therefore, be good precaution to defer this As the pain in the region of the uterus was operation, unless urgently called for, till such intense, and supposing this her menstrual time as these causes had passed away. As period, and that the symptoms would be aggraMr. Brown very properly remarks, it is easy vated by the continued secretion of the fluid, to understand how an inflammation in the an immediate operation seemed to be indicated. mucous membrane of the vagina may extend The patient was placed in the lithotomy posito the uterus and through the Fallopian tubes tion, and a visual examination made. The to the peritoneum; but I cannot so readily hymen was about two inches in diameter, adopt his method of removing the hymen by a lined by a mucous membrane of a red color, more surgical procedure than division in cata- and situated, by its anterior attachment, at a menial accumulation and long distension of third of an inch below the meatus urinarius, the uterus. It would seem to be his opinion which was a little enlarged. I explored carethat the fatality of this operation depends on fully with a small probe, but could find no inflammation communicated from the vagina opening into the vagina. I also passed a and uterus, at the same time his method of catheter into the bladder to preclude the possiremoving the hymen by a circular incision at bility that a distension of this organ might the place of its junction with the labia, could cause the pelvic tumor. I made the attempt not but tend to a much more serious disease in to pass a straight bistoury into the vagina, but those organs. That inflammation, also, would the dense fibroid, almost cartilaginous memnot be so readily resolved on account of the brane, receded, notwithstanding considerable considerable distension necessary to prevent pressure from within by the fluid, and wishing subsequent contraction at this point. His to avoid any injury from the too sudden adcases were successfully treated, but it is prob- mission of the knife, I hooked up the memable the fluid secreted at each menstrual period brane with a tenaculum in my left hand, and in the instances mentioned by this gentleman holding it firmly, divided it on the instrument was entirely discharged through the opening antero-posteriorly. Immediately a viscid fluid in the membrane and fistula, before the recur- resembling treacle streamed from the opening, rence of another period, consequently there and continued, to the amount of forty or fifty was no unnatural condition of the organs. ounces. The uterus was then syringed with The blood had not become depraved by the absorption and retention of an excrementitious fluid. There was only an obstruction at the ostium vaginæ.

tepid water, a plug of oiled lint introduced into the vagina, a bandage placed around the abdomen, and the patient placed in bed. The pain in the pelvis subsided. The syringing A case of this kind occurred in my practice was repeated once daily for about two weeks on the 10th of January, 1857. The young following the operation, sometimes using sulp. lady was fourteen years of age, well developed, zinc, 4 grs. to the ounce. On the second and and of a plethoric habit. About a year since third day the discharge became very offensive, she was attacked with suppression of urine, for but soon improved in that respect. A copious which the warm bath and catheter were used, leucorrhoea from direct irritation was estabbut the occlusion was not discovered. For lished by the dilator, and the use of instru something more than a year she has frequently ments, but gradually lessened and ceased on complained of headache, constipation, vertigo, the removal of these causes. Some medicine and dysuria. Several physicians have been was administered as preventive of any exciteconsulted on her case, and she has been treated, ment which might arise, and to correct the as such cases usually are, for a variety of condition of the digestive organs, and no undisorders of the genitourinary organs. toward symptom supervened. Three weeks When I saw her she complained of acute pain from the date of the operation, the patient was in the pelvis and head, and frequent desire to attacked with a severe Bilious Remittent On examination per vaginam, I Fever attended with considerable peritonitis, found a puffy tumor bulging beyond the labia, which, fortunately, did not extend to that porand another in the abdomen as large as a tion of the membrane that passes over the child's head. From these circumstances and uterus. The little discharge that continued the previous history of the case, it was evident was slightly sanguineous at times during this that there had been a regular secretion of sickness, but scarcely sufficient to suppose the menstrual blood for more than a year and a recurrence of a menstrual period. half, and that it had been retained within the It has been advised to make a stellated or uterus and vagina by an imperforate hymen. crucial incision, and remove the angular pieces

of membrane, but I do not think the process and thirty per cent. interest, too long, to do would be attended with advantage in a mem- any kind of justice to the subject. However, brane of this character, which was at least a it may be announced at the onset that physiquarter of an inch in thickness. The annular cians of every imaginable order abound. cicatrix in an already tough membrane would Those knowing the least are actually paid the be still more unyielding, while the danger of best, because their capital cost nothing. On vaginitis from the irritation of what remained the other hand, those highly educated, with would not be diminished. The present pur- a few exceptions, do not get a quarter per cent. pose of the vagina is a conduit for the men- on their investment of a polished classical or strual discharge, and many years may elapse, professional education.

should it not become obliterated within that When a physician's services are required, period, before what remains will require re- no questions are asked in respect to qualificamoval. In the meantime, the uterus will re- tions. A physician is supposed to be a man gain its natural size and condition, the vaginal with a sign on a corner house, or who has an mucous membrane will become less obnoxious office in a building where the rent is high. to inflammation, the constitution recover from Some of those ignoramuses who disgrace every any depraved condition which might augment city, by assuming to be physicians, and thus the danger of subsequent disease, and it could indirectly bring contempt on the regular frathen be removed without the risk of vaginitis, ternity, thrive admirably. How many genuine metritis, or constriction at the vulva. Esculapian philosophers are starving over Nantucket, Feb., 1857. blighted prospects, cannot be ascertained.

(For the Medical World.)

MEDICINE AND SURGERY IN
CHICAGO.

No candidates for public patronage in the place more cordially detest each other, than certain gentlemen who ought to be above the degrading feeling of jealousy that Dr. P. or or Q. are having more to do than themselves.

What do all the wise saws in modern medical ethics amount to? Some of those who discourse beautifully about brotherly harmony MESSRS. EDITORS:-It is not my intention in the ranks, and preach upon the virtue of to alarm the slow coaches of the East, with an obedience to the exact letter of the code, are, account of the astonishing rapidity with which as often as otherwise, michief-making, troublethis young city is developing. We can hardly some, and at the bottom of all the local difficul realize it, who are wedded to the spot. There ties in circles of practice. The irregulars acis no knowing what will become of New York tually take advantage of these rumblings and and Boston, when Chicago is finished! More occasional disruptions, and extend their domain stir, life, energy and hurly-burly of commer- of operations into families where they never cial business is before one's eyes in one day in should have been admitted. Chicago, than transpires in self-complacent, Chicago has some excellent physicians and fanatical, and bigoted Masssachusetts in a surgeons. They are qualified for any emermonth. Perhaps this is not in good taste to gency, and eminently successful; water-cures, speak out just what all have at their tongue's eclectics, homoeopathists, and scores besides, end this way, when referring to the Old Bay whose particular ism is not recollected, are in State. But of course we shall not mourn the full tide of success. Our medical writers are over your bad policy in driving away all the enterprising young men, and business too, since it augments and strengthens ours.

Pardon me, for we are all under a degree of excitement in the West. We are gratified with the determined spirit abroad,-the public spirit and the immense resources of the West, for enriching and enabling those who by taking Time by the forelock, are becoming men of full stature.

Although my intention was a running account of medicine and medical prospects in Chicago, my mind has been on the rise of lots

few in number,-not because they cannot write, but because they will not withdraw themselves from the pursuit of fortune. We are all determined to make money, and publish our experience and medical monagrams when old age has frosted our locks.

Should you be consulted by those who are desirous of finding a field for pitching their tents, assure them that not one physician in six already initiated into the ways and whims of Chicago, by a residence of some years, sustain themselves by practice. They come and go-but where they go to is a question.

Physicians are a drug in Chicago, in the are shorter lived than other men. Hardly an opinion of a pleasant neighbor.

With consideration,

eminent author of modern times but affords an example of longevity. Byron and Keats, it is true, died young-the latter by consumption, the former by irregularities that would have killed anybody. But Wordsworth, Southey, Tom Moore and James Montgomery lived to an advanced age. Rogers at his disease was above ninety, and De Quincey, Walter Savage Landor and Humboldt, are still alive and at work, at past three-score and ten. Our own country furnishes similar examples in Benton, Silliman, Irving, Halleck aud Pierpont; all old men, but still strong in health and mental vigor. The truth is, men oftener rust out than wear out; and there is no doubt that habitual mental employment tends to keep the body young.

Iodine is soluble in pure water-enough to be useful in the practice of medicine, but in a low degree about 1 1-16 grs. in 1 lb. water. The addition of two equivalents of Bromine, on a convenient quantity of Alcohol, Hydriodic Acid, Iodide of Potassium, or any other ment in Com. Perry's expedition to Japan, the Camphor Tree. According to the statesoluble Iodide, on Hyposulphite of Soda, will Camphor tree attains a venerable longevity. enable the water to dissolve it to the requisite One particular tree was vigorous one hundred extent, for any medical or surgical use. Of and thirty-five years after it had been described these means I prefer the Hydriodic Acid, as by a traveller. interfering the least with the chemical purity of the article: the only addition being Eq. 1

of H.

Yours respectfully,

WM. F. TEULON.

35 Beach st., Feb. 12th, 1857.

FLOATING

FACTS.

of life as the olive. In the garden of GethBut no tree is supposed to be so tenacious semane we have personally examined seven gnarled, hardy olives, reputed to have been standing since the betrayal of our Saviour on that memorable spot. It is a well ascertained fact that those identical trees were so much venerated six hundred years ago, that they were exempted from the tree tax, assessed upon Living upon one's own Body.-A woman those who were the owners of olive trees. condemned to death, in the reign of Richard And to this day, the monks, proprietors of the III., lived forty days without food or drink.- celebrated enclosure at the foot of Mount A young lady sixteen years of age, is men- Olivet, pay no tree tax on those ancient repretioned in the Edinburgh Medical Essays, for sentatives of many past ages. 1720, who was thrown into such a violent tetanus, or rigidity of the muscles, by the death of her father, that she was unable to New Thermometer. —The self-registering swallow for fifty-four days; and when she minimum thermometer, made by Messrs. Necame into the natural state again, she declared gretts & Zambra, consists of a glass tube that she had no sense of hunger or thirst. A mounted on a strong zinc scale, the bulb and still more extraordinary account than this, is part of the bore of which is filled with perrelated of a man, who on recovering from an fectly pure spirits of wine, in which floats inflammatory fever, had such a dislike to food freely a black glass index. A slight elevation of all kinds, that for eighteen years he never of the thermometer, bulb uppermost, will cause tasted anything but water. The sleeping man the glass index to pass to the surface of the from Rochester, who was exhibited in New-liquid, where it will remain, unless violently York, last summer, and who had not partaken shaken. On a decrease of temperature the of food for a long time, was of a similar charac- alcohol recedes, taking with it the glass index. On an increase of temperature the alcohol alone extends in the tube, leaving the end of Longevity of Students.-It is a popular the index farthest from the bulb, indicating error to suppose that scholars and literary men the lowest temperature that has taken place.

ter.

THE MEDICAL WORLD.

Advancement of Science. -The German Honoring Old Age. - Mrs. Pocock, of Association, at the last meeting, was honored Blackheath, England, the mother of three genby all the learned men of their country. A erations of livery-stable keepers, was driven marked attention seems to have been given to through the village on her hundredth birth-day, the phenomena of electricty, by very many of in a chariot drawn by eight white horses, with the professors. There were several communica- outriders. She afterwards presided at a dintions in regard to the Solar Spectrum. The ner, and opened a ball in the evening, given to extreme minuteness of the investigations of the honor her.

German philosophers is exceedingly important A Mrs. Curgenver, of Truro, Eng., the to the progress of science, but the common widow of a captain of the Navy, died lately, mind finds nothing in their researches to pop-in her one hundred and seventh year. ularize for the instruction of the people. Some

of their discoveries cannot be understood at Natural Lamps.-Mr. Fletcher stated in all, without a previous knowledge of every a public lecture at the Tremont Temple, that thing positively abstruse in nature and art.

he had imprisoned a fire-fly, while in Brazil, under an inverted tumbler, by the brilliant light Identity. A singular case involving a of which he could read the finest print. It is question of identity, occurred in Salem, Mass. not a succession of flashes, but a steady, bright One Joseph Wilson had been indicted for light, emanating from three points on the insect's crime, and a person of that name, residing in body. The theory now is that it is not a Plymouth, was brought before the Court. phosphorescent illumination, but an actual comWhen asked for a plea by the clerk, he said bustion of fluids secreted and poured into that he might as well plead guilty. Police- transparent membranous receptacles. officer Kilburn, of Boston, who was acquainted

with the culprit, and had seen the man arrested Sanitary Condition of Cayenne. In 1856 at Plymouth previous to his plea, stated that the deaths were 56 per cent.: 82 per cent. of he was not the man indicated in the indict- the convicts died of yellow fever, which be ment, who, he was confident, was in the care of the House of Correction, South Boston, and so it proved upon investigation.

came endemical in Guiana, and 24 per cent. died of swamp fever. The average life of convicts sent there is 32 years and a few days. A worse set of villains never escaped the galWedlock and Age. Mr. Phinehas Green lows. Although provided with food enough, and his wife, of Reading, Mass., are, perhaps, they assassinated four of their terrible compan the oldest married couple in the United ions, last season, and then ate them up! States. Mr. Green is ninety-two years old.

He enjoys good health, and is able to make Suspended Animation.-Tarlton B. Butler, three pairs of shoes per day, and, until the a timber cutter of Scriven County, Ga., went present winter, he has cut his own wood. to Savannah since Christmas to sell timber, Mrs. Green is ninety-three years old. Her was taken sick, and it was thought died. There health is still very good. She does the cook- being a boat about to leave, his remains were ing, washing, ironing, &c., of the family. She deposited in a coffin and sent home. On openhas a sister living with her who is nearly ing the coffin after its arrival, he was discovered eighty years old. to smile. Medical assistance was immediately called, and it is said he is fast recovering. He was in the coffin nearly two days and nights.

Progress of Spiritualism.-There are five cases of insanity in the Indiana asylum-two males and three females-put down to the credit of Spiritualism.

An Eye forced out.-A man by the name of Finney, in Syracuse, N. Y., while vomiting, forced out one of his eyes completely out of the socket, so that it hung down upon his cheek. The ball was allowed to remain in that position several days, until it finally swelled to an enormous size, and, the humors of the eye being intercepted, it actually began to mortify. A Centenarian Woman.-Died in Rockville, A physician (Dr. Lighthill) was called in, and Ct., 27th ult., Esther Cady, aged 100 years, he succeeded in forcing the eye back. With a grand daughter of Rev. Timothy Edwards, careful attention, the Standard says, the eye of East Windsor, Ct., and niece of Rev. Jonwill soon be healed, but the sight is lost athan Edwards, D. D., the great American divine. forever.

MISCELLANEOUS MEMORANDA.

with killing, in process of abortion, the girl whom he has seduced, has been admitted to bail in $12,000.

President Benson merely mentions the arAmylene, made by distilling fusil oil with rival of Dr. J. Z. Forney, with a commission chloride of zinc, has been tried at King's Hos- as the United States commercial agent for pital, in London, as a new agent for suspend- Monrovia, but gives no other information on ing sensation, in surgical operations. It offers, that subject, and makes no comment.

thus far, no advantages over ether or chloroform, as an anaesthetic agent. Cahours, a French chemist, was the real discoverer of it, some years ago.

There is a physician in the State Prison, at Auburn, N. Y., under sentence for fourteen years, convicted on the testimony of one witness only, who had a bad reputation, and was of doubtful character. How could any jury, under such circumstances, knowing, as they did, something of the life of the witness, bring in a verdict of guilty?

By intelligence from Havana, Dr. Kane seems not to gain as fast as represented a few weeks since. His disease is of a scrofulous character, contracted during his severe labors. and privations in the Arctic regions. He has not been out of his room since he came here, and his friends have great fears that he will never recover.

In the legislature of Massachusetts, now in session, there are twelve physicians.

A beautiful lifelike miniature engraving of the late eminent Dr. John T. Shotwell, of Cincinnati, appears in the February No. of the Cincinnati Medical Observer.

A bill for the removal of the quarantine station of New York, from Staten Island, has been reported in the Legislature, at Albany. A physician from the United States has a The object is to save the city of New York private hospital in Cuba, which is supposed to from the constant liability of an introduction of be exceedingly profitable. No foreigner is some devastating disease from a point so near, permitted to practise medicine or surgery on where diseases are brought and concentrated the island, without sustaining an examination from all countries. There are too many inter- before a medical commission authorized by ested, however, in keeping the establishment government. where it is, to allow the bill to pass without pointed opposition.

A State hospital for women, to be located in the city of New York, is a favorite object. Efforts are not wanting to give a favorable legislative turn to the subject. The petition is signed by one hundred and twenty-six phy. sicians. How many of the number expect to be officially connected with the institution?

Boston actually needs two more hospitals, one at the South End, and the other at East Boston. If some of those wealthy, benevolent citizens, whose wills are already made in favor of the Massachusetts General Hospital, - already extremely well endowed,-would found a new one, future generations would call them blessed.

De Quincey, the elegant Scotch writer, known as the opium-eater, contends that the practice of taking that potent drug habitually, does no injury to body or mind, and illustrates the proposition by citing his own case.

Scarlet fever has generally disappeared. The belladonna controversy, however, is intensely active. One party believes, and the other does not, in its prophylactic efficacy. The subject will gradually die away, without having the point settled, just like the contagiousness of yellow fever, which is annually discussed, and left open for further discussion by a fresh set of controversalists.

An amount of literary labor is noticeable in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, -principally translations, by M. Morton Dow If there were more cheap, innocent public ler, M. D., highly creditable to his industry. amusements in this country, there would be He is laying a broad and sure foundation for fewer crimes. All amusements in cities are eminence. All the available medical talent of too dear for the masses. They have not the this country is needed, and yet how many means of gratifying a natural propensity for hundreds of highly educated young physicians sights, shows, plays, spectacles, paintings, &c., fritter away life in trifling pursuits, who might which they see others indulge in and crime secure distinction for themselves and honorresults from contrasting their privileges and able mention in the future annals of our cultivating depraved associations. country.

Dr. Beigler, who has been in custody at. Scarlet fever is raging throughout Northern Buffalo, N. Y., for thirty-five days, charged Mississippi.