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sion of balsam copaiba, oil of turpentine, and tincture of rhatany, to which were added occasionally a powder of sulphate of morphia, bromide of potassium, gum camphor, and prepared chalk. A variety of easily digested articles of food were allowed.

In conference with Drs. Zeigler and Keiffer, I proposed, as a preparatory step, to denude the edges of the rectum which were covered with epithelium, and stood apart, forming a triangular opening, and to draw them together with two ordinary silk sutures. This operation was only partially successful, and it is doubtful whether very much was gained by it.

Nine days afterward, in conference with the same medical gentlemen, to whom I am much indebted for their assistance, the bowels having been thoroughly evacuated, I denuded two triangular surfaces and brought them together by the use of three strong silk sutures. The lower two included the edges of the rectum, and the upper one the edges of the vagina.

The means which I extemporized to retain the surfaces together consisted of two pieces of flexible catheter of medium size one inch and three-quarters long, and two pieces of common wire bent at the one end so as to form a loop or ring. The pieces of wire passed into the pieces of catheter gave firmness to them, with a certain amount of flexibility which was important. Holes being made in the pieces of catheter, double sutures were passed through them and they were tied down upon the pieces of wire.

Three days and eight hours after the operation, I removed all the sutures and found that union had taken place.

On the eleventh day I commenced to remove the impacted contents of the rectum by the use of injections and instruments-the result of the free use of morphia.

In this case sulphuric ether alone was used as an anaesthetic, and carbolic lotion as an antiseptic.

The patient was allowed to be on her back or on either side, with the limbs flexed. The catheter was used every six hours, and the gases escaped from the bowels without assistance.

Three months after the operation the patient had perfect control of the sphincters, and is now quite well.

There have been no epidemic diseases during the year, and less than the usual amount of sickness, notwithstanding the frequent and sudden changes of the barometer and thermometer, with a great deal of rain and bad roads.

There has been an occasional case of diphtheria followed with more symptoms of paralysis than when the disease first presented itself as an epidemic in this section of the State.

With regard to the nourishment of new-born children in the absence of mother's milk, I find by my intercourse with the younger members of the profession that an erroneous opinion prevails, many following the theory advocated by nurses that cow's milk is too strong for infants, whereas the reverse is the case.

It would be well for the younger, and, perhaps, some of the older, members of the profession to consult the able article of Dr. Hiram Corson, of Montgomery County (see State Med. Trans. of 1868, p. 185, "Food for Infants"), where he handled the subject, and ably too, not theoretically, but practically, as every physician can attest who has given the subject his practical attention.

I was recently called in by a young physician for consultation, and found that he had recommended the nurse to dilute the cow's milk with two-thirds water, leaving the impression that the nutritive properties of the milk were too great. My advice is to use the milk from a fresh heifer (if available), and then take what the milkmaid calls strippings, which have been left to stand four hours, and use the cream which accumulates; by this means you will supply food nearly equivalent to that of a healthy female. This will supply the nutritive demand of the child for two houfs and forty minutes, and no attempt should be made to supply the child with another meal before the former is disposed of by the stomach.

The stomach of children is depressed by distension from quantity, and not by the nutritive properties given, and there is a constant tendency to over-distension by infants when the want of nutrition is not supplied.

In obstetrics I have nothing special to relate except my first attempt at manipulation to correct a shoulder presentation.

Mrs. D., aged thirty-five years, third accouchement, membrane broken, and left arm presenting in the vagina when I arrived. I attempted to return the arm but failed. I then proceeded to correct the position by manipulation during the interval of pain, and supporting the change during pain. I succeeded in about threefourths of an hour in having a cephalic presentation, the head and arm being born at the same time.

I can recommend to the profession at least an attempt to correct the position by manipulation as being less laborious to the physician, less painful to the mother, and safer for the life of the child than attempting to turn.

MECHANICSBURG, May 1, 1876.

E. B. BRANDT.

MEMOIR OF DR. JOSEPH CRAIN, 1803-1876.

BY WM. W. DALE.

The members of the Cumberland County Medical Society have to mourn the loss by death of one of their oldest and most honored associates, Dr. Joseph Crain, who died at his residence in Hoguestown, on the 18th day of April last, in the seventy-third year of his age.

Dr. Crain was the son of Col. Richard M. Crain, a gentleman who had filled a number of offices of honor and trust both in county and State, one of which was representing Cumberland County in the Constitutional Convention of 1838.

The Doctor was born in Lancaster City on the 25th day of December, 1803, from which place his father removed when he was quite young to East Pennsborough Township, Cumberland County, about two miles west of Harrisburg, where his boyhood days were passed.

His collegiate education he received at that venerable institution of learning, Dickinson College. After having studied the usual length of time in the office of Dr. Whiteside, of Harrisburg, he went to Philadelphia, where he was among the early attendants on the lectures at Jefferson Medical College, and where he graduated in 1829, immediately after which he opened an office in Hoguestown, Cumberland County, where he continued to practise until the close of his life, having been nearly half a century engaged in the active duties of his profession. At the time he commenced the practice, the life of a country practitioner was emphatically a life of toil, exposure, and self-denial; modern conveyances were not then in use; the travel was done entirely on horseback. Often has the writer, when practising in the same neighborhood nearly forty years ago, met him, with a miniature drug store in his saddlebags, jogging along the road, paying his daily visits to his patients.

Long, useful, and highly honorable was the professional career of Dr. Crain. Long as he was engaged in the practice of medicine he, to the last, maintained his standing in the opinion of his professional brethren in the front rank of that profession, and to the day of his death continued to have the unwavering confidence and esteem of the community in which he resided. He maintained his position by keeping pace with the progress of his profession, and up to the time when failing health compelled him to curtail, to a certain extent, his practice, he was well posted in the discoveries and improvements of the times.

With perceptive faculties well developed he almost at once, as if by intuition, saw the character of the disease he was to contend with, and seldom erred in diagnosis. Well acquainted with therapeutics, backed up by an excellent judgment, he was well qualified to battle successfully with disease and to be a useful and successful practitioner.

To those but slightly acquainted with him he was reserved and reticent, but to those more intimate he was communicative and free,

and his fine social qualities and excellent conversational powers made him a pleasant and entertaining companion.

In the discharge of his duties he was diligent and prompt; in his intercourse with his professional brethren he was courteous and honorable; and to those just starting into practice he was always willing to lend a helping hand, and to give advice or assistance.

Dr. Crain was a man of elegant physique, robust, and up to the time at which valvular disease of the heart, of which he eventually died, began to manifest itself, capable of enduring almost any amount of labor and fatigue.

His remains were conveyed to their final resting-place in the graveyard attached to the Presbyterian Church at Silver Springs, six of his professional brethren acting as pall-bearers.

REPORT OF THE DAUPHIN COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE DOCK, M.D., 1823-1875.

GEORGE DOCK, M.D., one of the founders and the third President of this society, was born on the 23d of May, 1823, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was the second child of William and Margaret Gilliord Dock. His father was for many years one of the Associate Judges of Dauphin County. Though of very delicate physical organization, he was sent to school at an early age, and received a liberal education.

In September, 1840, he entered the office of Dr. Wm. H. Horner (Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania) as a private student. Prof. Horner gave him only two branches to study -anatomy and materia medica. That winter he matriculated as a student in the University of Pennsylvania, taking out tickets only for lectures on the branches he had been studying, and one for the dissecting-room. He devoted much time to dissections, and became a very superior anatomist.

During the summer of 1841 he attended a course of lectures at the Medical Institute, Locust Street, Philadelphia. By close application to his studies, and marked progress in anatomy, he secured the respect and particular friendship of his preceptor. At the earnest suggestion of Prof. Horner, who saw that he possessed to a rare degree the requisites of a surgeon, he paid special attention to the eye. The following extract taken from a letter written to George Dock by his preceptor will show in what high esteem his talents were held by the professor.

"I have observed your delicate hand and touch, your remarkable coolness in surgical operations, and your keen eye, and therefore desire you to prepare yourself for the department of operative surgery, and particularly operations on the eye, for which there are but few who are physically and otherwise so well qualified."

During the winter of 1841-42 he attended his first full course of lectures. In the spring following, at the instance of his preceptor, he made application for the position of resident student in Blockley Hospital. He was elected and entered upon his duties on the 1st of May.

During his residence at the hospital he made good use of the opportunities afforded for the study of pathological and practical anatomy. He made several handsome anatomical preparations, which are still preserved in the anatomical museums of the two great medical institutions of this State.

On the 1st of May, 1843, his term of service expired, and he left

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