the unconquerable diarrhoea which children are subject to in their second year-Dublin Hospital Gazette, April 15, 1859, from Journal of Praetical Medicine and Surgery, Paris.

Retrospect on the Use of Raw Meat in the Diarrhea of Weaned Children. By Dr. J. F. WEISSE, Director of the Children's Hospital at St. Petersburgh. Seventeen years have now elapsed since I first directed. the attention of the profession to this invaluable remedy in the above disease; but it was not until I had five years later treated of the subject at greater length, that it came into more general use. Soon after the publication of the latter paper, I received from the esteemed editor of the journal just now quoted, Dr. Behrend, of Berlin, a letter containing the following passage: "You have no idea what interest your communication on diarrhoea ablactatorum, and on the use of raw meat, has excited: we now use the remedy extensively."

Not long after, Dr. Behrend inserted in the sixth volume of his Journal a letter of M. Marotte, Physician of the Central Bureau of the Parisian Hospitals, from which it appeared that this subject had attracted great attention also in the French metropolis. The author of this letter, which is addressed to Dr. Trousseau, has, moreover, had the kindness to suggest a theory explanatory of the results I have obtained. From this time the meat-cure was generally received, and its utility admitted on all sides. Of the numerous favorable reports recently published, I cannot forbear literally transcribing that contributed by Dr. Eichelberg, because the author has given to the subject the appreciation it deserves. He says: "In consequence of the shortness of the time which has elapsed since this article of diet was first recommended, I have, it is true, only a limited number of observations (somewhat more than twenty) before me, but they all corroborate the remarkable advantages of the plan proposed. It is only in exceptional instances that such children refuse raw meatthe great majority, in fact, consume it with manifest relish. I have observed two very striking cases where the children for several weeks readily partook of this food with the most beneficial results, and at the end of that time suddenly refused it. Natural instinct seems in such examples to be unmistakable, as in the case of sick dogs, which eat grass. The want of osmazome made the children greedily consume the raw meat, but with the cessation of the want, the desire for that principle disappeared."

As Herr Eichelberg, moreover, has expressly indicated the diarrhea which sets in soon after the weaning of children (according to my observations usually in two or three weeks after that event) as the affection in which the raw meat cure is attended with certain success, so I have also, in recommending this mode of treatment, confined myself to the same disease; and now, after nearly twenty years' experience, maintain, that raw, scraped beef, to the exclusion of all other medication, is a true specific in this destructive diarrhoea. I therefore consider a remark made by Charles Hogg, in recommending the well-known "beef-tea" of the English, to be quite erroneous. Thus he says: "Beef-tea is an excellent, nourishing, and easily digestible article of food, and completely replaces the juice of meat recommended by Weisse, of St. Petersburgh, obtained

by scraping raw flesh." I have in raw beef discovered not an article of food for children, but a remedy against the diarrhoea in question; nor have I spoken of the juice to be obtained by scraping meat, but the muscular substance itself must be given to the children, having, however, previously been sufficiently comminuted, either by scraping with a knife, or by means of a grater, in order that it may be swallowed without trouble. But the principal point is, that the muscular substance itself, and not merely its juice, should be conveyed into the digestive tube. The English beef-tea has as little beneficial effect on diarrhoea ablactatorum as

Liebig's excellent decoction of meat. Both these fluid aliments appear, precisely because they are fluid, to pass too quickly through the intestinal canal; while the meat in substance remains longer in the tube, and by its mechanical irritation may stimulate digestion, and it may, perhaps, also neutralize the acridity of the gastric juice. Nor can I participate in Dr. Beer's sanguine hope that raw grated beef may be destined one day to dislodge cod-liver oil from the Materia Medica. Each of these excellent remedies has its definite sphere of medical action in the diseases of children; raw beef in the diarrhoea ablactatorum, cod-liver oil in rachitic affections, with and without atrophy.

In St. Petersburgh, the meat-cure in the affection of children under consideration has become, so to speak, completely naturalized; and this has taken place rather through oral communication, and in consequence of the favorable results of the treatment, than from any paper or essay, as I have never published any thing in that capital upon the subject. Most of my colleagues have now for several years made use of it, and they all assure me that they have obtained very satisfactory results, even in cases where the employment of other established remedies appeared to hold out no hope of cure. I have myself seen this treatment adopted in about two hundred children, and, in the majority, with the desired effect, provided recourse was had to it at the proper time. I say, at the proper time, for if the disease has already advanced too far, and, particularly, if it has assumed the form of the so-called gastro-malacia, it is only in exceptional instances that we shall obtain a cure. But even in this case there is no other remedy so calculated to allay the most tormenting symptoms, the tantalizing thirst, and the vomiting, as the raw beef. This beneficial effect is produced even after a few meals.

But it has recently been stated, as I have already publicly remarked, that in many children saved by the meat-cure, tape-worm-and, it is worthy of note, always the tænia solium, that is precisely the species which is not indigenous in St. Petersburgh-has shown itself. A Dr. Braun has felt himself called upon to question this statement. Two years later, however, an undoubted authority on this subject appeared in favor of the facts reported by me. Professor D. Von Siebold, of Munich, says, in the last page of his interesting work, "Ueber die Band und Blasenwüemer," Leipsic, 1854: "We can no longer be surprised, or consider their statements fabulous, when physicians report that tape-worms have been found in certain patients after the use of raw meat prescribed as a remedy." And in the note upon this passage he adds:" Compare on this subject Weisse's communications, which, notwithstanding Braun's

objections, are worthy of all credit." Herr Von Siebold directs particular attention to the fact that in every instance it was the tænia solium which was passed; and he considers it probable that this species of tapeworm, which is not indigenous in St. Petersburgh, may have been conveyed thither in the undeveloped state in the flesh of oxen, brought from Tscherkask and Podolia.

Only a few weeks before my departure from St. Petersburgh, in June of the present year, a tape-worm, more than four feet long, was sent to me by a colleague, to whom I had warmly recommended the meat-cure in the case of a child, aged eighteen months, who had suffered from the diarrhoea in question, and was already very much run down, which worm was passed after the use of the ethereal oil of male fern. This remedy was administered in consequence of the child, who had long ceased to get the raw meat, and was cured of the diarrhoea, having repeatedly passed joints of tape-worm. The attendant physician had already correctly diag nosed the worm to be the tænia solium; I found that it was voided with the head, on which the suckers were plainly distinguishable under the microscope.

I should not omit to state, that in the Children's Hospital, under my care, in the diarrhoeas of older children, into which the element of dentition no longer enters, and which so largely contribute to fill the lists of mortality, raw meat has been repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried. These cases of diarrhoea generally depend upon ulcerations in the intestinal canal.

Lastly, I may be allowed to call the attention of the meeting to as palatable a remedy as raw beef, in the lientery of adults; I allude to oysters. In two cases, an amount of experience which, I must admit, goes for nothing, I saw the patients cured by the moderate use of these mollusca. From eight to twelve oysters were taken daily in two meals. -Dublin Quarterly Journal, Feb., 1858, from Journ. für Kinderkrankheiten, Jan. and Feb., 1858.

[Should this mode of treatment become general, we apprehend a large increase in the prevalence of tape-worm.-ED.]

Monthly Abstract of Medical Sciences.

SURGERY.

Chlorinated Water in Dissection Wounds.-M. Garrigon states that repeated experience has convinced him of the efficacy of the treatment long since recommended by M. Nonant, of placing the hand suffering from dissection wounds in chlorinated water. The application will be always found efficacious, providing purulent infection have not already set in, when it will be useless.-Gazette des Hopitaux, 1859.

Amaurosis.-Prof. Mott says: "Amaurosis occurs in every stage or degree from that wherein the powers of vision are scarcely perceptibly impaired to a condition of total blindness, and may remain stationary in any of those degrees from the time of its occurrence to the end of life, although its usual tendency is unhappily to become worse until total blindness ensues. The approach of the disease is often slow and insidious, the first symptoms being either as though gnats, flies, or minute serpentine objects called muscæ volitantes, or a single speck called scotoma, were floating before the vision. As the affection advances, these minute bodies increase in number, and gradually form a net-work, which merges into blindness. There are many varieties of gutta serena, in some of which only the upper parts of objects are seen, in others but one side. This affection is one, to the symptoms and accompaniments of which the most critical attention must be paid, on account of the necessity for various modes of treatment to meet the indications which sometimes arise from directly opposite causes. Thus, the disease may be induced by anæmia or plethora, or by various diseases; it may also arise from diseases situated within the orbit or the cranium-in fact, any thing which violently disturbs the equilibrium of the constitution may induce it. If the disease proceed from plethora, direct the antiphlogistic regimen, cup the temples, etc. If from anæmia, build up the constitution by tonics, nutritive diet, etc., and stay as much as possible any exhausting drain which may be ebbing away the vital power. Many employments, such as sewing, constant writing-in short, any occupation in which the eyes are exposed to a strong light, or often concentrated on some particular object, especially where it is minute, or of a white color, induces gutta serena, so you must direct the cessation of such employ

ment. Amaurosis is unhappily often hopeless, particularly so when it arises from disease within the cranium, or from atrophy of the optic nerve."

Hydrocele.-Prof. Mott says: The treatment of hydrocele is of two kinds, palliative and radical. The former consists in merely puncturing the tumor and letting out the accumulated serum, while the radical mode is not only to give exit to the serum, but also to make use of a stimulating injection in order to light up adhesive inflammation, and thus obliterate the sac. Many stimulating injections have been used, amongst which are tincture of iodine or a solution of sulphate of zinc. Care must be taken in this operation to place the tumor in proprio situ for puncturing, lest the testicle itself might otherwise be wounded by the trocar. tent composed of lint impregnated with some irritating substance, has been introduced after the operation in order to cause adhesive inflammation. Setons have been used to produce a like effect, but the use of injections is the mode of treatment now most in use."

A

Ready Method of extracting Foreign Bodies from the Eyelids.-Dr. Leon Renard, in L'Union Medicale, furnishes the following simple means of ridding the surface of the eyeball of those various little substances which afford so much annoyance: The upper lid being seized near its angles by the thumb and index finger of each hand, draw it gently forward, then immediately down as low as possible upon the inferior lid, and retain it there for about a minute. When, after this time, the superior lid is allowed to resume its position, a flow of tears has washed out the little foreign body, and it will be found upon the far border of the lower lid, or upon an eyelash, or upon the skin of the lid, or cheek.

Syphilitic Inoculation.—At a meeting of the Medical Society of London, Mr. Henry Lee had an opportunity of expressing and explaining his views upon the above subject.

In 1856, Mr. Lee had shown that sores affected with the specific adhesive inflammation (indurated) were not inoculable, as a rule; and as these were the only sores which were ordinarily followed by secondary symptoms, the inoculability of their secretion was a reason against the administration of mercury, and not for it.

Digital Compression in External Inflammations.-Tansetti, in Padua, has written an intensely interesting article upon this subject. He speaks in the highest terms of the efficacy of the above treatment in external inflammations, and relates several cases in which inflammation was promptly subdued by checking the arterial supply to the part. In erysipelas phlegmonosum of the left arm, pressure, steadily maintained upon the subclavian artery, effected instantaneous relief from pain, and a prompt cure by resolution. Acute inflammation of the wrist was visibly favorably modified by pressure upon the humeral artery: the same result attended the pressure upon the crural artery in a case of gonarthrocace. -Medical and Surgical Reporter.