habit, I thought, if my view of the case was a correct one, that both bloodletting and confinement to the sofa would rather tend to increase than lesson the danger, by weakening the general tone of the system, and rendering her more susceptible of slight impressions. I therefore advised her, instead of lying all day upon the sofa, to keep out in the open air on fine days as much as possible, without, however, fatiguing herself, and to live in the manner she usually found to agree best with her. Under this plan of treatment, she passed the twelfth week without the slightest threatening, to her very great joy and the gratification of her friends. Happening, however, in about a fortnight afterwards, to visit a sister who was very ill, she was so shocked at her appearance that she was immediately seized with the usual symptoms premonitory of miscarriage. She had a discoloured leucorrheal discharge, which, in a few hours, was followed by uterine pains, being exactly the symptoms which had ushered in all her former attacks. She took the opium pills as I had directed her, and before morning the pains and discharge had all subsided, and in a day or two she was as well as she had been before. She then resumed the zinc and valerian for three or four weeks, after which period I did not consider it necessary to continue them. She went on to her full time without the slightest uneasiness, and was finally delivered of a fine child, which is now well and thriving.

Very soon after this lady had applied to me, and when I had just obtained strong presumptive evidence of the success of the treatment adopted, Mrs. H. consulted me with a view of obtaining advice as to the best means of preventing premature labour, which, she feared, was about to come on. It had already occurred to her four times successively; the infant dying in the middle of the sixth month, and her delivery of a dead child taking place at the end of it. She had now completed the fourth month of her pregnancy. On making some inquiries to ascertain whether she had had at any time a syphilitic affection, I could only glean, that she had suffered with soreness in the vagina for three or four months after her marriage, for which mercurials had been prescribed. This was obviously a very different case from the one already related. In the latter, hæmorrhage and pain came on first, and the child died as a consequence. In the former, the child died in the first instance, and premature labour followed. In Mrs. C.'s case the mere influence of habit, the tendency in the constitution to be influenced periodically, brought on labour. In Mrs. H.'s case the infant died through some unknown cause, and labour came on because of its death. There did not appear, therefore, to be any analogy which could suggest a treatment precisely similar. Taking into consideration the probability of the child's death being occasioned by some syphilitic taint in the habit, I therefore decided on giving calomel and opium in small doses, so as to affect the gums slightly; and subsequently with a view of preventing the accession of labour at the end of the sixth month, from the influence of habit, to adopt the same plan which had been pursued so suc. cessfully in the case of Mrs. C. After a fortnight or three weeks

the gums became sore, upon which the calomel was suspended, and pills of oxide of zinc, with the valerian mixture prescribed for Mrs. C., were substituted. Under this treatment, Mrs. H. passed the usual period at which labour came on, and continued in good health to the 7th July, when she was attacked with griping pains and slight flooding. These symptoms subsided by keeping perfectly at rest, and taking a few anodyne pills. On the 17th of the same month, when she had reached within four weeks of her full time, she was seized with threatenings of labour, and on the 19th was delivered of a living child, which died after some hours. This lady resided in the country, at a considerable distance from me, and could not receive that immediate attention and advice, which, if she had been in town, would probably have enabled her to go to her full time.

About the same time these cases were under my care, I was consulted by Mrs. A., who had also been seized with premature labour, in consequence of the infant dying in the seventh month for three successive years. In her last labour she was seized with violent puerperal convulsions, during which she was delivered of an infant, which had evidently been dead for many days.

I had not had the medical management in the earlier labours, and was merely called in a little before the lady's confinement; and in the last I had, therefore, no opportunity of adopting any preventive treatment. When she was again pregnant, however, and approached the seventh month, I adopted the same treatment as I had done in the former cases, partly to counteract, if possible, any tendency to labour arising from acquired habit, and partly that I thought it not impossible the same influence which was capable of controlling a periodical movement in the system comprehending months, might also control causes tending to the death of the child. The lady took the oxide of zinc pills and valerian mixture, three times a day, for some weeks before the period when labour might be expected; and she had opium pills by her, one of which she was directed to take whenever she was seized with uterine pains. These last she had no occasion to take, having gone on remarkably well to her full time, when she fell into natural labour, and was delivered of a living child: it expired, however, almost immediately after. It was obvious here, that the treatment had actually accomplished both the objects I had in view; it had broken up the morbid habit, and it had so interfered with the poisonous influence which had heretofore so invariably, in the seventh month, caused the death of the child, that the latter was born alive. Its death so soon after birth, without any obvious cause, suggested the possibility of some syphilitic taint in the parents, which led to very particular inquiries. The father, it appeared, had not had a syphilitic affection for ten years before his marriage, and never had one since. Acting, however, on the possibility that, even after that long period, some deleterious influence might have been communicated to the mother, and thus evinced itself in the feeble vitality of the offspring, I placed the lady, as soon as she was out of her confinement, under a mild course of calomel (one grain every night,

until her gums became tender.) and again, when she reached the dangerous period, resorted to the zinc and valerian. I had now the happiness of finding all my hopes realized; she went to her full time, and had a fine living infant, which has since been going on well.

In the first of the cases I have given, in which abortion occurred apparently from the acquired habit, the treatment was quite successful. The disposition to premature action in the womb was controlled exactly as the movements to a fit of epilepsy or of ague might have been arrested by some similar means. Quinine, carbonate of iron, or nitrate of silver, might have accomplished the object probably as well as the oxide of zinc and valerian. The latter were preferred chiefly because I believed they would be less likely to injure the fœtus, but also because I had considerable confidence in the influence which both, and especially which large doses of valerian, possess over the nervous movements. In the second case, the lady, who had fallen into labour on four successive occasions at the sixth month, in consequence of the death of the child, carried her child to the eighth month, and it was born alive. This instance, however, can hardly be adduced as evidence of the influence of the zinc and valerian, as it seems probable the death of the child, and consequent premature labour, were owing to some syphilitic taint, which was removed by the mercurial treatment. In the third case,-that of Mrs. A. Z., the inference as to the truth of the principle assumed may be considered more satisfactory, as she reached her full time, and had even a living child before the mercurial treatment was adopted.

These cases are so few in number that I offer them to the profession as evidence of the novel application of a principle long recog nised in the treatment of epilepsy, ague, and other periodical diseases, with some diffidence. The legitimate manner, however, in which the analogy was inferred, and the remarkable success attending the remedial measures is suggested, were too striking not to make a deep impression on my own mind.

The extreme difficulty, too, which practitioners so often feel in the prevention of abortion and premature labour, as well as the deep interest which married people naturally attach to successful treatment in such cases, invest suggestions supported by even a very limited experience with some importance. The valerianate of zinc, which was not in use at the time these cases were under treatment, would have been a far more desirable preparation, and probably quite as effective. Where it is necessary to continue medicines of this class for a long period, it is a great object to be in possession of such an elegant substitute for so disagreeable a mixture as the valerian.Dublin Quart. Journ. of Med. Sci.

Case of Double Amputation. By M. BROUZET.-M. Brouzet relates the case of a man on whom he practised amputation of both legs below the knee, the one immediately after the other, on account of injuries inflicted by a wheel of a railway carriage. The patient suffer

ed comparatively little from the double shook of the injury and the amputations, and made a speedy and perfect recovery.-Revue Medico-Chirurgicale de Paris.

It has been laid down as a precept by two French surgical writers, M. Velpeau, and M. Vidal de Cassis, that the system being unable to stand the shock of a double amputation, two limbs should never be amputated at the same time, at least in such cases of injury as necessitate amputation above the wrist or ankle joints. It appears to us that there are cases, in which no general rule can be laid down, and in which the surgeon must be guided entirely by his own discretion. The propriety of operative interference must depend on the features of each individual case. Two other cases are mentioned by M. Brouzet, of recovery from simultaneous double amputations. In the Hotel des Invalides at Paris, many veterans may be seen enjoying good health, who have lost more than one limb in action, and many cases might be cited, where recovery has followed this severe mutilation.

We have heard of both limbs being amputated at the same moment, by different surgeons, in cases of this kind, but we are doubtful whether the shock to the system is less than when the two limbs are amputated successively.-Monthly Journ. of Med. Science.

Free Trade in Poisons.-A trial for manslaughter by poisoning with Godfrey's cordial took place at Guildford on Saturday last, and it came out on the cross-examination of one of the witnesses, that laudanum and Godfrey's cordial were sold at different shops in the town in common with grocery, cheese, candles, and drapery! One of the shopmen, in answer to a question put to him by the counsel for the defence, said very innocently that he did not know whether they kept prussic acid and arsenic, as well as laudanum, among their articles of grocery !

Not long since a superintendent of police went in disguise to a general shop in a country village and asked for two pennyworth of arsenic. It was immediately weighed in the scales in which coffee and other articles were weighed, and handed to him by the old woman who kept the shop. Upon asking her whether she was not in the habit of marking "poison" upon articles of this kind, her answer was: "Lor bless you, I can't write to begin with, and then it would frighten people if poison was written on it." This experiment was made in order to ascertain with what facility enough arsenic might be procured to destroy the lives of almost one hundred persons and it was perfectly successful! It furnishes a clue to the cause of the abundant occupation given to coroners, magistrates, judges, barristers, and others, in detecting and punishing individuals for the perpetration of crimes which the Government takes not the slightest pains to prevent.-Lond. Med. Gazette.

Monument in Westminster Abbey to John Hunter.-Meetings have lately been held at the Royal College of Surgeons, attended by most

of the surgeons of the metropolitan hospitals, for the purpose of organizing a committee among themselves, in co-operation with the Council, for the purpose of raising a monument in Westminster Abbey to the memory of John Hunter. The circumstances under which the proposal was made are exceedingly creditable to all parties; it appears that after the delivery of the late Hunterian oration, when the members of the Council, with their distinguished visiters, dined at the Freemasons' Tavern, the Rev. Dr. Buckland, the eminent geologist, in returning thanks for his health, stated that soon after his installation to the deanery of Westminster, whilst walking round the Abbey with Professor Owen, he expressed to that gentleman his regret that the medical profession, of which Hunter was so bright an ornament, had not yet erected any monument to his memory, and suggested the propriety of one being placed in a vacant niche near Dr. Baillie's, generously offering, should his suggestion be adopted, to forego the fees to which he would have been entitled, and to promote the object as far as he could. The wish thus expressed was immediately responded to by the Council, who have invited the susgeons of the metropolitan hospitals to confer with them on the best means for carrying out the object in question.-Ibid.

On the Exhalation of Bicarbonate of Ammonia by the Lungs. By LEWIS THOMPSON, M. R. C. S. &c.-H.aving lately had occasion to ascertain the amount of moisture given off by the lungs of several healthy individuals during a fixed period, I was induced to examine the nature of the fluid thus condensed.

The result has proved that bicarbonate of ammonia, is constantly exhaled from the lungs, to the extent of rather more than three grains every twenty-four hours for each individual; and although this quantity may appear trifling, yet the amount arising from a large population like that of London is well worthy of notice, and must exceed 150 tons of solid bicarbonate of ammonia per annum ; and if, as is extremely probable, other animals also exhale this substance, the atmosphere must not only always contain enough of this agent for the purposes of vegetation, but by a reciprocal action, the mutual increase of vegetables and animals would only tend to render the air better adapted for the due development of both. The existence of ammonia in the breath, may be easily demonstrated by respiring air that has been passed through diluted sulphuric acid, and then expiring it through a tube surrounded by water at 32° F., to the further end of which a vessel is attached to receive the fluid which condenses. On acidulating this fluid with or two drops of pure muriatic acid and evaporating to dryness on a water bath, a residue will be obtained, which, when dissolved in fire or six drops of water, and introduced into a test tube, will give off ammonia on the addition of a strong solution of potash, as evidences by its action on turmeric paper and muriatic acid, or by its peculiar smell. The respiratory process should be continued for an hour or two.

It would be interesting to know whether any difference is observable in the amount of ammonia exhaled by the lungs of individuals,