10. Of the idiopathic cases, 7 were malignant and 2 croupal; so that it is evident that in idiopathic diphtheria the chances that it will be malignant are as 7 to 2, and the chances of death are as 2 to 1.—Lancet.

August, 1859.

ARSENICAL POISONING-GOOD EFFECTS OF THE CARBONATE OF IRON (SESQUIOXYDE).-L' Union Medicale of the 26th ult. gives an extract from the Italian Journal, Il Filiotro Sebezio, in which paper M. Trapani has published a case of poisoning with arsenic. After emetics had been freely used upon the four patients affected, who all presented the usual symptoms of arsenical poisoning, the indication was to give the hydrated peroxyde of iron, the efficacy of which in such cases is universally acknowledged. But it is not always easy to procure it. Hence it becomes important to ascertain whether other martial salts will act, to a certain extent, in the same manner. carbonate of iron (or rather sesquioxyde, as the carbonate when kept any time, soon passes into this state) was here given with the best results.-Ibid.

The

DIPHTHERIA TREATED BY IRRIGATIONS WITH A SOLUTION OF COMMON SALT.-M. Roche mentions, in L'Union Medicale of July 26th, that by this treatment he saved his patients in six cases of diphtheria. The false membranes were first freely cauterized with the lunar caustic, and injections then made every hour against the fauces with a solution of common salt, the strength of the solution being such as not to create nausea. Chloride of potash was also given internally; and tincture of iodine as a topical application, was used in half the cases: but M. Roche considers that the irrigations with the solution of common salt were the chief agents in the cure. One little girl was not cauterized at all. The author likewise holds that solutions of alum, chloride of potash, iodine of potassium, chloride of lime, etc., would perhaps be as efficacious.-Ibid.

PARALYSIS OF THE PHARYNX AND GENERAL PARALYSIS AFTER DIPHTHERIA.-M. Maingault lately read before the Medical Society of the Hospitals of Paris an important paper on the above mentioned affections. We find by the excellent report of M. Henri Roger, physician to the Children's Hospital, that M. Maingault, by collecting the cases published and adding his own, has been able to ground his essay upon fifty cases of

pharyngeal and general paralysis. These affections generally occur during convalescence of diphtheria, and are looked upon as unconnected with any lesion of the nervous centres. Recovery is the rule, and is promoted by steel, bark, sulphurous and saline baths, cold douches and stimulating frictions. In a few cases, special excitants of the nervous system, such as strychnine and electricity, have been found extremely useful. -Ibid.

MEDICATED SUBCUTANEOUS INJECTIONS.-Dr. Alex. Wood's method of injecting narcotic solutions into the cellular tissue is finding favor in France. M. Behier, an hospital physician of Paris, has made numerous experiments respecting this mode of removing pain, and has communicated the results to the Academy of Medicine.

The fluid injected in these experiments was a solution of sulphate of atropine, six grains to an ounce of water, which gives the proportion of a fiftieth part of a grain to every five drops of the solution. Fifty-three patients affected with various kinds of neuralgia, were injected close to the seat of pain with this solution; twenty-two others with a sulphate of strychnine, in the same proportions as had been observed for the sulphate of atropine. A solution of muriate of morphia was also injected in a case of slight lead colic. Pain was always relieved, and cures were effected in all the cases where the injections were sufficiently repeated—namely, in thirty-one cases out of fifty-three. Signs of Belladonna poisoning occurred in all, which was combated by opium.

M. Behier has tried to remove pain by injections into the cellular tissue at a distance from the seat of the uneasiness, so as to put the assertions of Mr. C. Hunter to the test, but always unsuccessfully. The same physician thinks that injections of medicated fluids into the cellular tissue afford very great advantages in cases of neuralgia and paralysis; and that these injections will yield the best results in other affections, where it is important that the medicinal substances should act upon the organism at large.-Ibid.

THE PULP OF RAW MEAT IN INFANTILE DIARRHEA.-The Bulletin de Therapeutique of Paris lately mentioned this remedy, which was originally advocated by M. Pensa, in the Gazette Medica Italiana. It is efficacious principally in the diarrhoea which affects young children and those prematurely weaned. Raw mutton or beef is to be pounded, and then strained. The red fluid thus obtained is to be incorporated with jam or sugar, and administered in the shape of small bolusses. Two drams

and a half may be given the first day, and the dose may gradually be increased to thirteen ounces per diem (?). Every other. kind of food is to be set aside, but the doses of the pulp should be diminished as the diarrhoea abates. When the looseness has quite disappeared, the meat may be replaced by beef-tea, boiled eggs, etc.-Ibid.

STRANGULATED HERNIA REDUCED BY KNEADING THE ABDOMEN.We mentioned last week a case of strangulated hernia reduced by large doses of infusion of coffee. This case has induced Dr. Laforgue, surgeon to the 40th Regiment of the line (France), to publish in the Gazette des Hopitaux of the 19th instant, a case of strangulated hernia, which he succeeded in reducing by placing the patient almost vertically, head downward, and then kneading the abdomen. Dr. Laforgue appends the following sensible remarks:

"It is logically clear that the strangulation would offer but little resistance if the operator could seize one of the ends of the strangulated knuckle, and draw it towards him in a direction contrary to the force which pushes the viscera out of the abdomen. When the patient is placed on a very inclined plane, pelvis downwards, according to the method of the ancients, or some of the surgeons of the last century, the intestines exert, by their own weight, a traction from above downwards. Now, by a regular and gradual kneading, it is possible to bring the intestinal mass to the umbilicus, and to push up the diaphragm and the abdominal viscera towards the chest, thus giving much energy to this power of traction, which may draw within the abdomen the viscera which had protruded. I consider this manipulation more rational and surgical than the taxis, the latter being certainly a very inferior means of reduction; as, besides being exerted on congested and painful tissues, it is rarely efficacious, causes much valuable time to be lost, and may increase the resistance of the ring by pushing the strangulated mass against it. Such substances as excite an energetic peristalic action, or great efforts at vomiting, act, according to my view, in a mechanical way; in fact, they bring about the internal traction which I obtained by kneading."

To these remarks we would add, that belladonna and acetate of lead, which have been found useful in these cases, probably act in the same way. It should, however, be carefully noted, that the relaxing effects of chloroform inhalations were not tried in the cases of M. Laforgue and others.-Ibid.

OCCASIONAL DANGER OF THE OPHTHALMOSCOPE.-M. Desmarres states, in the Gazette des Hopitaux of the 9th ultimo, that se

vere facial neuralgia was excited in a woman sixty-three years of age, by the use of the ophthalmoscope. She was affected with complete glaucoma of the right eye, and applied to the dispensary for facial neuralgia of the same side, from which she had been suffering for the last eleven years. The left eye seemed sound, but, on being viewed with the ophthalmoscope, it was found affected with the optical form of glaucoma described by Heger. Several medical men successfully examined the patient with much gentleness, and she complained neither of fatigue nor of being dazzled. But the eye became painful towards evening, and a neuralgic pain, of the same kind as had long existed on the right side, occurred on the left. The pain became intolerable on the following days; and, when the patient called again at the dispensary, all the symptoms of acute glaucoma were observed on the left side. M. Desmarres considers that an occasional cause of such an attack may be an ophthalmoscopic examination.-Ibid.

OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. Wednesday, October 5th, 1859. EDWARD RIGBY, M.D., Preside it, in the Chair.

COMMUNICATIONS.

Induction of Premature Labor in a Case of Distorted Pelvis. By J. II. TROUNCER, M.D. The patient had had eight children. The first three labors normal, children alive; in the fourth, turning and death of the children; in the fifth, the forceps was used, and the child born dead. The author attended her in her sixth labor; the result was as in the former case. In the seventh pregnancy premature labor was brought on at the eighth month, by means of an alternate injection of hot and cold water into the vagina, by use of a powerful syringe; the result was successful. In the next pregnancy (the eighth) similar means were adopted; but this time a long flexible tube was passed into the cervix uteri, and water was thus injected. In four days labor set in; the shoulder presented; the child was turned; but the chord was twisted round the neck, and the child's life was in consequence sacrificed.

Fartus in which the Anterior Abdominal Wall was Deficient. By G. HEWITT, M.D. The elbow presented, and during the progress of the labor the protrusion of the intestines through the aperture in the parietes of the abdomen, covered only by peritoneum, was felt by the fingers, and produced an impression. that the placenta was in contact with them.

Ovarian Gestation. By J. H. DAVIS, M.D. The patient, aged 25, never previously pregnant, began to suffer in March from severe abdominal pain, and above the right pubes was found a well defined enlargement, very tender to the touch. On the 14th of May, Dr. Davis first saw her, and found a large tumor extending to the umbilicus, and occupying chiefly the left iliac region, fluctuating, and resembling an ovarian tumor. Mammary symptoms of pregnancy, somewhat undecided and of doubtful import, were present; cervix uteri high up, inclined forwards; os not having the cushion fulness of early pregnancy; body of uterus a little enlarged; length of cavity, three inches and a half. Behind the cervix was a soft tumor, evidently continuous with that felt above. The diagnosis on this examination was that the tumor was of extra uterine character, and that within the cysts were foetal contents. A canula and trocar were introduced into the tumor behind the cervix, and a quantity of fluid was evacuated; but the patient refused to allow of further projective operative measures, and died on the 9th of July. The left ovary was found developed into a cyst, situated between the uterus and rectum; the interior was sloughy and putrescent; it contained a decayed foetus and remains of placenta, all of a dark color.

Polypus of the Uterus. By J. H. DAVIS, M.D. It was of about the size of an orange. He had removed it by means of the ligature and bistoury. The mass protruded from the vagina, and gave rise to considerable losses of blood and discharges.

The Hydatidiform, or Vesicular Mole; its Nature and Mode of Origin. By GRAILY HEWITT, M.D., M.R.C.P.

In this paper it was attempted to reduce the series of facts already on record in reference to the nature and mode of origin of the hydatidiform, or vesicular mole, into something like a system, and to offer a solution of certain questions not yet satisfactorily or clearly answered.

The author described a case in which a hydatidiform mole was expelled from the uterus seven months after the birth of a first child, and during lactation. The patient did not suspect her pregnant condition, but for about six weeks the milk had increased in quantity, and fulness of the lower part of the abdomen and constipation had been noticed. The ovum, expelled entire, was apparently about two months old, and offered a most perfect specimen of commencing hydatidiform degeneration. On cutting vertically through the whole mass, the following appearances were met with: the amniotic cavity was empty; no embryo was discoverable; the chorion and amnion membranes were adherent; about half of the chorion villi (the VOL. 1, NO. 32-441