were sound. The cervical tumour was then examined, and found to consist of a mass of glands, the size of an egg, seated over the arteria innominata, at the origin of the right carotid. The coverings of this tumour were highly injected, and discharged much blood when cut into. It is remarkable that till within eight days of his death this man had been able to pursue his usual avocations out of doors. The cause of the hydrothorax is very mysterious, there being no inflammation of the pleura. The case shews how men may be deceived by the appearance of pulsating tumours in the neck. We can have no doubt that the carotid artery has been tied more than once in this country, without any necessity for such an operation! LXI. DOUBLE RACHITOME, FOR OPENING THE SPINAL CANAL. THE difficulties, or we should rather say delays, experienced in laying bare the medulla spinalis are familiar to us. The consequence is that we are less acquainted with the morbid conditions of this essential portion of the human body, than with those of any other part or parts of it. Our French brethren have laudably attempted to facilitate the operation by the invention of several instruments. We have seen one rachitome in this country; it consists of a sort of very strong chisel, curved in a semi-elliptical form, without any handle standing perpendicular to the blade. The back is very broad, and the mode of using it is to force it through the spinal arches on each side of the spinous ridge by blows of the hammer. We never used it nor saw it used, but we think the common mode by the saw and chisel must be preferable. We find that a M: Tarral has presented to the Royal Academy of Medicine what he calls a "double ra chitome," by means of which the vertebral canal can be opened on both sides at once. Each branch of the instrument has a rest, arrêt, behind, to prevent the bone being forced down upon the medulla, which not unfrequently occurs; the branches are placed at a distance of eight lines from each other, a sufficient distance to prevent the medulla being injured in any part of its course; on the handle is a hook to raise the depressed pieces of bone, and the handle itself is placed obliquely with respect to the cutting edge to prevent any injury to the fingers of the operator. The two blades or branches are prevented from slipping by the spinous processes, which fix the instrument. Upwards of twenty spinal columns have been opened by the instrument, always in a very few minutes, and without any injury to the medulla. Would the size of this instrument be adapted for inspecting children? At all events that would not signify greatly, as the spine in such subjects is examined without difficulty. We think that our own morbid anatomists would do well to procure this instrument, or in vent a better if they can. LXII. CONVULSIVE EPIDEMIC. Ar a sitting of the Academy M. Traunoy read a memoir on a convulsive malady, which has reigned for some time epidemically in the commune of Bray-surSomme. At the instance of the Prefect, M. Traunoy was summoned to the seene of action, and there found four females affected with the malady. The first was a girl of 17, and her attacks re sembled hysteria; they terminated in a deep sleep, and the patient retained no recollection of what had happened. The second uttered cries resembling the crowing of a cock. The third had a kind of hiccup, imitating the noise of a fox. The fourth cut all kinds of ca› pers, leaping like a carp, climbing along a wall with her head downwards, and so forth. M. Traunoy affirms that it is not unusual for the women in the environs of Amiens to utter cries like those of different animals, and even to interrupt divine service in such a man ner that they require to be turned out of the church. M. Traunoy alluded to the epidemic mewing observed in a convent by Hecquet, which ceased on the physician's declaring that it would be absolutely necessary to bring in a company of soldiers, to flog the fair sisterhood round. The thanks of the Academy were voted to M. Traunoy for his curious paper. 9 For our parts we have no doubt that the epidemic' was nothing less than that mixture of humbug and hysteria, in which the fair sex occasionally delight to indulge. As for the barkers, and pantomimists, and mewers, we protest that M. Hecquet's drum-major and cat-o'-nine tails would prove an infallible specific. If the worthy mayor and M. Traunoy, instead of writing proclamations and memoirs, were to call in the assistance of the arm militant, or souse their patients with some bucketsful of cold water, we have no doubt that the candidates for the convulsive epidemic' would speedily vanish. These are the means which succeed à merveille in hospital practice, and although young ladies must be treated more tenderly, yet the principle will hold in all, however prudential considerations may modify the practice. LXIII. ON THE PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATION The precipitated carbonate of iron consists of carbonic acid combined with the black oxide of iron; which black oxide readily combines with more oxygen forming the red oxide; but as the red oxide cannot, like the black oxide, retain carbonic acid in combination, this acid flies off; so that, in the yellow matter alluded to, an additional dose of oxygen has taken the place before held by carbonic acid. The yellow colour is owing to the red oxide existing in combination with water, or, (to use the language of modern chemistry,) as a hydrate; and the yellow colour is changed to red whenever we apply so much heat as will drive off the combined water. Then the red oxide of iron, or colcothar of vitriol, alone remains." -- The consequence is that what is sold in the shops for precipitated carbonate of iron contains no more than a trace and is frequently of that substance nothing more than colcothar of vitriol. This colcothar is not less different (Mr. C. observes) from carbonate of iron in its medicinal than in its chemical properties. "I have seen patients, of different ages and sexes, swallow, for a fortnight, at the rate of half an ounce a-day, of colcothar of vitriol, without producing any apparent effect, except that their stools were coloured by the powder to a reddish hue, indicating that it had passed through the body unaltered; whereas I have seen a healthy man made sick by a dose of a quarter of a drachm of genuine carbonate of iron, and made to pass in consequence dark greenish black stools for two days after; and I have seen similar effects produced on patients who had been unaffected by coleothar of vitriol. The sickness, however, is not produced after the first or second day." These observations deserve the attention of the profession in these days when carbonate of iron is so much in use. We give the remaining part of the paper in the author's own words. "From the preceding observations, it is easy to gather, that the two defects to be avoided, are exposure to air and exposure to heat. Both of these defects I propose to avoid, by forming the precipitated carbonate into an electuary, thus Take of sulphate of iron and subcarbonate of soda, each eight ounces. Pound each salt, and dissolve them separately in warm water. If necessary filter. Being filtered and cool, mix the solutions in a deep vessel, capable of holding one or two gallons of water, which fill up cold. Stir-let subside-and then de cant the clear liquor from the precipitate. Fill up again with water, and likewise again decant; and repeat this operation two or three times, so as to separate the soluble salts. Next put the precipitate on a filter of cotton or linen cloth, supported by a square frame. When the water has ceased to pass, gather into one hand the edges of the filter, so as to make it a sort of bag, and with the other twist it round from the holding hand downwards, so as to squeeze out the remaining water. The precipitate will now have the appearance of clay, too soft for moulding. With soft sugar and aromatic powder, in suitable proportions, make it into an electuary. Thus we obtain a carbonate of iron, uniform in its properties, hardly deteriorated by the process it undergoes, and little liable to change by keeping. The precipitated carbonate of iron, while yet moist, is soluble in carbonic acid. Hence a teaspoonful of the above electuary is soon dissolved in a glass of ginger beer, except the aromatic powder it contains. It may be asked, therefore, whether an eligible medicine might not be obtained as follows:-Having filled a dozen of bottles with ginger beer, divide among them the precipitate from an ounce of sulphate of iron, and an ounce of subcarbonate of soda: then cork and set them aside, as usual, till they be ready. I presume that the production of carbonic acid, by the fermenting process, would go on as usual, and that when drawn in due time, we would find the carbonate of iron entirely dissolved in the ginger beer," LXIV. ST. JOHN LONG. WHEN we closed our remarks on the tragedy of Miss Cashin, at page 528, the inquest had not terminated; but, in two days afterwards, the verdict of manslaughter was delivered by a jury of intelligent men, and after an investigation of unparalleled duration and minuteness, in which every kind of irrelevant matter was forced upon the inquisitors by the arts of legal sophistry, and the weakness, (to say the least of it) of the coroner. The storm which Mr. Wakley had to sustain from the defendant's counsel, would have overwhelmed most people of sensibility and modesty -but, for once, Mr. Adolphus met his match, and more than his match-for, although the subtle advocate, practiced and trained in forensic debate, ought to have been well aware that passion is a bad ingredient in argument, yet he repeatedly lost his temper, and with it the whole force of his ratiocination while his opponent, though harrassed with every kind of personal allusion that could irritate the feelings, remained inperturbable, and consequently brought reason and truth to bear with irresistible impulse on the sophistry, and, in many points, the absurdity of his adversary's appeals to the jury. Thus Mr. Adolphus suffered his zeal or his excitement to completely eclipse his judgment, in the attempt to persuade any twelve men who were in their senses, and not under the delusion inspired by charlatanism, that the quack's liniment would only act on unsound parts of the body! Mr. Adolphus was, or appeared to be, blind to the sworn facts that Miss Cashin was in good health before the liniment was applied, and that all the organs of the body were found in a state of the most perfect integrity after death. Here his absurd theory was damned before his eyes, and yet he could not see the contradiction. Upon the melancholy case itself we shall make no further remark, as the final adjudication is not yet made. We had some pity for St. John Long, till we learnt the heartless indifference with which he appears to view the horrible catastrophe! That heart, indeed, most be callous, which can reflect on the dire ignorance by which a beautiful young lady was sacrificed-not so much by the original application to the backy as by the reckless neglect of calling in surgical assistance, by which the effects of the burning liniment might have been readily obviated. But we fear that remorse has little to do with the profit able trade of quackery any where. Yet we imagine that the man who knows not how to manage the effects of bis remedies, and obstinately persists in maltreating them till death closes the eyes of the deluded victim of ignorance and presumption, cannot sleep easy on his pillow. The still small voice of conscience will break through all the opiates of wealth, and corrode, unseen by the world, the most marble-hearted candidate for power or pelf. Owing to the illness and absence of some of the most necessary witnesses, the Grand Jury did not proceed to the finding or ignoring the bill of indictment. It will therefore be six weeks before that preliminary step is taken. Meanwhile, Mr. Long follows his usual avocations, and the Aristocracy of this our enlightened land as firmly believe in the miraculous cures of a broken down painter, as the disciples of Johannah Southcote believed in the advent of the young Shiloah! And why should not St. John Long extract from the pockets of the credulous fifty or sixty thousand pounds, when Mrs. Steevens sold some calcined egg's shells to Government for £10,000., as an infallible remedy for stone in the bladder? For the honour of the profession, there is but one GULL (if he be not a DECOY-DUCK) who has come forward to bear witness to the miracles of the painter-Mr. Porter, commonly called Doctor among the Niggers on his estate in Jamaica. It is somewhat suspicious that this Octogenarian has taken up his residence in the house of the Charlatan. This advocate of Long was attended by Dr. Johnson some years ago, and, excepting the effects produced by the advance on Time's list, Dr. J. cannot perceive one particle of improvement in the state of his eyes-and as for the state of his lungs, he will carry chronic bronchitis to the tomb with him, as he has already carried it half his life-time, beneath the burning suns of the Antilles, the blue skies of Italy, and the cloudy atmosphere of Harley Street. Shame on Mr. Porter for abetting the delusions of a quack! There was but one medical man in Europe who would have done so-himself! By the way, why did not St. John Long take his medical decoy-duck to Miss Cashin, when the unfortunate lady's back was in such a dreadful state of excoriation? The ten thousand excoriated backs of Islaves, which Surgeon Porter had ample opportunities of seeing in Jamaica, would have enabled him, on this point at least, to have offered his master, some wholesome advice! But Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementit.* St. John Long and his friends need not despair. We think there is great probability of his being acquitted of manslaughter, either by the grand or LXV. CORONER FOR MIDDLESEX. THIS energetic contest has ended, after a tremendous expenditure of money -a most exuberant exhibition of zeal on the part of the friends—a display of no mean talent on the part of one of the candidates-and a degree of excitement among the people seldom exceeded by the most contested parliamentary election. We have neither time nor space for a disquisition on the qualifications necessary for the office of coroner. Our own impression is, that a certain amount, both of medical and legal knowledge, is necessary-but that the quantum of either need not be very great. We imagine that it would be much easier for the medical man to acquire the requisite modicum of law, than for the lawyer to furnish himself with the proper proportion of physicand hence, upon the whole, we are inclined to advocate the cause of medical coroners-seeing the small allotment of loaves and fishes which the medical practitioner can expect, beyond the direct drudgery of his own profession. If we could trust to the public-or at least the popular feeling respecting this litigated point, as expressed during the recent election, we might confidently expect that medical coroners would, in future, be elected at least in Middlesex. But we cannot flatter our brethren that the popular feeling breathed forth so ardently at Clerkenwell, was the petit jury; and, on mature consideration, we are inclined to think, that if the public are not to be enlightened by the disclosures at the coroner's inquest, they would not believe Miss Cashin, if she were to rise from the sepulchre! This being the case, a condemnation will only increase the zeal of his friends, who will represent the whole affair as a persecution, while an acquittal will enable the quack to boast of his triumphs! Mr. Wakley has done his duty manfully, and is deserving of praise for the trouble and expense already incurred—but we doubt whether any farther prosecution of the charlatan will be beneficial to the interests of society. |