the day. At the Skin Hospital, although an arsenical course of internal medication is always prescribed at the same time, yet a mercurial lotion is also used, and may possibly be the chief curative agent. In the hands of DR. JENNER, at the University College Hospital, the sulphurous acid has, we understand, succeeded very well. There can be little doubt but that the disease is almost invariably curable by local applications solely (parasiticides?) In relation to this mode of cure, it is important to connect the observation of Eichstedt and others, as to the eruption depending on the presence of a cryptogamic plant. Another interesting link in the same chain of evidence has recently been made out at the Skin Hospital, namely, that it is not unfrequently contagious.-Med. Times and Gazette, Nov. 12, 1853, p. 501.

130.-Juniper Tar Ointment.-DR. ROUTH exhibited to the Medi cal Society two preparations-first, the ordinary huile de cade, the product of the destructive distillation of juniper wood; secondly, the juniper tar ointment, or an ointment prepared with the former oil in the proportion of an ounce and a half of the oil to half an ounce of suet and an ounce and a half of lard. The former preparation was well known on the continent; the latter was prepared according to a prescription of Dr. Felton, of Aix-la-Chapelle, who had found it of the greatest benefit in many cases of eczema, which had resisted other treatment. He (Dr. Routh) had used it for a twelvemonth back, and found it most efficacious. It was applied locally as a salve without necessarily any other treatment more than that depending on mere regulation of the bowels. He believed it had been used by other medical men in London; but his object in bringing it forward was to have so useful a remedy more generally known and employed. His first specimen was prepared by Messrs. Duncan and Flockart, of Edinburgh; that on the table was prepared by Mr. Greenish, of New street, Dorset square.-Lancet, Oct. 22, 1853, p. 397.

131.-Cure of the Itch.-Each case of itch during the past year has been treated according to the plan formerly adverted to, viz., friction of the body with brick-dust, so as to expose the acari to the sulphur ointment, which is then well rubbed in for half-an-hour, and after this the man is subjected to a good ablution of soap and water. The whole time occupied by this proceeding is less than an hour and a-half, and perfect cure resulted in each instance. Under the old plan the men were placed for three days in the itch-cell, wrapped up in blankets, smeared with sulphur ointment; and a less period did not kill the acari.-Extract from the "Report on the Discipline and Management of the Military Prisons in 1852," by Lieut. Colonel Jebb, C.B. (Bluebook.-Med. Times and Gazette, April 8, 1854, p. 363.

132.-Sesquichloride of Iron in Erysipelas. Many instances have lately occurred in the London hospitals in which the treatment of erysipelas by the much-vaunted tincture of iron has appeared to be very successful, but none of the experiments have been sufficiently crucial in their character to warrant us in considering their results as conclusive. Still, however, the evidence in favour of the remedy is very strong. Some of the patients on whom it has been tried have been young children. With regard to local applications in this disease, it may be stated, that the wrapping up the affected part in a large and thick sheet of cotton wool appears to be very superior in its protecting influence to all others. In several severe cases of erysipelas of the scalp, lately in St. Thomas's Hospital, DR. GOOLDEN had the whole affected parts smeared over with a thick coating of white paint. The patients did very well, but the remedy is not an agreeable one to use. It is, we believe, in common employment in some of the pottery districts, where erysipelas of the face and head, from the alternate exposure to cold draughts and to furnace heat, is very frequent.-Med. Times and Gazette, Nov. 12, 1853, p. 502.

133.-Use of Collodion in Burns.-This fluid when applied to burns, promotes healing and prevents suppuration. Blumhardt has tried it, with great success, in three cases, one of them caused by explosion of gunpowder, and two by the ignition of spirits of wine, where the breast, neck, face, and hands were all severely scorched. Collodion was applied to the skin an hour and a half after the accident, by a hair pencil; the redness, pain, and swelling, were thereby diminished, and the patients soon experienced no inconvenience save the tension occasioned by the firmly adherent pellicle. The inflammation completely subsided, and the recovery was rapid. He considers the collodion to act beneficially in two ways; first, by affording a safe protective covering to the sensitive cutis, and second, by giving a uniform support to the part, and relieving the capillaries from all undue distension.-Würtemburg Corresp. Bl. No. 56.—Monthly Journal of Med. Science, April 1854, p. 372.

134.-On the Treatment of Corns. By DR. FREDERICK JAMES BROWN, Chatham. [Dr. Brown has been successful in treating these troublesome growths by enucleation. It seems that a corn can be picked out of its nest or concavity. Dr. Brown proceeds to describe what happened on his own person.]

In 1851, a corn formed on the pulp of the index finger of my left hand, as a direct consequence of practising upon a violin. Its size was about three-twelfths of an inch long, and one-twelfth wide. I must acknowledge that the situation of the corn was evidence of my nattention to the injunction of the music masters,-viz., to press the

strings with the tips of the fingers, and not with the pulp. Violinists usually have corns at the tips of their fingers.

The corn was a source of annoyance to me, and interfered with the use of the finger. Some months after its formation I applied to the corn a piece of lint covered by simple ointment, and kept the lint to the part day and night. After a few days I noticed that there was a slightly-raised line of cuticle surrounding the corn, making it apparent that the latter was set in a depression as is a stone in a brooch. I carried a penknife in a vertical direction in the groove betwixt the raised line of cuticle and the corn. At one spot, a drop of blood appeared, and gradually became diffused beneath the corn. Next day the corn dropped out, leaving the true skin perfect, with the wavy lines of the finger in a normal condition, and covered by cuticle in a natural state. The cup-like depression ceased to be apparent after a short period.

This case clearly shows that a corn produced by repeated pressure of the finger against a violin-string consists of indurated layers of cuticle placed upon normal cuticle, and seated in a cup-like depression of the cutis vera.

A few weeks back I operated on a friend who was suffering with a corn on the great toe, in the usual situation of a bunion, which it closely resembled. In this case I used no ointment, but passed a penknife vertically around the corn, for the full depth of the indurated cuticle, in the situation of the marginal line (which from pressure and dryness was scarcely apparent). The next step consisted of lifting out the corn by evulsion, or rather by a process of enucleation, aided by a few touches of the knife. The true skin was not wounded, consequently there was no effusion of blood. After the corn was taken out, a minute one was found beneath the situation of the larger corn, and it was removed in a similar manner.

This is all the experience that I have had in corn operations, but I advance the method of enucleation as one that is effectual, simple, and unattended by much pain.-Lancet, April 15, 1854, p. 417.

135.-On Inoculation with Milk and Variolous Pus to supersede Vaccination. By M. Bossu.-M. Thiele (of Kassan) and M. Robert (of Marseilles) have proposed to blend variolous matter with milk, for the purpose of weakening the poison, attenuating it, and localising its effects upon the economy. This proceeding, justified by some success, has attracted considerable attention, because it furnishes the means, in the event of small-pox invading any locality, of replacing the vaccine matter which may be defective in quality or deficient in quantity, with a prophylactic furnished by the epidemic itself. In 1832, M. Brachet (of Lyons), starting with the idea, that the vaccine eruption probably owed its properties to the milk contained in the breast where it was developed, inoculated three young infants with a mixture, in

equal parts, of milk and variolous pus. These three patients were put in a ward where a young girl infected with confluent small-pox had just been admitted. The infants escaped; but each became affected round the punctures with an eruption precisely similar to that produced by the vaccine virus, and which remained local.

New experiments have been recently tried at La Charité of Lyons by M. Bouchacourt, Surgeon-in-Chief, and to these we shall direct attention.

Equal parts of cold milk and variolous pus taken from the pustules in the vesicular stage of naturally-developed small-pox, were mixed upon a piece of glass. Punctures were made in each arm with a clean lancet charged with the liquid. Five infants were directly inoculated. Three were inoculated successively from arm to arm with the liquid contained in the pustules resulting from the first inoculation: primary transmission. Three were inoculated from arm to arm with the liquid obtained from these new essays: secondary transmission. Four were inoculated from arm to arm with the liquid coming from this second indirect inoculation; tertiary transmission; success, as with the preceding. Three were inoculated with the liquid collected from the pustules produced by the first transmission, and preserved eight days; two with the liquid preserved eleven days; and, finally, one infant was inoculated with the liquid coming from the pustules produced by this last experiment.

Of these twenty-one children, of ages varying from eight days, five months, and eleven years, eighteen presented pustules precisely similar in character and duration to those of cow-pox, limited to the seat of puncture.

In two newly-born infants, the circumference of each pustule offered, about the sixth day, one or two smaller pustules; but these disappeared as the mark of inoculation faded.

In another child, aged five months, there followed four pustules scattered over the neck and shoulders. They were small, vesicular, and not depressed, and disappeared with the pustules produced by inoculation. This infant was very susceptible, and the poison had been taken from a case of confluent small-pox; thus the phenomena were not more serious than those resulting from ordinary vaccination. It then became necessary to test its power as a prophylactic.

Two of the children above-mentioned were vaccinated in the usual way eight or ten days after the disappearance of the phenomena resulting from the lacto-variolic inoculation; and at the same time two other children about the same age, but who had never had either smallpox or cow-pox, were vaccinated with matter coming from the same pustule. Vaccinia developed itself in the last in its common form. In the first, no effect ensued. A child previously vaccinated was inoculated with the lacto-variolous pus. The result was negative.

Commencing with this equivalence between vaccine virus and the lacto-variolous fluid, M. Bossu proposed a series of inquiries to deter

mine-1st. From what form of small-pox should the virus for inoculation be taken? 2nd. At what phase of pustulation should it be collected? 3rd. At what age the operation is most fitted? 4th. What conditions insure success? 5th. Does the fluid coming from the lactovariolous pustule admit of being preserved in an efficient state?

The interest attached to this subject, and the able manner in which it has been treated by M. Bossu are acknowledged; but further investigations are required before the practice can be sanctioned by the Profession. Journal Hebdom., March 17.-Med. Times and Gazette, April 22, 1854, p. 412.

AFFECTIONS OF THE EYE AND EAR.

136.-ON THE REMOVAL OF A PARTICULAR KIND OF OPACITY FROM THE CORNEA.

By H. HAYNES WALTON, Esq., Surgeon to the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital.

[The employment of practical surgery in the treatment of opacity of the cornea is of great antiquity. Recently the subject has been more discussed, and there is no doubt that by this measure we are enabled to alleviate a condition which is commonly considered as incurable. The following case illustrates the treatment.]

Elizabeth Wheeler, aged 29, became a patient here so long ago as 1845; attended me for some months, then resorted to some other ophthalmic institution; and ultimately replaced herself under my care in the summer of last year-1852. Of the prior attendance I have no data; my notes apply to the re-entering. She was virtually blind, requiring to be led, and unable to perform any act demanding eyesight. The centre of each cornea, to an extent a little beyond the pupil, (the left eye being the more affected,) was occupied by a dense opacity, slightly raised, and which gave in profile somewhat the appearance of "conical cornea. The form of each was irregularly spherical, with sharp outline. The colour, French-white, with dots or mottlings, not unlike those which appear on the back of the cornea in the affection called "aqua-capsulitis." Altogether, the appearance was peculiar and striking, differing from that of ordinary opacity, and conveying the idea of being due to a deposit of a substance probably cretaceous. The remainder of each cornea was transparent; otherwise the eyes seemed healthy. When the pupils were dilated, she could see to move about in the house alone; but there was not sufficient sight for any employment.

Nothing of her history of any value could be gathered, and a long examination elicited merely that, from childhood, she had been subject to inflammation of the eyes, and her blindness was of about ten years' duration,