sufficiently observed until the present time. 8th. Chlorosis exercises a prejudicial influence on the development of the organism. It plays a great role in the production of diseases, and contributes to lessen their progress, and to prolong the convalescence. 9th. Iron is not a specific for chlorosis, as mercury is for syphilis, and quinine for intermittent fevers. Chlorosis is cured spontaneously with age, in consequence of the regular development of the organism. Nevertheless, it is necessary to give the ferruginous preparations, which constitutes at present the most efficacious auxiliary medication.

2. Symphysotomy.-M. Foucault, of Nanterre, and Daireaux, read a paper before the Academy on the following case: "The woman was 24 years of age, rachitic, primipara, and at full term. Labor commenced regularly; very soon a presentation of an inferior extremity, as also a marked narrowness of the pelvis, was recognized. After some ineffectual attempts at extraction, and the application of the forceps, the head being stubbornly retained at the superior strait, MM. Foucault and Daireaux were placed in the alternative of choosing between 1st. The decollation of the child; 2nd. Cephalotripsy; 3rd. Symphysotomy. Decollation is an operation, although permitted, counselled, and indicated by art, appears barbarous, and always repugnant; in this case it was rejected by us, because it did not offer the means of giving relief to our patient; and that after it we should have been forced to resort to the cephalotribe, a dangerous instrument, or to the Cæsarian operation, to withdraw the crushed head, or running into the uterine cavity." For these reasons, MM. Foucault and Daireaux decided to practice symphysotomy; and by a separation of the pubis to four centimetres, they succeeded in delivering the child, dead for about an hour. Although the bladder was pinched by the drawing together of the pubes, the cure was quite rapid; and two months after the operation the patient was able to pursue her business-that of washing. The paper was referred to a committee composed of Laugier, Cazeaux, and Danqau.

3. Spontaneous Binocular Mydriasis.-M. Gosselin read a short paper on this disease, and gave the details of two cases VOL. III., No. 11.-45.

which he had recently observed one in the hospital and one in his private practice. He thinks that he can prove that double spontaneous mydriasis may present itself in two forms: one prolonged, the other temporary. "The first, which we may call primitive, is quite rare; it is marked by an enormous dilatation of the pupils, and seems to behave like a unilateral mydriasis — that is to say, to be cured incompletely, and to leave as a consequence farsightedness, which diminishes, but never entirely effaces the efforts of accommodation of the ciliary muscle and external muscles of the eye. The second, which is sometimes consecutive to grave inflammations of the throat, and perhaps to certain febrile diseases, is characterized by a moderate dilatation of the pupils, and appears susceptible of a cure without any traces being left. Its degree of frequency can not be established in the present state of science, for the reason that it has been probably confounded with other diseases of the eye. Both are easily mistaken for an incomplete amaurosis, when we simply consider the disturbed vision insisted on by the patients, and especially the impossibility of reading or seeing near. But they are distinguished essentially by the facility which the patients preserve of seeing distinctly objects at a great distance, which is not the case in amaurosis; by the possibility of seeing near objects through a hole in a card, which is not the case in amaurosis; and, finally, by the return of the contraction under the influence of electricity. Treatment by electricity, sulphate of strychnine, is specially indicated."-Gaz. Hebdomadaire.

4. The employment of Chloride of Zinc in the treatment of diseases of the Skin. By Dr. Veiel (of Constadt).-After having employed chloride of zinc for a long time as a caustic, for lupus and some analogous cutaneous affections, lepra vulgaris, elephantiasis, small schirrous tumors, M. Veiel has extended its use to the treatment of chronic ulcers of the legs, sycosis, chronic eczema, etc. He uses either an alcoholic solution (equal parts), or an aqueous solution (ten parts chloride zinc, ten hydrochloric acid, five hundred of water), or solid cylinders made by fusion. In this last form he proposes, with the majority of surgeons, to obtain a very energetic caustic effect. He has used this treatment in thirteen cases of lupus, with the most satisfactory results.

The disease in one case occupied the ale of the nose; six cases the upper lip, in four the cheek, and in two the ear. M. Veiel applies it in the following way: When the skin is destroyed and replaced by crusts more or less thick, they are to be loosened and removed by soft poultices; in cases where the epidermis is sound, the zinc is not to be applied until the cuticle is removed by a blister. A pencil of chloride of zine, sharpened to a point, is pushed deeply into the hypertrophied tissues, or those covered with tubercles, so as to carry the caustic to all the affected points; this is to be continued within a radius of two or three lines. All round the lesion, immediately after this operation, the surface, riddled with holes, very analogous to honey-comb, pours out a sanguinolent liquid, blackish, and then a serosity of a color not so dark, which concretes at the end of some hours in a smooth and fine crust. Towards the third or fourth day the crust is elevated, and may be detached by the continued use of poultices for several days. It is not often necessary to apply the caustic more than three times; nevertheless, in those cases where the morbid tissue is very thick, we must apply it oftener. When the suppurating surface which succeeds the falling off of the crusts does not present any unhealthy vegetations, and is on a level with the healthy parts, it is to be covered with poultices for several days, and then touched lightly with the alcoholic solution of the chloride of zinc every three or four days. When the edges begin to contract, we substitute the aqueous solution for the alcoholic, and continue this solution until a complete cure. The time required for this result is seldom more than three or four months.

M. Veiel uses with advantage the alcoholic solution of chloride of zinc to cure inveterate chronic eczema of the eye-lids, lips, genital organs, and the parts about the anus. The aqueous solution sometimes cures cases of eczema solare, or impetiginodes, which have resisted all ordinary means. The alcoholic solution removes readily the indurations which remain sometimes as a sequence of psoriasis at the elbow, on the back, and thighs; before applying it in these cases, we must remove the scales which cover the indurated points. There is a form of psoriasis palmaris, accompanied by warty, painful indurations, which only yield to the solid chloride of zinc, which we apply after having removed the epidermis by a blister. The aqueous solution is

very useful in cases of sycosis and favus. Finally, M. Veiel has found it very useful in certain forms of acne and warty excrescences of a suspicious nature, affecting the nose, cheek, or lips.— Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft der Aerzte zu Wein, 20 Feb., 1860, et Gaz. Heb.

Proceedings of Societies.

Proceedings of the Montgomery County Medical Society. Reported by J. C. REEVE, M.D., Secretary.

The Society met in the city of Dayton, on Thursday, October 5th, and was called to order by the President, Dr. McDermont. Dr. J. F. Donellan, of Germantown, was proposed for membership.

After the transaction of some other business, the Society listened to a paper upon Heart Diseases, by Dr. W. H. Lamme, of Centreville. The Doctor said, at the outset, that he did not think of going over but a small portion of a ground so ample as the subject he had chosen; he merely intended to present some remarks upon practical points of frequent occurrence, and of great interest in practice. He stated his belief that disease of the heart was very much more common than was generally supposed -the effects of deranged function of the great central organ of the circulation being often treated under other names, and as if independent diseases; this naturally led to a consideration of the obscurity attending acute diseases, which he held to be far from great, if due attention were paid by the practitioner to the physical signs furnished by the diseased organ. Upon the value of these signs, both affirmatively and negatively, their importance and reliability, he dwelt at some length. The mortality attending diseases of this organ, and the pathology of many of its diseased conditions, as causing and necessitating the fatal result, also received attention. The best part of the paper, however, was the report of cases which it contained cases which had occurred in the Doctor's practice, and which were detailed to illustrate the remarks he made, and sustain the positions he assumed.

After several members had spoken upon Dr. Lamme's paper, Dr. Reeve, in the absence of a member who had been more actively

engaged in the case, related the post-mortem appearances presented in the body of a woman upon whom an inquest had been held the day before, and the facts elicited upon a trial for manslaughter, held just before the meeting.

Deceased was about 30 years of age, married, the mother of a child ten months old. She had suffered during a few weeks from chills and fever, and had been under the treatment of a quack; on the preceding Friday, had suffered what was probably an attack of cramp in the stomach, which yielded to household remedies; she did her work on Saturday, but on Sunday was again attacked similarly, and by 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon was so ill as to send for a physician. Her husband went to the office of a medical man (not a member of this Society), and not finding him in the office, accepted the offer of a student who had been reading about a year and a half, but had never attended lectures, to visit his wife. The young man examined the case, and mixed in a tablespoon a brownish-looking powder, as the husband testifies, which nearly or quite filled it. This the doctor administered himself, and left two other small ones, one of which was to be given in half an hour, if she still had pain, and a third, a larger one, which he said was physic, to be given in an hour afterwards, and two more small powders to be given if the physic operated too much! The second powder was given by the husband in three-quarters of an hour, and the dose of cathartic powder at the end of an hour. She rapidly fell into a deep sleep; at 9 o'clock could only be wakened with difficulty; by 1 o'clock A. M. was senseless, and could not be roused; in a profuse perspiration; her face blue, her breathing difficult, loud, and very slow. At 4 A. M. she was visited by an Eclectic physician, who testifies that he found her as above described, except that her face was pale. He examined the eye and found the pupil dilated; he concluded she was dying from the effects of opium, and attempted to administer an emetic, but failed. Death took place about 7 o'clock on Monday morning.

The abdomen and chest were alone opened; the viscera were all healthy, with the exception of the spleen, which was enlarged to about twice its usual size; the uterus unimpregnated; the lungs not much congested; no engorgement of the right side of the heart, the organ containing but a moderate quantity of fluid