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insist upon the vitality of disease-germs, and to warn investigators that they must not too readily accept the de novo theory because no recent previous case can be discovered to account for the appearance of the disease.

INFLUENCE OF ALCHOLIC BATHS ON THE PERSPIRATORY FUNCTION OF THE SKIN.

The following practical point is gleaned from a translation in the Medical Record:

Dr. S. Wassilieff found that, after the skin had been thoroughly rubbed with alcohol, hot baths induced much more profuse perspiration, exceeding sometimes four and five times the amount of water lost without previous treatment with alcohol. Hence, the two processes should always be combined when there is indication for extraction of a considerable quantity of water through the skin. Dr, W. explains the action of alcohol by an irritation of the sensitive, and, perhaps, also of the secretory nerves of the skin, and also by the removal of fat from the surface of the skin and the glandular pores.

MEMBRANOUS CROUP-ITS RELATION TO DIPHTHERIA.

The following abstract from the St. Louis Medical Journal, found in the Detroit Lancet, contains some practical ideas regarding a disease just now "in season:

Dr. H. Z. Gill, from his studies of this relation, concludes: (1) There is no distinction to be made from a microscopic examination of the exudate, which would lead to a division of membranous laryngitis into non-diphtheritic and diphtheritic or simple membranous croup or diphtheritic croup. (2) There is no distinction clear and decisive to be made based on chemical examination of the membranous product. (3) Every clinical manifestation by which a distinction might at first appear between diphtheritic and non-diphtheritic membranous laryngitis is unreliable in a differential diagnostic point of view. There is evidence tending to show the action of some unknown influence in some respects analogous to the so-called zymotic poisons, in the large majority of cases of membranous laryngitis. The nature of this cause, whether identical with

that of diphtheria or only producing in the larynx, trachea and pharynx products indistinguishable from it by our present methods of investigation, is not decided, though the weight of evidence would seem to indicate a close analogy, but possibly not an identity with it in some of the purely laryngeal cases of membranous formation, such as are commonly termed idiopathic croup.

IODOFORM IN VAGINITIS.

We find in the St. Louis Clinical Record the following extract from the Canadian Journal of Medical Science :

M. Martineau employs, in vaginitis, an emulsion made of equal parts of iodoform and oil of sweet almonds. Under the influence of the oil, the iodoform almost entirely loses its odor, to such an extent that it may be employed without the persons surrounding the patient being liable to suspect the nature of the dressing.

M. Constantine Paul indicates another process to do away with the disagreeable odor of iodoform. It is sufficient simply to drop a few drops of the essence of bitter almonds upon the iodoform powder.

CHLORAL AS AN ANESTHETIC IN THE MINOR OPERATIONS ON CHILDREN.

The Detroit Lancet credits the Gazette des Hospitaux, also the Medical Press and Circular, with the following:

The unpleasant after-effects which so frequently follow the use of anesthetics, ordinarily used, will doubtless lead more than one of our readers to give the chloral a trial. M. Bouchut says that he uses chloral as an anesthetic in the minor operations on children. He administers one, two, three and four grammes, according to the age; two grammes might be given without danger between three and five years. The dose is given in four ounces of sweetened water, taken at once. In half an hour the child sleeps, and in an hour is perfectly insensible. This sleep lasts from three to six hours, and the child awakens as fresh as after natural sleep. Once insensibility arrives, a great number of operations can be performed,

such as extraction of teeth, opening of abscesses, re-dressing of malformed limbs, etc., without any other inconvenience than that of leaving the children to sleep off the effects of the chloral. He says that he has administered this anesthetic over ten thousand times without an accident.

ERGOT IN PURPURA HEMORRHAGICA AND APOPLEXY.

M. Lasegue publishes the case of a man, fifty-five years of age, who was, without known cause, except, perhaps, a little alcoholism, affected for eight months with intense purpura hemorrhagica. He often lost blood from the nose and ears, and had had two attacks of right hemiplegia. Perchloride of iron, administered persistently, had produced no good effect.

On August 13, when he entered M. Lasegue's service, this man was more than ever the subject of the hemorrhagic diathesis. Dr. Buermann, first clinical assistant, gave ergot in gram (15.4 grs.) doses daily. From this moment, improvement was rapid. At the same time that movement returned to the paralyzed limbs, the petechiæ disappeared, and there was complete cessation of the nasal and auricular hemorrhages. The patient is now almost completely well.

The above article was copied by the St. Louis Clinical Record from the Gazette des Hopitaux.

SURGERY.

LOCAL ETHERIZATION.

The following valuable extract is credited to the Medical Times and Gazette by the Louisville Medical News:

In a communication to the Centralblatt f. Chirurgie, July 31, Dr. Lauenstein, of the Hamburg General Hospital, observes that the employment of ether spray, on which such exaggerated expectations were at one time held, has now fallen into too general neglect, especially in private practice. If the manuals on surgery be consulted, it will be found that local anæsthesia is scarcely mentioned or spoken of disparagingly. According to the writer's experience, if more be not demanded from ether spray than it can legitimately supply, it is an inval

⚫uable means. At the Hamburg Hospital it is regularly employed in opening abcesses, making incisions in phlegmon, etc., counter-openings, tenotomy, operations on the bursæ, the removal of small foreign bodies, and the extirpation of small cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors. It is also employed in phimosis, but, as a general rule, it should be avoided in operations about the genitals, as the ether causes so much pain and the intervention of a thick layer of moistened wadding is required.

The spray is much to be recommended in the removal of ingrowing toe-nail, and patches of lupus may be scooped out under its action. Affections of the nose or lips should be exempted, as the inspiration of the concentrated ether may prove dangerous, as it may also in operations on the gums, which are excessively sensitive to its action. The cheeks, forehead, and aural region may be acted on, protecting the eyes with moistened wadding. The great reduction of temperature which is produced does not interfere with the healing of the wounds. Great care is required not to bring the ether near light of any kind, for fear of explosion; but this inflammability does not contra-indicate its employment with the actual or galvanic cautery—the parts being first dried with wadding. The spray is very useful during transplantation, especially in private practice, when the patient has himself to supply the grafts. Under the spray they can be removed without any pain, and, owing to the hardness of the skin produced, this can be more easily effected. "To sum up my experience with ether spray, it is well suited for short and superficial operations, of small applicability to extensive operations, and is unsuited for those on the nose, lips, scrotum and mucous membranes."

ALKALINE TREATMENT OF CANCER.

Copied from the Vratch by the Medical Record:

Dr. Reier exhibited to the St. Petersburg Medical Society, three patients who had been treated in the above manner, as proposed by Dr. Busch. It consisted in scraping off all cancerous tissue, and in the systematic use of a saturated solution of soda. The first patient was sixty years old. On the left

side there was an absence of the eye, orbit, superior maxilla, also hard palate and greater part of the nose. Five weeks before, these parts presented cancerous infiltration with a tendency to rapid extension and ulceration. When exhibited, the surface presented healthy granulations, and cicatrization was already beginning at the angle of the mouth. The second case was also an old man. Destruction less extensive. Healing more advanced. Surface granulating, and general peripheral cicatrization. Third case was a woman nearly ninety years old, cured. Former seat of cancerous growth showed a cicatrix of a uniformly solid appearance. The

growth was examined microscopically six months ago, and had every feature of a malignant tumor.

This treatment is based upon the power of strong alkali to dissolve the cellular ele

ments.

DECALCIFIED-BONE DRAINAGE TUBES.

Some readers, far removed from the instrument-maker, may find valuable the following extract from the Louisville Medical News, taken from the Lancet:

Surgeon Shirley Deakin writes:

In an Indian station, far removed from surgical instrumentmakers, drainage-tubes are not often procurable, gutta-percha tubing even not being included among the articles of the small local store which does duty for a shop. Though native workmen are clever enough at copying an article from a pattern, they are very stupid in working from an engraving. Further, as regards bone drainage-tubes, all respectable Hindoos have serious caste objections to touching bones, so that there might be difficulty in getting a workman to turn bone tubes after the method suggested by Dr. Neuber, of Kiel, as given in MacCormac's" Antiseptic Surgery."

In the long bones of the limbs of poultry and small birds, I have found capital drainage-tubes ready turned to hand. The bones, collected by the cook and well boiled to free them from the soft parts, are soaked for about ten hours in a mixture of one part of hydrochloric acid and two parts of water. Immersed for this time, they become sufficiently soft and flexible

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