which a bougie of the above subject. Modern science, he said, smallest size cannot be introduced, and shows that suppuration is not a necessary where it has become necessary to empty the bladder, that such dangerous procedures process in wounds which do not heal by first intention, granulation can occur without should be allowed. M. Ricord, so far from suppuration; access of air is the most comobjecting to M. Chassaignac's remarks, stated that he quite agreed in their justice. of the air itself, but the germs which are mon cause of suppuration, not on account He merely presented the instrument out of contained in it. Carbolic acid diminishes politeness to the inventor. He had never tried it, and would fear to use it; yet to Mr.author employs (1) solution of carbolic or annihilates suppurative action. Holt's success in this kind of procedure we acid, (2) carbolic oil, (proportion 1 to 4), (3) carbolic putty-i e., whiting added to carbolic oil to a desired consistence.

must add that of M. Voillemier and others. It must resemble the coup de marteau em. ployed by Heurteloup, which, in a case to which M. Ricord was called, was followed by dangerous hemorrhage.-Med. Times and Gaz., Nov. 7, 1868.

The

The author claimed for the treatment, 1. That decomposition of discharges is prevented. 2 That it enables those parts injured beyond redemption, to slough away without becoming foci for the reformation Protoxide of Nitrogen as an Anesthetic. of pus. 3. That it exercises a control over -The Joint Committee of the Odontologi- the formation of pus in the centre of wounds. cal Society and of the Dental Hospital of 4. That it diminishes the chances of bloodLondon, appointed to inquire into the value poisoning. 5 That it is of signal service of this agent in surgical operations, in a to the patient himself, and to those sur

rounding him, as all fetor is absolutely the condyles, tapering above and below. prevented. Med. Times and Gaz., Dec. 12, { The history of the case was that the boy 1868.

had been running from something that frightened him, and fell heavily on his arm, Central Perforation of the Perineum; sustaining a bad comminuted simple fracPassage of the whole Fetus through the ture through the whole extent of the middle Rent.-Professor STOLZ, of Strasburg, has third of the bone. Residing far from any communicated this case to the Surgical So-surgical aid, his people simply let him ciety of Paris. So rare are these cases that alone, and this tumour was but nature's the Professor has seen only one example rough surgery. No trace of crepitus re'during a practice of forty years. The pa-mained; it was from head to condyles one tient, aged twenty-seven, had severe pains, solid bone. Such was his state eight and when the head was on the point of pass- months after the accident. Mr. S. was at ing the vulva, it retracted. A pupil mid- a loss what to do; he allowed the boy to wife was supporting the perineum, when run about, and his general health improved, the head suddenly passed through the and finally, for the sake of doing something, latter, and so rapidly that the whole child he ordered him an ointment containing 100 was born through the abnormal aperture. grains of iodide of potassium and 10 grains The child measured about seventeen inches, of iodine to an ounce of lard, to be rubbed and weighed almost seven pounds. The into the tumour twice a day; he was also rent was two and a half inches long. The to take internally a grain of the iodide twice fourchette was entire, and the internal daily. After treatment of this kind for sphincter also. The constrictor vaginæ about three weeks, on examining the arm was torn posteriorly, and likewise the in-crepitus was detected and the tumour found, ferior third of the vagina, with the corresponding recto-vaginal parietes. Some gangrene occurred, but on the twelfth day the wound looked well, and was contracting.movable. All medicine was then stopped, On the thirtieth day the wound was get ting smaller; the woman left the hospital, and was not heard of until one year after the accident (the summer of 1865), when she came to complain of procidentia uteri. The aperture was still visible, and somewhat Pathological Fungology.-At the recent occluded by the neck of the uterus. At meeting of the British Association the prethat period the patient again disappeared, sident of the Biological Section, the Rev. M. and the account of the case closes thus un- J. Berkeley, one of the best cryptogamists satisfactorily. How the woman was al-in Britain, remarked in regard to Hallier's lowed to leave the hospital with the rent investigations that:gaping, when it might have been so easily "It is quite possible that certain fungi sewn up, can hardly be understood, unless may occur constantly in substances of a cershe positively refused an operation. This tain chemical or molecular constitution, but supposition seems near the truth, as it is this may be merely a case of effect instead of not said how, when she came a year after-cause. Besides, as I conceive, the only wards, the hole was not proposed to be closed by sutures, and the uterus replaced. -Lancet, Dec. 12, 1868.

like an iceberg in summer, rapidly breaking up in every direction. Finally all the callus was absorbed and the fragments left

and the bone properly set in splints. He made a capital recovery, callus being again thrown out; and the fragments re-united in their proper places.

safe way of ascertaining what really origi nates from such bodies as those which Hallier terms micrococci, or the larger ones commonly called yeast globules, is to isoFracture by Ointment.-Mr. B. W. late one or two in a closed cell so conSwitzer, Asst. Surg. 6th Punjaub Infantry, structed that a pellicle of air, if I may so term relates (Med. Times and Gaz., Sept. 19, it, surrounds the globule of fluid containing 1868) the following curious case. A Hin- the bodies in question, into which they may doo boy, aged about four years, was brought send out their proper fruit-a method which to him for treatment. On examination, the was successful in the case of yeast, which right humerus was found to present a uni-} consists of more than one fungus, and of the form enlargement, from about three inches little Sclerotium, like grains of gunpowder, below the head to within two inches of which is so common on onions. Any one who

is occasionlly ergoted, but I can find no other trace of fungi on the grains. Again, when he talks of Tilletia, or the wheat bunt, being derived from the east-supposing wheat to be a plant of eastern originthere is no evidence to bear out the assertion, as it occurs on various European grasses; and there is a distinct species which preys on wheat in North Carolina, which is totally unknown in the Old

follows the growth of moulds on moist sub-glumes exactly as that cosmopolitian mould stances, and at different depths, as paste of stains our cereals in damp weather. Rice wheat or rice flour, will see that numberless different modifications are assumed in different parts of the matrix, without, however, a perfect identification with fungi of other genera. Some of these will be seen in the figures I have given in the Intellectual Observer of different forms assumed by the moulds to which that formidable disease, the fungus foot of India, owes its origin. This is quite a different order of facts, from the several conditions assumed by the coni-World." diiferous state of some of the vesiculiferous moulds. As for example, Botrytis Jonesii, Parasites of Infectious Diseases.--Prof. which has been ascertained to be a conidiif- HALLIER, of Jena, read a paper on this suberous state of Mucor mucedo, while two ject before the Annual Congress of German forms of fruit occur of the same mould in Naturalists and Physicians, which met in what is called Ascophora elegans; or the Dresden, in September last. He said that still more marvellous modification which it was Böhm, who, thirty years ago, first some of the Mucors undergo when grown discovered minute organized beings in the in water, and evinced by some of the Sa-intestines of cholera patients. This improlegniæ, the connection of which was in-portant observation, however, remained unculcated by Carus some fifty years ago, but noticed for a considerable time. The miwhich has never been fully investigated."nute organisms observed by Böhm belonged In respect to Hallier's researches on the fungoid organizations found in cholera evacuations, Mr. Berkeley further observes:

to the species of Bacteria and Vibrio, which had been known as far back as the last century, but had only been accurately exWhen Hallier intimates that he has amined by Ehrenberg, and which were by raised from cholera evacuations such a par- some zoologists classed amongst the Infuasite as Urocystis occulta, he should have soria, while others placed them with the been content with stating that a form of Algae and Fungi. Quite recently a numfructification occurred resembling but not ber of observers had commenced to investiidentical with, that fungus. Indeed a com-gate their origin and their conditions of parison with authentic specimens of that life, because the fact of their being found species, published by Rabenhorst, under in fermenting and putrid substances, as well the generic name of Ustilago, shows that it as in pathological liquids, had invested them is something very different, and yet the no- {with a considerable degree of interest. It tion of cholera being derived from some had been too much the custom in former parasite on the rice plant rests very much times, as soon as any such formations were on the occurrence of this form. But even observed, to make immediately a number supposing that some Urocystis (or Poly-of species and genera of them, without incystis, as the genus is more commonlyvestigating at all the origin of these minamed) was produced from cholera evac nute organisms. It had now been shown uations, there is not a particle of evidence that they were nothing but lower grades of to connect this with the rice plant. In the development of higher classes of fungi. In enormous collections transmitted by Dr.sixteen infectious diseases the presence of Curtis from the Southern United States, a peculiar and characteristic fungus had amounting to 7000 specimens, there is not now been demonstrated-viz., in cholera, a single specimen of rice with any endophy-typhoid fever, typhus, measles, dysentery, tic fungus, and it is the same with collec-and certain diseases of the domesticated anitions from the East. Mr. Thwaites has made mals. Whether the parasite was the actual very diligent search, and, employed others cause of the pathological process could at in collecting any fungi which may occur on present not be made out with any degree rice, and has found nothing more than a of certainty; but the fact that certain pecusmall superficial fungus nearly allied to liar forms of parasites were invariably preCladosporium herbarum, sullying the sent in certain diseases was no doubt most