existence, the most suitable preparation is the hydrargyrum c. cretâ, two or three times daily, in doses proportioned to the age of the child. Should it produce intestinal irritation, or engender diarrhoea, as it occasionally does, the addition of a small quantity of Dover's powder will generally succeed in controlling it. But to a child of a few months old, I far prefer the mild mercurial ointment to any other preparation. It may be rubbed into the soles of the feet, and smeared on the flannel belt which children are in the habit of wearing. Under this plan of treatment, the child begins to gain flesh, its spirits improve, the eruption declines, and its appetite increases. When those results are observable, the mercury may be discontinued, as its salutary influence is now amply displayed. It must be borne in mind that, in children under three years of age, the salivary glands are very rarely affected; we must not, therefore, expect to meet ptyalism in this class of patients, as the effect of the action of

mercury upon the system. But even under those circumstances, the child is not free from relapse. When this takes place, the iodide of potassium has in my hands proved the most useful remedy in arresting the progress of the malady.

It sometimes happens, however, that, notwithstanding all our care and attention, the child, after having survived for two or three years, begins to decline in health and spirits, rapidly emaciates, sinks, and dies. On a post-mortem examination, I

have in many instances found the substance of the lungs studded with tubercle, and the mesenteric glands considerably enlarged; in two or three cases lymph was thrown out, accompanied with more or less effusion iuto the cavity of the peritoneum.

In conclusion, I beg leave to recapitulate the leading points of interest.

1st. The fœtus in utero may be contaminated by decided syphilitic symptoms in the father, while the mother may present no traces of the disease. 2nd. The child may be affected by a latent venereal taint in the father, while the mother may exhibit no evidence of the malady. 3rd. The child (with the exception of purulent or gonorrheal ophthalmia) is rarely affected during its entrance into the world. 4th. Abortion may be prevented, and a healthy child ensured, by a judicious mercurial treatment conducted during pregnancy. 5th. A syphilitic taint in the unimpregnated female may be removed by the employment of mercury.

CHAPTER XVII.

SYPHILIS AS CONTRACTED FROM NURSED CHILDREN.

THE medico-legal question to which I am now about to direct attention, involving as it does the best and most sacred interests of society, is one of such paramount importance, that I am induced to dwell more at length upon its details than, under other circumstances, I would feel justified in doing; more especially as, from the perusal of the chapter allotted to its consideration in a modern work, the reader is led to infer that the subject of the communicability of infection from the child to the nurse, and vice versa, was still, to say the least, sub judice; and that the evidence brought forward to support the positive side of the question was rather of a fabulous than an authentic nature. Should any further apology be required, for introducing a series of cases to substantiate the position for which I have for many years contended, it will be found in the fact that, from the contrariety of opinions and consequent uncertainty in the minds of medical men on a point of such vital issue, the

profession in this country (as expressed to me, while these sheets were under revision for the press, by a highly intelligent and practical hospital surgeon) would, if pressed in a court of justice, be completely at a loss in giving a decided opinion on the matter. In the May number of the Dublin Quarterly Journal for 1846, while surgeon to the Lock Hospital, I published a short paper, illustrated by cases, on the subject under consideration. The cases supplied were given by females under my care in the married wards of that institution, and went to prove the possibility, nay, the certainty, of contamination from this source. In the following month an interesting case, the subject of legal investigation, was reported by Dr. O'Connor of Cork, followed up by a similar one by Dr. Gavin, corroborative of the views put forward by me in the paper alluded to; and, in the Lancet of the 22nd of August of the same year, I published an additional instance with observations. The opponents of the doctrine of contagion in secondary syphilis are influenced, in their decision, for the most part, by the fact that the disease in this form has never been produced by artificial inoculation ; and were I to draw my inferences from that circumstance alone, or allow any preconceived opinions to bias my judgment, I should never have come to the conclusion (notwithstanding a chain of evidence to the contrary) that a syphilitic infant could infect a healthy nurse, and vice versa. From

the cases, however, which I shall presently adduce, together with those supplied by Drs. Colles and Whitehead from the opinions of some of the most celebrated accoucheurs in this city, whose practice in such affections has been by no means inconsiderable; and from the joint testimony of the other names referred to, I should, indeed, be more than sceptical, were I to question the possibility of contagion from this source.

The first case of importance, and which at the time gave rise to an animated discussion, was that already alluded to under the care of Dr. O'Connor. The child, as stated by the medical attendant, had sores on its mouth, around the anus, and on the scrotum. The nurse contracted the disease; was covered with a desquamation of branny scales all over the body; infected her husband, the disease in whom appeared in tuberculated ulcers on the dorsum of the penis; and she subsequently gave birth to a diseased infant, which died from the effects of the disorder. A short time afterwards, the nurse was admitted into the hospital attached to the Cork union workhouse; the disease proved exceedingly intractable, and a cure was with difficulty effected. Dr. O'Connor, physician to the Cork union, deposed that the patient laboured for six weeks under the effects of secondary syphilis, and that it was his decided opinion that infection was transmissible from the child to the nurse. This evidence was substantiated by two other wit