N the causation of disease we have

heat to the fluxes of the bowels. When ozone is in abundance in the atmosphere, we have learned to expect influenza and affections of the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract. We trace typhoid fever to the infection of potable water by sewerage; and we have seen scarlet fever follow the milkman's cart, and with the pabulum of life sow the seeds of death.

Rheumatism, asthma, and malarial fevers, have an acknowledged dependence upon the atmosphere as to temperature, barometric pressure, and the presence of that tertium quid, vaguely called miasm. Electric tension has also its influence, which all, sick and well, recognize in their own persons. So, also, that material manifestation of force we know as magnetism, has, in all probability, a powerful influence in the causation of disease. Concerning this we have very few observations recorded. The field of research has rapidly enlarged as to its production of currents, etc., but it has never been studied as the cause of disease.

Whilst innumerable observations are on record as to its powers as a therapeutic agent, I have no theory to offer as to the modus operandi of the treatment to be detailed in the subsequent part of this article, but offer it as the truthful record of what is at present a limited experience, in hope that observations on this subject

may be multiplied, and the facts lying in this direction may be studied.

On December 25, 1871, I was attacked with rheumatism of the ankle and the knee joints in one limb, then the other. I treated myself actively by alkalies, opiates, etc., in the ordinary manner recognized as of the most value in this disease. I was unable to leave my bed for three months, could not walk until April, 1872, and did not fully recover until the warm weather of June. On the 16th day of December, 1872, I was again assailed by my tormentor; treated myself as before, and "I thought myself happy" that I was able to be out of my room in eight weeks, privileged to hobble around the streets of our city with the aid of a cane. Warm weather again restored me to health, and during last summer and this winter I attended to my professional duties. On February 16, 1874, while congratulating myself that I should escape my annual attack, I was suddenly seized in the nighttime with severe pains in both ankles. In the morning I failed, after an ardent effort, to leave my bed. Fever was intense, as also the swelling of ankle and knee joints. A sense of coldness of the lower extremities existed, which was even more distressing than the pain caused by the swelling of the joints. This condition continued until the morning of the 18th. From the 16th to 18th I was unable to sleep. On the morning of the 18th I insulated my bed, by

causing the legs of the bedstead to be placed in four glass tumblers. In four hours thereafter the harrowing sense of coldness disappeared, yet the pain still continued. A sense of warmth and perspiration set in, and that night, at ten o'clock, I fell into a profound sleep, wakening in the morning of the 19th bathed in a profuse warm perspiration, without the aid of diaphoretics or anodynes.

I steadily improved, and in a few days was out of my room. On February 23d, I left home for Cincinnati, where I remained a week, during all of which time I felt neither pain or soreness in the articulations. I returned to my home on Saturday, and found next morning the disease returned. I at once insulated my bed, and in eight days was able to go to my office and engage in my professional duties.

George C—, age sixteen, during the autumn of 1873, had an attack of rheumatism, affecting nearly every joint in the body, and affecting the mitral valves of the heart. In the latter part of January, 1874, he was able to resume his labors. March 8th he had a relapse. I treated him in the usual way, without sensible improvement. I then concluded to try insulation, which I was slow to do in any case save my own, because it seemed whimsical. In six days after instituting insulation he left his bed, and was able to make a journey of eighteen miles, which he did without discomfort.

She

Mrs. -, for eighteen years a sufferer from asthma, which occurred every month, without obvious connection with the menstrual function. During the cold months of the year she suffers almost continually. had a severe attack in March, of this year, and in casting around for some new remedy, I concluded to insulate her bed. She was relieved in a short time, and since then, for more than a month, she has slept uninterruptedly upon the insulated bed, and has had no attack since.

I am aware that "one swallow does not make a summer;" and so small a

number of observations does not establish the value of any form of treatment; yet, when I was so speedily relieved when I expected to follow the old course, I think there is value in it, and report these cases, promising another installment, for I have several under treatment.

ARTIFICIAL REST IN PLEURISY.Dr. Roberts says, in the Practitioner: In the early stage of the disease I would strongly recommend that a trial should be given to the plan of mechanically fixing the entire side by one of the methods to be now described. In order to be of any use it should be done effectually, so as to restrain the movements as much as possible, and the sooner the application is made, the more likely is it to be of service. The plan I originally adopted was the following: Strips of adhesive plaster, from four to five inches wide, were fixed at one end, close to the spine, and then drawn tightly round the side, as far as the middle line in front, the patient being directed to expire deeply. In this manner the whole side was included, commencing from below and proceeding upward, each succeeding strip partially overlapping the one below. One was also fixed over the shoulder. Over this layer of plaster strips of bandage of the same width were fixed in like manner, having been previously dipped in a mixture of mucilage and chalk, such as is used in the treatment of fractures. Two or three layers of these were laid on, and then heated sand-bags applied, in order to dry the application as soon as possible. This is a most effectual mode of fixing one side of the chest, while it leaves the other quite free to act; and I would, by the way, commend it to those who are called upon to treat fractured ribs. The plaster adheres firmly to the skin, and the bandages adhere to the plaster, a firm casing being formed which will remain on any length of time. With regard to pleurisy, however, I have since then adopted another plan, which, so far as the disease is con

cerned, seems sufficiently efficacious. It is merely to use strips of plaster, putting on two or three layers in the following manner: The first strip is laid on obliquely in the direction of the ribs, the second across the course of the ribs, the third in the direction of the first, about half overlapping it, the fourth the same as the second, and so on until the entire side is covered. A strip is also passed over the shoulder, which is kept down by is kept down by another fixed round the side across its ends. Now it is difficult positively to prove that this treatment actually checks the course of pleurisy; but, taking a common sense view of the matter, it is not improbable that such a result is anticipated; and, from my own experience, I have not the slightest doubt but that it is brought about. I have carried it out now in a good number of cases, and in all the course and termination have been most satisfactory, while relief to the pain and other distressing symptoms has been generally immediate. I feel convinced, also, that in many of those cases of extensive pleuritic effusion which come under observation, the accumulation might have been prevented or moderated had this plan of treatment been adopted at an early period. Philadelphia Med, and Surg. Reporter.

TOLERANCE OF THE HEART ΤΟ TRAUMA.-The following case, translated from the Gazette des Hopitaux, we clip from The Clinic of May 2d:

An old soldier was received during the early part of March, in the HotelDieu, service of Richet, a few moments after an attempt at suicide. He had discharged a revolver upon the region of the heart. The ball entered below the left nipple, and did not escape, but made a track behind, by the side of the vertebral column, where it seemed to be lodged. The wound occasioned very little inconvenience and almost no dyspnoea. So little was his distress that the internes believed that the ball had

not penetrated, but had simply traversed the circumference of the thoracic cavity. A careful examination, with the esprit of M. Richet, led to a contrary conviction. He recognized, in fine, by percussion, practiced with great caution, dullness at the presumed level of the projectile. The summit of the left lung yielded a tympanitic resonance, and the ear applied to the chest perceived coarse mucous rales with the metallic bruit. Finally, there supervened some expectoration of pure blood, which could leave no doubt of the affection of the lung. The lung had been thus traversed, and there was left, most probably, hæmato-pneumo-thorax.

As to the heart, it beat with its ordinary regularity. Nevertheless, M. Richet believed that he must maintain reserve as to a possible lesion of this organ, the orifice of the entry of the ball being at the level of the apex.

M. Richet prescribed blood-letting copiously, coup sur coup, iced drinks, and internal hæmostatics.

On the next morning the patient was seized with an attack of cough, which was followed by a sharp hæmorrhage from the wound. With every movement of inspiration and expiration, there escaped a considerable quantity of frothy blood, with the bubbling discharge of air. At the same time there developed emphysema of all the upper parts of the regular, as if impassive, as also the body. The heart remained always pulse. Death followed in the afternoon from the continued hæmorrhage which nothing could arrest.

At the autopsy was recognized a fracture of the rib at the level of the entrance of the ball. The path of the ball traversed the pleura and the pericardium successively at the level of the apex of the heart, which was the seat of a small contused wound. About a table-spoonfull of clotted blood laid in the pericardium. About the wound could be seen the traces of an extensive contusion of the surface of the heart, produced, without doubt,

SPECIAL RULES for the management of infants during the hot season, recommended by the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia, 1874,

As worthy of special notice, we extract the last rule:

RULE 11. Do not wean the child

just before or during the hot weather; nor, as a rule, until after its second summer. If suckling disagrees with the mother, she must not wean the child, but feed it in part, out of a nursing-bottle, on such food as has been directed. However small the supply of breastmilk, provided that it agrees with the child, the mother should carefully keep it up against sickness; it alone will often save the life of a child when everything else fails. When the child is over six months old, the mother may save her strength by giving it one or two meals a day of stale-bread and milk, which should be pressed through a sieve and put into a nursing-bottle. When from eight months to a year old, it may have also one meal a day of the yolk of a fresh and rare-boiled egg, or one

of beef or mutton-broth, into which stale-bread has been crumbed. When older than this, it can have a little meat finely minced; but even then milk should be its principal food, and not such food as grown people eat.The Clinic.

DESTRUCTION OF BRAIN SUBSTANCE WITHOUT FUNCTIONAL LESION.-Prof. Porta, of Pavia, gives an account (Archivio Italiano, November, 1873; abstr. in Psychiatr. Centralblatt) of the case of a man who had received an injury of the skull, causing, as nearly as could be esti mated, the complete disorganization of the upper right hemisphere. In spite of this extensive lesion, no measurable psychic or sensorial disturbance was observed; and at the end of eighteen months a partial hemiplegia of the left side only, remained. This was apparently somewhat improved by electrical treatment.

The same author reports another case of the post-mortem of a woman who had died of fever, without stupor, somnolence, or delirium, in whom the whole right side of the brain was found disorganized by suppuration, the only parts remaining intact being the cerebellum, the pons, the crus cerebelli, and the intraventricular portion.

From these facts Prof. Porta holds that the brain is a double organ, consisting of two similar halves, one of which can do the duty of both; that is, that it is, physiologically, as well as anatomically, double. - Chicago Jour. of Nervous and Mental Disease.

A

NNOUNCEMENT.-At the request of Dr. H. von Ziemssen, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Er

langen, a number of the most eminent clinical instructors of Germany have undertaken to prepare, in a series of

independent treatises, a complete Encyclopedia of the Practice of Medicine; the incentive to this labor is the great need which has been felt the past year or two of a work, which fully corresponded to the present standpoint of clinical medicine. This Encyclopædia will embrace the entire range of Special Pathology and Therapeutics, and will be completed in fifteen volumes, large octavo, of from 500 to 700 pages each. The list of contents of each volume, gives the names of the authors and the special departments which they have undertaken. While the work of each writer will bear the stamp of individuality, there will be an effort made to give to each subject the prominence and space due to it only that the harmony of the entire work may be preserved. It is designed that the Encyclopædia shall be, par excellence, a Practical Handbook for Physicians; and for this reason especial attention has been given to clear and systematic arrangement.

For the value of the whole work, as well as the separate departments, the names of the writers are a sufficient guarantee. Each volume will have a full and carefully prepared index.

Messrs. Wm. Wood & Co. announce that they will publish by Subscription a translation of this work. The translating will be done by professional gentlemen, many of them former students of the writers of the different treatises, under the supervision of a responsible chief. Great care will be taken with the mechanical execution of the volume. The type will be large and clear, the paper fine, and the engravings electrotypes

of the originals. It is proposed to publish three to four volumes a year, at, as nearly as possible, regular intervals, in order to distribute the cost of subscription equally over about four years.

Terms of subscription, payable upon the delivery of each volume: Fifteen volumes, octavo, muslin binding, per vol., $5.00; fifteen volumes, octavo, leather binding, per volume, $6.00; fifteen volumes, octavo, half morocco binding, per vol., $7.50.

A circular, giving the names of the authors, and the table of contents of each volume, can be had on application to the publishers.

CHICAGO JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE. The second number of this valuable new journal has been received. It is considerably larger than the first number, containing 156 pages. The original contents includes the second lecture on the "Pathology of the Vaso-Motor Nervous System," by J. S. Jewell, M. D.; "Mechanism of Reflex Nervous Action in Normal Respiration," by Prof. Austin Flint, Jr., M.D., with Remarks by Prof. J. C. Dalton, M.D.; "Speech as a Reflex Act―The Phono-Motor Nervous Centre," by Dr. E. Onimus; "Some Remarks on the Theory of Inhibitory or Reflex Paralysis," by C. Handfield Jones, M.B., F.R.S.; Notes of some Recent Cases of Deafness, following Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis," by Samuel J. Jones, A.M., M.D.; "A Case of Chorea-A New Method of Treatment Suggested," by Prof. Ransom Dexter, M.D., and "Nervous Sore Throat." The Periscope contains a full, complete summary of progress in the study of

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