THE Leavenworth Medical Herald. Vol. II. C. A. LOGAN, M. D., AND T. SINKS, M. D., EDITORS. JUNE, 1868. Original Communications. No. 1. ART. I.—Treatment of Syphilis by Large Doses of Iodide of Potassium. By DR. LE CARPENTIER, Leavenworth, Kansas. In the number of the London Lancet for March, 1868, is a letter from Mr. Julius Pollock on the treatment of syphilis by large doses of iodide of potassium, in which letter are reported a few facts tending to show how well the iodide of potassium is born in syphilitic affections. The largest dose given by Mr. Pollock was twenty grains, repeated three times a day. According to my own experience on the subject, I cannot consider twenty grains as a large dose of that medicine, and I think proper to relate a few facts about the use of iodide of potassium in syphilis. In secondary affections, I always begin by administering twenty grain doses, once or twice a day, increasing the dose by ten grains every third or fourth day, until two drachms, and even more, in the twenty-four hours are taken. I have very seldom observed any symptoms of iodism with such doses, unless it was after a prolonged use. In tertiary affections, I have adopted the following process of administering iodide of potassium: I gradually increase the dose of iodide, until I obtain some well-marked symptoms of iodism, or, more properly, a beginning of poisoning by the salt; then I diminish gradually the doses, or I stop entirely the remedy, according to the gravity of the symptoms presented. As My reasons for so acting, are contained in a few words: soon as the iodism appears, the syphilitic symptoms begin to decrease rapidly, and the cure is speedily obtained from that moment. I observed this effect in more than fifty cases, in the hospitals as well as in private practice, and since then, as a rule, I administer the iodide of potassium in that way. If I speak about the doses that I have administered, I can only say that some organism are more rapidly affected than others, and I have seen patients affected in a few days, with eighty or one hundred grains, while I have seen others, taking for several days, three, four, five, and even six drachm doses. I knew a man who was literally covered with tertiary syphilitic ulcers, and who took six drachms every morning for three consecutive days, before he presented any of the symptoms of iodism. With that man, as with my other patients, I began in giving twenty grain doses, one every morning, increasing by ten grains every third day. Correspondence. PARIS, March 25th, 1863. EDITORS HERALD:-The following list of prizes, for the present year, was proposed by the Academy of Medicine at its late annual sitting: "Sanguineous extravasations in the tissues," 1,000 francs. "Tumors in the encephelon, and their symptoms," 300 francs. "Physiological phenomena before, during and after anesthesia," 800 francs. "Treatment of uterine affections by mineral waters," 1,500 francs. A prize of 2,000 francs will be awarded to the discover of complete means of cure for diseases hitherto pronounced incurable in most cases, such as hydrophobia, cancer, epilepsy, scrofula, typhus, cholera morbus, etc. The Academy offers the prize of 4,000 francs, instituted by Orfila, upon the following subject: "Digitaline and digitalis; isolate the digitaline; ascertaining the chemicle signs, which, in medico-legal investigations, may serve to demonstrate the presence of digitalis and that of digitaline; what pathological alterations those substances may produce in cases of poisoning; what symptoms they give rise to; and how far, and in what measure may be used the experiments upon animals with the matter vomited, with that found in the scouring, or with the products of the analysis, as an indication and proof of the existence of poison and poisoning." To the best paper on medical pathology, will be awarded a prize of 1,000 francs. Dr. Sappey, demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School, has been appointed Professor of Anatomy in the room of Dr. Jarjavay, named to occupy a clinical chair. Dr. Verneuil has been designed to occupy the late Dr. Guillot's place as Professor of Surgical Pathology. The Academy of Sciences has lately received a communication from Dr. Chenoulevitch, on the influence of temperature in the mechanical force of the muscles-the animal experimented on being the frog. It appears from his researches, that even within very narrow limits of temperature, great changes are perceptible in the physical properties of muscle. The gastrocnemius of a frog was fixed by its tendon in a vessel containing a solution of chloride of sodium (0.65 per cent.) at a given temperature. The upper insertion of the muscle was fixed to the short arm of a lever moving about a horizontal axis, the long arm of which marked upon a rotating cylinder, the heights to which the weight applied to the same arm was raised. The following were the results: 1. The mechanical force of the muscle increases up to from thirty to thirty-three degrees centigrade, (86 to 90 fahr.) according to its length and tension. 2. The smaller the weight, the greater the height to which it is raised, while the temperature is on the increase. 3. There is in every muscle in a state of activity a certain tension at which it preserves the same length at different temperatures. 4. Beyond thirty-three degrees its mechanical work diminishes until it ceases to contract; this the author calls zero work. 5. The greater the weight, the more quickly is zero work attained. 6. By lowering the temperature again, the muscle regains its contractility. 7. If successive experiments be made with the same muscle, the maximum of mechanical action always takes place at a lower temperature than the last preceeding one, because the muscle is much more rapidly exhausted at a high temperature than at a low one. 8. The increase of mechanical work while the temperature increases, is owing to the fact that muscular elasticity increases with the temperature. Sudden death often occurs in patients affected with severe and deep gangrene in some of their limbs. The suddenness of their death is ascribed by Dr. Parise, to the formation of putrid gases in the veins of the gangrened limb. These gases on their way to the heart produce death in the same manner as when air is introduced in the veins. To prevent this accident, immediate amputation must be resorted to, or, should the operation be judged dangerous, deep incisions and compression of the principal veins at the origin of the limb. Quite an interesting discussion has been lately carried on in the Academy of Medicine on the subject of tuberculosis. Dr. Villernin considers tuberculous phthisis to be a virulent, specific and contagious disease, which cannot develope itself spontaneously, or by usual determining causes, a term employed, you are aware, to distinguish them from predisposing. Dr. Pidoux, in opposition to Dr. Villernin, asserts that tuberculosis may be, and in fact is, a spontaneous disease; that it is not and never could be virulent, and in support of his assertion, shows that the question of contagion, which has lately been brought forward, has never been proved, and that it cannot be admitted as a fact until after further researches. Dr. Sappey, now professor of Anatomy at the Faculty, in a note on the nerves of the neurilema, or nervi nervorum, makes the following statements: 1. The neurilema receives nervous filaments which are to the nerves what the vasa vasorum are to the vessels. 2. Though their existence has not, as yet, been ascertained, yet it is constant, and can easily be demonstrated. 3. The method according to which the nervi nervorum are displaced in the neurilema, differs but slightly from that which is presented by the nervous ramifications in the other parts of the fibrous system. 1. They are to be found, not only on the common envelope, but also on those which surround the main fasuculi and the tertiary ones. Dr. Sappey has been enabled to follow them as far as the envelope of the secondary fasciculi. They do not seem to ramify on the outer coat of the primitive fasicculi. 5. The abscence of nervi nervorum on the envelope of the primitive fasciculi, affords us the explanation of the fact that hitherto they have not been detected on the nervous filaments, the diameter of which is not one millimetre. 6. The internal or deep coat of the optic nerve receives no nervous branch, whilst the outer coat, on the contrary, receives a large number which proceed from the ciliary nerves. 7. The external sheath of the optic nerves abundantly provided with nervi nervorum, contains also a large number of elastic fibres entering in its composition. Dr. Sappey is of opinion that the ancient anatomists were mistaken in looking upon it as uniting the sclerotica to the dura mater, prolonging the one, as it were, into the other, since it differs from them both, first, by its elastic fibres which cannot be detected in the sclerotic and the dura mater; and secondly, by the nervi nervorum it contains, and which are seldom met with in the dura mater, and never seen in the sclerotic membrane. Dr. Sappey, in a paper on the physiological character of the fibro-muscular coat of the orbit, describes several facisculi of unstriated muscles, he has detected in the human orbit. The electrisation of the superior extremity of the great sympathetic cervical nerves, produces dilatation of the pupil, congestion of the conjuntiva, seperation of the eye lids, and projection forward of the globe of the eye. This action offers all the characteristics of the action of the muscles of organic life. This projecting move of the eye is undoubtedly due to the contractions of the unstriated muscular fibres, which form part of the orbitary aponeurosis constituting a real fibro-muscular coat. Dr. Sappey explains as follows, the mechanism of the forward projection of the eye: The unstuated muscular fibres, disseminated in the |