in the transverse portion of the vessel and commenced at the edge of an atheromatous plaque. There resulted an enormous subpleural hematoma with infiltration of blood along the abdominal aorta. This, by pressure upon the celiac plexus produced intense pain in the abdomen up to the moment of death.-Medical News.

CONVEYANCE OF TUBERCULOSIS.-Some time ago, Professor Flügge, the Director of the Institute of Hygiene at Breslau, announced, as the result of a long series of experiments, that the ordinarily accepted mode of the conveyance of tuberculosis is not the true one. One of his conclusions was that dried sputum rubbed into dust and blown around in the atmosphere is not only not an evident mode of contagion in tuberculosis but that it is even. improbable. For him the consumptive loosens from his infected mucous membranes during a spasm of coughing numbers of bacilli, and disseminates them in the atmosphere. The coughing act is really an atomization of pulmonary secretion. To the resulting minute particles bacilli are attached and float hours in the air surrounding the coughing patient. This theory contradicts a good deal of clinical experience in the matter of liability to contract the disease on the part of nurses and others who are during long periods in close association with such patients, and has not been published without a good deal of protest. It is admitted that Professor Flügge's experiments have thrown new light on the dissemination, and that his presentation of the subject in so striking a manner cannot but have a good effect in the increase of prophylactic measures. On the whole, however, it is urged that there is an incompleteness in the artificial comminution of tuberculous sputum for experimental purposes which does not hold good in natural processes.

A recent writer has called attention to the fact that a very simple series of experiments will throw a good deal of light on the subject. As guinea-pigs are very susceptible to tuberculosis, he suggests that one of these animals be kept close to the bed of a phthisical patient, but with the most careful precautions to prevent contamination of its food and drink. The resultant mortality and the manner of death will greatly aid in the solution of a very interesting and very practical question.-Berlin Letter in Medical News.

HYDROZONE FOR DISORDERS OF THE GENITO-URINARY TRACT.—Dr. John Aulde, of Philadelphia, Medical Times and Register of Philadelphia, Pa., December 5, 1896.) states that about eight years ago he was forcibly impressed with the value of Peroxide Hydrogen in a protracted case of gonorrhea. The disease had persisted for three months despite the treatment of several attendants, there being a constant discharge and in addition, there was an orchitis present, the left testicle being about as large as a base ball. Treatment consisted of the local use of injections of equal parts of Peroxide of Hydrogen and moderately warm water, used at intervals of four hours, these injections being followed by a solution of arsenite of copper containing one milligram (one 65th grain) to the drachm, diluted with an equal quantity of hot water.

In a week the patient was able to return to his home in a distant State, the discharge from the urethra having entirely ceased. and pain and chordee having disappeared.

The author advises the same treatment for non-specific urethritis and gleet, but as Hydrozone is much stronger (2 times) than the Peroxide, and perfectly harmless, he gives it the prefer

ence.

In vaginitis and vaginismus this treatment is of especial value. The treatment heretofore recommended by physicians, consisting of hot vaginal douches, either with or without some alkali, as sodium bicarbonate, followed by the injection of a small quantity of Peroxide of Hydrogen (medicinal) in warm or cold water is superseded by the single application of a hot solution of Hydrozone, one part in eight; the patient should use a fountain syringe which should be hung upon the wall about six feet from the floor; the patient sits upon a suitable vessel, and introduces the rubber tip of the hose well back into the vagina, while the labia are compressed by the disengaged hand; this allows the solution to so distend the vagina as to bring it in contact with all the diseased tissue. The injection should be repeated twice in twenty-four hours.

In uterine diseases, where the solution must be brought into contact with the endometrium, the following treatment is pursued:

The patient is placed in the dorsal position, with the hips well elevated; an ordinary dilator is employed to distend the cervix, so

as to admit the nozzle of the syringe and permit the free egress of the injected fluid; ( a suitable return flow tube can be used to better advantage, the Fritsche's douche is the best that can be used). The injection is then made, a liberal amount of the hot medicated solution being used.

There is need of caution in chronic cases, that the effervescence which attends the destruction of the unhealthy tissue does not force some of the debris into the Fallopian tubes. This is best avoided by using a large quantity of the solution, and afterwards directing the patient to assume the upright position. The pressure thus brought to bear upon the uterus will cause the complete discharge of all debris.

A preliminary vaginal douche should always be taken, using the medicated solution, as otherwise, harm might ensue by the entrance into the uterus of the vaginal secretions. The author warns against the use of the vaginal douche if the cervix be patulous, as there is an almost certain danger of the infected vaginal debris being forced into the uterine cavity. To avoid this the vagina should be cleansed by the local use of the medicated solution through the speculum.

The author believes Hydrozone to be the best remedy for cystitis occurring either in the male or female. The bladder should be washed out with the solution (one to eight) a small quantity being used at first in chronic cases, owing to the painful muscular contractions following the withdrawal of the solution. The amount can be gradually increased. (A double current hard rubber catheter should always be used for that purpose). In gonorrhea, gleet, and cystitis, the local treatment is oftentimes aided by the internal administration of hourly doses of calcium sulphide one-tenth of a grain.

ANESTHETICS AT MT. SINAI HOSPITAL.-A study of the ten years' record of the administration of anesthetics at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, (W. H. Luckett, in Medical News, December 11, 1897,) shows the following: Total number of anesthesias, under chloroform, 4,263, with I death; ether 4,673, no death; chloroform to ether, 141, no death; ether to chloroform, 116, no death; cocain to chloroform, 6, no death; cocain to ether, 10, no death; cocain, 706, no death; nitrous oxide gas, 142, no death. Grand total anesthesias, 10,221; total deaths, I. The patient dying

under chloroform was a healthy adult; not an alcoholic, but a user of tobacco to excess. Against orders he smoked his pipe on the morning of the operation. He apparently took the anesthetic well, but died as he was being lifted from the stretcher to the table, "death having apparently resulted from simultaneous respiratory and cardiac paralysis-whatever that may mean."

MENTAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES.

CONDUCTED BY J. U. BARNHILL, A. M., M. D.

THE NEURON Aand Disease.-During the last few years a revolutionary change in our conceptions as to the structure and functions of the nervous system has been brought about by the method of successive staining with chromium and silver introduced by Golgi. This reveals in hitherto unknown distinctness the course and form of the processes of the nerve-cells in the grey matter. It has shown that these processes, till now believed to join, are in truth discontinuous, ending freely in the ground substance or matrix in which the cells lie, and in which only the dimmest trace of structure can be seen. The cells and their processes thus form a series of discontinuous elements, and it is to these elements that the name of "neurons" was first applied by Waldeyer eight years ago. What was formerly called the axis-cylinder process is now known as the "axon," while the remaining, branching, processes are termed "dendrons." The attempt to replace this now generally adopted nomenclature by one more literally correct is confusing, and to be deprecated.

The first important new fact, then, is the discontinuity of the neurons; the second is that, as pointed out by Max Schultze 30 years ago, the axons are not single fibres, but are made up of a number of parallel fibrils perhaps as many as 50 in each. These are composed of a substance called hyaloplasm, and are separated from one another by a similar but slightly different material termed spongioplasm. It is significant that these bodies, the distinction between which is ordinarily well-nigh imperceptible. should respond so differently and so characteristically to the chemical substances contained in the new staining reagents. This fact throws much light on the selective power of bodies, such as strychnine, atropine, lead, and arsenic, for various particular elements of the nervous system. The new facts at once clear up another hitherto insoluble mystery, the division of axis-cylinders near their terminations. This is now seen to be merely the separation for distributive purposes of the fibrils whereof they are composed. Furthermore, Max Schultze observed and figuredthough he did not describe it in so many words-the uninterrupted passage of these fibrils through the nerve-cells. Hence we arrive at a new conception of the functions of the latter, which are

no longer the manufactories of nervous impulses, but thereby the nutritive centres of the nerve-fibrils. From them a thin line of protoplasm-thickening at intervals to enclose nuclei-spreads along each axon to subserve its nutrition. Propulses run to the cell along the dendrons, and from it along the axons, and the conditions of their generation and transmission in the centres and at the periphery are thus harmonized. The conception of the cell as the originator of nervous energy thus becomes not only unnecessary, but even incongruous. The exact nature of the process which goes on in the matrix between the extremities of the dendrons and axons is still uncertain. In a peculiar colorless shrimp these extremities have, it is said, been seen to move about among one another like cilia, but it is doubtful whether our present powers of investigation would permit of the accurate observation of such a phenomena.

The difficulty of conceiving the origin of co-ordinated impulses from the terminations of neurons in the matrix is lessened by the consideration that all matter is built up of similar multiplicity of minute elements; the same holds with physical phenomena, such as light.

Turning to the application of these facts to nervous pathology we find in them at once an explanation of secondary degenerations in the grey matter. The mystery of the cessation of degeneration of the motor tracts in the cord at the motor nervecell is cleared up at once when we discover that the supposed continuity between the two does not exist. The axons of the pyramidal tracts degenerate, but the dendrons of the motor cells in the anterior cornua escape. Not less striking is the elucidation of the action of toxic substances on the nervous elements. The poison of tabes-produced, no doubt, by the syphilitic organism-exerts its influence in two places, the fibres ascending to the cord and the postero-median columns. We now know that these both belong to neurons whose nutritive centres are the ganglioncells of the posterior roots, and we are enabled to infer that the poison has a specific effect upon these neurons. In paralysis agitans, again, we have a ready explanation of the absence of secondary degeneration in the pyramidal tract, for the disease is due. to senile decay affecting the dendrons of the cortical cells, but not their axons. As an example of the harmony between processes affecting neuronic terminations at the centre and the periphery we have the similarity between lateral sclerosis and degenerative peripheral neuritis. In each case we have a degeneration beginning in the parts of the axons farthest removed from the nutritive centres; in the first instance this is at the terminations of the pyramidal fibres in the central grey matter of the cord, in the second, at the terminations of the peripheral axons; each may extend a certain distance up the implicated fibres. Even where the application of the new views appears most difficult, as in epilepsy, it