exertion.It happened, from circumstances not necessary to be detailed, that efforts were made to evoke some intelligent action from her and to train her somewhat in the same way as idiots are trained.The experi- ment went on well, and the patient seemed to be making progress in employing herself by needlework and in other ways.But the effort was too much; a paroxysm of excitement supervened, clearly due to over-exertion of an enfeebled incapacitated brain.WVhen the paroxysm subsided, she relapsed into her usual torpid state, but was rather more demented than-before.The second example is a case of mania, ac-
far the largest proportion of cases of fever there treated are cases of typhus. Thus, of the 4,819 cases treated during 1848, 4,694 were cases of typhus; 101 cases of febricula; 3 of dothinentenrtis, or typhoid; and 21 of intermittent fever; while of the 313 cases of fever treated in the Royal Free Hospital, during the three years here reported upon, 44 were cases of intermittent fever, a very large proportion were cases of typhoid, remittent or relapsing, or ephemeral fever, and but very few cases of true typhus occurred. At present, however, I am not able to give the proportions of these several forms of disease; though, should leisure permit, I shal hope to do so hereafter.
ATROPINE, the alkaloid of the Atropa Belladonna, has not, as far as we are aware, been employed in England as an internal medicine: its highly poisonous properties having deterred medical men from administering it in this way. DL.LUSANNA, however, in Italy, has thrown off the restraint imposed by the fear of poisoning his patients, and has given the drug to them; the results we shall give nearly in his own words. He may have done good service to medicine by his bold act: but we would remind our English readers, that the countrymen of the fair ladies from whom bellaconna is said to have received its name, may possibly be more tolerant of the action of the plant or of atropine than the natives of Great Britain.
oppOsite the ninth and tenth vertebre, was so little increased, that it could scarcely have exerted any undue pressure upon these bones; and that part of the vessel in contact with the eighth and eleventh, whose bodies were also carious, was perfectly sound. Moreover, the inflamed and softened state of the sternum gave further indication of the proneness of the cancellated bones generally to become diseased. Mr. Hodgson, in his work on Di8ease8 of Arteries and Veins, informs us, that the carious and corroded state of the bones produced by aneurism is hardly ever attended with exfoliation; whereas, in the case now related, several pieces of exfoliated bone were lying loose among the coagula.
THE elements of every cancerous growth are the cells of cancer, inter- mixed with the structure of any of the tissues which compose the body.The result of this is the substitution of a new, for the natural tissue of the part.The cancer cell is remarkable for its multiform character.No one shape is to be considered as certainly and alone characteristic; on the contrary, it will be found that the cancer cell affects a variety of forms.That these different forms are only modifications, is insisted upon by M. Lebert, who, in his Practical Treatise on Canceros Mala- dies, and on Curable Affctions which may be confounded with Cancer, published last year, says: "The type of the cancer cell is a small regular sphere, with an elliptical nucleus, occupying about half of the interior of the cell, and containing one or more nucleoli; but that type is not often distinct.The cellular envelope takes the ovoid, triangular, heart, and caudate shape....It would be useless to recount here all the shapes assumed by the cancer cell; it is sufficient to remark, that in no other cell do we observe this multiformity of the cell wall to the same degree."The nucleus, according to this author, is the constant element of the cancer cell.I believe, however, that many cancer cells will be met with, in which no nucleus is to be discerned.Cancer is to be regarded as a specific malady.It is to be met with in almost every tissue of the human frame.It assails alike skin, mucous membrane, muscles, fibrous tissue, and nerve, and is even de- posited in the medullary cavities of bones.It has a marked tendency to spread in all directions, and to return again when removed, either in the place it originally occupied, or in some other part of the body.It eventually contaminates, so to speak, the whole animal economy,
In the mucous cellular and cutaneous tissues this remark especially holds good; and even in the case of the pulmonaryorgans, which of all others might be supposed to be the least susceptible of such actions, it has been surmised, upon very strong grounds, that not only is vascular disease thus removable, but that even extensive solutions of continuity and cavities have been healed by the efforts of the con- stitution, when these have been properly supported.Why then should it be assumed that the uterine organs are incapable of the same reparative actions?I do not, as I have observed, wish to disparage the utility of topical treatment within certain limits; but I affirm, that it is an error to suppose that uterine derangement, which has sprung, as it were, out of a disordered state of the general healtb, or which is perpetuated by it, can be successfully treated by local measures, whilst its constitutional origin or cause is overlooked.Some, indeed, of the
membrane permeable, or reduce it to the condition of a filter, is without sufficient foundation. 2. That the power of endosmose of different substances is not regulated entirely by their density, as already observed by Dutrochet. 3. That the purgative salts generally have an energetic power of endosmose, and that this is exerted with more steadiness and uniformity by those which medical experience has selected as the most useful in ordinary cases. 4. That some of the other substances examined have marked peculiarities with regard to endosmose, which will probably assist towards explaining their mode of action on the system. London, December 1851.
DISUASE OP TIRE INTZ'XAL EAR.stronger solution than they can be used as lotions, hastens the removal of the thickening of the tissues.Frequently the employment of one substance in strong solution, whilst using another as a vaginal lotion, is more beneficial than the employment of either of these substances alone.9, Langlham Plase.
three cases of severe injury to that organ have fallen under my observation; and as points of interest are presented by each, it is proposed to relate them with the addition of a few remarks.
DIFFICULTIES in the Diagnosis of Uterine Disease Complicated with Tumours, are constantly met with in practice; and no better method of dinrishm-'g these difficulties at present exists, than the comparison of the 8symptoms and physical signs in cases similar in their nature, and their contrast in cases of dissimilar character.In the two follow- ing cases, entirely dissimilar in their nature and terminations, it will be seen that some of the symptoms were most unlike; while there were others which resembled each other sufficiently to show the great care required in the examination and diagnosis of this class of maladies.The first case is interesing, inasmuch as it presents an instance of the rare localisation of tubercle in the uterus, and the still more rare example of its deposition in the ovaria.Rokitansky even states that he has never seen an instance of ovarian tubercle.The account of this case, and the autopsy, are chiefly taken from the notes of Mr. J. W. Trotter, one of the resident medical officers of St. Mary's Hospital.I. CAB OF TUBERCULOUS DISEASE OF THE UTERUS AND OVA RIA.Lydia 0., aged 35, was admitted June 13th, 1851, into the Victoria Ward of St. Mary's Hospital.The subject of the present case had been a domestic servant for the last three years.Previously to this, she had travelled three years as the companion to a lady.For the last nine years she had been a widow, her husband having died of phthisis two years after marriage.Until within the last five months, her place of residence had been the country, and her cicrumstances, as regards air, food, etc., had been most favourable to health.Her parents were both dead; they died of phthiss, and her father had suffered from fistula in ano.Out of a numerous famiy of brothers and sisters, only VOL.IV.
UTERINE TO CONBTIWUTIONAL DlUOiDEBR.28 by the fact of no bile being detectable in the blood, even after the liver has been extirpated, as tested by Hernde.We have already seen that bile is essential to the formation of chyle, that is, essential to the life of the animal; and that the characteristic of chyle as distinguished from chyme, is the presence of oil globules and molecules of fat.Do we, then, push our argument too far in saymg, that hydrogen is the peculiarly essential element in oil necessary to the nutritive and regen- erative powers, seeing that the grand characteristic of oil is, that it is of all animal substances the richest in hydrogen.We have thus endeavoured to show;.1.That the main office of the liver is not to excrete hydrocarbonaceous matters, the result of the waste of the tissues; and there- fore that its function is not vicarious with that of the lungs.2. That the grand function of the liver is to create bile, without which bile the nutrition of the animal is impossible.S. That the grand office of the bile is to create the oil globules and fat molecules, as they are found in the chyle.4. That tlhis oil is of a character different from ordinary oils, inas- much as it is not only the most nutritious of all oils hitherto tested (cod-liver oil), but is, in short, an oil essential to the formative and regenerative processes (oil of chyle).5. That in proportion to the relative size of the liver in the animal series, will be found the force of the formative and regenera- tive powers.6.That although oxygen is essential to the vital force, yet one of its grand offices is to destroy tissues; and thus an antayoninm may be said to subsist between the functions of the lungs and the liver.7.That the liver has the power of decomposing water, and using the hydrogen thus set free for the creation of bile.8. That, therefore, as the lungs may be called the oxygenators in animals, so the liver inay be calld the hydroyenator in animal.
GROWTHS in the interior of the eye are of various descriptions, and vary in the mode and extent to which they interfere with the integrity of the organ.My object in this communication is to describe two cases of cysts, the first beimg of an exceedingly rare description.The narrative is that furnished by the patient.CASE I. On Friday, February 16, 1849, M. M., a young gentleman, eleven years of age, of strumous diathesis and excitable temperament, was in a garden, pulling out a piece of wire from an old box, when the wire suddenly gave way, and his hand struck his right eye wvith great force.The pain overpowered him for a time; he went into the house and laid down on a window-seat, sick and stupified as if stunned.As he was going home from school the following day, he said nothing about the accident, but he expected a black eye.The dnrve home was about three miles, during which he felt sick and poorly, and wore a handkerchief tied over the eye.In the aftemoon, he rode a pony for an hour or two; but the eye being still painful, he bathed it with warm water on his return, and covered it with a shade.The pain increasing and inflammation coming on, he did not return to school; and on the 20th, the inflammation still continuing, a surgeon was called in, who discovered a wound across the cornea, apparently made by the thumb ail.Leeches! were applied, and other judicious treat- ment adopted, but in spite of this, he was detained at home five weeks.By the month of April he was able to use the eye again, but there remained a seam, like a hair, where the wound had been; in other respects the eye was well.It was a question whether nitrate of silver drops should be employed to remove this seam-like opacity; butMr.John Soden, of Bath, who was consulted, did not recommend them.From that time, Master M. experienced some dimness of sight, but no other
