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Dr. Henry Howard looked on chorea as a functional and not an organic disease. His treatment was arsenic and nux-vomica. A vote of thanks to Dr. Smith was moved by Dr. Roddick, seconded by Dr. Hingston, and carried.

Dr. Hingston exhibited to the society a pen-holder which he extracted from the urethra of a young man, it having unintentionally got lodged there. Urethral forceps were used. They are so constructed as to facilitate the removal of foreign bodies from the urethra.

Dr. F. W. Campbell saw a case some years ago in the General Hospital under the care of the late Dr. Jones, in which a pencil had been passed into the urethra. Lithotomy was performed in order to extract it. He also stated the facts of a second case, where through envy an individual was forcibly held while two shawl pins were inserted and pushed down his urethra. Finding it impossible to withdraw them, as their points became, in every effort, caught in the urethral walls, the points were pressed forward, cut down on and extracted through the wounds. He was assisted in this case by Dr. Drake.

Dr. Campbell also related a case of cancer of the bladder. Dr. Hingston mentioned a case of atresia of the vagina, in which he had dilated and subsequently directed a medical man to continue the dilation. At his next visit, (the patient residing out of town), he found that the urethra had been dilated instead. of the partially closed vagina.

MONTREAL, May 30, 1879.

A regular meeting was held this evening, the President Dr. Henry Howard, in the chair.

Dr. Osler exhibited two pathological specimens. The first was a monstrosity. It was a foundling brought into the Grey Nunnery, and lived for three days after admission. It is devoid of cerebellum and cerebrum. Projecting from the top of the head are some peculiar convolutions. The frontal and parietal bones are wanting; the occipital is wanting. The head is buried in the shoulders, and there is a peculiar idiotic appearance. Dr. Fenwick asked if the child fed and swallowed. Dr. Schmidt

replied that it swallowed very well, and was fed from a spoon. Dr. Smith asked if the child could move its limbs freely. Dr. Schmidt replied that it did not move its left arm. Dr. Osler further added that an interesting fact in these cases is, that the cranial nerves are developed and perfect.

The second case was one of post-partum endo-metritis, death having taken place on the 9th day preceded by symptoms of septic poisoning. There is a coating like a diphtheritic membrane over about one-third of the uterus. The uterine veins are not filled with thrombi, the right ovarian, however, is large, firm, hard and filled with a thrombus. This was traced up to the inferior vena cava, and where it enters the cava it was of natural size, and through this opening the thrombus extended, and was attached to the wall of the cava. There was diphtheritic endometritis. According to some writers, there is a difference between this and true diphtheria. Herschfeld says that if this be inoculated in the throat of a rabbit it will not induce genuine diphtheria.

Dr. Rodger then read a paper on "Softening of the Brain." Some discussion followed, and a vote of thanks was moved by Dr. Kennedy, seconded by Dr. Ross, and carried.

Under the head of "Cases in Practice." Dr. Hingston mentioned that on Sunday last a child was brought to him suffering very great pain in the rectum. On passing his finger into the rectum, he found a needle, which was removed. The child had swallowed it.

Dr. Ross asked what was the experience of members of the Society in regard to Ague occurring within the city of Montreal. He said he knew of it occurring in the neighbourhood of the city, but had never seen a case originating within the city. He had lately a case from Hochelaga, and had seen two cases in the General Hospital, the disease having attacked the men while working in the Lachine Canal. Dr. Fenwick said he had seen cases originating within the city, especially on the line of Ontario street. Dr. Armstrong had seen one case, and Dr. Rodger two at the Point.

The meeting then adjourned.

NO. LXXXIII.

O. C. EDWARDS,

Secretary. 33

Reviews and Notices of Books.

A Practical Treatise on Surgical Diagnosis. Designed as a Manual for Practitioners and Students.-By AMBROSE L RANNEY, A.M., M.D., &c. 8vo. pp. 386. New York: WILLIAM WOOD & Company, 27, Great Jones Street.

This is a very excellent manual. The author in publishing it as a text-book for students trusts that it may be an aid to memory by presenting the symptoms of any given diseases in contrast with those of other diseases that they may resemble. Considerable care has been devoted to the preparation of this work. All questions of ætiology, pathology and treatment have been excluded, the author confining himself to the symptomatology of disease, showing the differences in this respect between different affections which often resemble one another, and which may be mistaken the one for the other. The table of contents sets forth a division of the subject into eight parts. In part I Disease of the blood-vessels are given. In the classification we have diseases of the arterial coats, as atheroma and fatty degeneration. Disease affecting the calibre of the vessels, as aneurism, occlusion of arteries from pressure, from emboli, from thrombi, and from foreign bodies. Diseases of veins, as hypertrophy of the coats, atrophy of venous coats, adhesive phlebitis, diffuse phlebitis, varicose tumours, obstruction from plugging, or outside pressure, and parasites of veins.

The author is forced to admit that many of these affections are obscure, and that in some a positive and decided opinion cannot be given, based on the rational aymptoms, or physical signs observed.

In speaking of aneurism, the author points out the difficulties of diagnosis, more especially in the thoracic and abdominal varieties. He enumerates some thirteen other affections with which aneurism may be confounded. The differential symptoms of each are given, side by side, so that the reader is enabled to grasp the subject more readily.

In part II. Diseases of joints are treated in the same manner.

These the author classifies under the headings, inflammatory diseases, anchyloses, dropsy of joints, articular neuralgia, loose cartilages, and congenital and acquired malformations. In part III. we have the subject of diseases of bones. Part IV. dislocations, and part V. fractures. Part VI. is devoted to diseases of the male genitals. Part VII. to diseases of the abdominal cavity, and Part VIII. to diseases of the tissues. In this last part will be found inflammatory conditions of the tissues, tumefactions, indurations, suppurations, gangrene, the formation of abscess, tumors, both benign and malignant, and the differential diagnosis, between various conditions of the uterus, uterine fibroids, and ovarian cysts. This is a very practical book and will be found of great use to the surgical teacher, more especially those engaged in bed-side instruction. The arrangement of the subjects is concise, and the differentiation so placed that the symptoms of each disease can be reviewed separately by reading from above downwards, and by reading across the page the points of contrast become at once apparent, while at the foot of each page will be found an enumeration of symptoms common to the disease under discussion, and that with which it might be confounded.

There are some defects which are of importance, as for instance, in the subspinous dislocation of the humerus, it is stated that it is frequent in all ages. This is manifestly an error, as this form of dislocation is very rare. Frank Hamilton testifies to the rarity of this accident. In the 5th edition of his valuable treatise on dislocations and fractures, he mentions one case only as having come under his observation; again, in reference to this dislocation, the author states the reduction is permanent when accomplished. This is certainly not always the case. Hamilton mentions the fact of one case in which the bone would not remain in place when reduced, and accounts for that result from disruption of the subscapularis muscle, an accident which is mentioned as occurring by Sir Astley Cooper. There are some other defects which in a careful revision of the work will, we doubt not, be amended in a future edition. Altogether the work is most creditable, and will be found of great use to both practitioner and student.

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Modern Surgical Therapeutics.-A Compendium of Current Formulæ, approved Dressings and Specific Methods for Treatment of Surgical Diseases and Injuries.-By Geo. H. NAPHEYS, A.M., M.D. Sixth edition. Revised to the most recent date. 8vo. pp. 420. Philadelphia: D. G. BRINTON, 115 South Seventh Street.

This is an old friend with a new face, another edition of a very popular compilation of the various modes of treatment adopted by surgeons in all parts of the world. We are pleased to see that the author gives credit to Canada for some of the plans of treatment he enumerates.

Prof. Fuller's treatment of shock by opium (Medical Record, February, 1877) is mentioned.

Three pages and a half are devoted to synopsis of Dr. Rosebrugh's (Toronto) treatment of Conjunctivitis. The work is an exceedingly useful one, and quite up to the practice of the present day.

A Treatise on the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood.-By J. LEWIS SMITH, M.D., Clinical Professor of Diseases of Children in Bellevue Hospital, New York. Fourth edition, thoroughly revised, with illustrations. 8vo. pp. 740. Philadelphia: HENRY C. LEA, publisher, 1879.

The fact that the author has been called upon to produce a fourth edition of this work demonstrates conclusively that it supplies a want keenly felt by American practitioners. Either from his own neglect, in many more instances from the neglect of the authorities of his college, the student goes into practice knowing little or nothing about the diseases of children. On the day he graduates, though he may know all about tying the third part of the subclavian, diagnosing spinal sclerosis, or the best method of performing Cæsarian section, yet his examiners would puzzle him were they to ask how an enema ought to be given to a baby, or how to prescribe for a case of infantile diarrhoea.

Many a young practitioner, aware of his ignorance in this branch of medicine, commences his reading in that long dreary period before the patients come to him, by careful application to

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