the body is still under the influence of the vital power. All the phenomena of a living animal body-at least among the higher classes of the scale—are so linked together, that you cannot touch one without making the others more or less suffer and sympathise. Do you try an experiment to detect a phenomenon which is carried on au sein of a living body? All the great functions are at once deranged in their mode of manifestation; more or less blood is lost; it no longer follows in the vessels its regular and normal course, and it becomes either quickened or retarded in consequence of pain and fright; the secretions are immediately altered; at the part where the incision is made, there is an afflux of the fluids and of sensibility; and that great vital property, excitability, is at once brought into play; in short, you induce a state of active hyperæmia, or inflammation.

Wherever you touch a living animal being, it is the nervous system which responds by disordered movements, and by alterations in the sensibility, and which thus at once disarranges the phenomena which you wish to produce. Hence the phenomenon, which you represent as isolated, is not in fact so; and for this reason, that no point can be touched without causing a greater or less amount of disturbance of the entire organism.

.... It is not, however, to be denied that, in certain cases, experimentation has thrown considerable light upon some points of physiology, and also of pathology. Thus, for example, the experiments on the Fifth pair of cerebral nerves have afforded the point de depart' of our knowledge of the morbid lesions of these nerves; we could not have known any thing on this subject, unless we had the data which experiments have supplied us with. It is by them also that the special functions of the Portio Dura have been discovered, and that certain pathological facts connected with these functions have been understood and explained. In other cases, experiments on animals have been found to induce a train of morbid phenomena which are indisputably analogous with those which occur during certain diseases. Thus the injection of pus into the veins of animals has been observed to give rise to symptoms and appearances, which bear a striking resemblance with those exhibited in cases where a lesion of the blood has taken place spontaneously, as in scurvy, certain cases of typhus, the absorption of purulent matter, &c. Again, by experimenting we are enabled to study a certain number of the causes of diseases, as, for example, all the class of intoxications or poisonings-including under this term the introduction into the circulation not only of the common poisons from the mineral and vegetable kingdom, but also of miasms and of the various kinds of animal virus.

We find also, that by modifying the relative proportion of the constituents of the blood, various morbid states, which have their analogues in disease, may be induced. Thus, by withdrawing a certain quantity of the fibrine of the blood, we promote the effusion into various tissues; whereas by increasing its viscosity, a series of phenomena of an altogether different character is induced; as has been distinctly proved by the recent experiments of Majendie.

There is, therefore, a certain number of pathological lesions which may be explained by the results of direct experimentation.

We can excite inflammation and suppuration; but we cannot induce the formation of false membranes, of tubercles, of cancer, of hydatids, &c. Some specific cause or action is necessary to give rise to such morbid productions.

Assiduous attention, however, to various circumstances which are daily presented to our view, will probably enable us at length to advance in this obscure department of pathology. Already we know that the generation of hydatids in sheep is certainly promoted by feeding on wet pasturage.".

With the following brief remarks on certain necroscopie fallacies, we shall close our extracts from M. Andral's lectures for the present.

"

During hot weather, we not unfrequently observe on the lining membrane of the heart and great blood vessels a well-marked redness, and the appearance of high vascular injection, which is the result not of an inflammatory action, as has been too often supposed, but altogether of the changes in the fluids and solids produced by incipient putrefaction. There are not a few pathological works which, I venture to say, are frappés de nullité,' from authors not being aware of this and such-like occurences.

For example; it is generally admitted that, under the influence of malignant fever, the tissue of the spleen is usually more or less extensively altered. Now, the late M. Bailly, of Blois, whose premature loss to medical science every one must regret, has, it is well known, published some valuable works on malignant intermittent fever; and in these he has particularly dwelt upon the remarkable changes in the spleen; such, for example, as the soft diffluent disorganization of its tissue. But in all his observations no mention is ever made either of the lapse of time after death when the dissection took place, or of the heat of the weather at the time. Now, this very state of the spleen is found in every body, if the examination does not take place, during Summer, within thirty hours after decease. We cannot, therefore, rigorously adopt the statements of M. Bailly, as we are ignorant of the circumstances in almost every case which he has reported."-Gazette des Medecins.

NEW SORT OF MEDICAL PUFFING.

We are at present in quite a puffing* epidemic. Here is an ingenious one. Suppose that you visit Egypt, and there see a little negro rascal, whom his owner is willing to sell for a bottle of champaigne On your arrival in Paris, a short note makes its appearance in the corner of some journal, that a celebrated physician has recently brought over an interesting Ethiopian boy, whom he is educating at his own expense! A year afterwards, you convert him to Catholicism—a task which must indeed be very difficult;—a second puff for the christening!! Next year, he takes the sacrament for the first time: a third puff for this!!! Not long afterwards he marries; a fourth puff for the marriage!!!!

Now all this is very amusing, and withal very innocent; and the best part of the joke is that it may not be altogether unprofitable.—Ibid.

SULPHATE OF QUININE IN Enlargement of the Spleen, AND IN DROPSIES AFTER AGUES.

Dr. Levy, physician of the Military Hospital of Val-de-Grace at Paris, has very satisfactorily shewn that the dropsical effusions, which not unfrequently supervene upon long neglected agues, are most successfully treated with quinine. He alludes to the researches of MM. Bally, Nonat, Piorry, and other contemporaneous physicians, which have clearly established the superior efficacy of this remedy-to be associated in most cases with the application of the cupping

* The French seem pleased with this word, for which, we suppose, they have no exact synonim, and which they have therefore adopted into their own belle langue.'

instruments over the left hypochondrium-in dispersing the enlargements of the spleen which so very generally, nay almost always, accompany old intermittent fevers. Indeed, he regards this, the administration of quinine in such cases, as one of the most valuable therapeutic discoveries of recent times. Now, as the dropsical effusions are almost invariably connected with an infarcted-to use an old word-state of the spleen, it is a rational deduction to anticipate that the remedy, which is so decidedly efficacious against the cause, may not be without its influence upon the effect. Certain it is that the use of the ordinarily-resorted-to means, such as diuretics and purgatives, seldom succeeds in dissipating the dropsies which we are at present considering, whereas they may be often dispersed by quinine in full doses.-Gazette Medicale.

ON THE REMEDIAL POWER OF THE LACTATE OF IRON.

This new preparation of steel has already been extensively tried by some of the leading hospital physicians in Paris, and has met with their unqualified approbation.

The following extracts from a memoir by MM. Gelis and Conté will be sufficient to introduce it to the notice of the English reader.

"Several reasons have induced us to select the combination of the protoxide with the lactic acid: this acid is widely diffused through the economy; there is, perhaps, not one part of the body which does not contain a notable quantity of it. Berzelius has detected it in muscle, in milk, and in all the secretions; the perspirable matter owes its acidity to its presence, and a considerable quantity is found in the urine. The solvent power of the gastric juice is perhaps mainly attributable to the presence of the lactic acid: the traces of the hydrochloric are, it is now generally admitted, very feeble.

It must, therefore, be the lactate that is formed in the stomach, when any steel medicine is swallowed.

It is easily prepared by treating iron filings with diluted lactic acid. The water is decomposed, hydrogen is evolved, and the oxygen combines with the iron. When the evolution of the gas ceases, the solution is filtered and then evaporated until a pellicle forms on the surface: the salt chrystallises on cooling.

The lactate is not very soluble in water, and a high heat decomposes it. It is not readily affected by exposure to the air.

It may be administered in the form of pastilles, drops, or lozenges: the sugar which enters into the composition of these prevents the further oxydation of the salt. The dose is from four to fifteen grains.

The authors adduce several cases of chlorosis and other states of the system which are usually relieved by steel medicines, drawn from the practice of MM. Bouillaud, Rayer, Beau, &c. in which the lactate was administered with excellent effects in some it succeeded after the usual ferruginous preparations had been fairly used without benefit.

M. Bouillaud has reported most favourably of this new medicine to the Academy: he has used it in 21 cases, and in all it produced excellent effects. It seems to have a marked influence in increasing the appetite. The dose was from six to 15 pastilles (five centigrammes in each: perhaps each patient took eight or ten grammes in all.

Professor Fouquier confirmed the favourable report communicated by M. Bouillaud. He stated, as his opinion, that the lactate would become one of the most valuable and standard ferruginous preparations used in medicine.

ON THE FREQUENCY OF THE PULSE IN NEW-BORN INFANTS.

"We are astonished, upon examining the statements of Billard on this subject, to remark the very striking difference which he found in the frequency of the pulse in different infants of the same age, and in equally good health. Can we, for example, well admit that there should ever be a difference of 100 beats in the course of a minute? And yet this conclusion is deducible from the researches of this author.

In a recent work of M. Jacquemier, it is stated that the minimum of frequency of the pulse in new-born infants is about 97, and the maximum about 156. Haller fixed it at 140, and Samerring at 130. Every physician is well aware how easily the pulse of infants is rapidly quickened by their restlessness, during crying, and so forth; and that the only accurate way to determine it is to feel it during sleep. During the act of sucking, the breathing is hurried, and the circulation is therefore necessarily quickened at the same time. M. Valleix, who seems to have used the greatest precautions to avoid all sources of mistake, states as the results of his examinations, that in infants from 2 to 20 days old the minimum of frequency is about 76, and the maximum about 104. We may therefore consider the medium 87 as the expression of the average frequency of the pulse at this period of life.

It has been generally alleged that the frequency of the pulse diminishes as the age of the infant advances. The very reverse seems however to be the case, according to the experience of this author; for he found that at seven months, the pulse is much more frequent than during the first week after birth, and that from that period-seven months—it progressively diminishes in rapidity to about the sixth year or so.-Clinique des Maladies des Nouveau Nes, par F. Valleiz, 1839.

PROFESSOR AMMON ON THE TREATMENT OF IRITIS.

In addition to vigorous antiphlogistic remedies, the "Archiater" of the King of Saxony, in his recently published Commentatio de Iritide, recommends the local use of belladonna in fomentations or in the way of friction on the temples and eyelids, and the internal administration of one or more of the following remedies-conium, arnica, colchicum, sarsaparilla, tartrate of antimony, red sulphuret of antimony, calomel, corrosive sublimate, the red precipitate of mercury, the muriate of barytes, turpentine, cod-liver oil, hydriodate of potash, &c., according to the severity of the disease and the constitution of the patient. If the constitution be scrofulous, he thinks highly of the muriate of barytes; if tainted with syphilis, provided it has not already been injured by mercurial indication, he prefers the corrosive sublimate; and if decidedly rheumatic he strongly recommends the tartrate of antimony in the dose of two or three grains daily; he mentions also colchicum as occasionally useful under such circumstances.

The author describes with great minuteness a variety of iritis which he denominates "seroso-cachectic," from its occurring in persons whose constitutions are unhealthy and cachectic.

"It is characterised by an obscurity of the cornea, loss of colour in the iris, and the accumulation of a white substance in the anterior chamber; the posterior surface of the cornea resembles an ulcer, its obscured centre projects out, and the conjunctiva becomes injected and swollen around the cornea.

The disease lasts for months or even for years. If the cornea regains its transparency, we find the iris colourless, and the pupil motionless: the vision is impaired or entirely lost from the beginning of the disease, and there is great sensitiveness to the light, and frequent supra-orbital pains. The treatment is

generally difficult, and to be successful must always be to a great extent constitutional; saline baths, sarsaparilla, arnica, senega, and especially the hydrio. date of potash or of soda are the best remedies."

What he says as to the management of syphilitic iritis may be comprised in a few words. If the patient has taken little or no mercury, the disease will be almost infallibly arrested by the judicious employment of calomel or of the corrosive sublimate; but if he has already taken a good deal, the preparations of this active mineral will be found to exasperate the mischief; in the latter case the hepar sulphuris, the hydriodate and carbonate of soda or of potash, sarsaparilla, and the extract of chelidonium should be resorted to. When syphilitic iritis occurs in a person of a scrofulous constitution, mercurials should be employed with great caution; hemlock, senega, sarsaparilla, and cherry-laurel water are often very beneficial.

According to the experience of Professor Ammon, one of the most intractable forms of iritis is that which sometimes follows the sudden retrocession of tinea in a scrofulous patient: the iris readily becomes atrophied, blood is effused into the anterior chamber, the inflammation spreads to the choroid coat, the ciliary processes and the capsule of the lens, and blindness is ultimately induced by a glancoma or atrophy of the eye being induced. In such a case antimonials and mercurials are hurtful; the most useful remedies are barytes, conium, iodine, &c. and the use of local blood-lettings and of revulsive applications.

When iritis occurs in arthritic patients and in women whose health has become cachectic at the change of life, Professor Ammon recommends the administration of the decoction of Zittman, the carbonate of soda along with the extract of taraxicum; and if the constitution be decidedly rheumatic, the use of turpentine, of colchicum, and occasionally also of quinine.-Schmidt's Jahrbucher.

ON INCONTINENCE AND RETENTION OF URINE IN OLD Men.

The object of a memoir, which was recently read before the Academy of Sciences on this very troublesome affection of old age by Doctor Mercier, is to shew that it is in almost every case attributable to an enlargement of some portion of the prostate gland, and that it is very rarely or never dependent upon a partial paralysis of the bladder, as is generally believed, unless indeed there be paraplegia at the same time.

The author explains in the following extract the mode in which this enlargement acts in inducing incontinence.

"The neck of the bladder is not closed so much by a contraction of every point of its circumference, as by the apposition and coaptation of the two lateral halves of the prostate; thus it represents a fissure directed from before backwards.

By the antero-posterior hypertrophy of these lateral lobes, this fissure increases in length; but as long as its edges remain in complete approximation, the urine will be retained as in health; so that the gland may be very considerably enlarged without any notable disturbance in the excretion of urine.

But let us suppose that the edges are slightly separated from each other at one point; the result of this will be that the urine will escape; and if the separation be permanent and considerable, then there will be a complete incontinence. This is precisely what takes place in a multitude of cases."

"

He next alludes to the effect of enlargement of the third lobe of the prostate. "Suppose that any substance is interposed between the edges of the neck of the bladder at its posterior extremity, so as to keep them apart, then instead of a fissure we shall have a triangular-shaped opening, the apex of which will be directed forwards, and through which the urine will escape the