The miasmatists, generally, believe that the dews of insalubrious localities are loaded with the miasmatic principle, which has been brought down and precipitated with the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere.

Sir John Pringle and others assert that this poison is connected with a most noisome and dreadful smell.

The prevailing opinion among the miasmatists is, that it is not contagious.

Fordyce, Sir John Lind, Dr. Dundas, the French Algerian Surgeons, and others, contend that fever and ague is convertible into common continued fever, and vice versa.

Armstrong says: Kingston, in the Island of St. Vincent, having all the elements for the production of this poison, for it abounds in as much vegetable matter, and "reptiles, and insects, and other animal matter, as is found in other tropical countries, is as yet healthy as the most favorable spot in England." New Amsterdam, Berbice, and other places in the West Indies, are similarly situated, according to Ferguson; while Dundas informs us that such is the case with Bahia, Bonefine and other places in Brazil.

Monfalcon, McCulloch, Brown, and others say, it will mount into the higher regions of the air and be disseminatd over the adjacent country, despite the intervention of walls, cliffs, woods, and secondary ridges.

Heber says, the wood tracts of Nepaul and Malwa, having neither swamps nor perceptible moisture, are uninhabitable in summer and autumn by man, beasts, or birds, from their pestilential character.

Baily and Audonard, in France, and Cleghorn, Fordyce and Brown, in Great Britain, think that it is communicated by contagion.

Those who advocate the abstract theory that marsh miasm is the cause of periodical fevers, deny that ague and fever and continued fever are mutually convertible.

These are some of the varying features and contradictory statements, which are furnished by the medical history of this imp of the marshes. I shall not attempt to reconcile such discordant elements-it would be worse than useless.

Effect of Red Blood on the Vital Properties of the Contractile and Nervous Tissues.

[From the Medical Times and Gazette, November 7, 1857.]

Two years ago, Dr. Brown-Sequard published the results of numerous experiments, showing that red blood-ie. richly oxygenated blood-has the power of reproducing the vital properties of almost all the contractile tissues, when it is injected in the artery some time after these tissues have lost these properties. In a paper read to the Academy of Sciences on the 19th of October last, this physiologist relates some new facts on this subject. It is well known, since the admirable experiments of Sir Astley Cooper, that animals die from asphyxia when circulation is stopped in their four encephalic arteries, and that if the circulation be quickly re-established, the animals recover almost immediately. Dr. Brown-Sequard has ascertained that if circulation takes place again a few minutes after the last respiratory movement, life does not reappear; but if the lungs are insufflated, the apparently dead trunk revives, and becomes endowed with a very energetic reflex power; and that five, ten, or fifteen, and in one case seventeen minutes after the last respiration, in insufflated dogs, if circulation is re-established in the encephalon, the functions of the brain proper and of the respiratory nervous centre reappear, and the animal may be restored to full life. In heads separated from the body, injections of richly oxygenated blood may reproduce the actions of the brain proper and of the medulla oblongata many minutes (even fourteeen or fifteen) after decapitation.

In a second part of his last paper, Dr. Brown-Sequard points out a radical difference between the two kinds of blood, the arterial and the venous-or rather, the red and the black. He has ascertained by a great many experiments that red blood-i.e. blood charged with oxygen, whether arterial or venous-never has the power of stimulating or exciting any organ or tissue; while black blood-i.e. blood charged with carbonic acid-has the power of stimulation in a very high degree as regards the nervous centres, and in a lower degree as regards the sensitive and motor nerves,

and the contractile tissues. On the contrary, the red blood has the power of regenerating the vital properties, while black blood is hardly able to maintain them at a low degree. Dr. Brown-Sequard calls attention to a peculiar mode of action of black blood, which consists in its producing intermittent or periodical effects, and sometimes perfectly rhythmical actions, even in the muscles of animal life He finishes his paper by the indication of the danger of employing black blood in transfusion. He relates facts to prove that the blood of an animal acts as a poison when injected in the veins of an animal of another species, only when it is black and charged with carbonic acid. The blood of a rabbit may kill the same individual as well as another animal of the same species, if it is injected blackwhether defibrinated or not-in its veins; so it is for dogs, for cats, for birds; while, on the contrary, richly oxygenated blood-whether venous or arterial, and defibrinated or not, and taken from birds, turtles, etc.-may be, without any ill effect, injected in the veins of a mammal. The great danger of transfusion of blood, after the entrance of air in the veins. and the coagulation of its fibrin, is, therefore, the employment of a liquid containing too much carbonic acid. This danger, and at the same time the danger of coagulation, may easily be avoided by employing whipped venous blood, which, during the operation of whipping, loses its coagulating principle and much of its carbonic acid, and absorbs a good deal of oxygen.

Plastic Operation upon the Ear.

[From the North American Medico-Chirurgical Review.]

In August last, a young man disfigured by the loss of a considerable portion of his right ear, from a bite in a fight, applied to Professor Pancoast to have the deformity relieved by a plastic operation. Two months had elapsed since the occurrence of the injury. The condition of the parts was as follows: The cicatrix an irregular one, but imperfectly healed, and evidently not in a healthy condition: the amount

of loss sustained was fully one-third of the external ear, and this was considerable, as the ears were unusually large and pendulous-that upon the opposite side measuring nearly three inches in length. The entire lobule was gone. A line carried across the inferior portion of the concha to a point on the helix opposite the auditory meatus will afford a good idea of the cicatrix.

The operation was performed in the following manner:The entire edge of the wound was freshened by paring, and the cartilage removed to a greater depth than the integument; a portion of the cutaneous tissue was then raised from over the upper extremity of the sternocleido-mastoid muscle of more than twice the size of the lost part, allowing thus for shrinking, and of such a shape that, when doubled upon itself, it should correspond exactly to the same portion of the sound ear, the pedicle representing the attachment of the lobule. The flap being doubled so as to present both surfaces covered with integument was then secured to the raw edges of the ear by a few interrupted sutures, and well sustained with strips of isinglass-plaster. The parts united kindly except a small point of the posterior edge of the flap, where there was a little sloughing, owing, most likely, to the presence of coagulated blood between its folds. The operation was in every respect a successful one. The attachment of the new lobule being made to take the same position and direction as the natural one rendered the shape of the two ears almost exactly similar.

Novel Method of Extracting a Foreign Body from the Esophagus, [From the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, December 3, 1857.]

Mrs. Field, a lady, aged seventy, while eating chickensoup, accidentally swallowed a piece of bone the size of an American quarter of a dollar cut into a triangular form. The bone lodged in the oesophagus, about two inches below the top of the sternum. Thinking that it might fall into the stomach, she neglected to apply for surgical aid until the fifth day after the accident. In the meantime, she had

swallowed neither food nor drink, both regurgitating into the mouth with every attempt.

I was called the fifth day, to try to remove the bone by surgical means. My first attempt was with a piece of whalebone, the extremity being perforated with numerous small holes, into which were fastened a dozen or more loops, about an inch long, made with small linen twist.

With this contrivance I failed, after many patient trials. I could readily reach the bone, but the loops did not fasten to any point of its angular form with sufficient permanency to enable me to extract it. I could even pass the piece of whalebone beyond the foreign body, and ascertained that it rested upon the posterior side of the oesophagus, standing perpendicularly, with two of its corners fastened into the gullet.

I finally took a piece of dry sponge about an inch long, and of such a shape, when dry, as to fill one-half of the oesophagus. This I tied to the extremity of my whalebonesound. Turning back the head of the patient, I passed it down the oesophagus, in a dry state, as rapidly as I dared to do, until I was certain it had passed beyond the bone. I then introduced a little fluid into the mouth, which quickly reached the dry sponge, enlarging it to twice its natural size, completely filling the gullet. I drew it out, and with it came the bone, much to my gratification and the patient's relief.

On the Hygiene of Costume.

[From the Charleston Medical Journal.]

Dress, in its hygienic relations, certainly comes under the censorship of the physician, the natural guardian of the health of nations. In its fashions, its artistic effects, its outward appearance, it may be considered beneath our dignified notice: these aspects of dress may be safely left to Frank Leslie, Godey, and other dii minores. To us, however, it belongs to consider the effect of style of dress on health; and when we find that a large and important class