407

than the right ones. This fact seemed interesting in referenceto the experiments lately performed by Brown-Sequard. The

patient continued for several months in the same condition,and finally died of extensive bed-sores, and sloughing of thenates, &c.Dr. OGLE exhibited a specimen of

ttALFORMATION OF TRACHEA AND (ESOPHAGUS WHICH COM-MUNICATED WITH EACH OTHER IN AN INFANT.

The preparation showed perfect obliteration of the oesophagusat about three-quarters of an inch distance from the fauces.Some little way below this point, the trachea communicatedwith the oesophagus, which was patent as far as the stomach;the opening of communication being of a distinctly valvularcharacter. The preparation was removed from a child whohad been attended by Dr. B. Brown, and whose food on beingswallowed had, partly at least, returned through the nostrils.

Reviews and Notices of Books.A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Testi-9, and of the

Spermatic Cord and Sct’otum. With numerous WoodEngravings. By T. B. CURLING, F.R.S., Surgeon to theLondon Hospital, &c. Second Edition, revised and enlarged.8vo, pp. 519. London: J. Churchill.

THIS is a D)uch enlarged edition of Mr. Curling’s very valuablework on " Diseases of the Testis," &c. The author has omittedthe introductory chapters on the anatomy of the parts, and has,by careful conciseness in the description of cases, been able toembody a great deal of fresh matter, and to add several newengravings, without enlargement of the volume. Several casesof interest are recorded, from the pen of the late Mr. HarveyLudlow, who died during the war in the Crimea. Mr. Curling’swork must be regarded as a standard.

The Principles and Practice of Obstetric Medicine and Surgeryin reference to the Process of Pa?-tu2-ition. Witli 120 illus-trations on steel and wood. By F. H. RAMSBOTHAM, M.D.,&c. Fourth Edition, revised. 8vo, pp. 762. London :Churchill.

IT is a strong testimony to ’the value of this excellent work,that previous to the issue of this edition no less than 6000copies of previous editions had been sold. Dr. Ramsbotham’swork is essentially a practical one. A lengthened notice of itis unnecessary.

________

Hints to Husbands. By ONE OF THE GUILD. A Revelation.pp. 125. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1856.

A REVELATION truly, not only to the " Guild," but to allhumanity-a revelation, too, which will startle many, as it didourselves."We have learnt the frightful indignities to which the poor

hospitals patients are sometimes subjected. A difficult case oflabour, as it is termed, occurs: the wretched victim is stretchednaked, candles are placed around the bed, and the studentsassemble in crowds, perched on ladders and benches, to watchthe progress of the labour, and the manipulations of theoperator."-p. 106.

Is the author really ignorant that, under some circumstances, Ithe most laughable and absurd malignancy of utterance gains Ibelief, and is productive of much misery and misfortune ? If i

he is not, let us assure him it is so, and beg him to suppressthat which is a painful calumny on others, and so marked aproof of low-bred ignorance in himself.

The Westminster -Revie?v. New Series. No. XVIII. April I1856.THIS number of the " Westminster," contains an article en-

titled Medical Despotisi7i, against which we deem it right toenter our protest. Amongst its chaff a few solid grainspossibly might be found, but any train of argument which ismade finally to assert that "however rightly or wrongly

homceopathy and hydropathy may be derided, it remains in-contestably true that they have exerted a beneficial influenceon the public" (p. 550) ; and that the state of medicine is suchas to offer " an abundant justification of its neglect by thepeople" (p. 562) ; is one that we do not feel called uponfurther to meddle with than thus to indicate what must beour own justification in our neglect of the article itself.

The Eclinhzcz°n1z New Philosophical Journal. New Series.No. 6, or Vol. III. No. 2., April, 1856. Edited by Sir W.Jardine and Professors Anderson, Balfour, and Rogers.Edinburgh : A. & C. Black. London : Longman & Co.

THE present number, though an able one, has fewer relationsto Medical Science than ordinary. One of the most interestingof its more popular articles is that of Mr. Thomson, of Ban-

chory, on Professor Baden Powell’s views respecting the recentorigin of man upon earth, and the skeleton found in excavatingMickleton Tunnel.

Foreign Department.TAPPING OF THE PERICARDIUM, AND IODINE INJECTION INTO

THAT CAVITY, IN A CASE OF PERICARDITIS, WITH EFFUSION;FAVOURABLE RESULTS.

M. ARAN, physician of the H6pital St. Antoine, at Paris,lately brought before the Academy of Medicine the case of ayoung man, twenty-three years of age, who was admittedunder his care in July, 1855, with all the symptoms of severepericarditis. The patient had been treated for pleurisy in thesame hospital a few months before, and there was reason tobelieve that tubercles had formed in the lungs. As the youngman was, on his second admission, very weak, and affectedwith diarrhoea, the antiphlogistic treatment could not be usedwith sufficient energy; and the inflammation of the pericardium,far from becoming subdued, was speedily followed by effusion.The liquid was so abundant, that very severe fits of dyspncea.came on, and M. Aran therefore resolved to tap the peri-cardium.Though physician to an hospital, he performed the operation

himself, with a small-sized trocar and canula, the directionbeing from below upwards, in the fifth intercostal space, alittle below the spot where the dulness on percussion was wellmarked. The actual extent of the distended pericardium wasfigured by concentric lines drawn on the chest, and the actualsituation of the heart carefully ascertained by auscultation.About twenty-eight ounces of a reddish transparent serosityescaped, with great relief to the urgent symptoms which hadcalled for the operation. An injection was then thrown intothe cavity of the pericardium, composed of an ounce and ahalf of water, half an ounce of tincture of iodine, and fifteengrains of iodide of potassium. The injection was well borne,and a few drachms of the liquid having been allowed to flowout, the wound was closed by compresses.The symptoms, however, returned, and twelve days after

the operation tapping was again had recourse to, when forty-nine ounces of a greenish albuminous liquid escaped. A strongeriodine injection was now used. The operation gave the patientneither pain nor uneasiness, and in the space of ten days thedulness had considerably diminished. But as the heart andpericardium improved, the lungs grew worse; symptoms oftubercles became more plain, and dropsical effusions in variousparts of the body appeared. The latter symptoms were removedby blisters and vapour baths, and the patient finally recoveredso far as the affection of the pulmonary organs would allow ;but the bold treatment used for the pericarditis with effusionwas completely successful.

SYNOVIAL MEMBRANE CONNECTED WITH THE INTERVERTEBRAL

CARTILAGES.

M. L USCHKA lately sent a paper to the Biological Society ofParis (president, M. Rayer), in which the author maintainsthat intervertebral cartilages represent, with the osseous partslying in the vicinity, a complete diarthrodial joint with twocartilaginous surfaces, a fibrous capsule, and a synovial mem-brane. The latter is formed, according to the author, by whathad to this day been considered as an amorphous gelatinous pulp.