libitum, and to be cupped to twelve ounces over the epigastrium and abdomen; to take the morphia to relieve pain.

Tuesday morning-did not get the cups; took the morphine only twice; much better; has slept well; urine about a pint, natural; no stool; wishes to take some toast, which I forbid; much less tenderness over the stomach and bowels; tongue better; throat still raw; wants to sit up. Ordered her

to take nothing but mucilage, and keep quiet.

Wednesday, much better. Ordered an ounce each of castor oil and aromatic syrup of rhubarb, of which she is to take a table-spoonful every two hours until it operates.

Thursday-has had two evacuations from her bowels; very profuse and very black; all her symptoms improved.

Saturday-she is up and looks pretty well, feels well, but is dull and listless; has been out several times; still, has some pain and numbness in her legs; tongue has a white coat around the edges with a red patch half an inch wide in the centre; great thirst, with an insatiable appetite; eye-lids considerably swollen in the morning. Has continued to improve, and is at present quite well.

Remarks.-The points of interest in this case, are, the quantity of arsenic taken, the length of time after, before the administration of the antidote; and the certainty of the antidotal powers of the protoxide of iron. We must suppose from the quantity taken, symptoms, length of time taken, and upon an empty stomach, that absorption of a considerable quantity must have taken place; and the point of vital import in this case is, that if the protoxide of iron did act as the antidote, we may not despair in its administration even after a sufficient time has elapsed for the absorption of some of the poison.

Did the protoxide of iron unite with the arsenious acid in the stomach, forming the insoluble subarsenite of the protoxide of iron? or was the antidotal power exhibited in the blood after absorption? or both?

ARTICLE IV.

The Influence of the Lunar Phases on the Physical and Moral Man. By P. FoISSAC, Doctor in Medicine of the Faculty of Paris, Member of the Meteorological Society, President of the Medical Society, etc., etc. Translated from the French by W. H. TINGLEY, M. D., Member of the Medical Societies of Philadelphia, and St. Louis, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Astronomers have demonstrated the influence of the moon upon the terrestrial globe, and reciprocally, the action of our earth on its satellite; but whether its influence extends to meteorological phenomena and their sequelæ, involves a far more complex question. We cannot, however, show that lunar phases are not without action on the direction of the winds, and the amount of rain falling. But when we arrive at the organic kingdom the obscurity increases. We vaguely suppose, but cannot prove the influence of the moon on the germination of plants, or on the changes in the leaves of trees. Finally, at the summit of the scale of organized creation, we find man, who though seemingly obedient only to the empire of vitality, is yet submissive to physical phenomena, so admirable and complicated in their character that we cannot accurately determine their extent. In the following pages we shall endeavor to expose with candor and impartiality the accumulated opinions and facts bearing on this interesting subject.

Kerchringuis tells of a French woman whose visage was round and pretty at the full moon, but at the last quarter her eyes, nose and mouth became so changed, that she could scarcely be recognized as the same person: so great was the disfiguration that she never, at such times, ventured in public. The physiognomy remained in this condition, until, by degrees, with the new moon, her former beauty returned. Reil asserts that children sleep less soundly during the increase of the moon. He, furthermore, asserts, that sailors who sleep in the moon's rays have partial day blindness.

According to Pliny, Tiberius would not allow his hair to be cut excepting at the time of the syzygies of the moon; and Varro recommended, as a preventive of alopecia, that the

hair should only be cut at the full moon. (Hist. Nat. liv. xvi. c. 75.

It has been said that the rays of the moon will darken the complexion; but how can we admit this, when its rays, condensed by a powerful lens, deprived the chloride of silver of none of its original whiteness. Pliny, Plutarch and Macorbius assert that the humidity which the moon causes is the active agent of the decomposition of organic matter.* Nurses are accustomed to protect young infants from the moon's rays, because they have a superstition that they affect the delicate organization of the brain. Those who sleep, for a long time, exposed to the moon's rays are liable to contract inflammatory diseases, because the moisture then present in the atmosphere carries off the caloric of the body too rapidly, thereby disordering the equilibrium of the circulation.

The vulgar have an opinion that the moon produces relaxation; hence, we hear of women invoking its assistance at the period of accouchement. In the Aphorisms of Medicine, by Sanctorius, we read that a healthy man gains one or two pounds at the commencement of the lunar month and loses it towards its termination. Olbers, however, says this is far from being proved. The same writer, after having made close observations, has not confirmed what the poet Licilius asserted, and which has been frequently quoted,-that muscles, oysters, and other shell-fish, are fatter at the epoch of the growing moon than at its waning.

Baglivi reports the following: A young man of high character was affected with an intestinal fistula in the right hypochondrium. He passed by this a quantity of sterenaceous and intestinal matter during the waxing moon, but when the moon began to decrease, the excretions almost, insensibly diminished. This affection was so certain in its course that one could judge of the age of the moon by the quantity passed. Tulpius, who enjoyed the reputation of a consummate prac

*This assertion is in the main correct, but it is not elucidated. The radiation of heat from bodies near, or in contact with the surface of the earth, proceeds rapidly, from good radiating and feebly conducting bodies, such as all inorganized matter. This property causes a greater precipitation of the atmospheric moisture on clear nights, when the sky is unclouded, and the moon shines bright; and as moisture is a proximate cause of decomposition, the solution of the question is apparent.-Tr.

titioner, believed, with Baglivi, in lunar influences. He relates the case of a clergyman who was affected with suppres sion of urine, accompanied by severe pain in the back, at each period of the full moon. This condition lasted until the decline of the moon, it, however, could be relieved by bloodletting.

Of all the opinions concerning the influence of the moon over the human economy none is so generally received as that which concedes to it an important part in the phenomena of the menstrual function, and the organic actions consequent thereto. The term by which this discharge is designated is derived from the Greek, This involves a more an

cient opinion than most modern physiologists have retained. Mead attributed the menstrual flow to lunar influence, and in this he followed Aristotle, Stahl, Morgagini, etc. Galen, however, rejected this opinion, and explained it by plethora.

According to Mead, the laws which govern women in this relation, are more readily determined in equatorial regions, because the action of the moon is more apparent, and the menstrual discharge greater than in northern climes. This observer places, also, periodical hemorrhages, in the male, in the same category.

Sometimes there are found coincidences between menstruation and the first quarter of the moon; but when the observations are generalized it can be proved, that a majority of women anticipate or postpone this period, so that it is impossible to attribute this function to lunar influences alone. Some women preserve perfect regularity in the recurrence of this function, but the most present a difference in the day, or the hour. Mead, furthermore remarked, that education and habit of body renders it less sensitive to the operation of physical causes.

Disorder of conduct, and irregular habits, predispose to irregularity of menstruation, in women living in large cities; they are in an artificial world, and are consequently not amenable to the same influences as those who follow the instinct of nature without constraint.

According to Hippocrates, conception is more frequent at the period of the full moon. Has it been observed, however,

that accouchement is more frequent at the end of the lunation than at other times.

Columelle, Pliny and Palladius recommend that eggs should be placed under the hen at the new moon, so that the increase of light may cause the production of vigorous chicks.

M. Girou de Buzareingues has remarked, that the hatching is more perfect when it occurs near the time of the new moon.

By some writers it has been thought that the duration of pregnancy is governed by the lunar periods. This opinion was adopted by the ancients, especially the astrologers and Chaldeans, and the Pythagorean school. From thence it was propagated among the Greek physicians, Polybius, Dioclesius, Moschius, etc.; and then among the Arabians. The latter believed that children, born in the months containing an even number of days, seldom lived beyond the eleventh month. We know that the duration of pregnancy is nine calendar months, or 270 days;-to this period there corresponds no great astronomical phenomenon; and besides, we cannot determine with certainty the period of conception.

Merriman has noted, for 150 pregnancies, the precise day when the menses ceased; and, accordingly, has been able to determine in what order the various accouchements occurred.

Here we have striking differences; to what astronomical period, then, can we attribute them?

But if it be urged that education and habit disturb the harmony of nature's laws, let us examine whether these things obtain differently among animals. Tessier, a savan, who has made a number of researches on this subject, has found some marked irregularities in cows which carry 280 days; he has