me that I could count every one without seeing them; my mouth watered constantly; the impression caused by contact with the air made me feel horribly, and I avoided all brillian bodies. I had a constant desire to run and bite, not men, but animals, and all that which surrounded me. It hurts me to drink and I have noticed that the sight of water tried me more than the pain in my throat. I believe that a patient of hydrophobia can always drink by closing the eye. The fits came every five minutes, and I felt then the pain start from the first finger and run along the nerves to the shoulder. Thinking that my means were only a preventive and not a curative, I took a steam bath, not with the intention of healing myself but to suffocate myself. When the bath reached the heat of 57 degrees Centigrade, all the symptoms disappeared as if by magic. Afterward, I never felt anything more. I have attended more than eighty persons bitten by mad dogs. All have been saved by this method.

"When a person has been bitten by a mad dog, he must be made to take seven steam baths, one each day. Russian, for instance, of 57 to 63 degrees. When the disease makes its appearance only one steam bath is necessary; raising the temperature hastily to 57 degrees Centigrade,and afterward slowly to 63 degrees. The patient should be well confined to his room until completely cured."-Druggists' Circular and Chemical Gazette.

Trismus Neonatorum From Hot Bathing.-Of 480 children born under the charge of a midwife in the city of Elbing in 1865, 99 were attacked with trismus (N. Y. Med. Gazette.) The disease was traced to the very hot water which the nurse was in the habit of using to wash the new-born infant. When this was rectified the disease ceased.-Pacific Medical and Surgcal Journal.

3. Trismus Nascentium, successfully treated by the Local Application of Chloroform to the Spine. By T. L. PAPIN, M. D., of St. Louis. [Humboldt Medical Archives, November, 1868.] On the 18th day of August, I delivered Mrs. O'B. of a healthy, well-developed male child of full term. Both

mother and child progressed as usual until the eighth day, when the child manifested symptoms of lock-jaw, for the relief of which I ordered the following: R. Chloroform m. xij; spt. eth. sulph. m. xv; bicarb. sodæ gr, xij; syr. zinziber, aqua flor. aurant., aa. 3 iv. Misce. A teaspoonful is required to allay spasmodic action, and secure rest and quiet.

After the first dose the child slept three hours, and after the second dose about two hours, after which the resulting period of rest gradually diminished, until, at the expiration of twenty-four hours, the chloroform by internal administration seemed to have entirely lost its controlling and beneficial effect. I then determined to try the local application of chloroform to the spine, as recommended by Dr. Whitehill in a former number of the Archives.

A small strip of cotton cloth was moistened with the chlorofrom and applied to the entire length of the spine, with the effect of promptly and completely arresting the spasms, and, by renewing the application whenever there were indications of the return of a paroxysm, they were completely controlled and their recurrence prevented. Invariably upon the subsidence of the burning pain immediately incident to the application of the chloroform, the child would fall into a peaceful, quiet sleep' The application was continued in this manner for three days, when I was compelled to discontinue it for a time and apply emollients, on account of the vesication produced. During the application of the emollients, a recurrence of the paroxysms was carefully guarded against by the cautious administration of chloroform by inhalation, and the bowels were moved by the use of a mild laxative. At the expiration of forty-eight hours I reapplied the chloroform to the spine, alternating it with inhalation, emollient applications when necessary, and occasional laxatives. Continued the treatment for fifteen days, then dismissed the case cured. The use of mild purgatives, at intervals of from two to three days, during the progress of the case, seemed to exert a decidedly favorable influence. Of course, attention was given to sustaining the child with nourishment. A matter of very decided interest, that I observed during the

convalescence of the case, was, that the functions of the different sets of muscles were restored, pretty much in the same order as occurs in recovery from paralysis; first the feet and legs, then spinal and intercostal muscles, next the face, then the arms, and last the fingers.

During a practice of twenty years in this city, I have seen a number of cases of this exceedingly distressing and fatal disease, and among them all, this is the first case of which I am able to record a recovery; and I should here remark that at one period of these cases, the convulsions were as strongly developed as I have ever met with among these little sufferers. Notwithstanding all efforts to sustain him, my little patient became rapidly emaciated, and, by the time convalescence was established, was frightfully so; but he has improved much in flesh since, and is now (three weeks since his recovery, during which I have seen him twice) as healthy and bright as need be.

Upon mentioning this case to Dr. Boisliniere a few days since, he informed me that he also had a case recover some years or more ago, under the use of chloroform. He used it, however, principally by enema, repeated as often as convulsive symptoms manifested themselves.-New York Medical Journal.

In one of last year's numbers of the Archives de Physiologie, we have been shown an article by Dr. Brown-Séquard on the subject of the immediate arrest of convulsions of the lower limbs, by the irritation of certain sensitive nerves. The Doctor had observed seven cases in which convulsions had been stopped by the means here indicated. The process consisted in simply flexing suddenly and with a good deal of force the great toe upon the foot. The first of his cases was a violent one. The cessation was prompt upon the application of the remedy, and lasted long enough for the patient to de dressed. This patient was seen in consultation by Nélaton and Trousseau, who witnessed the phenomenon. In some of the other cases the arrest of spasm was not so immediate nor so complete; but in all seven there was at least considerable, and sufficiently prompt diminution of convulsive action.-Boston Med. and Surgical Journal.

A Noble Defence of Doctors by a Medical Chief.-The following letters we take from the Medical Record, an ably conducted Journal of New York:

DEAR SIR-In the editorial of your journal of the 15th instant, entitled "American vs. European Medical Science," you indulge in a criticism upon the American medical profession, which, whether just or unjust, is, to say the least, exceedingly severe, if not ungenerous. The impression which the article will make upon our foreign brethren, both in Great Britain and on the continent, will be anything but flattering to our national pride, and will, if allowed to have its sway, tend to confirm the disparaging opinion expresed of us by Sir Dominic Corrigan and others at the meeting of the British Medical Association at Dublin, in Angust, 1867. I, for one must enter my caveat against such sweeping assertions.

You say practitioners of medicine may be divided into three classes-surgeons, nurses, and physicians-to the first of whom. you generously concede the palm of superiority over European surgeons, while to the physicians you assign not only a low, but, in my judgement, a contemptible rank, without education, skill, or scientific attainments. The reason for this superiority, you think, is obvious. It has, to use your expression, grown out of the necessities of our pioneer life. "Therefore, as operative sur geons, as inventors of mechanical appliances, we lead both continents." American surgeons will hardly endorse this assertion. They will hardly admit that they are mere operators and inventors of mechanical appliances. They believe that they are entitled to higher praise, and to a more dignified position in the scale of science and talent, if not actual genius. If, as Chassaignac justly remarked, in the presence of my colleague, Professor Pancoast and myself, America at this moment wields the surgical sceptre of the world, the expression must have been designed to convey something more than mere mechanical perfection. An operation is one thing, and a very great thing, when it is properly done; but it is a much greater thing to know when it ought to be done, or, in other words, what are the conditions of the part and systein which render such a procedure necessary, and

what are the circumstances which will enable a man to tolerate the interference, I have always had the greatest respect for a surgeon who, when the emergencies require it, can dexterously cut off a limb, excise a tumor, or ligate an artery; but that feeling would be vastly diminished if, after the operation was over, I should find, upon careful inquiry, that the knife had been employed unnecessarily, or without that judgment and regard for life which every surgeon, worthy of the name, should possess, in order to fit him for a safe professional guide. I have always maintained and I think in this opinion every rational person will coincide with me-that it is impossible for a man to be a surgeon, in the proper and more exalted sense of that term, unless he is a good physician, thoroughly familiar with the principles and practice of the healing art, considered in its widest bearing. The number of such practitioners in this country is legion. They are to be found everywhere, in the smaller towns and villages as in the larger cities, which are, perhaps, too gen→ erally supposed to contain all the science, wisdom, and skill of a nation; a conclusion certainly not borne out by the facts of the case either in the United States or in Europe.

It is said that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If we compare the results of the practice and operations of American with those of European surgeons, it will be found that they are fully up to the general average, if they are not, far in advance. This statement is true alike of our civil and military experience. Where are there better, more enlightened, more able, skilful, or scientific surgical staffs than are to be daily seen in the wards of the hospitals of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Richmond, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, and other cities? Comparisons are odious. In my visits last summer to the hospitals of France, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, and Ireland, I saw nothing to induce the belief that the surgeons of those institutions, many of them veterans, whose names are as familiar to the American medical profession as household words, are, in any respect, superior to the same class of men among us, either in general or professional intelligence, in the art of diagnosis, in