Imatges de pàgina
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Monneret gives 30 grammes of it. According to Orfila the nitrate of potash is a poison in the dose of 4 grammes (3 scruples), and so it is with the sulphate of copper in the dose of 2 grammes (36) grains). True it is that these doses of these substances kill dogs, when their oesophagus is tied, but they do not affect them much if this canal is not tied, or if the ligature is left only a short time.

According to MM. Bouley and Reynal the ligature of the esophagus causes death by exciting prolonged and energetic efforts of vomiting. Sometimes, particularly when the stomach contains much food or water, the efforts of vomiting are constant, and then death occurs quicker.

The friends of Orfila in the Académie de Médecine have been greatly moved on hearing the communications of MM. Bouley and Reynal. Some of them had seen him experimenting, and had been his assistants; they said that the ligature of the oesophagus is not by far so dangerous an operation as MM. Bouley and Reynal represent it to be. They felt inclined to suppose that MM. Bouley and Reynal tied some nerves together with the œsophagus.

M. Renault said that he witnessed the experiments of MM. Bouley and Reynal, and he is satisfied that all they state is right. As regards an injury to the par vagum, this cannot be considered as the cause of the death of the animals experimented upon by MM. Bouley and Reynal, as the autopsy has showed there was no such thing.

Many experimenters read papers on this subject at the last meetings of the Academy. Prof. Jobert de Lamballe, gave the results of two series of experiments, which he thinks to be in opposition with the conclusions of MM. Bouley and Reynal. But they seem, on the contrary, to be in accordance with these conclusions, as about one-half of the animals experimented upon died in a few days, and almost all the animals made efforts at vomiting.

M. Orfila, a nephew of the great toxicologist, has related some experiments, which, according to him, are in opposition with the conclusions of MM. Bouley and Reynal; but here also we find that two dogs died in about eight days after the operation.

M. Colin has also read a paper, in which he tries to show that MM. Bouley and Reynal have been completely mistaken. Only one of the animals he experimented upon died some time after the operation.

As MM. Bouley and Reynal are very able experimenters, and in every respect to be relied upon, we think that the conclu sions they have arrived at must be received as grounded upon fact. However, we shall be soon more enlightened on this subject, as MM. Bégin, Jobert, Trousseau, Renault, and Bouley, have been appointed a committee to investigate the matter, and report upon it. Med. Times and Gaz., Aug. 30, 1856.

Gutta Percha.-Lieutenant de BRUYN Kors, Dutch Royal Navy, says that this is an exudation from the taban and percha trees. To procure it, the full grown tree is cut down, when the getah flows out. From large trees, fifteen to twenty catties may be procured. If more carefully collected, espe cially by tapping, as with the caoutchouc and other trees, it might form a permanent branch of trade. The improvident Malay, however, chooses rather to have as much as possible at once, than to enjoy a smaller but more permanent gain. It is for this reason that, at the more accessible places on the larger islands, all these trees have been already cut down, and are now only to be met with in the interior, on the east coast of Sumatra, Borneo, and the larger islands. The trade in the product from this Archipelago has already greatly diminished, very little being obtainable. Notwithstanding this falling off, no pains have been taken to plant fresh trees. It is true that stumps of the trees already felled again sprout, but these can only be cut at a distance of thirty years. The getah is run into small square pieces, called tampang. These are gene. rally twenty to thirty catties in weight; the getah is then very dirty, mixed with sand, chips of wood, and other foreign substances, and must therefore be boiled and purified. The colour is light brown, mixed with dark and light streaks. All getah within the jurisdiction of the Sultan of Lingga must be delivered to him.-Assoc. Med. Journal, August 2, 1856, from Pharmaceutical Journal.

Mortality in the French Army in the East during the Late War.-It has been our lot, on many occasions, to show that the chances of war are far less fatal to the soldier than the diseases he encounters when on foreign service. The sanitary history of the French Army of the East during the late campaign

the East died from disease during the
months of January, February, and March,
1856. It is believed by those able to judge,
that those deaths exceeded forty thousand.
7. Sixty-four French Surgeons have died
in the Crimea and on the Bosphorus since
last November. Of 362 Surgeons of all
ranks who have served with the French
Army since its landing in Gallipoli in the
autumn of 1854 to April, 1856, 72 have
fallen victims to typhus alone.

in the Crimea, is full of facts which confirm { 6. It is known that more than thirty-four
the truth of this proposition in a manner so thousand French soldiers of the Army of
frightful and astounding that we have long
doubted the accuracy of the accounts which
have reached us from week to week; and
it is only by the accumulated testimony of
eye-witnesses, and the reports of medical
officers high in the French service, that
we have been able to admit the possibility
of a rate of mortality among our allies so
unprecedented as almost to exceed belief.
For the truth of the following statements,
however, we have the authority of medical
officers both in our own and the French
service, and have permission to name them
if need be. They are not only interesting
in themselves, but additionally so, as the
facts have been studiously concealed by the
French Government, and are now made
known for the first time in this country :-
1. There were fourteen French hospitals
in the Bosphorus up to the end of March.
Since then three others have been added.
The following is a copy of an official return
of the patients treated in all the hospitals
in January, February, and March, 1856:-
January
13,520
February.
21,309
March
28,167

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8. On the 15th of March, 1856, there were, in the Officers' Hospital at Constantinople, 31 Surgeons in different stages of typhus, and only one combatant officer.

9. Of 840 hospital orderlies and attendants, employed in the sixty days of January and February, 603 were attacked by typhus when on service.-Med. Times and Gaz., June 17, 1856.

Banquet by the Medical Profession in France to their Brethren in the Military and Naval Service. The banquet given, on the 20th August, by the medical profession in France to their brethren in the military and naval service, pased off with great 2. During the ten days ending on the enthusiasm and unanimity More than four 20th of March, 1,009 patients died;, and hundred practitioners assembled from all during the following ten days, 948 patients parts of France to do honour to this great died, in these hospitals. The number of national festival, which vas also attended sick under treatment for all diseases on the by representatives from the medical depart20th of March, was 11,366, and on the 30th,ment of the British, Sardinian, and Turkish 9,763. Armies. The dinner took place in the large 3. The regate loss by death from sick-covered court of the Hôtel du Louvre, and ness (n ths being from typhus) in the notwithstanding the great extent of the banFrench hospitals on the Bosphorus exceeded queting hall, it was necessary to prepare 10,000 during the first quarter of the present supplementary tables in the reception gal. year.The daily mortality in twelve of these lery. The chair was taken by Baron Duhospitals in January and February, ranged { bois, and he was supported by MM. Rayer, Bouillaud, Nélaton, Ricord, among the 4. From the 1st of January to the 17th of civil practitioners and by M. Bégin, PreMarch, when the transport of typhus cases sident of the Military Council of Health, from the Crimea was discontinued authori.MM. Michel Lévy, Baudens, Larrey, tatively, more than 5,000 deaths occurred on Scrive, among the military guests; the board French ransports and men-of-war, between the Crimea and the Bosphorus.

up to 240.

5. In the Crimea there were fourteen Field Hospitals, or Ambulances, during the same period, each containing from 800 to 1,100 sick. The deaths in each varied from 15 to 20 daily. Thus the aggregate loss by death from disease in these hospitals during this period exceeded 19,000, and is believed to have been very little under 25,000.

medical departments of the British Army
and Navy, were represented respectively
by Sir John Hall and Mr. David Deas.
The speeches were characterized by the
eloquence and the animation for which our
Gallic neighbours are distinguished; and
the address of Sir John Hall, though de-
livered in English, was received with loud
applause. The idea of this great banquet,
which has terminated so successfully origi

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Humboldt on Mesmerism and the Trans

nated in the mind of a young Parisian Physician, M. Maheux; and the whole of thecendental in Anatomy.-A letter recently arrangements gave entire satisfaction to the appeared from the venerable author of the numerous guests, and to their hospitable Kosmos, dated Berlin, April, 1856, in which, entertainers. The fact of so large a dinner speaking of cerebral electricity, he says: having passed off, not only without contre- "I am not able to give any opinion upon tems, but with undoubted éclat, is highly the existence of various kinds of mineral, honourable to the medical profession in vegetable, animal, direct or indirect cerebral France, which has thus set an example, electricity. I have a direful horror of table worthy of imitation, to our brethren in our turning and all kinds of pine-wood spiritualown country. It would, indeed, be a grati-ism and wogden psychographic mysticisms. fying sight to behold four hundred British We know that Geoffroy St. Hilaire pretends medical practitioners assembled together to have transpired the oxide of thought in for the purpose of evincing their cordiality and fraternization with their fellows.-Med. Times and Gaz., August 30, 1856.

Egypt. My incredulity is the simple consequence of my inability to follow him."Assoc. Med. Journ., July 26, 1856.

Cholera in Portugal and Madeira.-Lis- The Late M. Amussat.-M. Amussat, sebon letters speak of cholera as still continu- nior, father of the late celebrated Parisian ing its ravages in Lisbon and through the surgeon, has lately addressed a letter to the provinces. Peniche is now declared in- Academy of Medicine of Paris, in which he fected. The French screw liner, Prince states that his son had long entertained the Jerome, has lost several men from this dis- design of leaving to the Academy a testiease and typhus ver. The intelligence monial of his gratitude and affection. The from Madeira is very disastrous. -Cholera rapidity with which he was carried off by broke out at sea among some Portuguese disease prevented him from carrying out troops that left Lisbon on the 20th of June, his intentions; but, knowing these, his and when they dedat Funchal a fair was family desired the Academy to accept the being held, the oops mixed with se in- yearly sum of 500 francs, for the purpose of habitants, and cholera broke out among the founding a biennial prize in experimental latter. When the Avo left Madeira on the surgery. In accordance with the intentions 3d of August, there had een 5,000 cases of of the deceased, the essays must be founded cholera and 1,500 de hs among the popula-on esearches on the dead and the living tion of Funchal ich numbered only subject. M. Amussat has also, in the name 28,000. The Tani at Funchal was terri-of his son, and in fulfilment of his wish, preble; all business was suspended, the shopssented to the Provident Medical Association were closed, and every family isolated itself.of the department of the Seinum of The dead lay ungarig in the cemetery, and 4000 francs, or £160.- Assoc. Fourn., fires were kindled there to mitigate the evil August 2, 1856. effects arising from the putrefaction of dead bodies. The government at length got twelve men to dig graves, and six of them literally dog their own, they died almost immediately, and were buried in the graves they had made for others. Only one Englishman an hotel keeper, had died of it. Seventy English ped from Madeira in the Avon, and these were all the packet could accommodate. There were about two or three hundred left; but, fortunately, this is not the season for English people to be at Madeira. ed. Times and Gaz, Aug. 16, 1856.

Gholera in Moscow-Cholera is raging fearfully in Moscow, which is said to be the true case of the postponement of the core nation of the Car.

Appointments.-Mr. FERGUSSON, Professor of Surgery in King's College, has been appointed Examiner in Surgery, at the London University, in the place of Mr. Hodgson, who has accepted the post of Examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Mr. T. H. Huxley, of the Government School of Mines, has been appointed Ex aminer in Comparative Anatomy and Phy. siology in the London University, in place of Dr. Carpenter, who has accepted the place of Registrar in the University.

Mr. George Bush has been appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in the place of Professor Owen, who has com menced the active duties of his rear office in the British Museum.

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Army Medical Staff

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Women admitted to the Obstetrical Ward of the Blockley Almshouse, Philadelphia Foreign Intelligence.-Death from Chloroform

WEST'S LECTURES ON DISEASES OF WOMEN,

CLINICS.

HOSPITAL GLEANINGS.

SIXTEEN PAGES.

centage in resections by the horrible and frightful death rate in amputations, and in the army generally, have also, in their government reports, gone well into the subject, and have done an immensity to clear up the fallacies of what is empirically called conservative surgery. We strive to do more in a resection than in an amputa. tion; and the Paris surgeons fairly ask, Is that more worth the increased risk? We not only strive to save life, they say, but strive to secure almost a second life-the means by which a patient lives-his leg or arm. We should take care, on the other

Conservative Surgery as regards Limbs and Joints torn by Accidents; Statistics of Resection.-A true system of conservative surgery, based on observation and induction, must be an object of anxious and painstaking interest to all surgeons. It is not the mere figures or notes of this or that surgeon that can exclusively decide anything at all in this department. In regard to resection, in particular, what is wanted is a comparative view of all the cases, with especial regard to the hygienic or other con-hand-and the conscientious provincial or ditions unfavourable to the operation. This subject has indeed been just touched on by Mr. JONES, of Jersey, in his comparison of the results of all the London hospitals. The French military department, also, in the hundreds of cases of disarticulations in the Crimea, in the thousands of cases of amputation, and in over a hundred of resections, by carefully comparing one set of cases with the other, and correcting the death rate per

London surgeon is right in taking care-of mere figures or statistics, remembering that there is a conservatism that loses a life and saves a limb, or gives us mere operation; for he is the true conservative (like our friends in the Crimea) who saves both, or at least saves life. In the best set of cases published, there are thirty-one resections of the knee, and five deaths. Mr. SYME and Mr. BUTCHER are our best guides in civil,

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Vol. XIV.-12

as the French military surgeons are in military practice. Mr. Syme gives his last twenty cases of amputation of the thigh without one death. We must compare this with thirty-one resections of the knee, and five deaths; but in resections of the elbow there is no controversy at all.

condition and age of the patient, in all these } cases, as, a little before, he had a case where the astragalus was laid bare, yet it did well! Excision of the elbow might, perhaps, and ought to be practised in almost all the cases of chronic disease of that articulation, according to Mr. Erichsen, in preference to

In knee cases, one uses the word "in-amputation. He has had eight or more duction" unwillingly. But induction, to be cases, with only one death, and even that useful, must come after analogies of cases of unfortunately from pyemia. All operations another kind, as well urged by old hospital of the upper extremities form a category by surgeons. In some ten or twelve knee joint themselves, which cannot be fairly comresections in the hospitals, twelve months pared with that of cases of the lower limbs. old, there is nothing new. We here give In two cases thus by Mr. Wormald, we find some cases of another kind, bearing not re-in one all the bones of the foot torn literally motely on the subject.

In a remarkable case, at present under the care of Mr. WORMALD, the man was brought to St. Bartholomew's Hospital with dislocation of the foot inwards; both tibia and fibula were thrown off the astragalus, in the opposite direction. As the experience of St. Bartholomew's, with its magnificent hygienic arrangements, is in favour of assisting nature, even in such terrible injuries, Mr. Wormald reduced the dislocation under chloroform, and for several days hoped he had secured another triumph for the cause of conservative surgery, but he was obliged, ultimately, thirteen days after admission, to have recourse to secondary amputation.

away from the astragalus, yet it did well; while in the present instance, not so severe, he was obliged to amputate. Some surgeons, relying on mere statistics, look upon it as a “jumbling” of cases together, when anything disturbs the "vanity of figures,' but there is no intricacy or jumble now in the subject, but what can be readily removed by starting from fresh ground.

There is a case in St. Thomas's Hospital, I. Quinton, aged 36 years, of bad compound fracture of the left leg, where Mr. SOUTH had recourse to primary amputation by the circular operation below the knee; here the conservatism of a life has repaid the conservatism of nothing else, Mr. South agreeing with an old writer, that it is better to live with three limbs than die with four.

C. B, aged 34 years, was admitted August 22d. He states that he was driving a coal van, when the hind wheel flew off, and threw him heels over head out of the driver's seat, right smash against the curbstone. After the reduction of the injury under chloroform, he was treated with beeftea, eggs, liquor cinchona, etc., varied a little subsequently (Sept. 1) to wine and quinine. On September 4, the thirteenth day, it was found necessary to amputate. All that is known, perhaps, of excisions or resections of joints in cases anything like this one, corroborated very forcibly by the vast statistics of the military hospitals, is, that excision is not a milder operation than amputation, as a patient may advance towards death by excision, but then be saved by amputation. "Excision of the knee- In a case of compound fracture of tibia joint," according to some very recent ob- and fibula, under the care of Mr. SOLLY, in servations of Mr. Erichsen, may be per- a heavy, rather unhealthy man, a labourer formed in some selected cases with advan-in Woolwich Arsenal, admitted into St. tage, but it can never become a general Thomas's Hospital, August 16, he has sucoperation as a substitute for amputation of ceeded in saving the limb, at least up to the the thigh." An immensity, as Mr. Wor-present date (Sept. 10).

In a child, aged 5 years, S. C., under the care of Mr. CURLING, at the London Hos{pital, admitted in May, and still under treatment, there was compound comminuted fracture of the femur, which was thought at the time to be a case for amputation at the hip, but as the friends, we believe, ob{jected (though the recommendation was the very best could be given), Mr. Curling tried, with wonderful success, to save the limb. The child is quite cheerful up to the present (Sept. 10), and will in all probability have a useful limb. Nothing could have saved this case, perhaps, if it were knocked about in the bad hygienic and atmospheric conditions of the Crimea or Scu ari.

mald remarked in his case, depends on the In another instance or variety of injury,

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