per and pare the luxuriant skin "to the raw." Then make pressure with adhesive strips upon a pledget of cotton soaked in glycerine, so as to enable the nail to elevate. When the nail is not diseased and the disability results from the hypertrophied skin, prodnce anesthesia by means of the ether spray, and pare the skin closely so as to leave the edge of the nail perfectly free; after which apply pressure with the adhesive plaster or the india-rubber band. If the nail is broad and irregular, remove a triangular section of it from the centre. If there is much ulceration and the nail is diseased the old plan of removing the outer third of the nail must be employed, taking care to remove every vestige of the root. This is Mr. Wood's practice. St. Mary's Hospital.-An operation for removal of the in-growing nail not deemed necessary. A solution of liquor potassa (3ii to 3i of water) is applied on cotton to the diseased nail and the diseased skin. The parts are kept continually moist with this lotion, and as the nail is softened by the alkali, it is scraped off. Finally the nail becomes so thin that it can be removed without pain; or if it is preferred, the lotion can be continued until it is entirely removed by scraping. It is important to continue the treatment until every vestige of the disease disappears. This is the practice of Mr. Norton. St. Thomas' Hospital.-Mr. Croft does not, as a general rule, meet with these cases until the disease is advanced. He prefers Dupuytren's radical cure plan, because it is speediest and most certain. He cuts through the centre of the nail with a strong scalpel and after lifting that half corresponding to the diseased edge with a pair of forceps as a lever, he is careful to pluck out the root of the nail. In milder cases he pares the diseased corner and applies caustic and a compress. University College Hospital.-Mr. Heath objects to paring the centre of the nail and cauterizing the exuberant granulations because such a procedure is ineffectual. He prefers to remove a narrow slip of the nail with forceps and scissors, taking care to bring away the root, a result not always easy to obtain because of the sudden condition of the nail. Careful dressing is always necessary after removal. In intractable cases in which both edges are inverted it is frequently necessary to destroy the matrix of the nail by the actual cautery. This com pels the patient to lay up for a few days, but insures a permanent cure. Dr. Chas. R. Drysdale, Metropolitan Free Hospital, reports a case of persistent vomiting and constant eructions, treated successfully with sulphurous acid after other approved remedies had been tried. The lady, aged 36, had been suffering for one month, the matter ejected from the stomach being a sour, clear, frothy fluid. She took a half drachm of the acid in an ounce of water three times a day; she ceased to vomit after the third dose. Dr. Andrew Wood, iu his speech during the debate on the amendment of the medical acts in the General Medical Council, July 2, 1869, used the following language: "I wish to state that I think there is far too great an impression on the public mind that medical legislation concerns more the profession than the general public. That I deny. The object of medical legislation is not directly to benefit the medical profession, though indirectly it does so, but to benefit the public; because, if you read the prea nble of the medical act, you find that the object which a paternal government had in sanctioning that act, was to enable the public to distinguish between qualified and unqualified practitioners." Further on he says: "I deny that the medical act was made to protect medical practitioners from quacks; and I say, if it had been so intended, most unquestionably it would have failed in its operation. Any man may attempt as much as he likes to put down quacks in this country; but no amount of registration or any thing else will be effectual so long as there are men who are willing to be quacked.” M. Legoyt, in a paper read before the Paris Statistical Society, states that he believes the greater longevity of the Jewish race can be explained by the following facts: 1. The Jew marries e: rlier than the Christian, and thus derives at an earlier age the advantages which statistics show are incident to the married state. Still, from their well-known prudence and circumspection, it is not to be supposed that they enter upon this until prepared to meet its exigencies. Among them hasty and rash marriages, which are alike hurtful to the health of parents and children, are rare. 2. The fecundity being less, they can pay much more attention to the preservation of their children. 3. By reason of the small number of illegitimate children they have, they escape the exceptional mortality which sweeps away such children. 4. The Jew does not pursue any calling which demands very hard labor. He is neither an agriculturalist a laborer, mechanic, sailor, nor miner. Before all things, he is the shop-keeper, merchant, banker, artist, savant, man of letters, or public functionary. 5. The Mosaic law contains ordinances which, being purely hygienic, must exercise a favorable influeuce on the health-e.g., the verification of the condition of slaughtered animals, the frequency of ablution, the practice of circumcision, and the separation from the husband until a week after menstruation, etc. 6. The strength of the family feeling among the Jews. It is only when it is absolutely impossible, and without distinction of rank, that a Jewish woman does not suckle her child. The children, too, are the objects of incessant and most vigilant care, which indeed is returned by the respect and solicitude which these manifest for their parents, especially when aged or infirm. This is probably one cause of the rarity of suicide among the Jews. 7. The sobriety of the Jews is incontestable. 8. Throughout the entire Jewish community, a warm feeling of charity for the indigent and miserable prevails. 9. The religious Jew is remarkable for his great serenity of mind, and his deep-seated faith in Providence and the high destinies of his race. The constancy, the pérennité of the Jewish temperament, is well reflected in his religious faith, which has remained immovable for so many ages. 19. The morality of the Jews, as deduced from criminal statistics, seems to be real, and is only an indication of those regular habits of life which exercise so great an influence on the duration of life. CLINICAL RECORDS. "Ex Principiis, nascitur probabilitas: ex factis, vero veritas." ART. 1.—A CASE OF TETANUS On Friday night, June 11, 1869, was called in consultation with Dr. Rhodes, of Shelby city, to see Wm. Johnson, a stout day-laborer, of 25 or 26 years of age, florid complexion, sandy hair, medium build, weighing probably 160 lbs. While in the enjoyment of good general health, eight days previously, he had jumped over a fence, and landed upon a portion of a horse's skeleton, one of the ribs of which ran through his boot-sole, and into the plantar arch of the left foot, near the line of the middle of the metatarsal bone of the toe next the little one. He declared that none of the foreign body remained within the flesh; that he examined the rib carefully with the view of determining this. His foot inflaming, he consulted Dr. Rhodes, who advised cold water dressingswhich gave him great relief. He got on as well as could have been expected until Thursday, a week following the injury, when, symptoms of tetanus coming on, Dr. R. was sent for. On his arrival he found the case fully marked. He prescribed grain doses of opium hourly, and made a free incision in the line of the wound down to the bone, and applied a mush poultice. When we saw him on Friday night, some 24 or 36 hours from the time of the first development of the symptoms, he was lying in bed, supinely, with his chest slightly arched, the legs straight extended, arms close to the chest with fore-arms turned over on the breast, the facial and cervical muscles rigid, with the angles of the mouth a little drawn down, giving slightly the aspect which the old writers on medicine not infelicitously termed the risus sardonicus. His skin was bathed in perspiration and felt cold; the limbs were rigid; and, on endeavoring to take his arm to feel his pulse, the muscles could be perceived to be hard and corded, and on endeavoring to move the arm from the chest it seemed to be as rigid as if anchylosis at the shoulder joint existed. The abdominal muscles, also, were as rigid as if they had been wooden. His pulse was 92 to the minute; respiration irregular owing to pain; temperature 101° F.; tongue moist, though slightly coated. His jaws could be opened of an inch. Every few minutes the patient is seized with general spasmodic contraction of all the muscles of his body, but especially those of the trunk, and more especially those of the back, crying out each time in agony. They continue from 4 to 8 seconds, when relaxation takes place. In a sentence, there is a general rigidity of almost all the muscles, but, in addition to this, general spasmodic contractions are added at brief intervals. He said that his bowels had acted the day previously, and that he had passed his urine a few hours before and desired to do so again, but on making the effort he cannot. Percussion, however, does not indicate much of an accumulation; palpation amounts to nothing in determining the point, owing to the exceeding rigidity of the abdominal walls. Thought it unnecessary at present to introduce a catheter. The foot wounded is much swollen and inflamed, and suppurating at the wound. Recollecting the very favorable result of the whisky treatment, as recorded in the statistics of the New York Hospital some years since, we determined to try it faithfully with him during the night, and, if a manifest improvement resulted, to continue it; otherwise, to commence the calabar bean treatment in the morning. |