and cesspools, and also in the wards, when the air was tainted by purulent expectoration or discharge from sores, with the effect of immediately removing the disagreeable odours. It has also been used in surgery with good effect, in removing the smell of putrefying animal substances, and the odour of dead bodies under inspection: when employed as a dressing to ulcers, it removes the disagreeable smell of purulent matter, and, in the proportion of one part of the clear solution to eighteen of water, it preserves subjects of natural history from putrefaction, and in a fit state of anatomical inspection, after more than a year has elapsed. A similar testimony in favour of the solution of the chloride, is borne by the assistant surgeon of the Marine Hospital at Woolwich, who adds, "the great advantage which the chloride of zinc possesses over other agents employed for a like purpose, is, that it removes the disagreeable effluvium, without leaving one little less offensive in its room, and may therefore be made use of wherever this effect is required-in private as well as public buildings, in the sick bed chamber no less than in the crowded ward. The method adopted at this hospital is to supply each of the wards with a bottle of the diluted solution, which the nurses have directions to use whenever occasion may require, besides sprinkling it over the floors before the morning and evening visits are made.

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Its utility in the dissecting-room is confirmed by the statements made by Mr. Bowman, Dr. Sharpey, Mr. Partridge, Dr. Murray, and Dr. V. Pettigrew, who concur in asserting, that in a proper degree of dilution its success is complete, and that it appears to preserve the colour and texture of the parts very admirably. It has, further, the very important advantage of not acting on the steel instruments employed, being in this respect equal to alcohol. Dr. Methven especially mentions an instance in which the solution corrected advancing putrescence, and enabled him to dissect during July. He believes, further, it will be the means of saving many valuable lives, which are annually lost by wounds received in the course of dissection, as, while dissecting this putrid body, he cut himself several times, and once received a punctured wound, without any bad consequences arising. Mr. M'Bain, of the "Mastiff," adds his testimony to the rapid and perfect effects of the chloride of zinc solution upon animal matter in a state of putrefaction. Having frequently opportunities of dissecting or examining large fish, &c., cast on shore, whilst undergoing decomposition, the task has been occasionally any thing but agreeable, for want of a convenient power to destroy the putrefactive process. The chloride in these cases acts like magic; and as a great practical agent over one of the most import conditions of animal and vegetable matter-viz: putrefaction, it stands unrivalled." Its influence on board ship, in annihilating the offensive smell of bilgewater, and in sweetening between decks, is shown by the united evidence of captains, surgeons, and masters in the royal navy. Among other vessels, it was used on board the "Victoria and Albert" royal yacht, to remove a more than ordinary stench of bilge-water, and other offensive odours, with the most complete success. The surgeon

states that she has remained comparatively sweet ever since, and when a bilge-water smell is occasionally perceptible, a slight application of the fluid removes it. The solution has also been used for very disgusting privies, &c., effluvia from which, it quickly neutral

izes.

Mr. Henderson, the surgeon to the dock-yard at Portsmouth, has employed the fluid in a severe case of open cancer, the fœtor from which was intolerable to the patient and attendants: this it destroyed so long as the dressings were kept moist therewith. Professor Quain has used it, he says, in the treatment of sloughing tumours with beneficial result, and he has no doubt it will supplant the chloride of lime and soda altogether in the removal of fœtid odour. Mr. Gibson, surgeon of the "Eurydice," employed it in a case of angry ulcer, in the proportion of one part to four of water. An eschar was the result, the separation of which left the ulcer in a healthy condition.

Several naval and other medical men have employed it as a disinfectant in hospitals, and on board ship, the general results being a marked diminution in the rate of mortality. Dr. Lindsay, Dr. Cronin, and Dr. Connor, of Cork, all bear testimony to its beneficial effects. Mr. Verling, surgeon of the "Vengeance," thus speaks:

"Having used the chloride of zinc rather extensively on board Her Majesty's ship Vengeance,' whilst employed in the conveyance of troops, I think proper to report to you the result thereof. We carried the first battalion of the forty-second regiment, consisting of about 700 men, women, and children, from Malta to Bermuda. Measles had prevailed epidemically in the regiment previously to their embarkation, but we received none on board labouring under the disease; yet after being ten days at sea, several cases occurred simultaneously among the soldiers, and on the 1st of April, having been then a month at sea, the disease appeared among our own people, ten cases occurring on that day, and from that day to the fifteenth of the month, when we arrived at Bermuda, fresh cases were almost of daily occurrence, either among our own people or the troops. On getting rid of the troops, which we did at Bermuda, my attention was of course specially directed to every means whereby the contagion could be destroyed. Cleanliness and ventilation were duly attended to, and every part of the ship where the sick had been, after being cleaned and aired, was sponged well over with the solution of chloride of zinc several times. Than the result, nothing could be better; the disease totally ceased, no fresh case occurring after. On our passage from Halifax, with the sixtieth regiment on board, the weather was so bad, and the ship working so much, that it was quite impossible to open any of the lower-deck ports, on which deck the whole of the people lived, troops as well as our own people, for eight days; the air throughout the deck was exceedingly vitiated with every mixture of noxious smell, but the free use of the chloride of zinc tended, in a most surprising manner, to do away with the bad smell; so much so, that the surgeon of the regiment came to me to get some to use in the part of the ship where the ladies of the officers were.

The effect of the chloride of zinc is most obvious in correcting all bad and offensive effluvia; and from the sudden and surprising manner in which the measles disappeared after its use, it is not, I think, too much to say, that it must have been very instrumental in decomposing the miasma, or state of atmosphere in the ship, which tended to the generation of the disease."

From all these statements, then, it is clear that the solution of the chloride of zinc is a powerful agent in neutralizing noxious gases, and in arresting the progress of decomposition. Sir W. Burnett has therefore rendered, by its discovery, a great benefit to suffering humanity. On board ship, its influence in removing the offensive odours from bilge-water can hardly be too highly estimated, while its action in sweetening the wards of hospitals, and destroying noxious and infectious effluvia, seems to be equally evident.-London Lancet.

MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Dr. Marshall Hall read a paper on the Convulsive Affections of Infants and Children.

The author began by alluding to the dangers attendant on infantile convulsions, to its consequences to mind, limb, and life, and to the possibility of idiocy, or liability to epilepsy, being its result. He then made reference to the causes, forms, and effects of such convulsions, and the mode by which they are induced; and then proceeded more particularly to consider them. He dwelt especially on

1. The terms employed to designate certain forms and symptoms of them; and on one especially, laryngismus stridulus, which the author contended was no more a disease than cough was a disease, any other symptom of disease was a distinct disease." He said, that laryngismus was not always stridulous, but depended on the same causes, whether it was or was not so; the most dangerous forms of it were those which were noiseless. He would associate this symptom, which was certainly one of great peculiarity and danger often, with contraction of the hand, which he would call chirismus, and with that of the foot, which he would style podismus; the term sphincterismus, too, might be applied to spasm of the sphincter ani, or neck of the bladder. "Let the termination in ismus be used only to designate a symptom, and that of a purely nervous or convulsive character."

2. The predisposition to convulsive affections, and laryngismus more especially, was very marked. The latter had been known to affect a whole family. The cause of such predisposition is obscure: was it hereditary? was it the effect of locality, or emanations from the soil?

3. The causes.-No irritation of the cerebrum or cerebellum could immediately produce muscular spasm, as experiment had shown again and again. But irritation of the membranes of the brain might excite it, as appeared from an experiment which he had performed, and recently detailed. Irritation of the medulla oblongata, or medulla

spinalis, produced the most frightful spasms. The incident nerves, when affected at their origin in the cutaneous, mucous, or other tissues, were the most frequent source of the attacks. The condition of the gums in teething, gastric or intestinal disorder; matters retained in the lower part of the alimentary canal; the atmosphere itself, especially when north, east, or north-east winds prevailed; perhaps certain vapours; these were all insisted on as being intimately connected with the production of convulsion, or that form of it called laryngismus. Strabismus, or the spasmodic condition of the hand or foot, might arise from teething, &c.; but the larynx was very apt to be affected by the north or east winds, or other conditions of the atmosphere. He also associated laryngismus stridulus with undue excitability of the spinal centre: when it seemed got rid of, it was very apt. to recur. Hence the precaution of persevering with remedies longer than would otherwise be necessary.

4. The influence of sleep.-He alluded to the frequent occurrence of convulsions at this period, chiefly epilepsy. There was congestion of the nervous centres ther; probably unusual excitability of them. Altogether, it produced a state favourable to convulsive seizures. 5. Cerebral diseases.-On this the author forcibly insisted. He referred to the consequences of inflammation, tubercular granulation. or tumour, and effusion at the base of the brain; and also to the congestion of pertussis.

6. Excited reflex actions.-By far the greater number of convulsions were of a reflex nature. Laryngismus was most effectually avoided by removing every exciting cause of reflex action. He would chiefly guard against four causes of such action: first, irritation of the trifacial nerve, which took place in teething; second, that of the pneumogastric nerve; third, irritation of the spinal nerves; and fourth, the effects of the atmosphere upon the larynx, under certain circumstances. The organs affected in a convulsive seizure were precisely those which its pathology would lead us to expect-the larynx, the sphincters, &c. The author then called the attention of the society to certain bronchitic, hepatic, and renal symptoms, and to the condition of the urine,-points which needed further investigation. He then dwelt on the effect of

7. Emotion, passion, and showed how great and important was the part which they played in the affections he was treating of. He enforced the necessity of bearing them in mind fully in certain cases; he showed that they often constituted the real and only objection to the use of the gum-lancet, which consequently should always be cautiously employed.

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8. The effects of augmented excitability were insisted on. of the nervous system, induced by mild electricity, were compared with those occasioned by disease. The results of increase of excitability were entered into-irritants then acted, which at other times would be inert. A change in the direction of the wind, even, was not without bad consequences. Strychnia induced a species of laryngismus. Emotion, hysteria, epilepsy, tetanus, hydrophobia, all affected the larynx in a special manner.

The author next described those affections of the cerebrum which were consequent on convulsions, the congestion, the effusion, the occasional paralysis, the risk of idiocy, &c. He then passed on to the question of sudden dissolution, demonstrating how difficult it was to forsee it often, and stating how frequently it happened when the patient appeared in progress to recovery. It was the result of common asphyxia, but not rarely of what he had called secondary asphyxia, which he believed was closely dependent on the blood of the coronary arteries being unduly arterialized. The remedies of asphyxia should be enforced promptly in such cases of sudden death.

Some observations were then made on the diagnosis of convulsions, in which the transient, or permanent, or complicated character of symptoms, as the case might be, were all pointed out as modes of assistance in conducting the inquiry. The author drew attention to the post mortem appearances, which varied as the disease was centric or eccentric, or according to the mode of death. There might be the results of inflammation within the cranium, or nothing found whatever but the appearances proper to asphyxia. Lastly, he made some practical observations upon prevention and treatment; as to the latter insisting on an accurate diagnosis as an indispensable preliminary, on a due attention to the complications of the affection, on the necessity of bearing in mind all the varied forms of irritation, and applying the appropriate remedies without delay, on having regard to the state of the patient during the time of sleep, on protecting it from cold air, &c. And if he had shown the application of the physiology of the nervous system to its pathology, he had gained the object which he had in view in bringing the subject before the society.

Mr. Hird considered that the profession were much indebted to Dr. Hall for his researches on the subject of infantile convulsions, and for his explanation in respect to those cases in which the brain was involved in the cause, and where it was not. He agreed generally in the views of the author, but should be afraid to lance the gums so freely and so often as Dr. Hall had recommended in some of his published papers. In the other plans of treatment recommended he fully concurred.

Mr. Barlow agreed fully with Dr. M. Hall as to the ill consequences of cold in laryngismus stridulus. In some cases, a keen wind was certain to bring on the paroxysm. In a case related by Dr. Hugh Ley, the first attack was produced by the application of cold to the head. He thought no one could contradict the correctness of the view which had been taken of the causes of the disease. He believed by far the larger number of cases were eccentric in their origin, and that depleting measures should never be used without much caution. Irritation of the trunk of the nervus vagus produced reflex action, contrarily to what happened in the nerves proceeding to the limbs and he thought that in disease, spasm of the glottis, either with or without crowing, might occasionally be brought on by affections of the trunk of this nerve, giving rise either to direct or reflex closure of the glottis. In a case where Sir Astley Cooper tied the