warm. Of the first eighteen days, the morning temperature ranged between 71 and 78°; and the mid-day heat was but three times below 80°. 1822, the average summer heat was 77°; and in the summers of 1828 and 1838, the average rose to 773°, according to the reOn six days, also,cord of Pierce. We find, also, that the within the same period, the mercury ranged warmest day of the past summer was the from 90 to 94° at 2 P. M. At sunrise, on 22d of the sixth month (June), when the the morning of the 19th, the temperature mercury was 97° at 2 o'clock P. M., and had fallen to 63°, and at the same hour on the average heat of the whole day rose to the 20th, to 59°; when the weather again (873°. Also, that the mid-day heat rose to became warm, the mid-day heat ranging from 72 to 86° to the end of the month. The mean average temperature of the eighth month, for Philadelphia, is 73°, while the average of the same month this year was 76.76°, or nearly 4° above the common average; a mean temperature but twice exceeded, according to our record, in the last 64 years, viz., in 1798, and in 1838, when the mean rose a fraction higher, or to 77°. Rains, which abounded the previous month, continued frequent up to the 18th, since which two showers only have occurred. On eleven days more or less rain fell (five times accompanied with thunder), amounting in all to 3.08 inches, as measured at the Pennsylvania Hospital. 90° and above, on ten days in the first summer month, on four days in the second, and on six days in the third summer month giving twenty days on which the mercury rose to 90° or above, during the past sum. mer-a number equalled or surpassed but twice on our extended record, viz., in 1825, when the number was 29; and in 1828, when it was 22; and, farther, that during the past summer more or less rain fell in thirty-two days-sixteen days were cloudy, and forty-four are put down as clear-and that the whole fall of rain for the summer was 10 inches. That during the summer the wind was Easterly the whole or a part of 29 days. Northerly Southerly 72 59 44 The health of the city, compared with other seasons, continues good. The whole number of deaths for the four weeks falling same period last year, 913; and for 1851, 839; showing an increase scarcely in a ratio with the increase of population. So, too, Mortality of the whole summer 1851, 2,765 1852, 2,492 1853, 2,831 The heavy shower on the evening of the 8th, like nearly all our thundershowers, arose in the north, or north-west, beginning in Albany at 6, and ending a little after 7 P. M.; where the lower streets were ren-within the past month, was 1,027; for the dered impassable by the flood, and the writer, with many others, waited (like the countryman in the fable) for the river to flow by. Descending the Hudson next morning, it was found the thundershower had extended to the city of New York, and had occurred there an hour later; and on Showing an increase of less than three per arriving at Philadelphia, we found it re-centum for the last three years. corded, as in the table below, from 8 to 10 P. M.; thus travelling south about 160 miles in a little less than three hours, or at twice the usual speed of our railroad trains.tricts, and the opinion is common that inThe standing crops are promising, if we except potatoes, which are suffering from the usual epidemic disease in several locali. ties. On looking over our records, we find that the mean temperature of the three summer months was 76.77-100°, which is about 4° above the mean summer heat of this city, as deduced from observations for the last sixty-four years. This temperature has been exceeded but five times within that period, and then by less than one degree Thus, in the years 1793 and 1798, and in Still, there have doubtless been a few fatal cases of an imported malignant fever occurring near the river, in one of the dis creased watchfulness and efficiency on the part of the health officers to prevent the { spread of infection, is called for. The heat of the last summer, we have seen, equalled that of 1793 and 1798, when a foreign disease prevailed in this city; and it is impossible to read the simple statement of Pierce, in his review of the weather for August of the latter year (pp. 149-150), without being struck with the similarity of many circumstances occurring then and now. "During this and the succeeding month," says Pierce, "several cases of yel low fever again occurred near the wharves, a few cases had occurred." He adds: "The Yellow Fever.-This disease still pre-from the 20th of that month. Prior to that vails in New Orleans, though in a diminished degree. The total deaths in that city from May 28 to September 16 amount to 10,440, of which 7,922 were from yellow fever. date we have been unable to obtain the number of interments in the Roman Catholic Cemetery. We have assumed them, however, to have been about one-fourth the whole number, and on this supposition, by Mobile has suffered comparatively even adding one-third to the numbers reported more than New Orleans from yellow fever. by the City Sexton, we may fairly presume We give below a synopsis of the mortality that we have at least approximated to acfrom the 1st of August to the 16th inst., {curacy. We have made this estimate the inclusive. The first cases of yellow fever ascertained to have originated in Mobile, occurred about the 13th or 14th of August. Full returns, however, have only been made basis of the following table to the 19th August (inclusive), after which the reports are official. We shall then have : Fever. causes. tal. From Aug. 1 to Aug. 12, inclusive, 8 66 44 52 71 Yellow Other To the Association, held at New York, in May, 1853, the undersigned were appointed a committee to receive voluntary communi61 cations on medical subjects, and to award two prizes of $100 each, to the authors of 212 the two best essays. For the week ending Aug. 19, 39 32 (6 26, 37 Sept. 2, 156 27 44 66 9, 194 66 16, 177 47 35 200 241 229 840 Total from Aug. 1 to Sept. 16, 611 burgh, Montgomery, &c., have also suffered severely from the fever. The Natchez Courier publishes the list of interments in that city for the past two months. The first death from yellow fever this season, was on July 17. Since that date to the 18th September, there have been 256 deaths, of which about 225 have been from that dreadful scourge. Up to August 11, the yellow fever deaths have been but five; since that period, a space of 37 days, 220, an average of nearly six a day. In three weeks from August 24, to September 13, the deaths were 179an average of about 9 a day. The popula tion of Natchez cannot have exceeded, during the prevalence of the epidemic, 2000; many do not estimate it at that number. Thus during the ill-fated three weeks, over nine per cent. of the population were taken to the silent tomb. During the fortnight from August 27 to September 19, the mortality was 144-or an average of 20 a day. This mortality far exceeds that of New Or leans, vast as that was. The following statement of the number of deaths in the city of Natchez since the com mencement of the present epidemic, is given by the Natchez Courier : For the week ending July 19, American Medical Association. Committee on Prize Essays.-At a meeting of} CHARLES A. POPE, M. D., Chairman. Response by Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D., to the following Toast, proposed at the Entertainment given to the American Medical Association, by the Physicians of the city of New York, at Metropolitan Hall, on the 5th of May, 1853: TOAST.-"The Union of Science and LiteratureA happy marriage, the fruits of which are nowhere seen to better advantage than in our American Holmes." I hold a letter in my hand By some contriving junto planned, And signed per order of Committee; My poor old songs-my kind affections : They make a feast on Thursday next, And trot us out and show our paces.) They hint that papers by the score Are rather musty kind of rations; They don't exactly mean a bore, But only trying to the patience; That such as-you know who I mean- Should bring the dews of Hippocrene -The same old story; that's the chaff To read these letters from Committees ! All for your sake such kind compunction, 'Twould save your carriage half its wear To grease the wheels with such an unction! Why, who am I, to lift me here And beg such learned folk to listenTo ask a smile, or coax a tear Beneath these stoic lids to glisten? -As well might some arterial thread Ask the whole frame to feel it gushing, While throbbing fierce from heel to head The vast aortic tide was rushing. As well some hair-like nerve might strain Or trembling fibre strive to keep The springing haunches gathered shorter, While the scourged racer, leap on leap, Was stretching through the last hot quarter! Ah me! you take the bud that came Self sown in your poor garden's borders, And hand it to the stately dame That florists breed for, all she orders; She thanks you—it was kindly meant― (A pale affair not worth the keeping—) Good-morning; and your bud is sent To join the tea leaves used for sweeping. Not always so, kind hearts and true- Is not the bud I offer you The sun is on Francisco's bay, O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; While summer skirts the still bayou With every leaf that makes it brighter, Monadnock sees the sky grow blue And clasps his crystal bracelet tighter. Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart She breathes, and white magnolias blos som: Ay! many a cheek is kindled here Kissed from a sun-enameled maiden! I give you Home! its crossing lines In one bright ring, with love for centre, O brothers, home may be a word To make affection's living treasureThe wave an angel might have stirred A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure; HOME! It is where the day star springs And where the evening sun reposes, Where'er the eagle spreads his wings From northern pines to southern roses! New York Medical Times. Medical Department of Pennsylvania College.-Prof. HENRY S. PATTERSON, in consequence of enfeebled health, has resigned his Professorship of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, and been appointed Emeritus Professor. Dr. JOHN B. BIDDLE has been elected to the vacant chair, and will, we are sure, fill it with entire satisfaction to his class. Profs. Chapman and Horner.-At the semiannual meeting of the Faculty of Jef Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting-ferson Medical College, held on the second Pale though its outer leaves may be, Rose-red in all the inner petals, Where the warm life we cannot seeThe life of love that gave it, settles? day of July, 1853, the announcement of the decease of Professors HORNER and CHAPMAN having been made, it was resolved unanimously, that the Faculty, in common with their medical brethren, deeply deplore the loss to science of two individuals, the Like rills from distant mountains stream- better part of whose valuable lives had been spent in the successful teaching of a profes We meet from regions far away ing; sion of which they were distinguished ornaments, and to the advancement of which they had both so largely contributed. Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be sent to the families of the deceased, and be published in the medical journals. Extracted from the minutes. R. M. HUSTON, M. D., FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. of the advantages of these nasal injections, he remarks that they require no effort of the will; and he alludes to their applicability to those infants who, brought to the hospital weak and apparently dying, lie in their cradles, occasionally uttering slight cries, but generally silent, refusing upon any inducement to take notice of their nurse. Of such, it appears, a great number are annually received. Post-mortem examination has failed to detect in them any important lesion. The infant being placed upon the lap of the nurse, the surgeon introduces the tube of a syringe, previously warmed, supported Nasal Injections considered as a Means by the thumb of the left hand, about a line of nourishing New-born Infants. By M. into the nasal aperture. If introduced farHENRIETTE, Physician at the Hospital for {ther, it excites a fit of sneezing, and might Foundlings at Bengal.-The author adverts { wound the mucous membrane in the event, to the want of success which, in his hospi-which occasionally though rarely happens, tal, has attended every effort hitherto made of the child being unruly. The liquid must to nourish foundlings, who, upon their re-be propelled very slowly; it passes into the ception, refused to take the breast. Acci posterior part of the pharynx, and runs, drop dent induced him to inject food by the nose. by drop, down the œsophagus into the stoAn infant was attacked by ozæna. It suckled mach. The presence of food in the aliwith the greatest difficulty, being obliged to mentary canal effects those changes in the let go the nipple every moment, in order that condition of the child which, in many cases, it might breathe. Milk was injected through induce it in the course of a few days to take the nares, and, to the surprise of the author, to the breast in the natural manner.-Revue it passed upon each occasion into the sto- Méd.-Chir. de Paris, 1853. mach. In May, 1851, an infant was brought M. Henriette has since published an apto the hospice in a state of extreme weakness;pendix to the foregoing, in which he recomit was scarce seven months old, and its ap-mends the administration of medicines in pearance indicated precocious birth. It took infants, and occasionally in adults, by the no food; whatever was put into the mouth same passages.-Med. Times and Gaz. Aug. was spit out as it was given. Under these 20, 1853. circumstances, its life was despaired of; for it is a known fact that in hospitals for young infants death is the rule for those who will not take the breast. Dr. Henriette commenced injecting daily through the nose milk taken from the mammary gland of the nurse destined for the child. The operation was repeated frequently, and in the course of a few weeks the patient became wellnourished and thriving. At the date of February 1, 1852, eleven infants, who had re-indicated the nature of the poison. M. Gorré fused to suckle, had been thus supplied with introduced, with difficulty, a finger between food. Of these, seven were rescued from the teeth, and excited vomiting, by which death; and in the remaining four, who ulti- some fragments of pills were thrown up. mately died, life was prolonged from periods Then, finding a quantity of milk at hand, he varying between five and twenty-four days. made him drink large quantities at short inThe author remarks, that this proceeding is tervals. The stomach, distended beyond adapted to infants prematurely born, whose measure, relieved itself from time to time weakness depends upon imperfect organiza- by regurgitation of the enormous quantities tion, and not to those suffering from internal { of liquid which it was made to receive; and disease; and he relates the differences of M. Gorré, finding the serious symptoms disappearance between the two. In speaking appear, insisted upon a continuance of the Note upon the good Effects of Milk in Cases of Poisoning by Nux Vomica. By M. GORRE.-A domestic, while drunk, swallowed fifteen pills of extract of nux vomica. Half an hour afterwards, M. Gorré found him suffering frightful tortures, the face expressing suffering, and the eyes wild; he was unable to utter any articulate sound, but the rigidity of the jaw and of the limbs |