Ten years later another attack occurred, which ran into a chronic state. Points of ulceration existed in the canal, bloody and purulent discharges were almost constant, and the disease continued to progress under the usual treatment. The intelligent patient having given a history of the case, and after examination of the ear, a solution of salicylic acid, fifteen grains to a pint of water, was injected into the meatus twice daily. This treatment was intrusted to the patient, who had become skilled in the use of the syringe, after long practice with it during the treatment of his case.

He recently reports great comfort from the use of this injection; and an examination of the ear shows that all discharges have ceased, and that the parts present a more healthy appearance.

Idrosis or inflammation of the feet with intense burning and offensive perspiration is also successfully treated by a solution of salycilic acid, two drachms to a pint of water. Dr. Green reported cases of this disease several years ago, which he treated by apply ing a strong solution of sulphate of iron. He now finds salicylic acid a more efficient and a more agreeable application.

He suggests the application of dry salicylic acid on cotton to soft corns. There is, as is well known, in these painful and troublesome affections a soft condition of the parts, and a constant moisture. A single trial of the acid encourages the hope that its application in these cases will prove useful.

Dr. Green writes, that he cannot omit to refer again to the use of sodium chlorate in inflammations of the skin produced by the poison of rhus toxicodendron. Numerous cases treated during the present and past year, attest the value of this remedy in the treatment of this distressing inflammation. Three drachms to a pint of water is a solution well adapted to most cases.

As an external application in all inflammations of the skin and mucous surfaces, the solution of sodium chlorate is unequalled in its effects, by any other remedy of the materia medica, curing many of the inflammations of the mouth and throat where the potassium salt fails to effect a cure. In inflammation of the conjunctiva, nostrils, mouth, and throat, it is certainly superior to all other remedies hitherto employed.

He reports a case of purulent ophthalmia recently treated by the application of a solution of sodium chlorate. The disease commenced in an infant on the third day after its birth, and both eyes were affected. When called to see the child he found the lids greatly swollen and distended by the accumulation of pus beneath them, which flowed away freely when the eyelids were separated. The conjunctiva was dry, red, and swollen. The treatment was

284 REPORT OF NORTHAMPTON COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.

commenced by the use of sodium chlorate, one drachm dissolved in eight ounces of water, at the temperature of the atmosphere. It was applied to the eyes by separating the lids and washing away the pus from the parts beneath. Thin slips of linen wet with the solution, were then applied over the closed lids. The washing was repeated every fifteen minutes in the early stage of the disease. The solution was also injected by a syringe, and the parts kept clean in this way. Those who have met with cases of this kind know how great the liability is to have serious results to the eye; the disease running its course to the destruction of the organ in a LEG few days, or ending in opacity of the cornea. The medical attendant in this case had good help in careful nursing, and constant observance of the directions prescribed for the treatment. family was made acquainted with the character of the disease and the importance of carrying out the treatment, in order to prevent serious injury to the eyes. The cure was perfect under the treatment as above described, no blemish appears on the cornea, and every part of the eye is now in a healthy state.

The

During the late epidemic of sclerosis, Dr. Green treated thirty cases, using, as in former epidemics, the bromide of ammonium. Two of the patients were advanced in life-one a female, seventy years of age; and the other a male, sixty-two. Both were treated by free doses of bromide, and favorable results obtained. The disease was not of long duration after it was brought under treatment in these old persons.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON METEOROLOGY AND EPIDEMICS OF THE PHILADELPHIA COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.

AN increase in the mortality of our city of over two thousand five hundred, or 16.84 per cent., in a single year, is certainly sufficiently startling to call for an attempt at explanation, especially in view of the fact that it cannot be attributed-like the excessive mortality of the years 1871-72-to the presence of a great epidemic. There are two facts which go far towards accounting for it satisfactorily, without supposing that the local conditions have been unusually insanitary, an admission which we should be loath to make. The first of these is that the previous year, 1874, was one extremely favorable to human health in its meteorological conditions, and its mortality was therefore disproportionately light.

The United States decennial census, taken in the month of September, 1870, gave the city a population of 674,022. The Municipal Centennial Census, taken during the present month, gives a population of 817,448, an increase of 143,426 in five and a half years, or 26,077—in round numbers say 26,000-souls per annum. The deathrate for 1870, which was not an exceptionally unhealthy year, was 22.72 deaths to every 1000 persons living, or 44 persons living to one death, based upon an actual mortality of 15,317. For the fourteen years ending with 1874, it had been 22.68 to every thousand, or 44.15 persons living to one death. If now we deduct from the figures of Mayor Stokley's census one-half the annual increase, or 13,038, this will take us back to last September and will afford a fair basis of comparison with former years. We thus arrive at 804,410 as the population for 1875. This gives us a death-rate of 22.13 per thousand, or 45.18 persons living to one death, a better showing than that of 1870, or than the average for Philadelphia, and decidedly better than the average of any other great city. The second fact which places this year at a disadvantage as compared with the preceding is that its own atmospheric conditions were, on the contrary, exceedingly disastrous to health. Let us briefly review its

METEOROLOGY.-The autumn previous had been unusually mild and delightful. December brought hard frosts, but yet the mean