We hope that none who peruse this sage Durham work may be, as we confess that we are, sitting in the shadow of darkness: we have strained our minds to cracking, in order that we might be able to comprehend the said analogy; but we have hitherto woefully failed; yet how can we refuse to yield our credence when such mighty men as Bishops Hall, Warburton, and Wilson; Ostervald, Pyle, Bryant, Lucian, and that most surprising author Gyraldus "de Miscellaneis Deis" are adduced to vouch for the correctness of the opinion!! Our motive for alluding to this very curious disquisition is that we are are afraid that very few, if any, may ever chance to see, and if they they see, to have the taste to read, our Durham friend's book. Moreover cholera is too interesting a subject to be passed over; our author's opinion is at least quite new, viz, that this scourge is probably the same as is described in the 1st Book of Samuel, wherein it is written, "And he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof," "and ye shall make images of your emerods that mar the land." It may be observed that the affinity of the two diseases is made more striking by the very curious fulfilment of the command; as may be witnessed in the devices of the caricaturists of the present day, representing cholera, at one time as a "blue devil," and at another as an "emblem of starvation," for no other purpose, than to fright the land from its propriety, and to seize upon and maltreat the doctors.

But this allusion to the cholera is only incidental; it is one of the many subjects which the author, in the plenitude of his

his great learning. The trunk and main branches of the treatise bear the fruit of his opinions on scarlet fever, which we are informed was "one of those judicial visitations which were imposed upon the Egyptians in the time of Pharoah," and which has devastated the different countries of the world ever since. The section on the treatment informs us that at one time the lancet has been recommended, at another time, cinchona bark; and that the author highly approves of the cold affusion. But we have not leisure or patience to extract any more common-place statements. We are verily of opinion that the marrow of the book might be put into a couple, or three pages. The author is no doubt a young man, at least in composition: his style, as well as the meagerness of novel matter, betrays him ;-strained, verbose and grandiloquent, on a subject that requires only a homely and concise narrative.

He must in future guard against this error, and not introduce any similes about inundations and torrents to illustrate the course of an epidemic!! "Res, non verba," are wanted in the present day.

XXXIII.

DEFICIENCY OF THE CEREBELLUM.

M. COMBETTE has communicated a very extraordinary case, in which the cerebullum, the crura cerebelli, and pons Varolii were altogether wanting. The patient, a young girl, was 11 years old when she died.Archives Génér.

XXXIV.

ORGANIZATION OF PAGANINI !!

AT a late" seance" of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, the sapient auditory were entertained by a memoir on the above subject.

Dr. Bennati thinks that the modern Orpheus owes his excellency, not so much to practice, as to an original peculiarity in the organization of his outer man; he tells us that all the machinery of his arms is so beautifully pliant and moveable, that Nature evidently intended him for a great fiddler! Moreover, the trumpets of his ears are marvellously adapted for the reception of sound! His cerebellum is unusually large (indicating his love for music we suppose !!); in short, ends Dr. Bennati, Paganini is an inimitable violiniste by the necessity of his corporeal structure!!!-Archiv. Génér.

XXXV.

PATHOLOGY OF EPILEPSY.

MARY L. aged 61, had been subject to epileptic fits, ever since her childhood. At six years of age, she lost the perfect use of the left arm and leg. Menstruation commenced at the usual period, but the frequency of the fits did not abate.

On dissection, the parietal portion of the dura mater on the right side, was converted into hard bone. The right hemisphere of the brain was nearly one half smaller than the left; the right lateral ventricle so much dilated, and full of water, that the cerebral substance forming the walls, was only a few lines thick; the thalamus opticus wasted on this side; the left hemisphere was nearly quite normal; the corresponding ventricle of its natural smallness, and the thalamus and corpus striatum healthy. The frontal and parietal bones of the right side were a great deal thicker than those of the left.-Archiv. Génér.

about an inch above the os coccygis, which was but imperfectly developed. From the arch of the aorta, was given off, first, a trunk common to the two carotids; next the left subclavian; and lastly the right subclavian arising from the extremity of the arch, and then crossing to the right side, between the œsophagus and the vertebræ ; the abdominal aorta having supplied the cœliac, superior mesenteric, right renal (the left was wanting, and likewise the kidney of this side) and spermatic vessels, divided into two branches on the second lumbar vertebræ. One of these, by far the largest, and appearing to be the continuation of the trunk, gave rise to the inferior mesenteric, and then crossed to the posterior surface of the bladder, along the median line of which it ran to the umbilicus, where it divided into two. The other branch situated behind the former, first followed the course of the sacrum, then was reflected upwards to the right sacro-iliac synchondrosis, having first supplied branches to the left lower extremity, and left side of the pelvis. The continuation of this vessel formed the right femoral. The system of the sympathetic nerves appeared to follow the irregularities of the arterial distribution-there being only one sacral ganglion, and no coccygeal.

M. Jodin, who has reported this case, is of opinion that the imperfect developement of the rectum was dependent on and caused by the imperfect developement of the pelvic blood vessels, and very properly directs the attention of medical men to examine whether the connexion always exists.-Archives Generales.

XXXVI.

CURIOUS ANOMALY IN THE DISTRIBUTION

OF THE BLOODVESSELS.

THE infant was born with imperforate anus, and lived for seven days. Dissection shewed that the rectum terminated in a cul de sac,

XXXVII.

RETENTION OF URINE CAUSED BY A
FOREIGN BODY IN THE RECTUM.

A man, aged 67, had suffered for several months from tenesmus and strangury, the urine dribbling away very slowly, and the desire to void it being very frequent. Many surgeons had attempted, but in vain, to

sound him, with the view of curing a supposed stricture. On examining the rectum with the finger, a hard substance was discovered, pressing by one of its ends on the urethra; by the other on the coccyx; when removed, it was found to be the bone of a partridge, which, from the patient's account, must have lodged there for two months at least.

He was immediately restored to health.-Archives Générales.

XXXVIII.

INFLAMMATION OF THE MEDULLARY

SUBSTANCE IN LONG BONES.

THIS accident is by no means unfrequent after amputations of the extremities; and is of a most serious, and too often of a fatal result. If we examine the stump, we observe fungous granulations of a dirty grey colour from the divided surface of the bone; these are tender, if touched by the probe, for the membrane which lines the medullary canal is always inflamed in such a case. The morbid changes going on speedily effect the health of the bone itself; the vitality of which depends much more on its supply of flood from within, than from the periosteum outwardly. This is well illus trated by the difference in the results of injuries of the periosteum, from those induced by any lesion of the marrow and its membranes. In the former case, the depth of a thin shell, or exfoliation of bone is the extent of subsequent mischief; but in the latter, complete necrosis of the entire thick ness of the bone is caused. Boyer relates an illustrative case. During the tedious healing of a stump, a cylindrical portion of the femur was thrown off spontaneously: the cause of this had been the ignorance of the dresser, who had every day been poking his probe into the medullary canal of the bone, mistaking it for a sinus. The patient ultimately recovered.

The dura mater appears to supply the place of the medulla to the cranial bones; for any serious injury, which causes its

separation from the internal lamella, is speedily followed by the death of the bone at that part.-Archives Générales.

XXXIX.

MEMOIR ON CHLOROTIC DISEASES.

DR. BLAND thinks that medical men have always taken far too circumscribed a view of these diseases, by considering them simply as symptoms, or as the signal and result of amenorrhoea. "Do we not," says he, "observe them at all periods of life, in the male as well as in the female sex, occurring too, even although the catamenia are regular; disappearing by the use of proper remedies, although this discharge remains obstructed? The real and specific cause of chlorosis, under all its Protean forms, is a vicious and imperfect sanguification; the blood being defective in crassamentum and colouring matter, and in consequence becoming less capable of imparting functional energy to the body. Four weighty reasons are adduced in proof of this doctrine. 1. Chlorotic maladies are almost always brought on either by whatever interferes with, or deranges the assimilation of the food and its conversion into the "pabulum sanguinis," as by living on unwholesome, and innutritious food, or by breathing a corrupted atmosphere, &c.; or secondly, by whatever enfeebles the system of the gang. lionic nerves, which, we know, regulate and keep in health the organ destined to form and to circulate the blood; such as all depressing emotions of the mind, masturbation, excess of venery, sedentary employments, &c. 2. The doughy, waxy white- ́ ness of the skin, the pale lips and gums, the scanty and serous discharges from the vagina, nose, &c. and the watery state of the blood when drawn, all indicate the real nature of the disease, whose progress, 3d, is denoted by an utter want of power and activity in the organic functions of the body, arising no doubt from a deterioration of the fluid, wherein, it is said, that life resides.

4th. The efficacy of steel medicines, which have the power of restoring to the blood the "excitative" properties which it has lost, and which chiefly depend on its colouring mat

ter.

So varied and so unsteady is the occurrence of symptoms in chlorosis, that it is almost impossible to define its characters within a single description. Sometimes the "anæmial" state of the skin, with slight general languor, are its only obvious characters; in some cases is added a lingering and wasting fever, which is not uufrequently attributed to visceral disease; in other examples, are intractable gastrodynia, not to be relieved by ordinary remedies; an asthma which defies all antispasmodics; a general tumefaction of the abdomen, and anasarcous state of the lower limbs; a restlessness and want of sleep, with, or without excruciating headachs, and murmuring noises in the head against which depletion and counter-irritants are so commonly and so perniciously prescribed; or lastly, symptoms of diseased heart, which equally defy, what Hahnemann designates "antipathic" treatment, are a few out of the many ills and grievances, which have their time, seat, and origin in defective arterialization of the blood.

Dr. Bland, in very strongly recommending the different preparations of iron in chlorosis, does not assume any merit of dis. covery; he is well aware that it has been long the medicine in highest repute; but he very justly alludes to its not unfrequent want of efficay; and is inclined to attribute this to the timidity with which it has been administered, and the improper forms, ill adapted to be received into the system, which have been employed. His favorite formula is thus

R. Ferri sulphatus,

Potasse subcarbon. āā, 3ss Misce; in pilulas 48 dividend: The dose at first is a pill night and morning to be encreased gradually in a fortnight to 4 pills every morning, noon and evening.

Among the earliest marks of amendment is the return of colour to the cheeks and lips, and of animation to the eyes; the gastro

dynia, want of appetite, sleeplessness, headachs, &c. are quickly much mitigated, or quite disappear. The breathing becomes easier, the pulse less weak and frequent, the strength increases, the anasarca of the limbs abates, and to cheerfulness of mind is added the feeling of bodily comfort and "bienêtre."

From the long catalogue of cases enumerated in support of the author's treatment we shall select the following, one in a female, and two in male patients.

1. A. M. aged 21, had been remarkably pale ever since her birth; but the dirty waxen hue of the skin had increased for the last three years. The catamenia were regular, but very scanty and exceedingly light coloured. The health, however, was tolerably good; and neither the appetite nor the plumpness had decayed. By taking the steel pills in augmented doses for a month, she obtained bloom on her cheeks, lustre in her eyes, and vermilion in her menses!!

2. A. S. aged 57, had laboured under diarrhoea for eighteen months. He was excessively weak, and had a constant pain at the epigastrium. The skin, lips, and inside of the mouth were pale and exsanguine; pulse slightly febrile; no organic lesion of the abdominal viscera to be detected: the diarrhoea was checked by opiates; and the steel pills were afterwards continued for six weeks; the patient was restored to strength and health.

3. A. L., 27 years, had suffered from dysentery and ague during the late expedition to Algiers. His skin was blanched, his strength was utterly gone, his feet swelled at night; he suffered from oppressed breathing, and palpitations of the heart, and his sleep was uncertain and disturbed with dreams. No organic mischief was suspected and therefore the symptoms were deemed chlorotic; the diagnosis was proved correct by the speedy cure under the use of the steel medicine.

It will be observed that the author very properly mentions in all the cases, that there was no organic disease; at least search was made, and none found; for it would be