half a crown. Just conceive somnambulism, reading with one's back, the gift of prophecy and so forth, disposed of for the small charge of two shillings and sixpence. It is quite distressing. Oh! Dr. Elliotson what are you about. We hear of missions to China. We would suggest to the Doctor to get up one for the poor deluded people of Alabama.

CAPITAL NEWS FOR YOUNG DOCTORS.

We really cannot wait to talk about the matter, but communicate the following "important news" to our young friends. Won't there be a rush to Alabama. "In the north and west every village has its old doctor-generally quite a respectable personage, with several peculiarities, and the self-complacency which comes from a life of usefulness, winding up amidst the regard of the neighbourhood, and the respect of the younger physicians, who surround him. A sage of this kind is almost unknown in the south-west, except by title, which often indicates about as much clinical labor, as that of colonel testifies to military achievement. The reason of this difference between the south-west and the more northern portions of the Union, is three fold:-1st. A great many physicians die young; 2d. A number go to cotton-planting; 3d. Not a few marry rich widows. Thus it is that causes the most opposite conspire to deprive this quarter of the benefits of ripe medical experience. How long the first will continue with its past energy, we cannot predict; but the second will soon cease unless the price of cotton should rise above five cents a pound; the last, however, is of a permanent character, for six or eight times as many husbands as wives die in this region. We shall expect the thanks of at least two classes of persons for this information." We should think so. What a good fellow this Editor is. And a close reasoner too. What, for instance, can be more certain than that if doctors die young they won't live to be old. They should work double tides in Alabama. For, first of all, they have the chance of dying youug as Doctors, and, secondly, if they are not thick enough to do that, they have another chance of dying young as cottonplanters. Nay, when they marry they are pretty certain to die before their wives at last. They thus realize the somewhat groggy idea of Alexander, who, in his cups, "thrice slew the slain." The great requisite for emigrants to Alabama is to have the lives of a cat.

DEATH IN THE FIRE-PLACE.

Most people recollect the alarming work of the respected Mr. Accum—“ Death in the Pot." Such as read it must have wondered how they ever contrived to live so long, indeed to live at all, every article of food, being proved to be dele

terious.

Now, however, the matter is shewn to be worse than even Mr. Accum made it out. Not only are we eating and drinking slow poison, but the air we breathe in our bed-rooms and sitting-rooms is next to certain death. An ingenious writer in the Medical Gazette puts this in such a striking point of view, that the firmest nerves must be shaken by it.

"It should be borne in mind," says he, " that the openings of our fire-places being seldom more than three or four feet from the floor, the upper stratum of air is neither removed or purified by this under current, and must, from being breathed over and over again, be productive of most prejudicial effects, and that this contamination of the atmosphere is considerably augmented at night by the combustion of lights, the quantity of air breathed by an ordinary-sized person being calculated to be about 2000 cubic feet per hour, and that two mould-candles consume as much of the oxygen of this air as a human being, the nitrogen and carbonic acid gas which remain being peculiarly inimical to animal life, and that when carried up by the currents occasioned by combustion and respiration, they must be repeatedly inspired in this upper stratum before they make their escape

into the chimney-the only ventilating flue with which our houses are provided; that the heat thus generated is in proportion to the quantity of oxygen abstracted from the atmosphere, which enters into combination with the carburetted hydrogen of the flame of candles, coal, gas, oil, or other inflammable matter from which light is produced; that every cubic foot of carburetted hydrogen consumed unites, on an average, with two cubic feet of oxygen (that portion of the atmosphere required to support animal life); and that the product of this combustion is about two inches and a half of water and one of carbonic acid gas, which, when inhaled in its pure state, proves instantly fatal; and the greater the proportion we inhale in addition to the animal vapours evolved from the lungs and skin, the more pernicious the effect.

"Supposing, for example, that the perfect lighting of an ordinary sized apartment requires fifteen cubic feet of carburetted hydrogen per hour, this would form about a pint and a half of water and fifteen cubic feet of carbonic acid gas, which are the products of the combustion, whether the carburetted hydrogen is obtained from wax, tallow, oil, or coal. If, therefore, the lighting continues in an unventilated apartment for seven hours, one gallon of water is produced, the greater part of which must be deposited on the walls, windows, furniture, polished metal, or other cold surfaces with which it comes in contact; and to some articles of this nature it is known to prove highly prejudicial, in addition to the injury to health occasioned by an increased quantity of moisture mixed with the air we breathe. As one of the principal functions performed by this air for the preservation of health is to carry off with it a considerable quantity of vapour, in order to prevent its undue accumulation on the lungs, it is therefore evident that after it has been already so loaded it cannot properly perform these functions, and that consumption and other complaints are thus frequently induced."

We can only say, as we have said before, that the wonder is how we get on at all. With nothing genuine to eat-only deleterious mixtures to drink-and nitrogen, carbonic acid, and carburetted hydrogen to breathe, it is next to a miracle that any of us see forty. One reflection, however, springs out of this, which is a comfortable one-if we contrive to hold on to sixty, seventy, and eighty years, in the midst of such deadly agencies, what may we not hope to do bye and bye-when, thanks to chemistry, death is no longer in the pot nor in the fireplace when bread and beer cease to be adulterated-when candles no longer furnish arsenic-when our rooms are not filled with nitrogen, carbonic acid and so forth. The age of Old Parr will then be the rule, not the exception, and the stunted race which now haunts our streets like melancholy ghosts, will be changed, under the influence of pure air and aliment, into something more like to men. The sooner the better, say we.

SCALP-SEATON.

This remedial agent, in cerebral affections, is now going the round of the press," to use a common expression. Dr. J. Johnson has, for more than thirty years, been in the habit of employing this species of drain in epileptic and other cerebral maladies, and has repeatedly noticed it in the pages of the MedicoChirurgical Review. Dr. Johnson's method is more simple, and less painful than that which has lately been proposed. It consists merely in drawing a line of the kali purum along the course of the sagittal suture, poulticing till the slough clears away-and then inserting a few threads of silk or cotton daily, imbued with the ceratum lyttæ. A purulent drain is thus established, with very little trouble, and with great benefit in obstinate cerebral affections. Mr. J. Johnson, of Rickmansworth, wore a seton of this kind for some years, under Dr. Johnson's direction.-30th September, 1844.

ABDOMINAL HYDATIDS. (Ed. Monthly Journal, August.)

"Dr. Gairdner read a remarkable case of abdominal disease, in which he had twice withdrawn by paracentesis from the peritoneal cavity, a quantity of a glutinous substance, resembling in colour and consistence calf's foot jelly, and coagulating, like the albumen of eggs, by heat. Some of this matter Dr. G. had exhibited to the Society in January, but in a comminuted state, in consequence of having passed through the canula, and the valves of the syringe adapted to it for suction. After the death of the patient in February last, it was ascertained that the whole abdomen was filled with similar matter, amounting in all to about twenty-four imperial pints, and that it consisted of rounded masses having very much the same outward appearance as the ordinary acephalocysts of Laennec, but differing from them in many important particulars. These remarkable parasites had invaded the textures of the liver and omentum, as well as of some of the other viscera. The right lobe of the liver was entirely destroyed by them; the left partially; the omentum converted into a dense and almost cartilaginous tumor, of large size and great thickness, in which many of the parasites were contained, and from which many of them hung pendulous. Dr. G., after detailing the facts of the case, gave a condensed account of the results of his inquiries into the literature of the subject. He found that extensive destruction of the liver by hydatids was by no means uncommon, and that there were one or two recorded cases, and more especially a very remarkable one by Ruysch, in which the destruction of this organ appeared to have been equally extensive as in his own case. He had not been successful in finding any case in which the omentum had undergone a change of the same sort precisely with that which he had described. Finally, he had examined attentively all the systematic treatises on entozoa in general, or on hydatids in particular, which were accessible to him, besides a great number of pathological works and individual cases in which they were incidentally described, and he had not yet found a single description of a parasite possessing the same physiological and structural peculiarities. He was therefore of opinion, that it was a rare one; and that, although it had in all probability been occasionally seen, its peculiarities had not yet been observed or described."

Examination of the above Entozoon.—“ Mr. Ġoodsir read to the Society an account of the structural and physiological peculiarities of the entozoon found in Dr. Gairdner's case, by Mr. Henry D. S. Goodsir. Mr. Goodsir, after quoting from his brother's paper, read to the Royal Society a description of the animal in question, explaining more particularly the structure of the parasite,stated as its most distinctive peculiarity the fact, that instead of being like the common acephalocyst, a simple animal, it might be regarded as being of a composite nature. It appeared to consist of several cells, having in their interior a glutinous matter contained in cellular tissue, connected together by a common membrane, extending from the free surface of the peritoneum over the surface of the various cysts, and forming their pedicles. On the surface of this membrane, except on the part covering the globular cysts, there were seen numerous circular discs, around the margin of which were a series of stomata opening into tubes extending into the substance of the membrane. These Mr. Henry Goodsir regarded as being the nutritive organs of the animal. With regard to its reproduction, Mr. Goodsir remarked, that this took place in two ways, one which respected the extension of the individual existing group, the other as regarded the propagation of the animal to uninfected tissues. This, like the common hydatid, did not enlarge from cellular development, but by simple expansion of the original germinal vesicle. As regards its propagation to uninfected tissues, Mr. Goodsir stated, that he had been unable to trace the earlier process by which an ovum appeared in the healthy tissue, but he found that, when this had

occurred, the ovum enlarging makes its way like an abscess to the free surface of the organ, and bursts, leaving an orifice leading into a cavity of the tissue. The formation of these cavities gave to the peritoneum the honey-comb appearance, observable in Dr. Gairdner's preparations. After the bursting of the sac, the animal is not discharged from the cavity, but remains attached by its common membrane to the base of the cavity, and then projects outwards, elongating its outer membrane so as to form a pedicle."

UTERINE DISEASES.

From a practical paper read before the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society lately, by Professor Simpson, on mechanical dilatation of the os and cervix uteri, we extract the following passage :-" Lastly, Dr. Simpson offered some obser. vations on the introduction of the sponge tent into the os of the pregnant uterus, in certain conditions in connection with abortion, and as a means of inducing premature labour. When abortion was inevitable, and the hæmorrhage great, a small expanding sponge tent passed into the os uteri was more effectual than a large vaginal plug. It at the same time opened up the os uteri, so as to allow of the more easy escape of the contents, whilst uterine contractions were, in most instances, ultimately induced by its presence. For the same reasons it was often a valuable means of both opening up the os uteri, and exciting the · necessary degree of uterine action in those occasionally perplexing cases where, in abortion, the embryo escapes, but the secundines are long retained. Dr. S. had employed the same simple means in inducing premature labour, and spoke of the advantages of it in comparison with the various other measures that had been proposed for that object. He found that the tent, when made and introduced in the mode already stated, required no vaginal plug, or other means to hold it in situ. By its use the first stage of labour, or the dilatation of the os uteri, could, in a great degree, be advanced, before the labour itself actually began."-Dr. Cormack's Journal, Aug. 1844.

MALARIA.

A Reviewer of Dr. M'William's "MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE NIGER EXPEDITION," in the Athenæum, having doubted the existence of Malaria, attributing what are called malarious diseases to other causes, as the "ordinary accidents of climate, heat, and humidity," Dr. M'W. combats the Reviewer's scepticism by a paper in the same journal, for 21st September, 1844.

We suspect that the reviewer had never practised in a tropical or in any malarious climate, else he would not have considered miasmata, malaria, marsh effluvia, or whatever name we may give the poison, as a creature of the imagination. The following quotation from Dr. M'William's "reclamation," must be satisfactory to most of our readers, though ten thousand other instances and facts equally stringent might be adduced in proof of a morbific emanation from certain soils, exclusive of heat and moisture.

"Heat and moisture are conditions of the atmosphere which readily admit of minute quantitative determination, by methods in common use; and if fever were caused by them alone, in Europeans within the tropics, it should prevail wherever their amount is the same. Now, by reference to the meteorological tables in my work, the temperature and dew point outside the Niger, where no fever occurred, and while in the rivers, were as follows:

86.60

72.00

Confluence of Niger and Tehadda to Egga.

"Thus, though the expedition was exposed from the 1st of July to the beginning of August, to air containing more moisture, and but little inferior in temperature at the hottest part of the day, to any experienced within the river, not a case of fever made its appearance until the 4th of September, three weeks after it had entered the river, and had been exposed to the emanations from the ordinarily recognised sources of malaria. Similar results have been observed elsewhere; in Barbadoes, for instance, no fever occurred among the troops in the garrison during August, September, or October, 1841, and although in November a very violent description of yellow fever broke out, the temperature of the air was lower than in August, and the dew point lower than in September; their means were as follows :

"Hence the connexion between 'heat and humidity' of the atmosphere and severe remittent, or yellow, fever is by no means so clear as the reviewer would have us suppose. It is, in fact, one of those hasty conclusions which will not stand the test of comparison with observed facts, and could only have been made with a limited view of the history of disease in warm climates.

"At Barbadoes the fever was almost completely confined to one of the regiments composing the garrison, while the other, the men of which were equally exposed to heat and humidity,' and performed the same duties with their neighbours, was almost wholly exempt. The cause of the disease in this instance, was very obviously the effluvia arising from a pool of water, immediately to windward of the building occupied by the regiment that suffered.

"But to return to the west coast of Africa. In 1836, H.M.S. Scout, under the command of Capt. Robert Craigie, proceeded to the west coast; and by a careful observance of the stringent General Orders' of the senior officer on the station, that no ship was ever to remain in port more than forty-eight hours at any one time,' and that officers were so far as was practicable to avoid entering any of the rivers on the coast,' only two cases of fever occurred in her during the first year, and these were traced to two days' stay at Sierra Leone. In the month of April, 1837, Capt. Craigie was obliged to ascend the Bonny river, in the Scout, as far as King Peppel's town, for the protection of the British mercantile interests there. On this occasion, he also took the Dolphin, a brigantine, with him, and left the Lynx, another brigantine, anchored at the river's mouth. The Scout and Dolphin were detained nearly a week at Bonny town, and on leaving the river fever broke out in both vessels, and their united loss by death amounted to five officers and seventeen men and boys, while on board the Lynx not one was even attacked. Bonny town is only about six miles from where the Lynx was lying, consequently there could have been very little, if any difference as to the heat and humidity' of the atmosphere in the positions of the vessels that suffered and that which escaped.

"Capt. Brunswick Popham commanded the Pelican, with a complement of 110 white men, for four years and a half, on the east and west coasts of Africa.