Maltine.-The British Med. Journal remarks At the meeting of the British Medical Association at Bath in August last, among the exhibits of pharmaceutical and medical preparations, much interest was shown in one called maltine, which may be described as a highly concentrated extract of malted barley, wheat and oats.

Extracts of malt (i. e., malted barley) are pretty widely known, but this is the first example of a combination of the nutritious principles of these three cereals that we have seen; and the greater value of this combination is apparent, as wheat and oats are especially rich in muscular and fat-producing elements. This preparation is entirely free from the products of fermentation, such as alcohol and carbonic acid, and is very agreeable to the taste. Clinical experience enables us to recommend it as a nutritive and digestive agent, in virtue of its albuminoid contents, and its richness in phosphates and in diastase, likely to prove an important remedy in pulmonary affections, debility, many forms of indigestion, imperfect nutrition, and deficient lactation. It will in many cases take the place of cod liver oil and pancreatic emulsions, where these are not readily accepted by the stomach.

The agents of the manufacturers, Messrs. J. M. Richards & Co., London, issue a pamphlet describing fully the process of manufacture, which no doubt they will supply to any medical man; and we are disposed to believe that maltine, which is less known here than abroad, is well worthy of practical attention.

Formulary.-(LALEMAND'S GOUT SPECIFIC). — A Western correspondent sends us the following formula for this preparation, which is said to be made in St. Louis, Mo. :

Twenty drops three times a day.-(New Remedies.)

The Use of Ergot in Typhoid Fever.— M. Duboué of Pau recommends ergot in typhoid fever for reasons deduced from its physical action, and in one of his works cites seven cases in which it was employed. Two were in the early stages and presented all the characteristic symptoms of the malady, but they got well so soon that it was thought that an error in diagnosis was possible. In three others ergot was not used until all other medicinal resources had been exhausted, and the patients had reached an almost hopeless state. But they all recovered after taking from a gramme and a half to three grammes of ergot daily for about two weeks. Another, who presented grave ataxis symptoms from the outset, with delirium, trismus, carphologia, and intermittent pulse, took ergot for twelve days, the disease assuming a milder form and recovery following. Finally, a patient with typhoid fever, who was three and a half months pregnant, was treated with ergot for fifteen days, and got well without miscarriage, although she took a daily dose of a gramme and a half or two grammes of the drug.(Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, March 28, 1878.)— The Practitioner.

The Physiological and Therapeutic Action of Jaborandi.-O. Kahler gives as the result of his observations in jaborandi that, in moderate doses, it produces approximation of the far point, diminished blood-pressure, as shown by Marey's sphygmograph, with secondary increase in the rapidity of the pulse; when given in large doses it causes retardation of the pulse, with at first lowering, but subsequently increase, of the blood-pressure. The slowing of the pulse depends on an exciting action, opposed to that of atropine, exerted upon the inhibitory ganglia in the heart. (Leyden came to the same conclusion in regard to pilocarpin.) He established is antidotal action to atropine, but found that it is much feebler, than this poison. As a general rule he prefers the subcutaneous injection of pilocarpin in maximum doses of 0.024 of a gramme, when jaborandi has to be used internally. In diabetus mellitus he observed no action exerted by jaborandi on the quantity of

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sugar excreted, providing the digestion was not interfered with. In a case of diabetes insipidus, on the other hand, the administration of the drug reduced the quantity of urine in three days from 6-000 grammes to 2-300; the body weight of the patient did not undergo any increase, but the general health and strength improved materially. In bronchitis acuta and in chronic dry catarrhs Kayler recommends this remedy strongly, and especially, also, in parotitis occurring in the course of severe infectious diseases; and suggests that it should be tried in mumps. He considers that the affections in which it is likely to prove useful are rheumatic diseases, recent neuralgia, dropsy without cardiac debility, the existence of such debility being a contra-indication; hyperæmia and nephritis, uræmia, and, lastly, chronic metallic poisoning.-(Prayer med. Wochenschrift, No. 33 and 34, 1877; and Centralblatt f. d. med. Wiss., April 27, 1878.) The Practitioner.

DR.

Stenosis of Pulmonary Artery. PEACOCK exhibited a specimen of Stenosis of the Pulmonary Artery from disease of the valves, probably congenital. The patient was a boy thirteen years of age who was said to have never been strong, and to have always been livid, but who was in fair health up to four months before his admission into hospital, when he began to suffer from dyspnoea and increased lividity. There was a loud double murmur over the pulmonary cartilage, and a distinct thrill. The patient dying, after suffering from dropsy, &c., the heart was found to weigh 9 oz., the right ventricle to be dilated and hypertrophied, and the orifice of the pulmonary artery narrowed and funnel-shaped, as from adhesion of the valves, the circumference of the orifice being about four-fifths of an inch. Dr. Peacock thought the disease to be congenital. At the time of birth it must have been slight, or else one or both of the foetal passages would have remained pervious.-DR.D. POWELL asked whether the analogous condition of the mitral valve was also congenital. Many cases of mitral stenosis are met with in which no previous history pure of rheumatism is present, and where the only explanation is that

they are congenital in origin. Such patients live long, there being often no regurgitation.-DR. PEACOCK had long regarded a number of these cases as congenital. Burns, of Glasgow, had pointed this out, and so had Farre, and Dr. Peacock himself had frequently seen cases of children who had been ailing all their lives, and who had evidence of mitral constriction. He agreed with Dr. Powell that very often cases of presystolic murmur is met without any previous rheumatic history. The PRESIDENT said that a year ago he saw a patient, twenty-five years of age, with presystolic murmur, and who was known to have had it when two years old, and yet during the whole time he had shown no symptoms of heart disease.-Lancet.

Chlorhydrate of Polycarpine in Ophthalmic Practice. -DR. ALEXANDROFF states (Pamphlet, Marseilles, 1877) that Jaborandi for various reasons is not well adapted for administration; it has a disagreeable taste, it sits uneasily on the stomach, causing nausea, vomiting, and sometimes colic, it produces vertigo and fainting, and lastly it has the disadvantage of being inconstant in its action. Pilocarpine, the active principle of jaborandi -discovered by Hardy in 1875-is free from some of these inconveniences, and its action has been studied on patients affected with rheumatism, albuminous nephritis, and pleurisy, but until his own observations, no attempts had been made, M. Alexandroff states, to ascertain its physiological value in diseases of the eye, except those of M. Wecker, who treated a few cases by hypodermic injection of the chlorhydrate. 'M. Alexandroff determined to investigate its action, and tried it first in a case of rheumatismal irido-choroiditis. The case was sufficiently severe to induce M. Metaxas to recommend iridectomy, to which the patient refused to submit. About 2 centigrammes of the chlorhydrate of pilocarpine in solution in water was, with M. Melaxa's permission, injected by M. Alexandroff into the arm of the patient, atropine being at the same time instilled into the eye. The patient passed a better night and was free from pain; on the following day the injection was repeated, and again at

intervals on five occasions. Under this treatment the media became clear, the ulcer which had been present healed, and vision was completely restored. M. Melaxas tried the chlorhydrate again in a second case of double rheumatic iritis with equal success, and it was afterwards tried not only in many cases of rheumatic iritis, but in retinal hemorrhage, and in exudative choroiditis. In all instances salivation and sweating appear to have been produced, diarrhoea was occasionally observed. Epiphora was constant. The pulse and temperature rose immediately after the injection. He thinks it has an indisputable action on the iris, and finds that it acts more rapidly than eserine. It is at once the antagonist and antidote to atropine. It occasionally produces præcordial pain and feeling of anxiety. He thinks it will prove valuable, not only in cases of rheumatic iritis, but in all cases when the area of the pupil, the choroid and the retina are the seats of serous or plastic exudation either from local or general disease.-Practitioner, September, 1878.

Iodoform in Glandular Swellings. Dr. MOLESCHOTT, of Turin, writes (Giornale Internazionale delle Scienze Mediche, Nov. 5 and 6, 1878,) that he has used iodoform with success in cases which have been usually treated by iodine ointment, such as glandular swellings and cold abscesses. He mentions a case of enlarged spleen, with great prostration, pallor, obstinate diarrhoea, swelling of the lymphatic glands, and increase of the white blood-corpuscles (1 to 50 red), in which very favourable results followed the painting of iodoformed collodion over the spleen and lymphatic glands. Not less successful was its application in orchitis, and epidydimitis, and also in exudations into serous cavities, even including hydropericardium. He advises that iodoform collodion should be tried before paracentesis whenever removal of watery effusion is necessary. He has cured five cases of acute hydrocephalus by the application of this remedy several times daily; calomel and purgative being, however, given at the same time. In cases of swelling of the knee-joint, where surgical interference appeared