posed wrong, the revenge, jealousy, personal gain, a desperation. When we put together all these thoughts, emotions, and volitions within, and the circumstances and conditions without, there arises such a combination of influences and causes that we might reasonably despair of detecting any order or method in the result of these subtle and shifting agencies, by which murder is either caused or prevented. the But what are facts> It now appears that murder occurs nearly as regularly, and bears as constant a relation to known causes, as the movements of the tides, or the rotations of the seaSODS. M. Quetelett, who spent his life in collecting and methodizing criminal statistics of various countries, states, as the result of his laborious researches: In everything which concerns crime, the same numbers re-occur with a certainty which cannot be misunderstood; and that this is the case of crimes which seem quite independent of human foresight, such as murders which are committed after quarrels arising from circumstances apparently casual. Nevertheless, we know from experience that every year nearly the same number of murders occur. and that the instruments by which they are committed, are employed in the same proportion.' This was the language of Confessedly the first statistician in Europe; and subsequent observations have abundantly confirmed his conclusions. And even the facts seem to warrant the belief that the uniformity of crime is more clearly marked, and more capable of prediction, more closely connected with physical causes, than disease, and destruction of our bodies."- pp. 186-7. own conscience, the ap- shifting agencies, by which But another circumstance remains behind, Still more striking. Among public and registered crimes, there is none which seems SO completely dependent on the individual as suicide. Attempts to murder, or to rob, may be, and constantly are, successfully resisted. But an attempt to commit suicide, becomes, as it were, iso lated,. more clearly the "Nor is it merely the Even ity of sequence. Thus, to give a curious instance, we are now able to prove that even aberrations of memory are marked by this general character of necessary and invariable order. The postoffices of London and Paris have lately published returns of the number of letters which the writers, through forgetfulness, omitted to direct; and, making allowance for the difference of circumstances, the returns are, year after year, copies of each other."--Vol. 1. p. 32. It may possibly be objected, to the charges sustained above, that Mr. Buckle wrote his history, and died, before the Transactions of the State Society were recorded. But so feeble an objection scarcely deserves refutation in the day when "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is completed by its author after his death. Surely, it cannot be more difficult for a living writer to profit by the literary labors of his posterity through the medium of the spirit-world, than for a dead. author to conclude, in the same manner, his volume unfinished while he was yet alive. Buckle confesses to this prophetic vision: "Once," says he, "when I first caught sight of the whole field of knowledge, and seemed, however dimly, to discern its various parts, and the relations they bore to each other, I was so entranced with its surpassing beauty that the judg ment was beguiled, and I deemed myself able, not only to cover the surface, but also to master the details." Who can hesitate to believe that marked by this uniform- the English author, in these words, expressly refers to the occasion upon which his judgment was beguiled into reproducing entire pages of the Transactions of an American State Medical Society, "entranced by the surpassing beauty of its details"? This latter circumstance, it is, which induces us to believe that other authors have poached upon the same preserves, and that several metaphy sicians and physicists have followed Buckle's example. In view of the approaching Convention of the State Medical Society, we desire to urge upon their attention the propriety of taking a precaution, observed in so many French publications, that of imprinting legibly upon each copy of all future Transactions, "All Rights Reserved." CURETTE. THE MICROSCOPICAL APPEARANCE OF THE HEART AND KIDNEY IN THE CASE REPORTED BY PROF. N. S. DAVIS, IN THE PRESENT NUMBER OF "THE EXAMINER." HE piece of heart which I re THE substance was replaced by round bodies resembling, in size and appearance, pus corpuscles; in other places there were collections of round bodies from one-third to one-half the diameter of the former; neither of these collections had well-defined boundaries. The edges of some of the sections, which were extremely thin, showed, where the granular material had been washed out, that the connective tissue of the kidney was somewhat thickened, and contained many more muscular points than in health. The Malpighian tufts were, in many places, contracted down into little compact knots, of cicatricial-like tissue. The uriniferous tubules were filled with a granular material; the cells lining them had lost their distinctive characteristics, and were cloudy and opaque. Most of the straight tubules were wasted to mere irregular, nodulated cords. ceived from Dr. Davis presented, on the outside, simple atheromatous and calcareous degeneration. The muscular fibres appeared healthy. The kidney presented a mottled appearance, part being of a cream-color, other portions being of a natural color, except much paler. I took two small pieces of this kidney and placed them in a weak solution of chromic acid, to harden. After a day or two, I cut some thin sections, both in a longitudinal and a transverse direction, and stained them in an alkaline solution of carmine. On examining the sections with the microscope, the whole field appeared confused, and it was only after repeated and prolonged examination that I was enabled to make out anything at all satisfactory. This was particularly the case over the grayer portions. The cause of this indistinctness was the infiltration of the organ with a granular sub- | These appearances do not corresstance. In some places this granular | pond altogether with any specimen HE DIAGNOSTIC SIGN OF PHTHI TH RIASIS. Considering the great practical value of the pathognomonic lesion of phthiriasis (or the disease due to lice), which I described some two or three years since, I have been more than surprised that those who profess to study dermatology in England should have not thought it worth while to have made themselves acquainted with it. I have had the pleasure, from time to time, of demonstrating this lesion to a number of foreign dermatologists who have visited my clinic at University College Hospital, and they have fully admitted the significance of the sign in question. There are many cases in which it is impossible to detect pediculi, where they are really present; and in these cases the lesion to which I refer will be detected very easily, and is the sure evidence of the attack of pediculi upon the skin. It is easy to mistake the characteristic lesion; and in such cases the observer will, of course, affirm that the lesion I describe is not reliable. The lesion which I say is characteristic, is not a bite or a scratch; it is the opening of a follicle dilated by the pro boscis of the pediculus, and showing in its center a speck of at first brightred blood, which soon acquires a darker hue. This hæmorrhagic speck, or "lesion," is not raised to the feel or the It looks like a circular, cupeye. shaped depression, about the size of the blunt point of an ordinary pin, with a well-marked circumferential edge (a dilated follicle), and a black dot in the center. It may be confounded with scratched hyperemic follicles, or papillæ, or minute excoriations. The former are raised, and on being examined with the magnifying glass, are seen not to be round, but to have ragged edges, and to present a bleeding surface; the excoriations are irregular in shape, and want the look of the dilated follicle-mouth, with the speck of blood in the center. The fact is, the pediculus has no mouth; it does not bite. It has a proboscis which it pushes into a follicle to reach a capillary vessel. In the act of sucking blood away, the mouth of the follicle is dilated, and when the proboscis is withdrawn, the blood wells up to fill the dilated orifice. I consider it altogether unnecessary to search for pediculi amongst the clothes of the patient. There are many cases of phthiriasis in the young, where pediculi are with great difficulty detected, from whatever cause this may be, and in which the recognition of the lesion I now refer to sets all doubt at rest, and, by leading to a correct diagnosis, secures a speedy cure to the patient. THE TREATMENT OF NON-PARASITIC SYCOSIS.-No disease, I take it, is more unsatisfactory to treat than the common inflammation of the hair-follicles of the beard and whiskers, to which the term sycosis nonparisitica is applied. On the continent, especially in Germany, the practitioner is advised to adopt epilation, and to apply some simple astringent ointment; and there is a great disposition now-a-days to regard epilation as the remedy for the disease under notice. The reason for epilating is variously stated. Some affirm that the inflammation in sycosis is caused by a premature development of a new hair in the follicle, and that it is necessary in its cure to rid the follicle, of the old hair. Others think that suppuration extends to the root of the hair, and that epilation relieves the tension of the parts and permits the exit of the pus. The first explanation will not bear examination. The second is true, in part. In nonparasitic sycosis inflammation travels downwards, and may reach the bottom of the follicle, the root of the hair being bathed in pus, whilst the hair is loosened from its surrounding connections, and lies, as it were, a dead piece of tissue in the follicle. In such cases, epilation does but get rid of the loosened hair; and its extraction allows the escape of that would otherwise be pent up. But in many cases the inflammation does not proceed to the extent of causing suppuration in the deep part of the follicle; the hairs are not loosened in the follicles; and their extraction gives great pain, and can do no good. Epilation is, therefore, a fit procedure only at a certain stage of sycosis pus if the skin is much inflamed, the follicles freely suppurating, and the hairs are thereby loosening or loosened in them. The treatment which I have found most successful may be summed up as follows: In the early stage, when the follicles are very hyperæmic, saline aperients, in persons of full habit ; or aperient tonics, such as sulphate of magnesia with sulphate of iron, in those who are debilitated; together with hot fomentations, and simple, soothing applications which exclude the air, locally. When there is free suppuration, the same internal remedies, together with the removal, by epilation, of the loosened hairs from freely-suppurating follicles, and the application of mild astringents, such as zinc lotions and ointment; and, lastly, in the sub-acute or chronic stage, where there is only a suppurating follicle here and there, but mostly a number of indurated tubercles— i.e., follicles thickened by hyperplasic growth of the connective tissue-a course of Donovan's solution, together with, locally, hot fomentation, and the application of a weak nitrate-ofmercury ointment (a drachm and a half to an ounce) night and morning. Of course, for persons of scrofulous constitutions, cod-liver oil and iron are to be given, in combination with alterative remedies. I fully admit that the exhibition of Donovan's solution is, in great part, an empirical proceeding; but I prefer it to any other remedy, and have reason to speak with confidence as to its efficacy in sycosis, when employed in the way, and at the particular stage, above indicated. Lastly, I may add that it is an easy matter to do harm in sycosis, by the injudicious use of local stimulants, which intensify the hyperæmia and the hyperplasic thickening; and I believe this to be the radical fault in the treatment of sycosis. MORE than a hundred people are drinking warm blood at the Brighton, Mass., abattoir, for various diseases, and there is talk of building a hotel to accommodate the patients. INTERCOSTAL NEURALGIA IN WOMEN. BY J. MILNER Fothergill, M.D., M.R.C.P. From Obstet. Jour. of Great Britain and Ireland. HERE is no more marked form THE of disease than this particular form of neuralgia. It is commonly met with among the out-patients of every medical charity, and even in private practice. Indeed, it is the commonest affection met with among women of that class where neuralgia, unconnected with diathesis, might fairly be expected, viz.: among those where nutrition is defective, an essential in the production of neuralgia. It belongs to the reproductive period of woman's existence, and is but comparatively rarely seen after that time, and never, in my experience, before it. It is a troublesome and intractable malady unless approached vigorously and with relation to those disturbances of the reproductive organs with which it is so intimately associated. In almost every instance, leucorrhoea is present; usually either with amenorrhoea or menorrhagia; and in those cases which are not accompanied by: leucorrhoea, the woman is usually suckling. It is The pain is truly neuralgic; that is, according to Anstie, it comes in recurrent waves, or gusts, and is onesided. I have never seen a case of this form of neuralgia where the pain was on both sides, and but rarely where it was on the right side. It is a left-side pain essentially. commonly called "pain in the side," and its truly neuralgic character is overlooked. A patient suffering from this affection gives a history to the following effect: She is weak and feeble, with black spots before her eyes, and has pain in her side and betwixt her shoulders, and very commonly dyspepsia, or constipation. In addition to this, she admits, more or less reluctantly, that she is much troubled with leucorrhoea, and usually has some uterine derangement. In 1 t the cases where this is not the case, she is suckling. In appearance, she usually presents a debilitated aspect, and very commonly is a dark and sallow woman, of lymphatic temperament; but by no means necessarily so; and women of a totally different character are found as sufferers from this feminine scourge. The tongue is usually clean, bright, and often silvery, without change of size, except in advanced or aggravated cases, when it is swollen and indented by the pressure of the teeth. She complains of pain in the side and betwixt the shoulders, and the painful spots are very tender upon pressure. In reality, these are the tender spots of Valleix; and one is found over or near the left apex, and the other at the posterior spinal rootlet of the nerve. The nerve usually affected is the sixth intercostal. Such is the malady in its ordinary aspect; and its features are singularly unvarying, so much so, indeed, that when pain in the side" is complained of, the symptoms can be rapidly run up, often much to the patient's astonishment. This is especially the case as to to the uterine connections, which are often carefully concealed, and only admitted when the question is pressed. As a rule, it may be said these cases are found among the married, and among servants who work hard and take little care of themselves; indeed, they often scarcely know how if they had the time to do so. In rare cases, women past the meno-pause have this ailment, commonly with its ordinary accompaniment leucorrhoea; at other times without it. It is a disease of debility whenever met, and is free from any association with those affections, syphilis and malaria, so productive of neuralgia. At times it is found in girls who are decidedly |