pane of glass; it fell, she says, upon the wounded cheek, and afterwards through her whole body. She is not so well this morning. Sunday 13. Passed an indifferent night, and is visibly affected with cold. She has a cough upon her, and considerable pain at her left side. Her pulse is not much affected, nor has it brought on any spasms, though I rather fear them. There is a slight tremulation in all the muscles of her body. She cannot retain any thing on her stomach, nor can I get her to take opium in any quantity. Monday 14. The spasms came on last night, and continued the whole of this day in the most violent degree, particularly in the abdominal muscles and diaphragm. In the course of the evening she threw up some black jellylike looking substance, and was relieved. I ordered the abdomen to be again fomented, and allowed her as much Hollands or wine as her stomach would bear. She contiBues to have a free discharge of saliva, and her bowels are kept moderately open. Tuesday 15. She is this morning considerably better; the spasms do not recur so often, nor continue violent. Saturday 19. Continues amending, but the least exposure to cold is apt to bring on some degree of spasm. She is however infinitely better than she was on the Monday. Thursday 24. My patient is now so much amended that I have discontinued my regular visits. I do not consider her recovery as at all doubtful; but am perfectly aware that she will for some time to come, feel the effects of so violent an attack. She has little or no discharge of saliva, and can now separate her jaws to some extent. Having traced this strongly marked and generally fatal complaint to a favourable issue, a variety of remarks and suggestions will naturally arise as to the success of the method of treatment adopted in this Case. Sir William Blizard, in his Lecture on Tetanus, at the College, has favoured us with one or two cases successfully treated by very strong doses of calomel and opium, and an inordinate allowance of wine; I believe, to one patient, three bottles a day, for some days. I should infer the fatal termination of this. complaint in general, to be owing, in a great measure, to a total cessation or derangement of the functions of the viscera; for when, after the tartar emetic, and subsequently from other causes, my patient vomited that black offensive matter, she was visibly better. I do not recollect the tartarised antimony being recommended by any author, but I am disposed to think think very favourably of it in the first stage of the complaint. Opium has been long in much repute; circumstances did not admit its being given to that extent as to warrant me to attribute any thing to it in this instance. Not so with my principal remedy, for I am disposed to speak very highly of hydrargyrus. As soon as the patient was under its influence, the spasms gradually gave way; but it would be needless to add, after what I have before stated, of what serious importance it is, that the patient should not be exposed to cold. I cannot, for this reason, at all recommend the cold bath. In one instance to my knowledge, at a public hospital, a few months ago, a patient was put into a cold bath, and she died a few hours after; but this should not deter us from trying it in idiopathic tetanus. Before I conclude, I must again exhort most particular attention to be paid to the stomach and bowels in tetanus; an advice particularly recommended by Sir Wm. Blizard; and one, which I repeatedly witnessed the good of attending to throughout this case. Chancery Lane, May 29, 1810. To the Editors of the Medical and Phyfical Journal. I GENTLEMEN, Beg leave to lay before you the following singular cure of Syphilis by Opium. In the month of April, 1808, W. Vaughan, a cooper at Thornbury, Gloucestershire, applied to me, after he had been declared by all the medical men of this town, incurable of the syphilis. He, as he informs me, had been a whole year under the care of a practitioner of this place, without success; nor did any person expect him to survive. Both of the tibiæ were carious, as well as the os malæ and processus mastoidei; there was also a large tumour, about the size of a double fist, on the os frontis, apparently filled with matter, which was absorbed. He had a hectic fever, a quick, thready pulse, about 90, with excruciating pains, as he described it, of the whole frame. He was very much emaciated, and not able to walk without help. I begun the cure with a grain of opium and one of extract. cicutæ in a pill, which was repeated every six or eight hours, occasionally oftener, until the pains were abated. He had no appetite, nor did he, he assured me, know for some time past what sleep was. was. The opium procured ease from pain in less than 24 hours, with some sleep. To the carious bones, acidum mur. on sponge tents was applied, and large poultices of bread and milk over the tents, which were well soaked in acid. muriat. and renewed twice every twenty-four hours. In June following he was considerably relieved, and the opium was sometimes omitted during the day. In August, the shin bones were exfoliated, and the tumour on the frontal bone totally absorbed. The beginning of September he took bark and steel, with ext. cicutæ, three times a day, which were continued in a mixture till the latter end of October, when he was so much recovered as to rest well with one opium pill every night at bed-time. In November he had gained much strength and flesh, and in December he rested without opium. January 6, 1809. After being reduced to a mere skeleton, and I may with truth say, almost entered into the vale of death, he perfectly recovered. May 23, 1810. He remains radically cured, and in perfect health; fat, strong, and robust. I attribute this cure principally to the liberal use of opium. His wife, and a child about nine months old, were both greatly infected. I cured them by repeated and gentle alteratives. The woman, a few months ago, has been delivered of a seven months child, free from disease. Before her delivery she had been very ill of a dysentery. I am, &c. J. E. HARRISON, M. D. Thornbury, May 23, 1810. To the Editors of the Medical and Physical Journal. GENTLEMEN, PERMIT me to avail myself of the opportunity afforded by your Journal, of making a few remarks upon a pamphlet that has lately fallen in my way, entitled "A Treatise explaining the Impossibility of the Disease termed Hydrophobia being caused by the bite of any rabid Animal, by WILLIAM MARYAN, Surgeon." The title of the pamphlet induced me, though without much expectation of becoming a convert to the Author's opinions, to open its pages with considerable willingness, in hopes of finding something ingenious and new, in sup port port of an opinion which some have had the confidence to maintain, notwithstanding the great mass of conuary evidence that stand them in the face, respecting the interesting disease, Hydrophobia. The author's preliminary address still farther stimulated my hopes, where he offers his "Observations to the consideration of Medical Practitioners in particular, and to the Public at large, firmly convinced of their very great importance and utility." He observes too, that Witchcraft, a "disease" coeval with Hydrophobia, has, from the increase of learning, been gradually abolished; "and," continues he, "I have no hesitation in declaring it to be my firm belief, that when the disease to which I am now calling the attention of the world, becomes more generally understood, and more fully investigated, it will be found to possess as little foundation as that above alluded to," (the "disease" Witchcraft.) Happy indeed should I have been to have found, in the perusal of this pamphlet, that the author could have proved what he here asserts to be his opinion-that a disease usually considered one of the most horrible that human nature can be afflicted with, and one the least obedient of any to medical skill, is nothing but one of the absurd fantasies of ignorance and barbarism! Mr. Maryan begins his Treatise by condemning the idea that diseases of animals can be communicated to the human species; and to prove that the introduction of the cow-pox is no contradiction to his opinion, he says that cow-pox is first communicated to the person who dresses a horse with greasy heels, whose hands have the cutis abraded. A little local inflammation is thus produced, "but the animal economy does not seem to be more affected by it than by blisters, or any other stimulating application that would excite pain. When the binary compound is applied to the teat of the cow, it produces cowpox; and when this ternary compound is conveyed to the human race by inoculation, it secures them from that dreadfully ravaging, and often fatal disease, the smallpox." He continues, "Cows are subject to pustulous sores of their teats, and horses to diseases of their heels; but neither of them, till compounded, are capable of af-fecting man." Now, let me examine the depth of Mr. Maryan's reasoning. Unfortunately for his theory, though he does not choose to consider the communication of disease from the horse's heel to the hands of the groom as militating a gainst him, experiments have been made, proving that the human subject, by being inoculated with grease, has not only had a vesicle resembling cow-pox in every respect, produced upon the arm, but has also been effectually secured from small-pox by its effects on the constitution. Mr. Bryce, in his last excellent Treatise on CowPox, mentions, that Dr. Loy, of Aislaby, succeeded in many instances; * also, that Dr. Sacco, of Milan, has done the same.+ Doctor De Carro, of Vienna; and Dr. Friese, director of vaccination in Silesia, have both ino. culated successfully with grease; and now they "inoculate with equine or with vaccine matter indiscriminately, being perfectly convinced of their identity." Here then we see that experiment has sufficiently proved, that a disease, without having passed through the medium of a binary compound, can be immediately communicated from an animal to man. Mr. Maryan, however, having asserted the contrary in the last quotation from his work, thus reasons upon it. "As we are not acquainted with any disease (from animals) that, uncompounded, can affect the human species, i. e. solely from the juices of any singly, therefore do I conclude that there can be not possible resemblance between the cow-pox and the bite of a mad dog." Meaning, I presume, that cow-pox is no proof of any morbid animal fluid being communicated immediately from the animal to man; a conclusion which the above experiments completely overturn. "I never heard (continues he) of a single person, whether coachman, carman, cow-herd, or shepherd, who was fearful of becoming affected with any of the diseases of an animal that had died under his care." The fearlessness of these people, allowing it to exist, is no proof of their constitutions being unsusceptible of disease from animals. But as facts can generally be opposed to the opinions of the author, I beg leave to mention, that Dr. Chisholm has given an account of the Lues Bovina Intertropica, where we are informed, that the animals which died of this complaint, diseased the negroes who handled them. Touching the flesh in such a manner that part of this sanies adhered to the fingers, produced the same fatal * Vide Practical Observations on the Inoculation of Cow-pox, &c. by James Bryce, 2d edition. + London Medical Journal, vol. x. p. 53. Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 245, |