have pretty generally attended the periodical discharge. The attacks of convulsion were preceded by screaming, after which she would be violently thrown down, and the respiration so arrested by laryngismus, as to produce frightful lividity of the head and face. This poor woman had been reduced, by the long continuance of her malady, to such a state of fatuity,as to be quite unable to attend to her domestic affairs, and, in several instances, violent mania had followed and preceded the seizures. On two occasions she has been confined as a lunatic. Her head and face bear the marks of many wounds produced by falls at the onset of fits. In 1850, she suddenly fell in a fit across a bed in which her child, an infant of seventeen months old, was laid, and killed it on the spot. Her husband was absent half an hour, and when he returned found his wife nearly insensible by the side of the dead infant.

There could be no question, therefore, that this was one of the gravest instances which could occur of this terrible disease. The patient was not considered a fit subject for permanent abode in an asylum, but in her own cottage she was a source of constant danger to herself or others. We proceed to give a detail of her case from the date of her admission to the present time.

Jan. 19th, or sixth day after admission.-The catamenia were present, and she had one fit, but not of a very severe character.

Twelfth and thirteenth days.-After the catamenia had ceased, she had a fit each day. These fits were severe, and she was thrown violently to the ground, but they were not of long duration. She had a a fourth fit eight days afterwards, and on the following she had two others. Single fits followed on every third day after this, so that during the month which she passed in the hospital before the operation, nine

seizures occurred.

After the patient had passed one month in the hospital, Feb. 13th, tracheotomy was performed by Mr. Lane. An instrument was used on this occasion which we believe had not before been tried upon the living subject, contrived by Mr. Thomson, late of University College. It is a modification of an instrument, which some of our readers may remember seeing at the Great Exhibition, and opens the trachea by a double lancet, piercing the tube horizontally between the tracheal rings. In ordinary cases this instrument would have the advantage of opening the trachea by one incision, without dividing the rings, but in this case the integuments were first divided, as the woman suffered from an enlarged thyroid gland. The puncture of the windpipe immediately produced tracheal cough, and whistling respiration began at once through the aperture. Very little blood was lost, and that which passed down the trachea was readily coughed out through the tube. Chloroform was used, and during the early part of the anesthesia the limbs were rigid and convulsed, but the spasm passed away after the puncture of the trachea, and she did not have a perfect fit. The patient was now placed in a warm situation in her ward, and a gauze cravat put round her neck. No inflammation of the trachea, or other ill consequence followed upon the operation.

Two days after the opening the windpipe she became restless and disturbed in the night. Heat of skin, raised pulse, and furred tongue were

present on the next day, and she was very unruly. In the evening she threw the medicine-glass at the sister of the ward. Dr. Tyler Smith prescribed a febrifuge and an active aperient, and on the subsequent evening the catamenia appeared. During two whole days previously, she had been so incoherent as to require constant watching. On several occasions she pulled the inner tube out of its place; but during this time she had nothing like a fully-formed convulsion. After the appearance of the catamenia, the cerebral disturbance subsided, and she has since remained collected and rational. The last fit was that which occurred the day before the operation.

We shall watch the result of Dr. Tyler Smith's case with great interest, and shall not fail to place the particulars before the readers of the "Mirror." It is hoped that as long as the tracheal tube is worn, she will not suffer from a fully-formed attack. If such should be the happy event, it would remain to be seen what effect the abortive seizures, minus the convulsions, would have upon the nervous system; and how far the partial abeyance of the disorder would favor the action of medicine and regimen, and allow of the restoration of the intellect from the blows dealt by the hundreds of convulsions of which this poor creature has, in a long course of years, been the victim. Dr. Tyler Smith will do a great service if he can help us to a solution of these important points. We should state that in his remarks upon the case, he observed that, sixteen or seventeen years ago, he had at Bristol, assisted his then senior fellow-pupil, Mr. W. P. H. Eales, now practising at Plymouth, to perform tracheotomy in a case in which a man had fallen into the water, in a fit, while crossing a plank from the quay to his barge. The man did not recover, but Mr. Eales thus performed, under almost identical circumstance, an operation precisely similar to the successful one of Mr. Lane, of Uxbridge, which has deservedly excited so much attention.

From the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

Dr. King's Address on Quackery-Its Causes and Effects.

There are some medical societies in New England, whose by-laws declare that it shall be deemed disreputable and unlawful for any fellow of such society to consult, directly or indirectly, with any person who is not a fellow such offences being punishable with fine or expulsion. In some of the States no one is allowed to practice medicine or prescribe for the sick until he has a diploma recorded on the books of the town in which he is located. In France, every new scheme that is rejected by the regular faculty is instantly suppressed. All these are salutary provisions, and tend to guard the public against imposition. The importance of medical societies has been too much overlooked. Besides State societies, district and village societies, with their quarterly or monthly meetings, should be everywhere established. These are

schools in which every member may learn something, and by comparing himself with others, keep regulated and posted up, and become an abler and better practitioner. Here a healthy emulation is encouraged, private animosities are dismissed, jealousies and heart-burnings are cured. Here the passions are hushed, the feelings chastened and the tongue curbed. Some poet says, "Mountains interposed make enemies of nations, which else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one." Scripture, reason and all experience, assure us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. When any class of men wish to accomplish an object for the good of the whole, they find it necessary to form associations and act in concert. By such means, men who could do nothing as individuals, form powerful associations and accomplish important purposes with perfect ease. Political parties are always wide awake upon this subject; when an election is pending, the cry is organize, organize! Religious and moral associations act upon the same principle, and acquire power by similar means. Mechanics and laborers, without capital and without influence as individuals, by forming associations and acting in unison, acquire immense power. They can almost change the time of the sun's rising; they have already shortened the day from about fourteen to ten hours. When they think proper, they raise their wages. Nothing is wanted to accomplish anything they wish, but perefect and unflinching concert of action.

The art of healing, as our profession is sometimes called, has always been too much shrouded in mystery. Its origin is probably nearly coeval with the human race, although very little is known of its early ..history. More than two thousand years ago we find her in Egypt, the bantling of a superstitious priesthood, having darkness for her mantle, and mystery for her swaddling clothes; and from that day to the present, this same evil genius has clung to her skirts and prowled around her temples, polluting her sanctuaries and dishonoring her disciples. Under its shadow quackery reposes. It is the ambrosia and nectar which sustains it, the banner under which its disciples rally, and the tower of refuge to which they fly. Science seeks to banish mystery from the world, and expose to open day every important truth; to strip medicine of every unhallowed covering, and show, not merely to physicians, but to the public as far as it may be understood, every physiological, pathological and therapeutic process. The patient and his friends. should be allowed to know all that they can correctly understand of the nature and treatment of his case. The more genuine knowledge an individual possesses the less is he liable to be imposed upon by false pretenders; but a knowledge of one science or art is no sure protection against fraud or imposition connected with some other science. There are men who are learned in everything else but medicine, and who become the unaccountable dupes of new and false medical schemes, and thereby do much mischief; for the public erroneously suppose that because a man understands the languages, mathematics, &c., he must of course know everything else. In general, the man who has the most plain common sense, who is accustomed to reason at every step he treads, is least liable to be suddenly carried away by new schemes. Those who are sound to the core, whose minds are thoroughly disciplined and trained to correctness of thought, are not easily led astray by phantoms.

Such men were Jefferson and Adams, Calhoun and Clay, Story and Webster. Neither of these men ever swallowed a Brandreth's pill, or tasted Swain's Panacea, or drank Townsend's Sarsaparilla, or bathed in Davis's Pain Killer. No irregular practitioner ever entered their doors, or prescribed for their families. Their medical advisers were among the most learned and accomplished of the profession. No Botanic, Thomsonian, Hydropath, Homoeopath or Eclectic, was ever summoned to their sick chamber, or wanted beside their beds. In their most trying moments they took advice only of regular physicians, and obeyed them implicitly. No others were allowed to moisten their burning lips, or wipe the cold damp from their brows. Every one of these men has added his dying seal to the testimony of his whole life, against quackery of every kind, and in favor of regular scientific medicine. This is testimony of a high order, and it behooves the world to heed it. It stands out in bold relief, which no finesse can hide, or sophistry destroy.

The followers and supporters of new schemes in medicine have always supposed that some mighty revolution was taking place, and that the old practice, as they have always called the only true system, was destined soon to be forgotten. So thought the followers of Serapion, Empiricus, Paracelsus, and a host of other pseudo-reformers of previous times; and so think now the friends and followers of each of the phantom schemes of the present day. But this is a grand mistake. All the baseless visions of ancient times have long since passed away as a dream of the night, and those which have cast their phosphorescent glimmerings upon the present age, are fast passing into twilight. In those wild fields no century plants have yet been found; all belong to the cryptogamic class and mushroom genus.

From a review of the past, and a contemplation of the future, I see no cause of alarm or discouragement, if the profession will only be faithful to its high vocation. Some of the ancients believed that the art of healing was a direct gift from heaven. This sentiment, although fabulous in its origin, should nevertheless be held in everlasting remembrance. It accords with the just dignity and importance of the office of the art. If physicians will do all their duty, no lasting ills can betide them. An immutable law declares that all that is false must pass away. The empty ravings of fanatic quackery must lash themselves into repose, and everything that is erroneous in our own system should be cast off without regret, whilst all that is true and valuable will stand firm and unimpaired by time. Occasional whirlwinds and hurricanes must be encountered; but even these help to purify the atmosphere and make it more serene. And if some darker hour shall come, when errors and mistakes, and falsehood and fraud, in one confused mass, threaten society with an universal deluge; when reason seems to have left her throne to folly and madness; when imposters have multiplied like clouds of locusts, and the whole horizon becomes filled with the coruscations of strange stars, even then every honest and true man may look around with unconcern, and say with the poet, "Truth crushed to earth, shall rise again." Volcanoes may demolish mountains and bury cities in their dust and lava; pyramids may crumble to atoms, ocean waves dissolve the continents, and time place his desolating hand upon all material objects; but truth is eternal, and can never be overthrown.

Review of an Address to the graduates of the Medical Department of the University of Michigan, on the Romance and Reality of Ancient Medicine. Delivered by DR. M. A. PATTERSON, of Tecumseh, Mich., Regent of the University from the First District.

This address opens with an allusion to the imposing and romantic ceremony through which a student passed, in receiving the honors of the School of Medicine of Salernum, the first to obtain celebrity in Europe, and which was established in the eleventh century. It then proceeds as in the following extracts, which give a specimen of the style of the author, as well as to state several matters regarding the University which we wish all our readers to know:

"Although our simple customs allow of no imposing ceremonies-although we may not, with the spirit of ancient romance, place the gilded volume in your hands, to remind you, when far from the scene of your present associations, that the true Physician must be a student through life-although we may not present you with the talismanic ring, designed to wed you to your profession, and to protect you from future evil, as the bride of the olden time was wedded to her lover and protected by the precious amulet with which her finger was adorned-although we may not crown you with laurel, as an emblem of your present triumph, and dismiss you with the kiss of affection, as a parent would part with a beloved son-we may, without fear of violating the cold formalities of society, which too frequently arrest upon the lips the warm emotions of the heart, congratulate you in this your hour of triumph, and rejoice with you in this your hour of joy. Your aim has been high and honorable, and you have faithfully earned the reward of years of patient study. In place of the fading laurel wreath, you are crowned with the approbation of your teachers, and with the approving smiles of your friends, whose expectations you have answered, whose hopes you have fulfilled.

Hitherto your minds have been severely tasked with prolonged efforts to obtain a thorough knowledge of the facts and principles which constitute the foundation and superstructure of Medical Science. That you have diligently improved your time, and have profited by the instruction afforded in this admirable and humane department of our University is evident, from the recent close and scrutinizing examination of your attainments, sustained with credit to yourselves, and which has entitled you to the highest honors your Professors could bestow upon you-honors which, under the wise regulations of the University, can be awarded only to those who by long and diligent study have earned them. No favoritism can gain admission here, no exclusive privileges darken these halls. The people of our state have founded this Institution for the sole purpose of enabling our talented and energetic young men to acquire a superior medical education, that they may become efficient agents, under God, to spread the blessings of this education throughout the land. And, that there shall be no undue influence of station or of wealth springing up here, no aristocracy of feeling to cast its blighting shadows over this temple, devoted to a purely benevolent object, they invite students to come here, as the ancient prophet invited those who thirsted after spiritual knowledge, "without money and without price."

Our people have an abiding faith in the generous principle that literary and professional education should be placed within the reach of all their children; and should the time ever come, which we trust is far distant, when the depart. ments of the University cannot be sustained on this principle, they will close its doors, and wait for the further development of the resources of that fund which has ever been regarded, even amid the most trying financial embarrassments of the speculative era, as a sacred deposit for sacred purposes.

To Michigan belongs the honor of being the first State in the Union, perhaps