exsudation on the surface of the Trachea, and had become dislodged by the violent expulsive efforts of vomiting.

CREOSOTE, A GOOD APPLICATION TO BURNS.

Creosote is one of the most valuable of those remedies which the ancient writers designated as incarnatives; i. e. promoting cicatrisation. M. Mascharpa has drawn the attention of his countrymen (Gazzetta Medica di Milano) to its excellent effects in this respect, as an application to many ulcers. He has used it also in several cases of Burns with the most satisfactory results: it soothes the pain of the injury at the time, and accelerates the subsequent progress of the cure. The best mode of using it is in the form of lotion,-made by adding 20 or 30 drops of it to two or three ounces of water, and applied with pledgets of linen to the injured surface.

(The London Pharmacopoeia, in its last edition, contains an "Unguentum Creosoti," prepared with half a drachm of the oil to an ounce of lard: it is applicable for the same purpose as the solution of the oil in water.)

ANTISEPTIC PROPERTIES OF CREOSOTE.

A solution of Creosote in water-10 drops to one litre-is an excellent antiseptic preparation for preserving anatomical specimens. It has the great advantage of not changing the colour or physical properties of the tissues immersed in it; and it also checks any commencing putrefaction or decay. Moreover, it does not act on the steel instruments. Pathological specimens, that have lost much of their elasticity and general form, by having been preserved for many years in alcohol, speedily regain their original aspect and characters, when they have been kept for three or four days in the Creosote Solution: and even dried preparations when treated so, will often resume the appearances which they had before they became shrivelled and contracted. The globules of Blood, Purulent matter, and other secretions may be preserved in this fluid, intact, either as to form or colour, for a length of time. M. Pigné, the assistant Conservator of the Dupuytren Museum, ingeniously, but perhaps rather fancifully, suggests that portions of the blood itself may be thus preserved, and alludes to the possibility of making a collection of hæmatological specimens, with the view of comparing the various morbid conditions of the circulating fluid.

AMMONIA IN DELIRIUM TREMENS.

In one of the recent German Journals, we find a paper by a Dr. Scharn on the subject of this troublesome and distressing malady. The learned doctor having experienced no little disappointment from the use of the remedies in general use, and conceiving that, as the disease is nothing else but intoxication arrived at the period of its apogee, it should be treated by the very same means which are known to be most serviceable against the latter, had recourse to the employment of Ammonia, in the form of the pyro-oleaginous solution, or of the Succinate of the alkali. By means of this very simple and innocuous remedy he has succeeded, he assures us, in curing a great number of very severe cases of the disease.

It deserves notice that M. Brachet, also of Lyons—a gentleman whose opinions

A

áre justly entitled to consideration-has recently recommended the same remedy, Ammonia, in the treatment of Delirium tremens.

(Ammonia by itself will rarely suffice to subdue the excitement and allay the Restlessness of this Neurosis: Opium must almost always be associated with it. We have often used, with good effect, the Ammoniated Tincture of Valerian and the Liquor Opii Sedativus-not forgetting the application, at the same time, of warmth to the feet, and of cooling spirituous lotions to the head. When symptoms of febrile or inflammatory irritation are present, it may be necessary to resort to leeching, and the administration of effervescing saline draughts with Antimonial Wine).

A FLOCK OF SHEEP POISONED BY EATING THE RANUNCULUS REPENS.

The sheep had not been many hours in the field before the shepherd observed that several of them seemed suddenly to fall down, as if they had been struck by lightning: their eyes rolled about in their sockets; their breathing was hurried and laborious; and some of them kept turning round and round as if they were dizzy, and died with their heads inclined over to their left flanks. He fancied that the seizure was owing to a coup de sang,' and bled the animals accordingly; but the loss of blood seemed to do harm rather than good, for eleven animals died almost immediately afterwards. A veterinary surgeon, who was summoned, immediately detected the cause of the mischief in the great admixture of the Ranunculi with the grass. He therefore at once recommended that the bleedings should be discontinued, and a dose of sulphuric æther in milk be given to all the affected animals. Under this treatment the alarming symptoms quickly subsided; and, although for some days the sheep remained very feeble and tottering on their legs, they all recovered completely.

ANIMAL ELECTRICITY.

Signor Matteucci wrote to the French Academy to state that, after much trouble, he had succeeded in making a galvanic pile of five living pigeons! Both thighs of each bird were flayed; the exterior of a muscle in one pigeon was brought into communication with the internal part of the muscle in another; and so on in succession with all. In this manner he obtained a Galvanometer—which, in the first experiment, indicated 15° of a current, which was in every case directed from the interior of the muscle to the surface. The current diminished rapidly; so that, at the third experiment, a few minutes afterwards, it was not more than 6°; but still always in the same direction. The presence of effused and coagulated blood on the muscular surfaces is one of the causes of this diminution; for, on removing it, the current was observed to increase by a few degrees. The greatest difficulty, that was experienced in conducting the experiments, was to maintain the parts in contact: Signor Matteucci used wooden forceps and ligatures for this purpose.

The muscular electrical current increases in intensity with the degree that the Animals, experimented upon, occupy in the Zoological Scale-a circumstance that seems to prove its chemical origin; or, more correctly speaking, its connexion with the chemical actions of nutrition and the transformation of the tissues by the contact of the arterial blood.

(This is a fair example of the trash that is far too readily admitted into many of the foreign medical journals, as well as into the communications addressed to the Academies on the Continent. When will these would-be physiological discoverers cease their bloody butchering experiments?-as if Nature would ever

reveal her secrets to those who, with barbarous ignorance, mutilate and deform her most marvellous works!

SPONTANEOUS RUPTURE OF THE ABDOMEN AFTER THE
CESARIAN OPERATION.

A woman, 37 years of age, who had been afflicted for 13 years with chronic rheumatism and softening of the bones, but who, notwithstanding, had given birth to eight children, again became pregnant, and was this time obliged to submit to the Cæsarian operation,-which was most happily attended with complete success. Between 14 and 15 months after this date, she fell once more into the family-way. In the seventh month of her gestation, she began to experience continued pain in the abdomen, which was then so pendulous that it looked like a large pouch or sac, hanging down in front, and resting on the upper part of the thighs: the gastro-hysterotomic cicatrix was visible on the surface of this depending pouch. The labour-pains became more and more violent, without effecting any good; by the 5th day, her strength appeared to be entirely exhausted.

On making an examination per vaginam, the outlet was found to be contracted to the smallest possible dimensions, so that the finger could not reach to the cervix uteri. The medical men in attendance were of opinion that rupture of the uterus had taken place: but, as the fœtus was dead, and as the condition of the mother was most precarious, it was deemed most advisable to leave the case to nature. About ten days subsequently, the cicatrix of the abdominal section opened, and gave issue to a fœtus, which was then in a state of putrefaction, with its appendages. Ultimately the woman recovered.-Annales de Medicine de Gand.

(Truly, some of these Flemish women have marvellous powers of endurance, and an extraordinary tenacity of life.)

QUININE AGAINST OBSTINATE HICCUP.

Among the many anomalous, and not unfrequently very obscure, results of miasiatic influence, are various affections of the digestive organs. Of these, Hiccup is a most troublesome, and, occasionally, a very intractable, one. In some cases, this gastric disorder has been observed to exhibit a distinctly intermittent character, and to be associated with the existence of other phenomena which are usually attributed to the operation of the same morbific cause. M. Mendiere has recently published, in the pages of the Revue Medicale, several cases of this sort, in which the distressing symptom of Hiccup was promptly and decisively cured by the free use of Quinine, after it had resisted every other mode of treatment. He has used the same remedy with good results in many cases of severe Cardialgia.

(The addition of a few drops of tinct. opii to the quinine will greatly enhance its efficiency in such cases. What an admirable remedy Opium is in almost all the Neuroses, provided the secretions are healthy at the time! The difficulty lies in knowing how to time its administration, and regulate its dose. We have usually found the Liquor Opii Sedativus the best form in which to exhibit it: this may be given in a bitter infusion, to which Ammonia may generally be added with advantage at the same time.)

TREATMENT OF PLETHORA.

The treatment of Plethora is often not nearly so easy as that of Anæmia. In many cases it will not suffice merely to abstain from animal food, and to drink large quantities of simple cooling beverages, in the hope of attenuating and impoverishing the condition of the blood. Then, again, the effects of blood-letting are generally only transitory; and, moreover, the very loss of blood seems not unfrequently to induce a more active proportionate formation of it. On the whole, the use of saline laxatives, and of the Hydrochlorate of Ammonia (sal. ammoniac.) seem to be the most useful means that can be employed for the relief of Plethora, when it gives rise to inconvenient symptoms.

Dr. Lheritier, in his recent treatise on Pathological Chemistry, informs us that he has found that the proportion of the red globules in the blood of rabbits was decidedly modified by the internal use of this salt, in the course of two or three weeks.

(The Nitrate of Potash has similar effects; so also have the alkaline subcarbonates, and the Liquor Potassæ itself. Perhaps the latter is, on the whole, the most efficient impoverisher of the blood, provided also the diet is spare and not too nutritious, and all malt-liquors are avoided.)

USEFUL HINT TO HOSPITALS.

"In the hospital at Frankfort, I noticed a peculiarity in the make of the mattrasses which deserves to be noticed. They consist of three portions or compartments, which are perfectly joined into one when the bed is made; but which are readily separated from each other, so that any part may be removed and cleaned at a time without the others. As a matter of course, it is the middle one that generally requires to be so treated. By this simple arrangement, the mattrasses may be, at a very small expense, always kept in cleanliness and order."

ON THE PROTECTIVE INFLUENCE OF VACCINATION.

The general conclusions, drawn by Dr. Retzius of Stockholm from his observations of small-pox and the effects of vaccination in Sweden, are these: "The protection, afforded by vaccination from the close of the second year of life against the contagion of the Variolous poison, usually lasts unimpaired to the end of the thirteenth year or so after this period it begins to lose its effect, and gradually becomes more and more uncertain on to the twentieth or twenty-first year of life. For the next four or five years, the disposition to the small-pox seems almost to have recovered its original integrity; and this state of liability continues unimpaired up to the age of forty years or so. At about this epoch of life, it begins to approach nearer and nearer to the limit of its existence-which it reaches, in the majority of cases, about the fiftieth year, the period when the general revolution of the human body commences to take place."

(The practical inference to be drawn from these remarks is the propriety of repeating vaccination in about thirteen or fourteen years after its first performance. This advice is in accordance with the observations of the most experienced practitioners: it would be well, if it were more generally acted upon.)

A NUT FOR THE ULTRA-PHLEBOTOMISTS.

"I have seen," says Bordeu, that truly spiritual and lively writer, "a physician who put no bounds to his fondness for bleeding. If he had bled a patient thrice, he repeated it once more, for the good reason that there are four divisions of the world, four seasons in the year, and four cardinal points in the compass; after the fourth bleeding, a fifth was required, because there are five fingers to each hand; to the fifth he added a sixth, for that God created the world in six days; six!-oh! there must be seven, since the week has seven days, and Greece had seven Sages; an eighth is necessary to make the number even; and a ninth, quia numero Deus impare gaudet."

An amusing anecdote is told of Barthez, another celebrated physician of last century and cotemporary of Bordeu. During the excitement of the French Revolution, his house was assailed by the mob, in consequence of his having published a pamphlet in vindication of the nobility. He presented himself at his door without fear, exclaiming to the rabble, " you may break my windows, but you cannot touch my arguments." He had a bitter enemy in the person of Languet, a turbulent sarcastic lawyer of the day, who, in a satirical poem, addressed him as a

Ministre de la mort, tyran de la nature,
Assassiner par art, guerir par conjecture.

CONSECUTIVE EFFECTS OF EXCISION OF THE LOWER JAW.

In consequence of the division of the muscles, which attach the tongue to the jaw, there is a tendency to such a retroversion of this organ into the pharynx as to obstruct, more or less completely, the admission of the air into the rima glottidis. This evil is to be prevented by passing a ligature through the frænum linguae and keeping the tongue forward. In some cases this retroversion is a work of very gradual occurrence; so that the breathing of the patient becomes more and more impeded, and life is extinguished by a process of slow asphyxia produced by the displacement of the tongue backwards, and the consequent obstruction of the pharynx. This seems to have been the occasion of death in a case of M. Gerdy's, in which the patient sunk on the ninth day after the operation, without any very evident cause. M. Vidal compares the death in this patient with that which is apt to occur after the operation of tracheotomy, when the artificial opening in the air-pipe is not kept sufficiently open: life becomes very gradually extinguished, and the patient dies tranquilly from a process of genuine, but very slow, asphyxia. He therefore strongly urges the necessity of paying constant attention to this circumstance.

He mentions, also, another of the subsequent and, so to speak, chronic effects of removing the lower jaw-viz: the lesion in the functions of digestion and the circulation, occasioned by the contraction of the laryngo-pharyngeal orifice : a state of chlorosis or anæmia is apt to be induced, and this has proved fatal.— Annales de la Chirurgie.

FATAL HEMORRHAGE FROM A VARIX OF THE VULVA.

In a late number of the Berlin Medical Gazette, we find the following case related :-

A woman, pregnant of her fifth child, had, for a length of time, been annoyed