in physician or surgeon. We thus clear our way to the essentially acute cases; and we have found that in these inflammation always counts for something, generally for a good deal. Now, whether we know exactly how to deal with the main cause or not, we always know how to deal with the inflammation; and except in the extremest urgency, our first duty is to simplify our case by lessening this. Unfortunately, means are often used which tend rather to aggravate the enteritis, and of all these, injections into the bowel are the most mischievous. Even in the case of fecal accumulation, it is not the fecal mass, but the inflammation set up by it, to which the explosion is due, so that even in these cases it is wild practice to pump into the inflamed bowel and to drag the patient hither and thither in bed. Even for diagnostic purposes, enemata are rated far too highly, and are rarely of much service. Clearly, it is our duty to reduce our case by complete rest, opiates, formentations, and a leech or two to the abdomen, or anus until the enteritis subsides, and then we can deal as we see fit with its cause. But if enamata are abused in fecal accumulation, wherein they are chiefly valuable, what are we to say of the fashion of forcing their employment in cases of internal strangulation? It is certainly conceivable that an intussusception may be unfolded by a forcible and ample injection, or by the insufflation of air, but to force air or water against a knotted or snared loop of intestine is surely outrageous meddling. And yet I have never been called into a case of such obstruction without finding that such a measure has been assiduously employed, to the harassing of the patient, to the aggravation of the symptoms, and to the increase of inflammation around the stomach. I believe no formula can be drawn from our experience of more value than this, namely, that if rest in every way be sedulously enforced, and the inflammation which palsies the bowel be carefully combated by the use of sedatives, such as opium and belladonna, and other means, cases of obstruction of the bowels tend to recovery. Medical and Surgical Reporter. Jaborandi in the Albuminuria of Pregnancy.-Dr. Langlet, of Rheims, publishes an elaborate account in the Union Medicale de Nord-Est of a case of albuminuria during pregnancy which he treated successfully by the administration of jaborandi. The patient, three months advanced in pregnancy, showed the ordinary symptoms of albuminuria. The action of the jaborandi on the salivary glands became apparent on the day of administration. The patient took the drug continuously for a period of sixteen days, during which time the oedema disappeared, and the general symptoms were improved. The albumen was likewise lessened to such an extent that not the slightest trace could finally be detected, and the lying-in occurred under the most favorable circumstances. Dr. Langlet has noticed that the administration of jaborandi caused an increase in the urinary secretion, and this coincides with a somewhat similar observation of Mr. Render, who found that in a case of acute nephritis the drug caused polyuria. On the fifteenth day of the administration of the drug hæmaturia occurred, so as to give the urine a disagreeable odor and bright color. This accident, which did not retard the recovery, is to be attributed to the excessive work imposed upon the kidneys by the increased secretion, leading to congestion, and the congestion to actual hemorrhage.-Edinburgh Medical Journal. Pruritus Vulvæ.-Dr. Mendenhall recommends (Obstetric Gazette, Dec., 1878): R. Sodæ biborat Sig.-Soak Plumbi acetat. Tr. opii.. M. Sig. Soak clothes in the solution and lay them upon the external parts affected, between the labia, etc. Keep the clothes freely wetted. Inject one ounce of the solution into the vagina several times a day. When the pruritus has been subdued, apply a solution of carbolic acid in glycerine (gtt. xx. to f 3 i.) once or twice daily. Chrysophanic Acid.—A writer in the Chemist and Druggist says: Chrysophanic acid ointment has been much vaunted as a remedy for psoriasis, but it is so very irritating that it requires great caution in its use. The first case in which we saw its effects was in hospital practice. A woman with psoriasis about the arm and shoulder was told to apply the ointment, but returned much disgusted, in a day or two, to say that her linen was spoiled, and it was found stained of a deep, dark purple color, and, in addition, there was severe erythema extending from the seat of disease up the arm. The ointment was discontinued, and the irritation soon subsided. In another case the ointment was applied to a patch over the knee; it caused erythema all around the part affected, and gave rise to conjunctivitis, which lasted two or three days, but in each case the local disease was removed. It is also said to turn the hair a peculiar purplish-brown tint and to stain the skin, but Dr. Balmanno Squire states that this may be removed by benzol.— Medical and Surgical Reporter. Abnormal Lowness of Temperature and its Dangers.-Whilst increase of temperature. occuring in various morbid conditions is always carefully noted, deviations in the opposite direction are seldom alluded to. In an inaugural dissertation published at Berne, Dr. Glaser points out that instances of this latter phenomenon are more common than is usually supposed, that a temperature between 34° and 35° C. may be frequently met with, and that a fall below 30° C. is not very rare. Low temperatures are not indicative of danger, to the extent commonly supposed; recovery has been known to take place after temperature of 24° to 26° C. The danger in any given case is to be estimated not only in the fall in temperature, but mainly by a reference to the causes to which it is due; and the variations in temperature, often great and occurring under normal conditions, must be taken into account. Dr. Glaser also points out that subnormal temperatures do not always accompany relapse, but that the two conditions may occur quite independently of each other-(Med. Examiner, Aug. 8. 1878.)-The Practitioner. Causation of Septicæmia.-M. Colin, of Paris, read before the Academy of Medicine in that city a paper on the above subject, of which the following is a résumé (given by the London Medical Record): "Putrid material, according to its quantity and degree of alteration, exerts a variable action on the animal organism. In a large dose it determines a rapid and invariably fatal poisoning, which causes no marked alteration in the blood beyond a tendency to incoagulability, and is not associated with the reproduction of proto-organisms. In cases of this kind the injected fluid fails to communicate any kind of virulent property either to the blood or to any other juice of the economy. In reduced quantity the animal fluid gives rise to an adynamic febrile condition, which varies in intensity according to the nature of the animal. If this condition proves fatal, it is so through the production of visceral lesions, and through changes in the blood. Reproduction of proto-organisms takes place, at least in those parts where the putrid agent has been deposited, and frequently throughout the whole mass of the blood. Certain putrid fluids that have not undergone much alteration, such as blood mixed with products of intestinal transudation, decomposing blood of an animal affected with carbon, peritoneal serosity removed some time after death, may alone, when injected in extremely minute quantities, determine septicæmia transmissible by inoculation, after the manner of the majority of virulent affections. Here there is always virulence of the fluid and reproduction of the proto-organisms introduced from without."-Med. and Surg. Reporter. Tape-Worm in Cucumbers.-At a late meeting of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, Prof. Dr. Leidy exhibited a specimen of tape-worm found within a large cucumber. This specimen was a true tape-worm, but of an unknown species, the ovaries being confined to the anterior extremities. -Medical Record, N.Y CANADA Medical and Surgical Journal. MONTREAL, MARCH, 1879. THE REGISTRATION OF BRITISH QUALIFICATIONS The Medical Council of the Province of Ontario has been compelled to recognize a diploma submitted from the University of Edinburgh, and to register the applicant, Dr. Baldwin of Toronto, on the payment of the registration fee, without examination. This is quite in accord with an opinion expressed in this journal years ago, when first this unholy Act was hatched. That it was an outrage to the Profession as a whole and unconstitutional, was an opinion expressed at the time by high judicial authority in Ontario itself, and we doubt much if the act would be effective in excluding from registration any graduate holding a diploma from a recognised University possessing a Royal charter. We have all along been under the impression that our Colonial Universities could claim registration for their Graduates, such institutions at least that hold Imperial charters, and we cannot conceive why it should be otherwise. We have always opposed the degradation of our own universities. If the examiners in those institutions are untrustworthy, or inclined to do their work in a slovenly manner, then should they be deprived of their function and replaced by better men. We hold that it is this very system of belittleing our own institutions which has deprived us of that recognition in Great Britain which is desirable. It is not to be expected that the Medical Council of Great Britain will recognize a Colonial Diploma that is not recognized in its own country. The entire system appears to us to be faulty, and we must cast about for some other method |