"THE EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.'-The Resident Editor would say, in the name of the Association, that it is not the object of this periodical to appeal exclusively to the teacher or provide matter solely for his consideration or instruction.

Education has a wider scope than the school; and, while it finds its peculiar sphere in the home on the one hand, is, on the other, compelled to seek a broader field in the world at large.

A work that claims to offer aid and counsel to those engaged in educating the young should address itself to the unprofessional as well as the professional teacher-should seek its readers in the workshop, the counting-room, the store, and the factory, as well as by the fireside or in the school-room. Such, we say, should be the sphere of an educational journal or magazine; but we must be contented with a narrower compass and a smaller auditory for the present, as men and women have not yet learned that they are all educators.

While, then, the original articles are mostly addressed to the teacher, or have some connection with the school, parents, at least, will find in their perusal much to interest them, much to give them light upon the various modes of instruction, much to teach them what many of our schools are, to show them what they ought to be. We shall, therefore, make no apology to the teacher-the agent-if we make frequent appeals to the parent-the principal.

Nor would we in an educational work forget any faculty or function of mind, body, or soul. The playground is as important as the school-room, the street as the parlor; the imagination needs training equally with the memory; the power to communicate equally with the power to investigate.

We trust that no one will condemn the children's story as too peurile, or the poetry as too light. It is easy to turn two leaves at once; and enough will be found that cannot be condemned as too low or too high. In fine, while it is our intention to provide good practical articles on school teaching and school keeping, on home influence and home government, we do not wish to fall into the error of sending forth a 'monthly' that ignores the existence of any spot but the school-room."

The Review of late publications on Diphtheria in our last No. should have been credited to the Dublin Quarterly Journal.

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HYDROPHOBIA. The Academy of Medicine of Turin is at present investigating measures best suited to prevent the occurrence of this terrible disease. In France it was thought some years ago that the end would be gained by raising the taxes on dogs, and so diminishing the number. M. Lobligeois gives on this head some very interesting details. He states that, since the tax on dogs was established, the number of cases of hydrophobia have considerably increased at the Veterinary School of Lyons. He attributes the fact to the chaining up of the animals, and to the state of forced continence in which they are kept. "The fact," he writes, "of the immunity of dogs in Constantinople has been contested. M. Bernis. Head Veterinary Surgeon of the army in Africa, asserts that hydrophobia is not very rare in our colony in Algeria. M. Magne, Professor at Alfort, knew a well authenticated case. These two distinguished Veterinary Surgeons do not, however, furnish any document which invalidates the general assertion of M. Hamont. M. Hamont, who has directed for fourteen years the Veterinary School at Cairo, admits the existence of cases of hydrophobia in Egypt, but asserts that they are never observed except in European dogs, who have afterwards inoculated indigenous animals. In support of this assertion, M. Lobligeois cites a fact signalised in a letter addressed by M. Sace, Professor at Wesserling, to the Society for the Pro tion of Animals. Hydrophobia is not known on the Muss.. man bank of the Danube, where the dogs wander freely abou but it is not very uncommon on the Hungarian side in dogs the same race, who are chained up in farms, etc." In consequence of these considerations, and of this asserted fact, that hydrophobia is excessively rare in female dogs, M. Lobligeois' advises that owners of dogs should keep only bitches, or castrated males, or dogs of both sexes; and that if they choose to keep males, they "ought not to impose upon them continence, but leave them to indulge in their traditional cynisme, and not chain them up.”—Medical Times and Gazette.

REMEDY FOR THE BITE OF MAD DOGS.-A Saxon forester, named Aastell, now of the venerable age of eighty-two, unwilling to take to the grave with him a secret of so much importance, has made public in the Leipsic Journal the means which he has used for fifty years, and wherewith he affirms he has rescued many human beings and cattle from the fearful death of hydrophobia. Take immediately warm vinegar or tepid water, wash the wound clean therewith, and then dry it; then pour upon the wound a few drops of hydrochloric acid, because mineral acids destroy the poison of the saliva.-Ibid.

Semi-Monthly Medical News.

VO. I.

LOUISVILLE, KY., DECEMBER 15, 1859.

NO. 23.

Report to the State Medical Society of Kentucky, on the Effects of Vaccine Virus when Introduced into the Systems of Persons Exposed to Natural Variola. By H.L. GIVENS, M.D., of Lagrange, Ky.

Gentlemen of the Kentucky State Medical Society:

In reporting to you some statistical facts in relation to the effects of vaccine virus on the system of persons exposed to natural variola, I regret that I have not been able to collate as much information as I could desire on this point; yet, I trust, enough has been presented to elucidate the object of my inquiries as to the prophylactic powers of vaccine virus in arresting natural variola in systems already under its influence or in a state of incubation, thereby causing it to assume the varioloid or modified form, which uniformly runs its course without danger or the destruction of the cellular tissue, attended with disfiguration through life, which characterises the natural and much dreaded form of the disease. And I may here add, none are more interested, not only in the arrest, but in the entire extermination, as far as practical, of this pest to society and destroyer of the human family, than the physician, as it too frequently in its wake brings no bright laurels to wreath his brow, and in its train nothing but chagrin, disappointment, and mortification, with certain excommunication from society in private practice, by which he is at once shorn of a remunerative, if not a lucrative practice, and retires in disgust from the community in which he lived.

Not a few instances of this character could be cited, were it deemed necessary. Hence the importance of this subject to the practitioner, and the use of all the means which can be VOL. 1, NO. 23-45

brought to bear, be they ever so small, which may tend to check, modify, or arrest the blighting effects of this much dreaded disease. It is not to be disguised that there has been, for a number of years, a growing distrust, not only with the community at large, but also with the medical profession, as to the prophylactic powers of vaccine virus, in warding off or arresting natural variola when introduced in the systems of the community at large before exposure as a sanitive regulation or conservator of the general weal. If such be the views of many, how much more must the distrust be as to its conservative influence on systems already exposed and under the influence of variola, or, at least, in a state of incubation. That it has, to a considerable extent, more influence than is generally conceded, I will, without further preliminary remarks, cite a few insulated cases from reliable sources and experienced observers, with a case or two coming under my own observation, with such deductions as the facts justify.

Dr. Lyman Martin, of New Liberty, Owen county, Ky., an old physician of about forty years' experience, with extensive practice and high standing in the profession, reports me some interesting cases in point.

Case 1.-O. I., a young man who had been in Louisville and knew that he had been exposed to variola, was attacked about two weeks after with chill, pain in the epigastrium, aching in back and loins, with other symptoms usually the precursor of eruptive disease. He was confined with a family of eleven, several of whom were unprotected by vaccination.

On the fourth day of the attack, he vaccinated every member, two of whom waited upon the patient for three weeks, whose symptoms resulted in a severe case of confluent small pox. None of the eleven contracted the disease.

Case 2.-A youth was taken with the usual symptoms of small pox; no suspicions existed of his having been exposed, but the indications were such that he advised the same caution as though he had been apprised of his exposure. He immediately vaccinated the whole family, protected and unprotected, but the matter proved to be inert, and five or six days elapsed before fresh matter could be procured, when he revaccinated all; and one of these was a little sister of the boy, who slept with him until the eruption made its appearance in full; and

nine days after the second vaccination, having had all the symptoms of genuine vaccine disease, as soreness of axillary glands, with a large indurated vesicle of the size of a twentyfive cent piece, which gave assurances that she would escape the disease, but, to his surprise, the next day, which was the tenth, she broke out very thick with three pustules running in the vaccine vesicle, but its course was suddenly arrested; and on the third and fourth day after it began to dry up and scale off, desquamation of the cuticle followed, and she was well before the boy.

Case 3.-A woman whose pustules were filling when seen by him. He immediately vaccinated the family, and only one took, a boy who slept in the room with the lady or patient. The rest of the family, though under the same roof, slept in an adjoining room. His impression is, that about five or six days elapsed after the first visit before he could procure fresh matter, with which he immediately vaccinated all the family, some six or seven in number, and the ninth or tenth day thereafter visited them again and found all well.

The above cases tell well of the prophylactic powers of vaccine virus by an experienced observer.

J. M. Moore, Esq., a highly respectable merchant of Henry county, informs me that when he had the small pox some years since, which left him badly pitted, and not knowing the nature of the disease until shortly after the eruption appeared, that not less than fifty persons were in his room, old and young, some of whom were frequently on his bed during the hight of the fever and the stage of the first appearance of the eruption, which was on Friday; and not until late on Saturday afternoon were they satisfied as to the nature of the disease; and on the evening of that day a little girl, a niece of his some four or five years of age, was on his bed, he caressed and kissed the child; she was vaccinated a few days after and escaped the disease. And all the others who had visited him, even a day or two after the eruption appeared, who had been vaccinated, save a portion of his family, which consisted of two brothers-in-law, his wife, and two small children, with a servant girl, all of whom had been vaccinated when young, save the two small children, and they were vaccinated on Tuesday, some four days after the eruption appeared; they remained in the room with