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and exemption from severe epidemic disease. If any exception be necessary from this general statement, it is in relation to the somewhat increased prevalence, in some parts of the District, of malarious diseases, such as Intermittent and Remittent Fevers. This has been especially observable in certain localities in the counties of Essex and Warren, as the vicinities of Newark and Elizabeth Town in the former county, and the village of Hope in the latter; in all of which places, after several year's comparative respite, these diseases, during the last autumn, made their reappearance. The cases were not, however, very numerous, were generally of a mild type, and readily yielded to the ordinary treatment by which American physicians are accustomed to combat these diseases. In the neighbourhood of Westfield, lying some 7 or 8 miles West of Elizabeth Town, the malarious influence which, in the other vicinities, exhibited itself in the forms before named, was developed in the form of dysenteric affections, which prevailed, as the Committee have learned from unprofessional sources, to a considerable extent and fatality in that township. As there is no practitioner residing in the township connected with the Medical Society, the Committee have not been provided with any account of the treatment pursued. The reports which have been made to the Committee have not informed them as to the telluric and atmospheric conditions with which the malarious influence that developed itself in these forms of disease has been connected; but it is not improbable that the unusual and protracted heat and dryness of the last summer, following the heavy rains of the earlier part of the season, and exposing to the atmosphere, surfaces previously drenched with water, may, in accordance with the best received theories on the subject of malaria, be regarded as the producing

cause.

During the early part of the winter, catarrhal and bronchial affections prevailed throughout the Eastern, and, as will be seen from the report of that District, in the middle portion of the State. These were characterized by a degree of severity and universality as almost to entitle them to the designation of Epidemic Influenza. These affections, though not a little obstinate,

generally yielded to the ordinary treatment, without laying the foundation, except in a few instances, of permanent disorders of. the respiratory organs.

In the latter part of the winter, hooping cough and measles made their appearance in some parts of the District, but in so mild a form as but occasionally to demand active medical treat

ment.

Some interesting cases of hydrophobia, occurring in the practice of Dr. Pierson of Orange, in Essex county, were, through the kind attention of Dr. P., brought to the personal notice of the members of the Committee; which, notwithstanding the prompt and active treatment pursued, terminated fatally within 48 hours after the development of the hydrophobic symptoms, and in from five to ten weeks after the bite of the rabid animal. The Committee omit the detail of the symptoms and treatment adopted in these cases, as they have been led to hope for a more full account, than they could give, from the medical gentleman in attendance. The Committee would fail of their duty, were they not to avail themselves of the occasion here presented to express their condemnation of the practice sometimes fallen into by medical men of reputable standing, and an instance of which these cases brought to their notice, of ministering to popular ignorance and credulity by pretending to knowledge of sovereign and infallible remedies for those terrific diseases which so powerfully awaken public anxiety and sympathy; which remedies they are willing to furnish to the afflicted, with particular directions for their use, without deigning to communicate to the attending physician their composition and modus operandi. The instance to which they have reference the Committee do not deem it proper to indicate more particularly, as it is possible that it may have originated in an inadvertence; and they have alluded to it only for the sake of expressing their condemnation of the practice, and suggesting greater watchfulness against even inadvertent violations of professional propriety.

The Reporter for the Middle District excuses himself, on account of severe sickness in his own family, from as minute an account as he would desire to give of the prevailing diseases of

his District, stating, however, as the result of his own observation, that little had occurred which would prove interesting to the Committee or the Society.

"During the summer and early autumn," he adds, "diarrhoea and dysentery were the only forms of disease that I was called on treat, and these, with but few exceptions, were so mild as to yield readily to such treatment as is common with every practitioner of medicine, and need not be detailed. Some of the cases of dysentery were severe, but none fatal."

In the latter part of September, catarrhal affections became common, and have continued to the present hour without an interval of suspension, and have been characterized by the frequency of their recurrence, rather than by any other peculiarity of feature. Some of my patients have suffered from it five or six times, and I have now one who has not been free from it longer than a week at any one period since the beginning of October. Interspersed with this disease, we had some cases of severe bronchial and pneumonic inflammation; one of the former I have now under treatment, which is yielding to the remedies commonly resorted to in such affections. A few cases of diarrhœa, of obstinate character, occurred through the winter; the last in March. Rheumatism has been more prevalent than for several years past, and since the first of February some cases have occurred of acute inflammation of the liver."

The foregoing statement applies to the personal practice of the Reporter, and is not perhaps to be regarded as characterizing the whole middle district.

From the Reporter for the Western District the Committee have received an interesting report, to which they cannot do justice by any mere abstract; they therefore present it in full as communicated, premising that the Committee have received from the Reporter a note stating that, since the preparation of his report, two cases of distinct typhus fever had occurred among the Irish immigrants who had recently been brought into his neighbourhood from the alms-house in New York, within a few days after their arrival into the country. Their symptoms are described as indicating the presence of the typhus character,

ab origini, the disease setting in with the black tongue, collapse, sordes tympanitis, &c. They were treated with cathartics and counter-irritants, and recovered, the crisis appearing from the 7th to the 10th day. The principal report from the District is as follows:

"To the Standing Committee of the New Jersey Medical

Society.

Your Reporter for the Western District, in order to obtain information on the several subjects committed to his charge, addressed letters to a number of medical gentlemen in the lower counties, desiring them to communicate such "interesting and curious medical facts, discoveries and remarkable cases," as may have come under their notice; but no answers having been received, he cannot of course, furnish a full report. In his own neighbourhood there has been no epidemic during the past year, except whooping cough, which prevailed very generally during the summer months, but there was no evident variation in the disease from its usual course.

A very violent and fatal form of gastro-enteritis occurred frequently during the hot weather. Among the oldest practitioners it was thought to be an unusually malignant type of the disease; the attacks generally came on suddenly, attended with violent abdominal pain, almost constant bilious vomiting, and obstinate constipation of the bowels, the pulse was rapid, and the skin often cool. So great was the fear of collapse in the first stage, that bleeding from the arm was some times contra-indicated, and local depletion conjoined with the mercurial treatment was found to be the most salutary.

Autumnal intermittents, which prevailed so generally several years since, have scarcely been known in this vicinity in the past year. This fact may be attributed in great measure to the improvements in agriculture, draining marshy lands, and bring. ing them under cultivation, &c. An exemption from this dis ease in neighbourhoods which have long been subject to its annual visitations is a cause of great gratulation.

Under the head of "new discoveries" in medicine, your re

porter wishes briefly to notice the vapour of Sulphuric Ether as a remedy for the alleviation of pain in surgical operations. It has been but a few months since the attention of the profession was directed to this subject, from the fact of a certain dentist in Boston procuring a patent for the discovery of a method for relieving pain in dentistical operations. Drs. Warren, Hayward, Bigelow and others, connected with the Massachussetts General Hospital, first allowed the vapour to be administered on the 17th of October, 1846, to a patient under their care, upon whom the operation of removing a tumour from the neck was performed while under its influence. Though this experiment was not entirely successful in relieving the pain, as was anticipated, it was sufficient to convince Dr. Warren, (the operator,) that the effect of this gaseous inhalation was to "neutralize the sentient faculty;" and he believed that if properly administered it would be a valuable aid to the surgeon in his efforts to alleviate human suffering.

Upon investigation, it being ascertained that the vapour of Sulphuric Ether alone, separated from its impurities by washing without the addition of any narcotic drug, was sufficient to produce the desired effect, and the patent being considered invalid, its use was adopted in the hospital, and has since been employed in that institution to the entire satisfaction of the distinguished gentlemen who have it under their charge.

success.

On the 18th of October, the day after the first experiment, Dr. Hayward removed a fatty tumour from the arm of a female whom he had placed under the ethereal influence, with perfect The operation lasted four or five minutes, and if the patient's assurances are to be relied on, she was not only entirely free from pain during its progress, but was insensible to surrounding objects, and was only uneasy about a child that she had left at home.

On the 7th of November, Dr. Warren performed the painful and protracted operation of excision of a portion of the lower jaw, in which he asserts that the sufferings of the patient were greatly mitigated by the use of the ethereal vapour.

On the same day, Dr. Hayward amputated the thigh of a

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