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small-pox; the second completes the process. In the last case the organism was insusceptible to variola, and the revaccination was consequently useless. But how is this to be known? There is no sign to guide the practitioner, and in his uncertainty he consults prudence, in the absence of the light of science. He revaccinates everybody, preferring to do a thing that may be useless to the greatest number, than to leave the others in a false security.

The essential point is, not to use for revaccination any vaccine of which one is not perfectly sure, otherwise the test will not deserve the slightest confidence. This precaution is not so absolutely necessary for the first vaccination. If good pocks do not appear we may repeat the vaccination two or even three times, until the resistance of the organism is overcome. But for revaccination the case is different; we rely on the first trial, and so much the more readily as the failure redounds to the credit of the first vaccination. And yet we have known practitioners who employed dry vaccine preserved between glasses; they generally failed, and from their want of success they immediately concluded that revaccination was utterly useless. To them we say that that experience is valueless, the negative result of which may be attributed to the improper mode of procedure, or to the unskilfulness of the artist.

On the use of Sulphate of Bebeerine in Menorrhagia.

BY PROF. A. P. MERRIL, M.D.

A few weeks ago I was summoned in haste to a lady suffering from an attack of menorrhagia. She had been long subject to excessive menstrual discharges, and uterine hæmorrhages, and had been treated for them by several physicians without success. I administered five grains of the sulphate of Bebeerine, which I happened to have in my pocket, and ordered twenty pills of four grains each, one of which she was directed to take every two hours until relief should be obtained. On visiting her the succeeding day, she showed me the twenty pills, and said the dose I had given her suspended the discharge before they were brought from the druggist, and she deemed it unnecessary to take them. One other case occurring about the same time, in all respects very similar to the above, was relieved, also, by a single dose of five grains. I could relate more than a dozen cases besides the foregoing, more or less severe, in which the sulphate of bebeerine has been successful. Several women of this

city are now in the habit of keeping the remedy always at hand, with perfect confidence, from the results of their own experience, of being able to restrain excessive menstruation and uterine hæmorrhage, whenever they may occur. In several cases, also, I have known it relieve leucorrhoeal discharges, and to give tone and vigour to the vagina, suffering relaxation from the effect of such discharges; and it is the only internal remedy upon which I have been able to rely, for the relief of pruritus vulvæ et vagina. Whether this remedy will prove to be as valuable as the above experiments would seem to indicate, remains to be proved; and it is with a view to elicit such proof, that this publication is made.-Memphis Med. Recorder.

Remedies for Hæmorrhage.

In the Monthly Homeopathic Review for December, 1856, Dr. Thomas directs the attention of the profession to the anti-hæmorrhagic virtues of the Hamamelis virginiana and the Acalypha indica. Neither of these remedies has been adequately proved, yet sufficient results have been obtained to show that they have certainly the power of causing hæmorrhage from various organs. The Hamamelis has been found useful by Dr. Preston, of Rhode Island, in epistaxis; active uterine hæmorrhage caused by a fall; passive uterine hæmorrhage; vomiting and purging of blood; melæna; chronic varices, and many cases of bleeding piles. Dr. Okie, of the same State, found it useful in a case of congestion and inflammation of the internal genitals in a girl, caused by a blow on the region of the left ovary; also in bleeding or painful piles characterized by burning, soreness, fulness and rawness of anus, with a feeling of weakness or weariness in the back, as if it would break. He has further found it of use in epistaxis, hæmoptysis, phlegmasia alba and varicose ulcers. Dr. Belcher, of New York, gave it (along with other remedies) in a case of variola, accompanied by epistaxis and purpura, and he conceives with good effect. Dr. Hering, of Philadelphia, has given it successfully in severe pleuritic stitches accompanying phthisis. He calls it a "union of Aconite and Arnica." He also employs it in some inflammatory affections of the eye.

The Acalypha indica has been successfully used by Dr. Tonnerre, of Calcutta, in hæmoptysis, which symptom he alleges it produced on his own person. We think it right to call the attention of our colleagues to those two remedies, as lately we observe there has

been rather a tendency on the part of some of them to fall back on styptics, and other more injurious allopathic appliances, in cases of hæmorrhage.

Rapid Treatment of Itch.

By MM. DUSARD and PILLON.

The remedy here mentioned is the chloride of sulphur dissolved in sulphuret of carbon. The chloride, easily obtained by the action of chlorine on sulphur, was at first employed in its pure state in minute quantities, but this not acting promptly enough, the sulphuret of carbon was, after various trials, chosen as the best vehicle. Twelve grammes of chloride are dissolved in 100 of the sulphuret, this being the utmost quantity required for an adult. The application should be made in a well-ventilated room, removing all copper articles liable to tarnish. The patient is placed quite naked on a stool, and his head is covered with an immense cone made of strong paper, open only at top, so as to protect the face from the effect of the sulphureous vapours which exhale. The whole surface is rapidly smeared over with the mixture, by means of a large badger's-hair-brush or charpie, applying it especially to the parts where the acari most resort. Any hospital attendant can do this. A general sense of heat, without painful smarting, immediately follows, and the patient is thus cured in five minutes. The itching ceases as if by magic. After thirty-six hours a bath is taken, the patient being recommended to abstain from washing his hands and neck until then; and baths on alternate days for a week, to complete the treatment. Complications that may have arisen may, however, require treatment; but they soon subside. When eczema predominates, some gelatinous or starchy baths are employed, and porrigo is usually relieved by alkaline baths. When the complications are very aggravated, they should be somewhat modified before the treatment is commenced, or this may cause pain. After disappearing, the itching may return in five or six days, but it is of a different kind, dependent on persistent porrigo, and relieved by alkaline baths.-L'Union Méd. 1855. No. CIX.

Practical Joking on an Infinitesimal Scale.

Meissner in his Recollections of Heinrich Heine relates the following anecdote of that distinguished poet and satirist :

The homœopath Dr. R sometimes came to see Heine. The poet had made his acquaintance in rather a singular manner. Some years previously Heine and his wife met the violinist Ernst in Lyons. They had formerly known one another in Paris. As Heine was on his way to Paris, the musician requested the poet to take to his physician there, as a present from him, one of those enormous Lyons sausages, enveloped in tin-foil, which are esteemed such a delicacy. Heine accepted the commission. In those days there were no railways to whirl one in a few hours from Lyons to Paris; the journey in the diligence lasted a long time, and Mrs. Matilda grew hungry. What could be more natural than to cut off a small piece of the sausage, whose gigantic proportions and whose savoury odour filled the coupé. Mrs. Heine tasted a bit and pronounced it excellent. Heine followed her example and was equally charmed. The journey lasted another day, the sausage diminished more and more, and by the time the worthy couple reached Paris it so happened that there remained only a small fragment of the mighty monster. Heine now began to feel how scurvily he had executed his commission. What did he do? He took a razor, shaved off a thin transparent slice of the sausage, and sent it in an envelope to the doctor, accompanied by the following lines:-"Sir, your investigations have completely proved that millionth parts produce the most powerful effects. Enclosed is the millionth part of a Lyons sausage, which Mr. Ernst gave me to take to you. If homœopathy be true, it will have the same effect on you as though it were a whole sausage."

A Homœopathic Mayor.

The election to the supreme civic office of mayor has of late years given frequent opportunities to the burgesses of our towns to shew their freedom from sectarian prejudices. Thus we have seen the civic chair of various towns filled by quakers, Roman catholics, and Jews, amid the gratulations of those who call themselves friends of progress, and the frantic denunciations of the partisans of fogydom, and the self-appointed defenders of our glorious constitution of Church and State. When we consider that the odium medicum is scarcely inferior in intensity and bitterness to the odium theologicum, we cannot help viewing the recent election of a homœopathic physician as mayor of Doncaster as a triumph of liberality over prejudices which we know to our cost are not confined to the profession.

Either the feeling particularly mild in Dunn must be very

At Doncaster, on the 10th of November, our zealous and enterprising colleague, Dr. George Dunn, was unanimously elected mayor of that ancient borough. Of course we cannot look upon this as a triumph of homœopathy otherwise than in a negative point of view. The existing prejudices against homoeopathy were not sufficient to outweigh the claims of Dr. Dunn to the suffrages of his fellow burgesses, and he was unanimously elected mayor. of the allopaths against homoeopathy must be Doncaster, or the claims and merits of Dr. transcendent that no opposition was raised to his election by the allopaths of the town. We believe the latter is the true state of the case. Dr. Dunn has rendered himself most popular with his townsmen by his untiring endeavours to improve the sanitary condition of his adopted town, and by his establishment of a hospital has shewn that his philanthropic zeal led him to spare neither time, labour, nor expense in the work of beneficence. To oppose a man who had shown so practically his willingness and ability to add to the material and social welfare of his fellow townsmen, on the ground of his heretical medical faith, would have been too absurd, and accordingly no opposition was made to him by the allopaths, who would no doubt derive a certain amount of satisfaction in thinking that they therein displayed a praiseworthy amount of forbearance and liberality.

We sincerely congratulate our worshipful colleague on his election, and have no doubt he will continue to shew during his occupation of the civic chair, as he has during his career as alderman, that the profession of a homœopathic creed is not inconsistent with the possession of the virtues of liberality and enlightened views of sanitary and social improvement.

A Mare's Nest!

It is probable that one of our courts of law will soon have to settle the question whether homœopathic globules are or are not medicines, and whether their sale brings the vendor within the power of the Apothecaries' Company. We should be sorry to raise the members of the declining sect to the dignity of martyrs, and should prefer to see them sink quietly into the oblivion so rapidly clouding over them; but there is one consideration which we trust will not be lost sight of-if a medical man neglect a patient, and the patient suffer from his negligence, the medical man may be cast in an action with heavy damages. Then comes the question, is a patient neglected

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