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inflammation we cannot say, but no doubt there is a tendencyto the occurrence of laryngitis, as indicated by the hoarse-ness of voice which persisted in the other cases some

time after the removal of the tube. It is, perhaps, interest-ing to note that the tube which passed so harmlessly throughthe pylorus and ileo-cascal valve measured two inches inlength. We cannot enter upon the question of the relativevalue of tracheotomy and intubation, but it is right to statethat in each of the above cases we should have been

absolutely compelled to perform tracheotomy had not theprocess of intubation been substituted. Our object israther to show that intubation of the larynx is in somecases attended with perfectly satisfactory results, but yethas dangers of a somewhat more serious character than.some recent writers would lead us to suppose.

Medical Societies.ROYAL MEDICAL & CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY.

Dermatitis Gangrenosa Infantum.-Af01’m of Inflammationof the Lips and Mouth, usually attended by sonze DIs-ease of the skin.THE last ordinary meeting of the session of this Society

was held on Tuesday last, Mr. G. D. Pollo;;k, F.R.C.S., Pre-sident, in the chair.

It was unanimously agreed, on the proposal of Sir DycEDUCKWORTH, seconded by Dr. CRAWFORD, that an addressbe presented from the Society to Her Majesty the Queenon the occasion of the completion of the fiftieth year of herreign.

’

Dr. RADCLIFFE CROCKER read a paper on DermatitisDangrenosa Infantum. Four groups of cases were described.In the first there was no evidence of varicella antecedent tothe gangrenous or ulcerating eruptions, and in most it wasdistinctly negatived. In the second group are cases in whichvaricella has preceded the sloughs or ulcers, which eitherdeveloped immediately upon the varicella pustule or occurredas a sequela beginning in independent lesions. In the third

group vaccination was the immediate antecedent. In thefourth group are placed certain cases of local gangreneresembling cancrum oris; but the individual lesions beganin exactly the same way as the independent eruption whichfollowed varicella, and there was a tendency to generalisa-tion, or, at all events, to extension beyond the region inwhich it started in some of the cases. A general account ofthe disease was drawn up from an analysis of the precedingand other cases, and it was shown that there is greatdifference in the severity of the eruption. In some thegangrenous patches were so numerous and extensive as tolead to the death of the patient in a few days, while at theother end of the chain are cases of so mild a character that therewere only superficially ulcerating pustules, which came outin crops, thus protracting the disease as a whole for a con-siderable time, and generally accompanied by intensepruritus; these milder cases appear to correspond with Mr.Hutchinson’s varicella prurigo. Between the two extremesare cases of all grades of severity. Comparison was madebetween the local and general gangrenous eruptions, and,among other things in common, it was shown that they bothattack girls more than boys, and occur at about the sameages. The conclusions arrived at were-that the gangrenouseruptions are pathological accidents, so to speak, which inyoung children, especially when of tubercular constitution,might supervene upon any pustular eruption, although nodoubt such a condition is much more common after varicella.Secondly, that the determining factor is probably a micro-organism derived trom without, though cultivation and in-oculation experiments could alone prove the truth of thistheory. Thirdly, that the initial lesions, both of the local andgeneral gangrenous eruptions, present the same characters.-Mr. JONATHAN HuTCHiNSON said that he never doubtedthat other eruptions than vaccinia and varicella could befollowed by gangrenous changes. The various specificanimal poisons had the power of altering the condition ofthe patient and rendering him liable to gangrene of theskin and other parts. He had seen many cases of cancrumori8 in children who were in excellent health till the measlesnor other specific fever had overtaken them. There were cases

also in which no known antecedent cause could be madeout-neither syphilis, nor scarlet fever, nor vaccinia orvaricella, &c. He distrusted the view that tuberculosis asa constitutional tendency was liable to set up gangrene of theskin. He thought this was very highly improbable. Hethought that we must receive with caution the statementthat no evidence existed of the previous occurrence ofvaricella, for it may be easily overlooked, having occurredin a sporadic form. Infection may occur in individual pus-tules which are not of varicellar origin ; these are notextensive and not symmetrical, but irregular in distri-bution, and resulting from injury are succeeded by theformation of pus and absorption of the same. He congra-tulated Dr. Crocker heartily on the value of his paper.-Dr. RADCLIFFE CROCKER was glad to find that Mr. Hutchin-son did not differ so very much from the position assumed inhis paper. In one case at least the evidence was of thestrongest character that the vesicular eruption was not ofvaricellar nature, and yet gangrene supervened. As totuberculosis, if well marked and attended with high fever,he thought that it offered a genuine predisposition to thedevelopment of gangrene.Mr. JONATHAN HUTCHINSON contributed a paper on a

form of Inflammation of the Lips and Mouth, which some-times ends fatally, and is usually attended by some diseaseof the skin. The paper contains the description of a disease(not, it is believed, previously recognised) in which super-ficial ulcerations occur in the lips and in various parts ofthe mouth, followed sooner or later by some form of skindisease and tending to a fatal termination. The form ofskin disease may vary, but the hands and feet are the partsusually affected, and the nails are especially prone to suffer.In some instances the eruption may consist of bullse whichare followed by free papillary outgrowths. The patientsattacked are usually in middle life, or in early senile periods.No special antecedents can be alleged as the probable causeof the malady. Unless checked by treatment the diseaseappears to run its course in about six months, producingdeath by exhaustion. There seems reason to believe thatopium given in repeated doses will cure it, and that thereis, at any rate in some cases, no tendency to relapse after-wards. All the best marked cases as yet observed haveoccurred in males, but in several milder ones the patientswere women. Of the most characteristic, two weremaster tanners, one was a farmer, one a clergyman,and one a gentleman of no occupation. All theseresided in the country. Careful inquiry has failed to

support the suspicion that the disease might perhaps -be due to contagion from animals. Of these five cases, twoended fatally and three in recovery. The patients who diedwere these first observed, and since the discovery of thesignal efficacy of opium no case has ended in death. Theobservation as to the efficacy of opium was simultaneouslymade by the President of the Society, Mr. Pollock, and bythe author, two different patients being at the same timeunder their separate treatment and recovering under thisdrug. Since that every case has yielded. if the uose ofopium were sufficiently pushed. In one, however, thedisease did not yield quickly and for more than a monthseemed likely to end in death. As regards permanency ofcure, in one case the patient is known to be quite well fouryears after his recovery, in another there is reason to believethat such is the fact, and in a third a period of two yearshas elapsed. In two of the milder cases, occurring inyounger patients, the disease has repeatedly relapsed. A

great variety of remedies had been tried without benefit beforethe use of opium was resorted to. In no single case has thereappeared to be any tendency to spontaneous improvement.In all the cases the inflammation of the lips and mouth tookdefinite precedence of the skin symptoms, and in some thelatter were very slight. It is not known taat any case hasas yet been obtained amongst the poorer classes of society.The author desired to abstain for the present from express-ing any detailed opinion as to the causes or nature of themalady. He would, however, venture to suggest that it isallied to other forms of disturbed health attended by skindisease and occurring in early senile periods, such as certainpeculiar varieties of psoriasis, pemphigus, lichen planus, andpityriasis rnbra. In confirmation of this suggestion, and asan appendix to the paper, a case is narrated (with a portraitin illustration) in which an elderly lady had a kind ofspreading eczema-psoriasis of the hands and scalp. Shelost her nails and all her hair, and was rapidly failing inhealth in spite of various measures of treatment, but finally

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recovered quickly and completely uuder opium. Her casedoes not belong to the group described in the paper, becauseshe never at any time had inflammation of the mouth.-Mr. POLLOCK referred to the value of opium in all cases ofulceration of the skin. In cases of phagedsena occurring manyyears ago opium, in his hands, had proved of singular value.He never used any kind of caustic. We were very muchindebted to Mr. Hutchinson for the interesting clinical

grouping of cases brought forward in the paper.-Air. MAC-NAMARA referred to the case which had been under his care.There was no apparent reason for the ulceration and in-flammation of the mouth which supervened on the sufferer’sreturn home from India. The spleen and liver were some-what enlarged. Emaciation and cachexia were alreadyadvanced, and although opium was ordered, it was probablynot taken as prescribed, and therefore had not had a fairtrial.-Dr. RADCLIFFE CROCKER said that so far as the mouthpart of the disease was concerned the condition was newto him. He testified to the value of opium in chronicprogressive skin affections in old people. Was the affec-tion related in any way to the pemphigus vegetans ofNeumann ?-Mr. HUTCHINSON, in reply, thought the affec-tion might be so related. I

ACADEMY OF MEDICINE IN IRELAND.

Malignant Disease of the Tonsil.-Excision of the WristJoint.

AT a meeting of the Surgical Section, held on April 22ndMr. HENRY GRAY CROLY read a paper on Primary

Sarcoma of the Tonsil, and detailed the history of twocases. The first case, Michael D--, aged seventeen years,was admitted into the City of Dublin Hospital on April22nd, 1886, suffering from a tumour involving the lefttonsil and soft palate. The boy was in excellent healthuntil six weeks previous to his admission into the hospital.The disease commenced like ordinary tonsillitis, and so muchdid the swelling resemble tonsillar abscess that an explora-tory incision was made by the medical gentleman who firstsaw the case; no pus escaped. The patient suffered fromdyspnoea, and dysphagia. A glandular swelling subsequentlyformed in the left digastric space. Sir James Paget, whowas in Dublin at the time, kindly saw the patient withMr. Croly, and concurred in his view of the case and in theproposed treatment-viz., preliminary tracheotomy andremoval of the growth from within. Tracheotomy wasperformed on May 4,h. The patient experienced muchrelief. The tonsillar and palate swelling and the digastrictumour disappeared almost entirely after the bronchotomy,but soon reappeared. Mr. Croly excised the tumour frombeneath the angle of the jaw on May 18th, and subse-quently removed the tonsillar and palate growth by meansof the benzjiine cautery. The tonsil and digastric tumourswere round-celled sarcoma. The disease returned veryrapidly in the digastric space and afterwards in the palate.The patient got drowsy, and suffered from violent head-aches ; the glands in the neck enlarged. He returned to thecountry, and died in October-six months from the com-mencement of the disease. The second case occurred in aman over fifty years of age. The sarcoma was confined tothe tonsil, and so much did it simulate tonsillar abscessthat an incision was made into the tumour. Mr. Croly de-clined operative treatment in consequence of extensive in-filtration of the cervical glands. The patient returned tothe country, and died from exhaustion caused by repeatedhaemorrhages.—The PRESIDENT said that the case was oneof great clinical interest and of exceptional rarity. Thoughthe operative measure was not attended with success,yet that procedure was eminently justified, and at anearlier stage might have had a different result.-Mr,THOMSON asked whether Mr. Croly had succeeded bythis method in getting away the whole of the tonsil withthe cautery; because if there was only a spouting massremoved and a portion left behind, the after-history wasintelligible. Although he never saw a case of the kind, i1occurred to him that the external operation would givfincreased facility for getting at the structures to eradicattthem. The difficulty of operating through the mouth orthe tonsil was the uncertainty of removing the whole

gland.-Mr. W. THORNLBY STOKER said he approved of thEthermo-cautery, and used it freely and frequently; but thiswas one of the cases in which he would be slow to reb

upon it as being an instrument of dangerous facility infinding its way, and therefore if he sought to do more thanremove the surface of the gland, especially where malignan-disease existed, he would adopt the apparently more heroicoperation of dividing the cheek and jaw, and enucleatingthe gland from its attachment by means of an instrument ofless facility.-Mr. KENDAL FRANKS concurred with -Ilr,Stoker in his objection to the thermo-cautery, not onlybecause the surgeon might travel into undesirable parts,but also because of the increased difficulty whichcauterisation created of seeing the limits of the disease.He thought Mr. Croly was right in taking it from the in-side, and that the surgeon need not be afraid of going closeto the carotid artery, there being a good depth of tissuebetween the tonsil and that artery to avert danger.—Mr.CROLY replied. His first idea was to relieve the patient bytracheotomy from the sense of choking, having no wish tocut out the tonsil either from inside or outside. His ex-perience of those growths had been, unfortunately, that theoperation would only give temporary relief. Hence heasked Sir James Paget what he would do if he had the casein London, and that eminent surgeon replied that he wouldperform the preliminary tracheotomy and cut out as muchof the tumour through the mouth as he could. In fact,in this instance, unless he cut off the boy’s head hecould not have cut out the disease, and therefore it wasimmaterial whether he made an external or an internalincision, although he reflected on the hazardous proceedingof cutting within from without. He regarded the case asone of malignant disease occurring with great rapidity, andit was a question whether, in a similar case, he would doanything but tracheotomy to relieve the patient. Theexternal growth was completely encapsuled, and came outas a nut would out of the shell. The wound healed byprimary union, but the disease returned with great rapidity,being in the boy’s blood. What proved of greatest interestto him was its likeness to tonsillar abscess.Mr. WHEELER read a paper on Excision of the Wrist

Joint.-Mr. HAMILTON asked why Air. Wheeler retainedEsmarch’s bandage in this particular excision and objectedto it in others. He himself disliked it in almost all excisions,particularly of the knee, owing to the increased amount ofblood lost.-The PRESIDENT said there was a tendency torun down Esmarch’s bandage, which he was not inclined toendorse from his own experience. In his case, where

secondary haemorrhage ensued, he believed it was due to thefaulty application of the bandage, perhaps with too greatfirmness; but he looked upon it as one of the greatestimprovements in modern surgery.-Mr. W. THOITNLEISTOEEB expressed his unqualified objection to the use ofEsmarch’s bandage in any excision of a joint; but he wouldbe sorry to object to its use in many other forms of opera-tion-for instance, the removal of necrosed bone, where,without it, the surgeon saw nothing but a pool of blood.In excision of joints, however, there were two greatobjections to its use: First, troublesome hasmorrha.which some attributed to want of skill in applying thebandage; but he believed it could never be applied in such away as to empty the limb of blood without being followedby troublesome haemorrhage. The second objection wasthat it altered the appearance of the bone so much that thesurgeon could not form a proper estimate as to whether tbebone was truly healthy or diseased.-Mr. CORLEY said inexcision of the wrist the question of the cass being scrofu-lous was a serious item for consideration, having regard tothe probable return of the disease, and therefore the necessityof amputation in the end. Thus Mr. Wheeler’s, judgingfrom the ages of the patients, were not strumous cases, andthe chances of success were fair. In that view the questiocof Esmarch’s bandage was one of minor importance.-11r,

ToBiN was surprised to hear early passive movement in suchcases recommended, except where there was likely to brstiffness.--Alr. WHEELER, in reply, said the splint he med

was similar to that employed by Lister, but a little moreI elevated at the heads of the metacarpal bones. HavingI put in a drainage tube, he bandaged the hand to tbl r. splint, putting T nicks at each side, so that he need no’! remove it. The wrist was steady on the splint, whill) each finger was moved separately. He had deprecated theuse of Esmarch’s bandage in excision of joints, for in excision

of the knee he had secondary and sometimes intermediarrhaemorrhage, and if that occurred whilst the limb was in a

sfixed apparatus of plaster-of-Paris it would be necessary tlr take off the plaster-of-Paris to stop the haemorrhage. ?