Unexpected combinations some

ammonia or an alkaline carbonate. times result, of which the following is an example:-A prescription was written for a mixture, of which the more essential ingredients were Rochelle salts and calcined magnesia; this was taken without particular remark until a dose was swallowed from a bottle of the medicine which had been prepared some weeks. The effect was so disagreeable, and the taste so caustic, that the patient believed some error had been committed, and special inquiries resulted in the explanation that the calcined magnesia, by prolonged contact with alkaline tartrates, had gradually abstracted their tartaric acid, leaving the alkalies in a free and caustic coadition. Ill-contrived formula are very frequent; but these are not of serious consequence. Undue concentration of medicines, Mr. Hanbury showed, was fraught with special inconvenience to the pharmaceutist, and with risk to the patient. The economical considerations did not outweigh those of safety and efficacy in the action of drugs; and he quoted actual prescriptions in which the liquid was incapable of holding in solution the alkaline salts ordered, so that they crystalized out or remained as a dense white mass, which could not in some cases be shaken up. One contained chlorodyne, bi-borate of soda, spirits of camphor, aromatic ammonia, and sulphuric ether; in this the addition of the borax to the other ingredients occasioned the separation of a sticky mass, which adhered to the inside of the bottle, and prevented the administration of the proper dose. One prescription noticed contained six grains of corrosive sublimate, a second an ounce of arsenical solution with three drachms of tincture of aconite-manifestly liable to mischief from the common carelessness of patients in measuring doses. These are not, however, to be compared to other more dangerous forms of prescriptions; to those, for instance, in which a bottle containing about 150 doses of the strongest tincture of aconite is ordered, with directions to take a dose every three hours; or where nearly 100 doses of strychnine are placed in the patient's hands at once; or a five-weeks' supply of the same alkaloid in a ten-drachm mixture, with complicated directions; or two grains of arsenious acid are ordered to be dissolved in two ounces of syrup of gingera vehicle which, being extremely palatable, would convey the idea that the drops were more or less harmless. Such instances as

these, by no means uncommon, are excessively objectionable; as Mr. Hanbury observed, they are reprehensible for the sake of the patient, who is furnished with a large supply of potent, or it may be dangerous, medicine, which is to be taken for a long period, almost according to his own pleasure and judgment, and especially for the sake of the pharmaceutist, not so much on account of the diminished remuneration, as of the very serious risk of error and accident, which may at any time place him in an unpleasant position.-London Lancet.

Raid on the Uterus.

A distinguished surgeon in New York City, twenty-five years ago said, when Dupuytren's operation for relaxation of the sphincter ani was in vogue, every young man who came from Paris found every other individual's anus too large, and proceeded to pucker it up. The result was that New York anuses looked like gimletholes in a piece of pork. It seems to me that just such a raid is being made upon the uterus at this time. It is a harmless, unof fensive little organ, stowed away in a quiet place. Simply a muscular organ, having no function to perform save at certain periods of life, but furnishing a capital field for surgical operations, and is now-a-days subject to all sorts of barbarity from surgeons anxious for notoriety. Had Dame Nature foreseen this, she would have made it iron-clad. What with burning and cauterizing, cutting and slashing, and gouging, and spitting and skewering, and pessarying, the old-fashioned womb will cease to exist, except in history. The Transactions of the National Medical Association for 1864 has figured one hundred and twenty-three different kinds of pessaries, embracing every variety, from a simple plug to a patent threshing machine, which can only be worn with the largest hoops. They look like the drawings of turbine water-wheels, or a leaf from a work on entomology. Pessaries, I suppose, are some times useful, but there are more than there is any necessity for. I do think that this filling the vagina with such traps, making a Chinese toy-shop of it, is outrageous. Hippocrates said that he would never recommend a pessary to procure abortion-nay, he

swore he never would. Were he alive now he would never recommend one at all. If there were fewer abortions there would be fewer pessaries, and if there were fewer pessaries there would be fewer abortions. Our grandmothers never knew they had wombs only as they were reminded of it by the struggles of a healthy fœtus; which, by the by, they always held on to. Now-a-days, even our young women must have their wombs shored up, and if a baby accidentally gets in by the side of the machinery, and finds a lodgment in the uterus, it may, perchance, have a knittingneedle stuck in its eyes before it has any. It is the easiest thing in the world to introduce a speculum and pretend to discover ulceration of the os, and subject a patient to this revolting manipulation once or twice a week, when there is, in fact, nothing the matter. By some practitioners, all diseases which occur in the female are attributed to the uterus. In this class are especially to

be included all such as make of the abnormal conditions of the uterus a specialty.-Extract from the Address of Dr. W. D. Buck, President of the New Hampshire State Medical Society for 1866.New York Medtcal Journal.

Mr. Hoff and the New York Academy of Medicine.

At the last meeting of the Academy of Medicine, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

Whereas, W. L. Hoff, proprietor or agent of the "Hoff Malt Extract," is issuing publications through the secular papers, and by means of pamphlets and circulars professing to quote favorable opinions expressed in a report of a committee of the Academy; And, Whereas, the said Hoff is widely circulating a letter purporting to have been written by a Fellow of the Academy;

And, Whereas, the publications of said Hoff are so adroitly and designedly worded as to impress the mind of the reader with the belief that the Academy has endorsed his nostrum, and has thus apparently compromised its dignity and professional standing; therefore,

Resolved, That the New York Academy of Medicine does hereby proclaim and declare that it has not expressed any opinion in regard to "Hoff's Malt Extract," and that any and every use of its name in recommending said Extract is unauthorized by the Academy.

Resolved, That a copy of the above preamble and resolutions be sent to the medical journals of this city, and that the medical journals throughout the country be requested to copy the same, in justice to the Academy and the profession.

Magnetic Somnambulism.

Translated from the French of Nysten.

BY WM. MASON TURNER, M. D., OF PHILADELPHIA.

Somnambulism is an affection of the cerebral functions characterized by a kind of an aptitude to repeat during sleep those actions which are contracted by habit, either in wandering about or in executing different movements, of which, however, on awakening, there remains no recollection whatever. Somnambulism is, perhaps, a physiologic state or condition, a degree more exalted than the ordinary fantasies of slumber, rather than a nervous affection.

Magnetic Somnambulism.—This is a peculiar nervous condition, into which we can throw, by a sort of mental influence, individuals of a high nervous sensibility-particularly hysterical women. When somnambulism is provoked artificially, the most singular phenomena are observed. Some feel the hallucinations of sight, some of hearing, some of odor, etc., and are falsely made to believe in a transposition of the senses which does not exist. somnambulism we see sometimes the pathetic faculties, intellectual and moral too, acquire a wondrous development. The memory attains an astonishing precision, and thoughts are delivered in a correct and elegant language.

In

The theory of this mass of phenomena is clearly cleared up by a knowledge of the physiology of the brain, but loses beyond that all that appears marvellous in it, when we have recourse to the state of scientific facts. We know that in a condition of the most mental harmony, that our internal images are dependent on our external sensations; there is a complete subordination of abstract contemplation to direct observation, and to employ here a trite but very just phrase, we see things as they are. But it is demonstrated that even in persons gifted with a superior judgment, it is possible by purely artificial means to develop a cerebral condition in which the within takes the place of the without, and they are made to behold things otherwise than they really exist. This confirmed mental alienation is nothing but a persistence of that condition, in which we make, in the observed phenomena, the most complicated hypothesis. For a long time it was customary to

attribute certain conditions, it may be physiologic or it may be pathologic, to the influence of demons. In the witcheries of magic, as in the science [?] of magnetism, it is necessary to choose well the subject in whom you would produce cries, convulsions, dreams, and ecstacies. Only those practices are otherwise considerably more dangerous than the magnetism, for the former often end by developing demono-mania. We can conceive then easily, that a belief in good and evil genii was well calculated to strike with awe, feeble minds.

In the case of somnambulism, a person having been declared proper to exercise the magnetic influence, and for the rest, being inclined by his education to these corresponsive beliefs, familiarizes himself with the administration of the pretended magnetic fluid. Once his technical apprenticeship over, he commences the practice of magnetism, and after a short while, his simple appearance is sufficient to produce profound emotion. In every case, it is easy where one is of strong convictions, and where there are few with whom to deal; for generally it is a matter of no trouble to attract to those who are undecided.

Now this attitude, or that gesture, or these movements, are nothing more than artifice, by means of which there is developed in a person suitably prepared, a cerebral condition more or less decisive, and which can be carried even to that ecstacy which characterizes magnetic sleep. In this condition, moreover, much less frequently to be observed than in simple lethargy, the belief or demi-belief has a power so wonderfully developed in the mind of the patient-of abstract images, of such an intensity, that all direct observation is entirely lost. General sensibility can even be annihilated in consequence of this profound interior absorption, and as the meditative organs commence again to exercise themselves on the products of abstract contemplation, the enrapt one can effect a series of ratiocinations sufficiently coherent; and the more, if the auditive impressions continue to operate, there can be established between the magnetiser and the magnetised a connection strongly marked; but in the case of the real ecstacy, the responses of the subject are as vague as those of the Sybil, and in the midst of his devotions the magnetiser interprets them always to the great admiration of his coterie.

VOL. 7, NO. 1—4.