Majendie, Andeal and Velpeau.-M. Locock, accoucheur to Queen Victoria, has been summoned by telegraph to Paris, where he met MM. Dubois and Moreau in consultation, as to the supposed pregnancy of the Empress Eugenie; which has been decided in the affirmative.Sir Benjamin Brodie, in his" Physiological Inquiries," considers that insanity is always dependent upon bodily disease, and that there is no necessary connection between the brain and the mind.- -The Medical Society of London celebrated its 82nd anniver sary on the 8th of March, when an oration was delivered by Mr. J. F. Clarke, Vice President. It is the parent of all other medical societies in Great Britain. Mr. J. Snow is President for 1855-According to Professor Eschevich's tables, the mortality among medical men is greater than in the other professions; three-fourths of medical men dying before 50 years of age, and ten-elevenths before 60. Of 1,168 alive in 1852, only four were above 80 years of age.- -Dr. Barth, the distinguished traveller, announced as dead by the British Consul at Tripoli, has come to life again, as appears by his letter of 15th November, at Karrs, Africa. Long life to him!

Mr. Syme on Chloroform.-So far as I can ascertain, from what I have heard and read upon the subject, there are important differences between the mode of administration of chloroform here and in London. It appears that here it is given according to principle, there according to rule. There, great attention is paid to the number of drachms or minims employed; here we are entirely regardless of the amount used, and are guided only by the symptoms of the patient. The points that we consider of the greatest importance in the administration of chloroform are-First, a free admixture of air with the vapor of the chloroform, to ensure which, a soft porous material, such as a folded towel or handkerchief, is employed, presenting a pretty large surface, instead of a small piece of lint or any other apparatus held to the nose. Secondly, if this is attended to, the more rapidly the chloroform is given the better, till the effect is produced; and, hence, we do not stint the quantity of chloroform. Then-and this is a most important point-we are guided as to the effect, not by the circulation but entirely by the respiration; you never see anybody here with his finger on the pulse while chloroform is given. So soon as the breathing becomes stertorous we cease the administration; from what I have learned, it is sometimes pushed further elsewhere, but this we consider in the highest degree dangerous. Thirdly, attention to the tongue is another point which we find of great consequence. When respiration becomes difficult, or ceases, we open the mouth, seize the tip of the tongue with artery-forceps, and pull it well forward; and there can be little doubt that death would have occurred in some cases, if it had not been for the use of this expedient. We also always give the chloroform in the horizontal position, and take care that there is no article of clothing constricting the neck. There are thus considerable differences between our practice and that which prevails, more or less, elsewhere. We use no apparatus whatever, take the respiration for our guide, attend to the condition of the tongue, and never continue beyond the point when the patient is fully under the influence of the anæs thetic.

You observe that in this matter I am very far from taking any credit to myself; all that I have done has been to follow the example of Dr. Simpson, and all that I would say respecting our brethren in London is, that they have not been so fortunate as to get into the right way in the first instance; and I would urge upon them to banish all previous notions, and to keep in view the essential points to which I have alluded, and then, if unfortunately there should still be fatal cases, I shall not presume to speak further upon the subject. As the matter at present stands, the discussions prevalent in the profes sion tend to give the public a dread of chloroform, and to limit the advantages

which it confers; and so long as the difference of opinion seemed due to important difference of practice, I felt called upon to address to you the observations I have made.-London Lancet.

Re-vaccination in the Russian army in 1853.-Vaccination was performed upon 44.652 men in the Russian army during the year 1853; and of the whole number re-vaccinated, 28,329 had the regular vaccine eruption--5,933 had an irregular eruption, and 7,664 had none at all, making a proportion of 69 in the hundred of those previously vaccinated. Of the whole, 44,652 men, 32,642 presented clear evidences of the vaccine cicatrix; in 7,643 the character of the scars was doubtful, and 4,367 had no scars at all.

During the twenty years ending in 1853, the proportion of successful revaccinations has almost constantly increased, the first and second years of this series (1833-34,) not giving quite half the number of successful re-vaccinations in the hundred as the two latter, (1852-'33.)

During the year 1853, 106 cases of varioloid, 25 cases of chicken-pox, and 7 of small-pox, occurred in the army.

There has just died in the village of Reindorff, in France, in his seventyfifth year, a veteran of the French army, M. Peter Klein, who at the battle of Austerlitz, on the 2d December, 1805, was struck by a Russian musket ball, which lodged in his left temple, just above the ear, and remained there to the day of his death, a period of nearly 50 years, without having caused him any pain or at all affected his intellectual faculties. After the death of M. Klein, his family, to whom he had bequeathed this ball, to be preserved as a souvenir of his campaigns, had it extracted by Dr. Backe, a surgeon of Bonn, who performed the operation by means of trepanning, so that the ball remains surrounded by a ring formed by part of the skull. The ball on the side which touched the brain is covered with a hard skin, and on the other side with a skin similar to that on the outside of the head.. The brain had not been at all injured, nor was there any appearance of any fracture in the skull near the spot where the ball had lodged. The medical men express their astonishment that a foreign substance could have remained so near the brain without the intellect of the person being somewhat affected.

Chorea in a woman upwards of eighty-three years of age.-M. Roger has recently reported to one of the Medical societies of Paris, the case of a woman eighty-three years and two months old affected with true chorea, without any appreciable lesion of the brain or spinal marrow, and whose cure took place in a shorter period of time than the disease is usually cured in young girls. It was treated with a combination of oxide of zinc and belladonna internally, and the external use of chloroform diluted with water.

Weekly Mortality. CITY.-For the week ending June 2d, 1855, 399 :— Consumption, 49; apoplexy, 2; congestion of brain, 5; bronchitis, 4; pneumonia, 19; croup, 14; scarlet fever, 11; measles, 16; small pox, 2; typhus fever (including "typhoid"), 6. For the week ending June 9th, 356:-Consumption, 40; apoplexy, 1; congestion of brain, 8; dysentery, 10; bronchitis, 6; pneumonia, 17; croup, 9; scarlet fever, 20; measles, 4; small pox, 6; typhus fever, (including "typhoid"), 18. For the week ending June 16th, 355:Consumption, 36; apoplexy, 4; congestion of brain, 5; bronchitis, 5; pneumonia, 21; croup, 10; scarlet fever, 21; measles, 3; small pox, 2; typhus fever, 2. For the week ending June 23d, 322:-Consumption, 33; apoplexy, 3; congestion of brain, 1; diarrhoea, 7; dysentery, 7; bronchitis, 3; pneumonia, 13; croup, 9; scarlet fever, 25; measles, 10; small pox, 1; typhus fever (including "typhoid"), 7. For the week ending June 30th, 341:-Consumption, 28; apoplexy, 3; congestion of brain, 7; diarrhoea, 8; dysentery, 7; cholera infantum, 10; pneumonia. 7; croup, 8; scarlet fever, 14; measles, 10; typhus fever (including "typhoid"), 8.

Comparison of the Weather and Deaths for the Six Weeks ending

The increase of disease, which was probably caused by the greater heat and moisture of the 26th week of 1855, has not yet augmented the mortality. In all other respects, the city has been unusually healthy, as there have been fewer zymotic and sporadic causes of disease than usual, mostly owing to the continued cool weather, and the comparative absence of unripe fruit usually exposed for sale in our city at this season of the year.

MARRIED.

At Pembrook, Philadelphia, on 7th May, JOSEPH KIng Merritt, M. D., of New York, and VIRGINIA, daughter of General WILLIAM NORRIS, of Philadelphia.

NECROLOGY.

DIED, at Pembrook, on the 9th May, of phthisis, VIRGINIA, wife of J. KING MERRITT, M. D.-At Portsmouth, N. H., on 25th May, Dr. JOSEPH DWIGHT, æt. 79.-At South Roxbury, Mass., on 29th May, JESSE CHICKERING, M. D., a distinguished statistician.- -At sea, on 9th February, of phthisis, CYRUS B. CLARK, M. D., of Westfield, N. J., æt. 26.—At Medford, Mass., June, Dr. ALFRED B. STOWE, æt. 25.- -At Lawrence, Kansas, on 29th May, Dr. H. CLARK, of Georgia, æt. 40.- At Savannah, Geo., June 10th, Dr. J. RIORDAN.

-At Pullard, Me., June 7th, JOHN MERRILL, M. D., æt. 73.- Recently, at Staunton, Va., at an advanced age, Dr. JOSEPH ADDISON WADDEL, son of the celebrated"Blind Preacher" of Virginia. In his day he attained to great eminence in his profession.-At Philadelphia, June 26th, Dr. THOMPSON HOLMES, of Accomac, Va., æt. 75.-At Glasgow, on 11th May, JOHN COWPER, M. D., Professor of Materia Medica in Glasgow University.——At Beccles, Suffolk, in May, MARTIN BARRY, M. D., F. R. S., æt. 53.-At Balaklava, in May, Dr. HECTOR GAVIN, æt. 39, a distinguished writer on Public Health, sent out by the British government as sanitary commissioner to the hospitals at Scutari and Smyrna.- -At Mosul, Asia Minor, 25th March, Rev. HENRY LOBDELL, M. D., of Danbury, Conn., æt. 28, a medical Missionary of the American Board C. F. M.

THE

NEW YORK MEDICAL TIMES.

VOL. IV.

AUGUST, 1855.

No. 11.

Original Communications.

Two Cases of Recto-Vaginal Fistula, cured by a new operation. By ISAAC E. TAYLOR, M. D., Visiting Physician of Bellevue Hospital. CASE I. I WAS requested to visit Mrs. M., of Brooklyn, in the early part of September, 1854; aged 30 years; married; had had no children; general health very good. She stated to me that the contents of the bowels and flatus passed into the vagina. The history of the case is as follows: on her return from Europe in a sailing packet in June last, a few days after she sailed from Liverpool, she noticed in the region of the anus and perineum, the parts considerably inflamed; which she supposed might possibly be from an inflamed hemorrhoid (though she had not been subject to them), and the cause of which she attributed to having sat upon the deck of the vessel in the evening too long a time. The inflammation increased, and assumed the character of an acute abscess, occurring in the cellular tissue of the perineum, and to such an extent as to extend up the left labium internum till it found an outlet in the vagina near the meatus urinarius. The discharge was kept up for some days; and on the 14th day she first discovered that fæces and flatus passed into the vagina. The inflammation subsided, but the irritation of the vagina was kept up by the continual passage of the contents of the bowels into it. Under the hope and expectation that time and nature would aid her and relieve her of the unpleasant difficulty, she allowed it to remain, though various remedies were tried, till I was requested to visit her, September 9th, 1854.

On investigation, the opening in the vagina was about half an inch from the meatus urinarius, and a half to three quarters inch in the vagina, on the left side of the labium internum. It admitted a silver probe to be passed an inch and a half in a straight direction near to the middle of the perineum, and then took a course up and along and down the left side of the vagina, to the posterior portion of the rectum,

until the probe was felt in the rectum at the distance of two and a half inches from the extremity of the anus, or one inch from the upper part of the internal sphincter muscle. The muscular fibers of the rectum intervened between the probe and the mucous membrane of the rectum, but on bringing the probe more in front, it could be felt just above the internal sphincter muscle, having also a part of the muscular coat between it and the mucous coat of the rectum. The upper opening must therefore have been so small as not to have been discovered by the probe, and above the highest point the probe could be felt. The ulcerated opening in the rectum was as large nearly as a three-cent piece. The sinus, therefore, pursued a very tortuous course.

Having operated a few years since on a similar case, though more simple in its character than Mrs. M.'s, I was much gratified to be able to give my patient hope of success in remedying the unpleasant and disagreeable affection she was laboring under.

A few days after her next monthly period had occurred, I proceeded to operate. Ether was given, to a moderate extent, as she was much averse to an esthetic agents. A director was introduced into the vaginal opening, and passed in a straight line as far as the sinus went till it passed upwards, and then carried down to the left side of the anus within half an inch of the anus, and brought as much forward as could well be done; and being held by an assistant, a small but deep incision was made of three quarters to one inch in depth, and half an inch from the verge of the anus, till the director was perceived; the director was then removed, and introduced through the external opening that was made by the side of the anus, and passed to the thinnest portion, near the ulcerated opening in the rectum. The bistoury was then used, and the sphincter divided as in simple fistula in ano. The wound was dressed, and treated as is usual in the ordinary cases of that disease. The progress of the case was favorable, and on the 16th day she had not perceived any faces or flatus to have passed through for five days; when she attempted to walk down stairs, and she thought she felt something had given way, and on her return to her couch discovered some discharge through the vaginal opening; and in the evening flatus was noticed. Regretting deeply the want of success from the first operation, a second trial was made; but instead of the knife, the ligature was adopted, and on Nov. 15th the following method was carried out. A silver probe, armed with a silken ligature at the upper end, was introduced, as in the previous instance down to the left side of the anus, half an inch from it, and