nal contents forwarded to him. He does not think that signs of inflammation of the alimentary canal were not present because the experts did not find them. They are so in most cases of this poisoning; but the thick coat of greenish varnish has to be cut through before the state of the membrane can be ascertained. Absence of inflammation is, however, no proof that poisoning may not have occurred, as the sulphate of iron acts on the economy by producing disorders in it, which are the results of absorption, rather than by causing local inflammatory action. In commenting upon the defective procedures of the country experts, who at first were unable to detect the iron at all, and then employed a process which confounded the aceidental with the normal iron of the economy, M. Orfila observes, that this last is always to be carefully avoided in judicial investigations. When copper, lead, or ferruginous salts exist in the alimentary canal as a consequence of poisoning, we have only to treat the canal by means of very dilute muriatic or acetic acid, at a moderate heat-these acids dissolving the metallic substances sought for, without attacking any portion of those metals that form part of the organization. To obtain these last, we must treat the viscera by more energetic agents, or incineration.

M. Orfila took this occasion to represent to the court the reasons why experts could not reply to the ques tion so often put to them, as to whether a sufficient quantity of poison to cause death had been administered; and the danger, in reference to the suppression of crime, the insisting upon such a question gave rise to. The chemist may only be able to detect a thousandth or the twenty-thousandth part that has been administered, when the poison has been evacuated or excreted, and the discharges have not been preserved. If all the poison has been thus expelled, he may not be able to detect even a trace; and yet although in the one case what he has detected has been insufficient to cause death, and in the other he has found none at all, so that the jury may pronounce that no poisoning has occurred, yet has the person died of such poison To ascertain the whole amount of poison that remains in the body; the entire frame would have to be submitted to analysis, which is clearly impracticable; while calculations of the quantity existing in the whole body from that which has been obtained from a part, would give rise to the greatest errors, inasmuch as the poison is not equally distributed over the frame, some portions of this absorbing and retaining much more of it than others. Different processes, also, employed by the same hand, obtain very different quantities; as does the same process wielded by chemists possessed of different degrees of expertness. The French law, too, does not require any decision on this point, as it punishes the attempt to poison by any substance that may cause death-this applying, not to the proportion employed, but to the substance used.—Annales d'Hygiene, tom. xlvi. pp. 337-382.

On Poisoning by Tartaric Acid. By MM. DEVERGIE & ORFILA.

EMPLOYED as an expert in a case of poisoning by this substance, M. Devergie furnishes in this paper a minute account of the analyses and experiments he undertook for the elucidation of the subject. He comes to the following conclusions as to the action of this substance on the animal economy:-1. Tartaric acid is a poison capable of producing death in a short time.-2. It acts energetically in an inverse proportion to the quantity of water in which it is dissolved.-3. It induces death rather by asphyxia, than by the local lesions it causes.-4. The asphyxia is produced by the absorption and passage into the blood of the poisonous substance.-5. It exerts a special influence on the lungs, in which it gives rise to partial congestions, approaching to hepatizations, which are disseminated amidst the healthy tissue.-6. It exerts a special influence on the blood, seeming to augment its fluidity, while it modifies its nature; so that the blood assumes, when exposed to the air, a bright red-currant colour, which it communicates to the different organs, in proportion as it is freely distributed to them. It remains fluid for an extremely long period.-7. This poison is one, therefore, which chiefly acts by absorption.-8. It nevertheless exerts a corrosive action on the tissues; but this would seem to be only a secondary cause of death-Annales d'Hygiene, tom. xlvi. p. 443.

In the succeeding number of the Annales, M. Orfila severely critisises the foregoing, declaring that the chemical processes employed were faultly, and that the post-mortem appearances observed are uncharacteristic. Phosphoric acid, cream of tartar, neutral tartrate of potass, tartrate of soda and potass, or even an excess of wine, will furnish the same reactions as those which M. Devergie so obtained; while Orfila's experiments on animals show that poisoning by tartaric acid is unattended by any special symptoms, or peculiar post-mortem appearances, the ecchymosed apperance in the lungs, and currant-red colour of the blood, being also found in animals that had died from the influence of other poisons. From his own researches, M. Orfila concludes-1. That tartaric acid is absorbed, since he has detected it in the blood and liver of dogs poisoned by it.-2. That no conclusion as to poisoning having taken place from free tartaric acid, can be drawn, unless this substance has been obtained from the fluids of the stomach, the blood, or the liver, by alcoholic and not aqueous treatment (that employed by Devergie); water being able to dissolve the tartrates, which act upon acetate of lead and sulphuretted bydrogen just as tartaric acid does. Pure alcohol does not sensibly dissolve these tartrates.

On the Deprivation of the Noxious Power of Poisonous Mushrooms. By M. Gerard.

M. GERARD has recently exhibited before a committee of the Paris Council of Health the complete innocuousness of the most poisonous species of mushroom, after being subjected to a very simple mode of preparation. The experiment was exhibited in his own person, after both he and all the members of his family had made similar trials with the like result. Two of the most poisonous forms were chosen : amanita muscaria and venenosa, of Pearson; and the trial was pronounced quite satisfactory. The preparation, principally consisting in suitable maceration, has indeed been long practiced to some extent by the country people. The researches of Letellier have also shown that the principle, which he calls amanitine, is very deliquescent, and is remarkably and almost exclusively soluble in water. Alcohol only takes it up by reason of the small quantity of water which it contains; and when amanitine renders sulphuric ether yellow, this is owing to imperfect rectification. M. Gérard directs that to every 500 grammes of mushrooms cut up into a medium size, a litre of water, slightly acidulated by two or three spoonfuls of vinegar (or, if nothing else is at hand, gray salt,) should be added. If water alone can obtained, this must be renewed once or twice. In this fluid fungi are to be macerated for two entire hours, after which they are to be washed in abundance of Next they are to be put into cold water and boiled for half an hour, after which they may be taken ned, dried, and used as food.—L'Union Medicale, 1851, No. 148.

On Spontaneous Human Combustion. By M. DEVERGIE.

MM. BISCHOFF and LIEBIG, employed as experts in the recent celebrated case of the Countess of Görlitz, not only declared that her case presented an example of post-mortem burning, which proved to be true, but took the occasion absolutely to deny the trustworthiness of any of the cases of spontaneous human combustion on record. This position M. Devergie combats, founding his argument upon the consideration of a case which occurred to himself, and of the various accounts of other examples that have been recorded by trustworthy persons. Although the term spontaneous is not a strictly correct one, inasmuch as there has always been an immediate cause of the combustion, he retains it for want of a better; and he considers the leading characteristic of these cases to be the absence of harmony between the mass of the parts burned and the feebleness of the agent of combustion. He enumerates the following peculiarties, as exemplified by most of the facts on record:-1. The extent and depth of the burns, as compared with the feeble proportion of combustible matter employed in their production.-2. Indulgence in spirituous liquors by the victims.-3. The far greater frequency of the occurrence in women, and especially in old women.-4. The presence of an accidental determining cause.-5. So complete is the combustion in some cases that nothing but the ashes remain, and these are always of the same fatty soot.-6. The combustion while acting on a mass of flesh and fat has usually spared highly inflammable bodies in the vicinity.-7. The flame when seen has always been described as of a bluish colour, and as inextinguishable.

M. Devergie points out how these circumstances differ from those observed in the countess's case, and in death from ordinary combustion. When this extends from the clothes to the person, very large superficial burns are produced, which from their very size prove fatal; but there is no instance of bodies becoming completely carbonized or reduced to the condition in which they are found in these cases. It is true that when the amount of combustible body exists in due proportion to the body to be burned, we may see such effects produced; but the absence of this relation is the prime characteristic of these cases. A mere lamp or a hot cinder suffices; while in the experiments made upon the countess's body, 125 lbs. of wood had to be used. The other capital point is, the isolation of the combustion amidst combustible bodies, the most inflammable substances remaining uninjured. In the countess's case the floor and chairs, even at a distance, were burned. In M. Devergie's case, complete combustion of the body had taken place in a little wooden room five or six feet broad by eight or nine feet long, and yet two muslin curtains at the window were uninjured. In all the cases, too, abuse of alcohol is mentioned; and although Bischoff laughs at this as a mere invention of the persons of the vicinity, for the purpose of pointing a moral, it is too particularly specified in all the cases to admit of doubt. And it is to this abuse of alcohol, that M. Devergie is disposed to attribute the production of the phenomenon. The quantity excreted by the urine and sweat is probably not in due relation to that imbibed; and a vital modification is impressed upon the tissues, by reason of which they become endowed with a greater combustibility, either mechanically, or by the transformation of the absorbed alcohol combined with the tissues into a new substance.-Annales d'Hygiene, tom. xlvi. pp. 383-431.

Muscular Power of the Insane. By M. MOREL.

A GENERAL popular error prevails, that the insane are endowed with inordinate muscular power; and this explains why so many persons are brought to the Mareville Asylum fearfully tied and corded. When M. Morel was first appointed to this, he found numerous patients bound up, reputed dangerous, and especially so because of their vociferations. He set them at liberty, without any ill effect, and attributes much of the violence that had previously occurred to the ill-conduct of the attendants. He agrees with Jacobi, that, as a general rule, the insane exhibit no inordinate muscular power; and some of the patients of almost colossal stature are easily managed by one person. Indeed, the insane, when engaged in manual labour, soon tire, and require frequent repose. If some of them, by exception, work with a feverish activity, and display great strength, the majority are dejected and languid. The persons in whom he has met with the greatest development of muscular power, belong the following ctaegories:-1. Persons of small stature, delicate complexion, and nervous temperament; and especially females who appear exhausted by their cries and agitation. Among such miserable-looking beings, a power of resistance is developed under certain circumstances, which defies the united energies of several attendants; 2 Insane epileptics; 3. Monimaniacs, who are not yet exhausted by the disease or irrational treatment. When their passion is opposed, these persons sometimes manifest a resistance only to be overcome by several attendants.-Annal. Med. Psych, tom. iii. p. 560.

On the Duration of Life among the Staff-Officers of the Prussian Army. By Dr. Casper. As the result of an examination of the dates of the birth and death of 667 staff-officers of the Prussian army, Dr. Casper found that no less a number than 277 (or 41.5 per cent.) attained more than 70 years of age; while this happened to only 2487 (or 22 per cent.) in 10,000 of the picked lives of the London Equitable Assurance Society. Natural causes of mortality are only taken account of, officers dying in battle or from wounds received therein being excluded. In reference to this point it may be remarked, that while, during the wars of Frederick the Great, 51 generals fell in battle (37 in the Seven years' war alone), only 1 general and 2 brigadier-generals fell during the bloody strife of 1813-15, in which the Prussian armies took so large a part.

On adding together the entire number of years lived, and dividing by the 667, a quotient of 69 years is furnished-i. e., persons of this condition have an equal probability of living and dying at this age. The date of the appointments of 413 of these officers was ascertained, and this was found upon an average to have taken place exactly at the 40 1-4th year of age. As the average age of death was 69, these individuals had lived 28 3-4 years after their nomination, the probability of life at the same age being for the male population of Berlin only 20 3-4 years. Again, the nomination as major-general took place on the averge of 588 instances at the age of 48 1-2. The probability of life was then 20 1-2 years, while for Berlin generally it was only 16 years. Dr. Casper explains these favourable results by the absence of excessive exertion of mind or body, while a sufficient alternation of activity and rest for the maintenance of health is secured, and by the blunting the sting of inordinate ambition. When these conditions become somewhat altered by the too sudden cessation of the habits of an active career, results of an opposite character are produced. Thus the average age of retirement of 236 officers was 61 1-2; so that they lived but 7 1-2 years after, although the expectation of life at that age in Berlin is 10 1-2 years.-Casper's Wochenschrift, 1851, No. 36.

[It is with regret we find that Dr. Casper's valuable periodical is to be discontinued. Fortunately this does not arise from a lack of subscribers; but from his intention of establishing in Prussia a quarterly publication, analogous to the French Annales d'Hygiene, which will engross all the time he can spare for literary avocations.]

On the General Improvement in the Condition of the Insane. By M. MOREL.

M. MOREL observes, that since the reform of the French asylums commenced by Pinel and Esquirol, and continued by Ferrus, the physiological condition of their inhabitants has become quite changed; and remarks on their condition, which would have been just, twenty or thirty years since, are so no longer. Among the 800 patients of Mareville, one may seek in vain for the frightful types of degradation seen in different asylums but ten or fifteen years ago. The insane have a more civilized appearance, and are cleaner. The number of dirty patients is considerably diminished; and excrement-eaters are now only found quite excep tionally. For the purpose of clinical instruction, all the idiots and imbeciles of the asylum have been brought together, so that their special characteristics might be studied; and the graphic picture of their condition drawn by Esquirol is not now found of general application. Their condition has become amelio rated by the agency of work, exercise, gymnastics, good diet, and especially by their being transferred to healthy, well-ventilated, and well-lighted localities; for they are no longer confined within walls which prevent their view of the horizon. We must never deceive ourselves by the supposition that patients apparently in the most degraded state are insensible to the charms of nature. Surrounded by these, their features expand, and their physiognomy loses somewhat of its stupid appearance.—Annales Med. Psych., tom. iii. p. 563.

Statistics of the French Hospitals and Hospices. By M. DE WATTEVille.

M. DE WATTEVILLE, Inspector of Charitable Establishments in France, has recently presented a Report upon their present condition, from which we extract various interesting particulars.

There are in France 1133"Hospital Administrations," which have under their control 337 hospitals (in which the indigent sick are received), 199 hospices (in which are maintained aged persons, those suffering from incurable diseases, foundlings and orphans), and 734 hospital-hospices, constituting a combination of the two classes of establishments. The number of hospitals in towns are far too few; and the reporter regrets that the great bulk of legacies and donations that have occurred of late (122,514,890 francs during 1800-45) has not been employed in founding new establishments rather than in enlarging old ones. These 1270 hospitals and hospices possessed, in 1847, a revenue of 54,116,660 francs. This was derived from three sources:-1. The landed and funded property of the establishments (24,453,654). 2. Contributions of the communes, amounting to 16,164,117 francs, of which the city of Paris contributed 3,133,174. And (3.) the repayment of expenses incurred, to the amount of 13,498,888. Of this sum 1,817,967 francs were received from patients who were admitted for the payment of small sums, which raised them from the rank of paupers. The large sum of 2,772,524 francs were paid for soldiers in the communes where there were no military hospitals; and even this does not repay the actual cost. The expenditure, in 1847, was 51,900,415 francs, or more than two millions less than the receipts.

In the 1270 hospitals and hospices, there are made up 126,142 beds. Of this number, 46,538 are destined for the sick, and 55,052 for the aged and children in the hospices. There are 7853 beds devoted to the insane. These 126,142 beds were occupied, in 1847, by 575,223 persons. Of this number there were treated gratuitously in the hospitals 380,840 patients; 206,201 men, 139,616 women, and 35,023 children--the small number of these last being accounted for by the fact that many hospitals refuse to receive very young chil dren. There were 87,500 soldiers admitted, who, added to the 63,000 admitted into the military hospitals, constitute the enormous number of 150,000 sick in a force of 300,000 men, or 1 in 2. There were 24,176 orphans in the hospices, at the expense of 200 francs per head. The mean duration of residence in the hospitals, for all France, was 40 days for men, 67 for women, 70 for children, and 200 for the insane. In some of the rural districts, where there is no demand for the beds, patients remain in hospitals sometimes for 5 or six months; but in the urban districts the duration of residence is below the average. Thus, at Paris it is 24 days for men, 25 for women, and 21 for children; at Lyons 26 for men, 28 for women, and 25 for children; and at Marseilles 20 for men, 32 for women, and 24 for children. The mean daily cost of a patient in the hospitals of France is little more than a franc. The mean mortality (which, however, varies extremely, even in adjoining departments) in the hospitals is 1 in 15 of the men,'l in 12 of the women, and 1 in 16 of the children.

Cost of Administration, &c.-For the administration of 1270 hospitals and hospices, providing 126,142 beds, there are not less than 3488 official, medical andr menial employes-being, in fact, 1 to every 4 inmates! Of this number, however, the 5927 administrators serve gratuitously. Connected with the general management of the institutions, their possessions, finances, &c., there are 4439 persons. The physicians, surgeons, pharmaciens, and internes, amount to 2874; and the midwives and female pupils to 376. The religieuses, teachers, and immediate attendants on the sick, number 12,058; the other employes and servants, 5814. The expenses of this enormous staff absorb a fifth of the entire revenues. In some of the smaller hos pices, to take care of from 10 to 20 patients, there are from 5 to 10 religieuses, besides 2 or 3 servants. The 2167 physicians and surgeons receive 817,497 francs.

M. de Watteville concludes his report with a comparison of the former and present condition of the charitable establishments, at least as far as the imperfect statistical statements of Necker and Tenon allow it to be drawn. 1. While in the year 1780 there were 870 hospitals and hospices in France, there are now 1270.-2. These establishments then possessed a revenue of 20,000,000 francs, and now possess one of 54,000,000; or 40,000,000, excluding the expense of foundlings, the insane, and the military, which is repaid-3. In 1780, 110,000 persons could be taken charge of, while now 126,500 can be so, or including foundlings brought up at the cost of the public, 225,000.-4. The mortality is nearly the same for the two epochs, in spite of the immense amelioration which the internal management of charitable establishments has undergone.-Gaz. des Hopitaux, 1851, Nos. 59, 91, 96, 99, 102.

[This last statement, were it not based upon statistical documents, examined by a competent observer, would be incredible. How, then, have the hygienic ameliorations of the last half century, in which France

has so largely participated, failed to produce an impression on a class of establishments so especially open to their influence?]

MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Ir will be seen from our Advertisement Sheet, that a Prize of 50/. is offered for the best Essay on the Nature and Treatment of Hydrophobia; this sum having, we understand, been placed at the disposal of Professor Miller, by a gentleman who is desirous that the subject may be elucidated.-The Prize, it will be noticed, is liberally thrown open to all competitors.

BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW.