"The Arabian astronomers," says Whewell, "made some advances beyond the Greeks; the two great instances are, the discovery of the Motion of the Sun's Apogee by Albategnius, and the discovery (recently brought to light by M. Sedillot),† of the existence of the Moon's Second Inequality, by Aboul Wefa. But we cannot but observe in how different a manner they treated these discoveries, from that with which Hipparchus or Ptolemy would have done. The variation of the Moon, in particular, instead of being incorporated into the system by means of an Epicycle, as Ptolemy had done with the Evection, was allowed, almost immediately, so far as we can judge, to fall into neglect and oblivion; so little were the learned Arabians prepared to take their lessons from observation as well as from books. That in many subjects they made experiments, may easily be allowed. There never was a period of the earth's history, and least of all a period of commerce and manufactures, luxury and art, medicine and engineering, in which there were not going on innumerable processes, which may be termed experiments; and, in addition to these, the Arabians adopted the pursuit of alchemy, and the love of exotic plants and animals. But so far from their being, as has been maintained, a people whose "experimental intellect " fitted them to form sciences which the "abstract intellect" of the Greeks failed in producing, it rather appears that several of the sciences which the Greeks had founded, were never even comprehended by the Arabians. I do not know any evidence that these pupils ever attained to understand the real principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics and Harmonics, which their masters had established. At any rate, when these sciences again became progressive, Europe had to start where Europe had stopped. There is no Arabian name which any one has thought of interposing between Archimedes the ancient, and Stevinus and Galileo the moderns."

Notwithstanding the enlightened patronage of the Caliphs, and the multiplicity of their schools, libraries and authors, with the exception of chemistry, pharmacy and the description of some new diseases, medicine is but little indebted to the Arabs.

With these few prefatory remarks, we now come to a notice of their most eminent physicians, reserving for our conclusion a brief account of the condition of the various branches of the science among them.

* Vol. I, p. 244–245.

† Sedillot, Nouvelles Rech. sur l' Hist, de l' Astron. chez les Arabes. Nouveau Journal Asiatique. 1836.

PROLONGATION OF ANÆSTHESIA BY CHLOROFORM.-Drs. Erlenmeyer and Nussbaum state that by subcutaneous injection of (1-8 grain) small doses of morphia-salts the anesthesia produced by chloroform may be protracted without danger, the patient passing at onee into a sound sleep of several hours' duration.-Druggists' Circular and Chemical Gazette.

Surgical Cases.

BY H. H. TOLAND, M. D.

False Aneurism of the Brachial Artery.

M. HUBBARD, aged 33, wounded the brachial artery at the upper fourth, with the point of a large knife blade with which he was endeavoring to cut a lariat. The opening being extensive, when the external wound was closed a sufficient quantity of blood escaped to form an aneurismal tumor that filled the entire axilla. The sac, when I saw him some weeks after the occurrence, was thin, ard the external surface so much inflamed that ulceration must have occurred in a few days, consequently the case required immediate attention.

Sep. 8th, 1863, assisted by Dr. Fourgeaud and Mr. Fenn, after the administration of chloroform, and the circulation in the artery being controlled by pressure applied to the sub-clavian, an incision was made three inches long, and the coagulated blood removed.

So soon as the hæmorrhage resulting from the incision was arrested, the opening in the vessel was soon discovered, and a ligature applied both above and below the wound, which was longitudinal and about half an inch in length.

The circulation in the extremity was completely re-established by the 11th, four days after the operation. The ligatures were removed on the 21st. In two weeks the wound resulting from the incision was healed, and the usefulness of the limb entirely restored.

True Aneurism.

James Johnson, aged 35, had been suffering from a tumor in the axilla, sufficiently large to paralyze the arm by pressure, resulting from its proximity to the brachial plexus.

The extremity was swollen considerably, and he suffered constantly from pain. The entire lower fourth of the axillary artery was greatly dilated, and the vessel appeared to be enlarged as high up as it could be traced.

The tumor presented all the peculiarities of an aneurism, and could only be cured by an operation.

Being greatly reduced by pain and loss of sleep, and believing that it would be unsafe to ligate the sub-clavian if diseased, I determined to adopt Brasdor's method, and tie the brachial below, but as near, the tumor as possible, hoping to effect a cure by retarding the circulation in the sac so much that coagulation of its contents would occur and an obliteration result.

December the 15th 1863, assisted by Dr. Pinkerton, of Virginia City, Messrs. Fenn and Beecher, chloroform was administered and the brachial artery exposed as near the sac as possible, and secured by a ligature.

In four days the circulation in the arm and hand was completely re-established, and the pulsation in the tumor greatly lessened. The ligature was detached on the 13th day without secondary hemorrhage, and his general health greatly improved. By an examination made Jan. 15th, it was ascertained that the pulsation in the tumor was so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, and in four weeks it had entirely disappeared. The tumor is gradually diminishing and the sensibility and motion of the limb are returning. Wound of the Brachial Artery.

M. Searls, aged 28, received a gunshot wound which destroyed the skin and biceps-muscle at the front and lower part of the arm for several inches, and wounded the brachial artery about two inches above the bifurcation.

Dr. Boyce, who had charge of the case, being indisposed, I was requested by him, Oct. 20th 1863, to ligate the artery, as the patient had the previous night suffered excessively from hæmorrhage, and he was apprehensive that a return would prove fatal. At nine o'clock, A. M., a ligature was applied to both extremities of the artery, and notwithstanding the mangled condition of the parts implicated, the hæmorrhage was completely controlled, the ligatures came away on the fourteenth day, the wound healed kindly, and the limb was not only saved but he has recovered from the prostration resulting from excessive loss of blood.

Second Annual Report of the Sacramento Board of Health.

IN presenting this, their second annual report, the Board of Health, while they are compelled to record a very considerable increase of disease over the past and some previous years, take pleasure in bearing witness to the really small mortality which has attended it. This increase of disease being, as will be more particularly referred to hereafter, due to extraordinary epidemic agencies, to which, in common with every section both of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, we have been exposed, leaves unaffected the generally received opinion of the mild and genial climatic influences by which we are ordinarily surrounded.

For the general character of the climate, its sanitary features, its natural and proper relations to the health of its inhabitants, it is legitimate to refer rather to the ordinary influences engendered than to the unusual and transient results of a wide-spread epidemic.

Taking this view of the subject, the statistics of the year past fully sustain the deductions that may be drawn therefrom, touching the usual salubrity of the climate. This is more fully shown in the following tables:

TABLE A.

Comparative Mortality from February, 1862, to February, 1863, and from February, 1863, to February, 1864.

The actual excess of mortality during the year past, over that which immediately preceded it, for the same months, is seen to be 24; the greatest mortality being observed in those months when the epidemic influenza was most prevalent. By way of further illustration, we respectfully refer to the following table, marked B:

TABLE B.

Mortality for Hot Season, 1863, Compared with Seven previous Years.

The striking fact observed in an examination of the above, is that of the small excess of mortality for the hot season-the time when diarrhoea, fevers, and other diseases usually ascribed to malarial agency are generally most prevalent. Leaving out September, when the epidemic influenza, to which reference has been made, was already sensibly felt, the excess of mortality over the mean for the eight years is remarkably small-3.75; or, estimating the mean of each month, 1.25 monthly. That the deduction of this month is proper and necessary for the just estimate of the mortality of the season, due to causes constant in their operation and peculiar to the climate, is evidenced by the fact that during September the deaths by phthisis alone amounted to 8; a pretty large increase over any other month in the year, and forcibly expressive of the direct influence of epidemic influenza upon chronic pulmonary diseases. The precise bearing of this influenza upon the mortality of the year, may be seen at a glance by reference to table C:

TABLE C.

Mortality during Epidemic Influenza, 1863, compared with same months in

Thus the actual excess of deaths during the four months enumerated, over those of the previous year, was 40; a difference which, when we consider that the yearly increase was only 24, explains more emphatically than any argument can do, the powerfully pernicious influence of the epidemic, while it equally sustains the view first taken, that, so far as the ordinary causes of disease are concerned, the past year has formed no exception.

In this connexion, the results of the examinations which have been carried on by one of the members of the Board, and which have formed the subject of occasional reports, into the animal and vegetable forms contained in the standing water in different sections of the city, in the early summer months, as compared with those observed during the previous year, have not been without interest. They are found to sustain the deductions drawn therefrom in our last report, relative to their supposed influence on one of the most prevalent forms of disease met with in this climate, and find a strong corroboration in the actual sanitary statistics which form the basis of our present report. These examinations have been made with care, and with a desire for minuteness of accuracy, and served to show the preponderance of vegetable forms in the water standing in different localities in the city, at the time they were instituted; a fact, which, when contrasted with the results stated in our previous report, is strongly demonstrative of the correctness of the generally received opinion of the source of malarial emanations. It seems, moreover, satisfactorily to explain the real increase of malarial disease over the previous year.

The epidemic influenza, of which mention has been made, prevailed in our city from the early part of October to the latter part of February, with the varying intensity observed everywhere, in its world-wide spread progress. In the popular mind this affection is associated with catarrh, and its prevalence is generally identified with the cold, damp weather of our winter and early spring months. But the history of the disease, verified by our recent experience, shows that such is by no means the case. The present winter has been characterized by the blandest and most genial weather ever experiienced in the whole extent of our State; much less rain having fallen than the usual average quantity. At the same time the epidemic has been readily recognizable from ordinary catarrh, by the great constitutional disturbance of the nervous system generally met with and entirely disproportionate to the extent of the local disease; strongly resembling in many of its symptoms the disease known as Dengue. In many cases there was no cough, no sneezing, and none of the ordinary defluxions from the nasal membrane; so that the disease might have been mistaken for the ordinary fever frequently met with,