In another ward of the same hospital, were wrong to wait for invagination of I have seen the surgeon employ Mal- the sequestrum before operating.-Langaigne's hooks in fracture of the patella: cet, Sept. 26, 1874. a most barbarous practice, as it causes a great amount of unnecessary suffering to the patient without offering any advantage over the other plans of treatment. M. Tillaux, however, has modified this plan by applying the hooks to the Indiarubber bandages he employs to bring the broken fragments together, instead of driving them into the tissues of the patient, as I have seen done elsewhere; and I remember one case in which these hooks of torture produced inflammation of the knee-joint, followed by gangrene, and the surgeon thought proper to amputate the limb to save the man's life. The Phlegmonous Osteo-periostitis.—At the recent meeting at Lille of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, M. GIRALDES, the well-known surgeon to the Children's Hospital, made a very valuable communication on the question of phlegmonous osteitis, the right name of which he suggested should be phlegmonous osteo-periostitis. He referred to the error which was formerly committed in connection with the disease, it being frequently mistaken for typhoid fever, and the appearance of pus being considered to be critical abscess. important feature of the disease was tendency to suppuration and to denudation of the bone. He gave a most excellent description of the lesions, with which he made such thorough acquaintance in the wards of his hospital, and explained the surgical proceeding which he prefers in such cases. He opens the subperiostic abscess, detaches with the finger the periosteum of the diseased portion of bone, and removes all this portion up to the interepiphysal cartilage. The periosteum reproduces the bone, and with such rapidity occasionally that even on the fourth day it becomes necessary to bring together the soft parts so as to avoid osseous deformities. This proceeding he had applied with success to the tibia, humerus, lower jaw, calcaneum, etc. It could not apply to the upper part of the femur. Surgeons, he concluded, Congenital Absence of the Bladder without Incontinence of Urine.-Dr. FLEURY communicated to the Surgical Society (Paris) a very curious case of this, in a young girl who was attacked a few months only before her death with incontinence of urine, and who died from peritonitis following simple urethral catheterization. At the autopsy there was found a complete absence of the bladder, which was evidently congenital. He asks how it was that the incontinence of urine was not also congenital; a question more easily asked than answered.-L' Union Médicale, Oct. 31, 1874. Chloral and Chloroform.-Prof. SCHIFF has recently been conducting a series of experiments in his laboratory at Florence, for the purpose of determining the anæsthetic properties of chloral. Amongst other particulars, the professor has stated in a decisive manner that anesthesia with chloroform produces dilatation of the pupils, whilst constriction is a result of anathesia with chloral. He therefore advances this fact against the opinion which ascribes the anesthetic action of chloral to its transformation into chloroform.-Lancet, Oct. 10, 1874. Transfusion of Blood in the Insane.-In the Gazetta Medica Italiana-Lombardia for September 19, Dr. SCHIVARDI gives an account of several cases of insanity attended with debility and exhausting diarrhoea, in which the transfusion of lamb's blood was tried. Eight transfusions were performed on five individuals, one of these becoming, it is stated, cured, and the others ameliorated.-Med. Times and Gaz., Oct. 17, 1874. Mineral Oils as Disinfectants.—Dr. JOHN DAY strongly recommends a trial of the mineral oils as disinfectants. He believes that all the mineral oils possess the property of absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere, and imparting to it increased activity by converting it into peroxide of hydrogen, a substance possessed of very | lar form, varying from the size of halfhigh oxidizing powers. For example, a crown to five-shilling pieces. A large sheet of paper, brushed over with kero- quantity of circular pieces of bone were sene or gasoline, yields the characteristic also found at the side of the skulls. All reaction with guaiacum resin and blood. these perforations were made with flints; Now, it is generally allowed that all true some on the living subject, the others disinfectants are oxidizers. From his post mortem. The first kind showed a knowledge, therefore, of the oxidizing process of cicatrization, which generally powers of gasoline, and from the fact that indicated a duration of several years. In it is much cleaner and more volatile than one case M Broca judged from the conkerosene, Dr. Day recommends this hydro- dition of the bony plate, which was atcarbon for disinfecting purposes. He tacked by osteitis, that the patient had states that he has lately been using it for succumbed less than a year after operathe purpose of disinfecting the walls, tion; but this was a unique instance. flooring, furniture, etc., of rooms in The perforations were situated on differwhich scarlet fever patients were placed, ent points of the cranium, on the parietal and with most satisfactory results; but and occipital bones, the forehead, etc., he has also had the patients freely rubbed which seems to exclude the idea of a three times a day with ethereal solution religious rite. They were performed on of peroxide of hydrogen and lard in the children as well as adults, and, according proportion of one part to eight. A trial to Dr. Prunières, this trephining seems to of gasoline is further earnestly urged on have been performed with a medical purthe profession as a disinfectant in puer- pose, to give issue to a real or imaginary peral fever. It might be applied with a disease. The surgeons who operated with brush or sponge to any article of clothing flint instruments scraped the bone layer without doing it the slightest harm; and by layer, until they came to the dura it would not only disinfect it, but also mater. On the dead body many circular impart to it disinfecting properties which pieces of bones were removed from perI would last for a considerable time. For sons who had already been trephined and among the peculiar properties of the cured. These pieces, instead of being mineral oils as disinfectants is that of their scraped, have generally been sawn; and being continuous in their action. Instead it is found that a certain number of conof being injured or destroyed by age and cave pieces have been removed from the exposure to atmospheric influences, as all edges of the original trephining. Finally, other disinfectants are, they absolutely it has been observed that fragments of improve and gather force. The practi- bone have been replaced on the crania tioner might also disinfect his hands by from which the small circles have been bathing them in gasoline and allowing removed, before interment; doubtless to them to dry in the open air. One caution allow the deceased to make his appearis necessary in the use of gasoline: from ance in a complete state in the next its volatile and inflammable nature it world. MM. Prunières and Broca believe should never be employed near a fire or that they can see in this practice the lights. Med. Times and Gaz., Oct. 24, most ancient material proof of belief in from Australian Med. Journ., June, 1870. another world. M. Prunières is disposed to believe that trephining was only performed on the insane and on epilepticsthe friends of the gods, according to old beliefs-and that the bony fragments removed were held sacred and used as amulets.-London Med. Record, Oct. 21, The Surgery of the Stone Age.-At a recent prehistoric congress at Stockholm, Dr. PRUNIÈRES laid before his colleagues the results of a series of minute researches on the artificial perforations of the cranium and the cranial amulets of the neolithic period. The communication was accompanied by a numerous collection of crania, showing regular perforations of a circu 1874. Bone Absorption by Giant-Cells.-The "line of demarcation" in a gangrenous which arise from embryonic connective tissue around them.-Med. Times and Gaz., Sept. 19, 1874. Hominal versus Animal Vaccination.Through the instigation of Dr. Guilbert, a practitioner in Paris, the Prefect of Police addressed a letter to the Academy of Medicine, requesting information as to the advisability of the revaccination of those persons who, in 1870, were vaccinated direct from the cow. This was the year in which there was such a panic in Paris, owing to a severe epidemic of smallpox, that people lost confidence in "hominal” vaccination, and gave the preference to animal vaccination. At the end of the same year and the beginning of 1871, another epidemic of smallpox broke out, and proved fatal to about 14,000 inhabitants in Paris. This was attributed by M. Guilbert to the inefficiency of animal vaccination as an antidote against smallpox; and it was on this representation of the case that the Academy was called upon to report on the subject. A committee was formed to investigate the matter, and M. Blot, the reporter, stated that inoculation from the cow, when properly performed, is at least equally as efficacious as arm-to-arm vaccination. As re limb, and the " separation of a sequestrum" in a necrosed bone, have been subjects of investigation to surgical pathologists for many a year. John Hunter himself almost completed the account of the separation of a piece of dead bone when he described the gradual deepening of the groove between it and the healthy portion, the presence of soft vascular tissue in the line of separation, and the existence of small circular hollows upon the exfoliated surface of the sequestrum, which exactly fit the granulations on the living bone. Quite recently the exact histology of this vascular layer, and of these "small circular hollows," has been investigated; and if we have not even yet been informed how absorption of bone is actually effected, we have at least been made acquainted with various steps in the process. Kölliker has been one of the principal contributors to this investigation, and his researches have been worthily followed up by Dr. Alex. Morison, of Edinburgh, who studied under him (Pamphlet, 1873). Kölliker showed that absorption in the normal course of the development of bone produces small cavities, and that these are filled, without exception, with giant-cells, or myeloplaques-with one, a portion of one, or several. He believed that these giant-gards the superiority of one over the cells arise from osteoblasts (the cells from which bone-tissue is developed), and that they are the agents by which bone (and tooth) are normally absorbed. Morison's investigations go to support this description and opinion. He has seen intermediate forms between osteoblasts and giantcells; but he is inclined to believe that the latter may also arise by the aggregation of the nuclei of embryonic connective tissue in the spaces in the edge of bone which is being absorbed. It is possible also that the giant-cells may grow by proliferation of the connective tissue in the wall of a capillary. Whatever their origin, the presence of these peculiar cells in the line of absorption of bone seems to be now fairly established, and the idea may be entertained that their function is a destructive one. When separation is complete, they would appear to be succeeded by constructive or formative cells, other as a preservative against smallpox, the committee could not then express an opinion; time alone could decide. The reporter, however, remarked that in either case the preservative property was only temporary. This view of the case was supported by M. Depaul. M. Guérin stated that the preservative property of hominal vaccination lasted at least fifteen years, and he asked how it was possible to know whether the immunity produced by animal vaccination lasted as long, as it was only in 1868 and 1869 that this latter mode was introduced. MM. Blot and Depaul retorted that the immunity produced by human vaccination might last ten, five, or only two years. As to the great mortality from smallpox in the epidemic of 1870 and 1871, M. Depaul had shown that, out of the 14,000 deaths, children formed a minor proportion; it was individuals of eighteen to twenty-five Animals as Motor Powers.-M. MAREY or thirty, all of whom had been vaccinated | translation from the hand of the editor, with hominal lymph, that formed the Professor Ebers.-Med. Record, October largest proportion. M. Depaul concluded 7, 1874. by stating that the accusations brought by M. Guilbert against animal vaccination were unfounded, and reiterated his opinion that animal vaccination rendered as much service as hominal. Nothing, he added, proves that children vaccinated from the cow are more liable to contract smallpox than those inoculated from arm to arm. Here the discussion ended, with MM. Depaul and Guérin and their respective partisans as far as ever from each other. London Med. Record, Oct. 14, 1874. An Ancient Egyptian Medical Work. Among the printed works submitted to the Oriental Congress was a remarkable fac-simile exhibited before the Hamitic Section by the discoverer, Prof. Ebers, of Leipzig. This is a complete book from beginning to end, and in respect to size is only surpassed by the great Harris Papyrus in the British Museum. The manuscript in question is a perfect handbook of Egyptian medical science; and, without pretending that the physicians of our time have much to learn from their embalmed predecessors of the Nile, this papyrus may yet afford them a rich source whence may be drawn the history of their science from its earliest dawn. A calendar on the back of the MS. informs us that it was written in the sixteenth century B. C. We know already that at this remote period Egypt stood in political and commercial relation with the neighbouring States of Western Asia; but the Ebers Papyrus teaches us further that there already existed an interchange of thought and knowledge. Not only a vast number of medicaments procured from Asia are alluded to, but we find also receipts borrowed from a celebrated physician of the town of Byblos, in Phoenicia. Other receipts are derived from older writings, as, for instance, The Book of the Wisdom of Men. The typographical reproduction is the work of the printers Giesecke and Devrient. By a new process, the 110 pages, of which the MS. consists, are imitated with surprising fidelity. In about two months the whole work will appear, accompanied by a has laid before the French Association for the Advancement of Science some interesting observations on the employment of animals as motor powers. He proves by means of a very elaborate instrument that the movement of animated beings as motor powers takes place by jerks, whence result shocks, and consequently a waste of labour. As an illustration of this theory, M. Marey cites the effort necessary to draw a burden behind one. If the necessary force be transmitted by means of a rigid or almost unextensible strap, for instance, of leather, the movement is jerky and more difficult than if it were transmitted by an elastic strap. It would therefore be better to attach horses to the shafts with India-rubber traces. Не also gives as an illustration the mauner in which boats are always dragged along the towing paths by long ropes. It would be impossible, or at least very distressing, to employ short ones. The length of the rope, which alternately tightens or slackens by slow oscillations, has in this case the same effect as India-rubber.-London Med. Record, Oct. 21, 1874. Puerperal Mortality.-Dr. J. MATTHEWS DUNCAN, in his address in Obstetric Medicine, delivered at the recent meeting of the British Medical Association, stated his belief that in Great Britain nearly 1 in every 100 women delivered at or near full time dies in parturition, or before the puerperal state and its effects have passed The favor with which the MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT" to the "MEDICAL NEWS AND LIBRARY" has been received since its commencement in July last, encourages the editor and publisher in the effort to render it indispensable to every reading physician. 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