at the time of his death; his lectures, of the most practical nature, were always fully attended, and were remarkable at all times for the energy with which his opinions were expressed. Lisfranc has written few works: two volumes of clinical surgery, and an incomplete sketch of the art of operations; but in his books, as well as in his practice, the following principle is constantly illustrated :-"The operations of surgery are brilliant; but the art of the surgeon consists less in performing them with ability, than in rendering them useless by proper treatment." Lisfranc's researches on cancer, on uterine disease, on white swellings, and his method for the partial amputation of the foot, ensure to his name a place amongst those of the most distinguished surgeons of the French school.-London Med. Times.

Attempted Bribery of M. Magendie.-M. Magendie had been appointed as a special witness to give evidence on the question whether certain leeches which had been sold by MM. Vaucher and Laurens were "gorged"* at the time of sale. Madame Laurens, the wife of one of the accused, was charged with attempting to bribe M. Magendie. This gentleman deposed that the accused called on him on the 24th January. After having begged him to devote the greatest care to the delicate investigation entrusted to him, the lady withdrew, leaving upon his table a sealed packet, which she said contained memoranda for his guidance in the case! After her departure, M. Magendie opened the packet, and found that it contained three bank notes of 1000 francs. There was also enclosed a letter, not signed, from which the following extract was read :-'Let me beg of you to procure the dismissal of the complaint against MM. Laurens and Vaucher. This will be simple justice. Your time is valuable, and I therefore wish to remunerate you. No one shall know of my visit to you.'

Madame Laurens said, in her defence, that she had made a mistake in writing the letter; she had not intended to leave it behind her; and if it contained bank notes of 1000 francs, they must have got into the envelope without her knowledge. Her leaving the packet on the table must have been accidental. The tribunal, however, rejected this defence, condemned Madame Lurens to one month's imprisonment, and a fine of 300 francs; and they ordered the notes for 3000 francs, intended as the bribe, to be paid into the account for the benefit of the Parisian infirmaries."--L'Union Medicale.

Well done, Madame! but you must proceed more cautiously and prudently in future. You must learn better how to turn away the wrath or to soften the obduracy of those who report on your leeches. In Timbuctoo those who deal in gorged leeches manage things better.-Dublin Med. Press.

* In France leeches are sold by weight. It has been much the practice with leech-venders lately to let the leeches fill themselves with blood from calves, horses, and other animals, and sell them in this "gorged" state.

Case in which death was caused by eating raw rice. By DEBERT HOWELL, M. D.-Maria W- a servant, aged twenty-two, previously in moderate health, but pale and anæmic, was taken suddenly ill with pain in the chest, while walking out in the evening of December 17th, 1846. At half-past seven, half an hour from the attack, she was suffering severe pain in the left hypochondriac region, attended by great restlessness. Percussion over the region of the stomach was not unusually loud. On inquiry, it proved that she had eaten in the afternoon, before her tea, a tumblerful of raw rice, mixed with milk, which she had been in the habit of eating, as well as arrow-root, sago, &c., in a raw state. The pain evidently arising from distention, caused by swelling of the rice in contact with the tea, and aided by the heat of the body, half a drachm of sulphate of zinc was administered as an emetic, which, failing to act, was repeated after twenty minutes. The stomach was then relieved, first of what appeared to be tea and wash, and afterwards, at intervals, of a large quantity of half-swollen rice, equal in bulk to an ordinary dinnerplate, piled; and she felt considerable relief from pain. The stomachpump was not employed in this case, because it did not appear calculated to relieve the stomach of its half solid contents; in similar cases, however, it might prove useful by favoring the escape of gas. At eleven the following morning the pain increased suddenly, violently, with cold extremities, and feeble pulse, great abdominal tenderness, and she died at 4 P. M. On examination of the body, extensive peritoneal inflammation presented itself, with deposition of lymph agglutinating the intestines, and a copious effusion of turbid serum into the cavity of the abdomen. The stomach and duodenum were empty, with the exception of a few grains of raw rice at the pylorus, and perfectly free from inflammation. The small intestines were gorged throughout with a quantity of the same raw material that she had been in the habit of eating, apparently rice, arrow-root, &c., some raw and hard, and in parts so distending the intestine as to give the sensation to the fingers of feeling a bag of marbles, and and some in a half digested state. The large intestines were loaded with fæces. The heart was small, the lungs healthy. It is remarkable that the stomach was perfectly free from inflammation.-London Lancet.

The Influence of Strychnine on the Urinary Organs.-In several cases of paralysis affecting the lower extremities and the bladder, strychnine has been employed; and it has been remarked that it, in the first place, increases the urinary secretion, then causes very frequent desire to empty the bladder, and when this is done, it is attended with some smarting. This influence on the bladder declines in proportion as the effects of the strychnine manifest themselves in the muscles of the limbs.

In one case in which strychnine was given, a varioloid eruption came out, which did not suppurate, but terminated by crusty desicca

tions. When this eruption came out, the paralysis declined, and the bladder acquired power.

Strychnine, from the observations just mentioned, would therefore appear to exert a stimulant effect on the muscular tunic of the bladder; and if so, its utility would be rendered probable in paralytic conditions of the bladder, whether they be idiopathic, or arise from a mechanical cause; and it would act as an adjuvant to other remedies, where a palsied state of the bladder is only symptomatic of other disease.--Ibid.

Spontaneous Amputation in a new-born Child.-M. Paul Dubois presented to the Academy of Medicine a child, two days old, which presented remarkable and rare congenital lesions. Immediately after its birth, it was perceived that the middle and ring fingers of the left hand were reduced to the first phalanges; the free extremities of the latter were rounded, and covered over with skin, except at a small part, which still presented a wound, and showed the removal of the distal phalanges to have been recent. From alongside these small wounds, arose a slender but resisting filiform prolongation, larger than the wanting phalanges would have been, otherwise it might be considered as the remains of them.

A similar lesion existed in the second and third toes of the left, and also of the right foot. The last phalanges were wanting, and stumps replaced them, presenting central wounds and filiform appendages, as in the hand.

The left leg presented, a little above the malleoli, an obvious constriction, circular and straight, as though it had been produced by a ligature, but no vestige of such a thing was to be found. The great toe of the right foot offered, on a level with its first phalanx, a similar constriction. This alteration, and the removal of the tors, seemed to constitute two stages of the malady. Lastly, the right leg also presented a circular depression, having the same characters, and occupying the same position, as the constriction on the left leg, but much less marked. At the time of birth, no trace of inflammation existed around the mutilated parts; but since, and under the influence of the new conditions of external existence, a true inflammatory state had been set up.

The umbilical cord was but half its usual length; the membranes enclosing the child seemed to be constituted only by the chorion : at least, the amnion could not be distinguished. The placenta offered nothing remarkable. Setting aside the mutilations described, the child was well formed and fully developed.

The mother was not taken into the hospital until after the membranes had burst, and it was impossible to discover any trace of the deficient members.-Ibid.

Modification of the Moxa.-M. Guepratt proposes to use, in the place of cotton or amidon, paper which has been dipped into a solu

tion of subacetate of lead, and afterwards dried; or he would prefer cotton so treated, to paper. This he tears in strips, and rolls into small rollers, which he makes to adhere at first, on the part to be treated, by a solution of gum arabic.--Ibid.

Land-Scurvy.-We understand that land-scurvy is becoming prevalent in various parts of the kingdom. A great many many cases, with the features resembling those of sea-scurvy well marked, have been lately brought into the Edinburgh Infirmary. The patients had been labourers on railways, living on bad diet, and working on moors far from villages, so that they were not able to procure milk or vegetables, or even the common conveniences for cooking their food. It is singular that, owing as it appears to the great dearth of vegetable food, a disease which has been long extinct in the navy, is now making its appearance on land. The deaths from purpura registered last week in the metropolis were 5. against a spring average of 0.4. Lond. Med. Gaz.

A simple remedy for Cramps in the lower extremities. BY DR. S. A. BARDSLEY, Manchester.-Having myself been for many years a martyr almost every night to this torturing malady, and having tried in vain many of the "thousand and one" remedies usually prescribed for relief, I was at length led to reflect upon a fact which had hitherto escaped my attention, viz., while sleeping in a chair, with my lower limbs, if not touching the floor, yet so depending as to form an inclined plane with the whole of my frame, that I was in this position never disturbed by cramps; and upon inquiry I found other sufferers from habitual cramps were under the same predicament. These facts, in connection with some physiological considerations, induced me to put into practice the following plan, which has proved decidedly successful. My plan is to sleep upon an inclined plane, which is effected by taking care that the bed or mattress should incline twelve inches from the upper to the lower part of the bed; and for this purporpose the lower feet were cut down so as to form this inclination. I will now state two facts, which are sufficient tests that neither the imagination nor intemperate diet were the causes of my habitual cramps. 1st. That after my trial of the inclined plane for seven consecutive nights with complete success, the housemaid, unknown to me, had raised my bed to its usual horizontal level, and, unconscious of the change, I went to sleep, when shortly afterwards the cramps were so severe as to compel me twice to alarm the family by my cries and moans; and it was not until I arose in the morning that I discovered the change in the form of my bed. 2d. The other test is the one which I made six weeks ago. After very spare diet of twentyfour hours, I replaced my bed from the inclined to an horizontal posi tion, when, shortly after, I awoke with dreadful cramps-so violent in the muscles of the thigh and legs as to require two persons to hold the limbs down in order to apply friction, with stimulants, both external

and internal; indeed, the paroxysm was so severe and continued as to be accompanied with sickness and faintness. I deem it necessary to give a caution to sufferers from cramps, that the disorder is almost always connected with a weak or imperfect state of the digestive organs, and therefore, although the method now stated for relief will allow the sufferer several luxuries hitherto forbidden, yet there must be limits placed to such indulgences if he expects to pass the nights entirely free from his malady.-Ibid.

Fever in Liverpool.-We regret to state that there has been an alarming increase of fever and mortality in Liverpool during the last week, and that the disorder is not by any means confined to the lower classes. Two Roman Catholic clergymen have fallen victims to the pestilence. In addition to the deaths of Mr. Parker and Dr. Kelley. we have to report that Inspector Forsyth, one of the recently-appointed relieving-officers, after an illness of eight days, died on Friday morning. Mr. Gray, one of the overseers, is seriously indisposed. The same may be said of Mr. Staine and Mr. Lamonby, two of the relieving-officers, and also of three of the medical gentlemen connected with the parish, namely, Mr. Steele (only a few days appointed to the office,) Dr. Robert Gee, and Mr. Grimsdale, surgeon to the workhouse. Three of the policemen employed as district relieving-officers have become afflicted with typhus; and an able-bodied pauper from the work-house, who was employed as an assistant in the new parish offices in St. Anne Street, caught the same malignant disease at those offices, and is dead.-Ibid.

Increase of fever in Ireland.-Deaths by famine are happily becoming rare, but fever is creating great ravages. The accounts from Kerry, Galway, Roscommon, and Longford, are of an extremely unfavourable character. In the union work-house of the latter county the number of deaths in the year ending the 1st of April, 1846, was 112, while for the corresponding period this year they amounted to 677.-Ibid.

A new application of Ether Vapour. It occurred to me lately, that the vapour of sulphuric ether might be used, instead of fumes of sulphur, in taking honeycomb from bee-hives. By experiment, I find that a very small quantity induces the full narcotic effect of the drug on these insects; the insensibility continues for nearly an hour, and is followed by complete recovery.

The humanity as well as the economy of the plan will, I think, recommend it; various simple means may be adopted for the application of the vapour; a proper precaution would be to envelope the hive with an air-tight hood, formed of some such material as oiled silk; the fumigation need not last longer than five minutes.-M. D.

Ibid.