it. In one case the animal was interred for two years; showing that the Strychnine had not undergone decomposition as had been hitherto supposed. De Vry and Der Burg conclude: That if death has been caused by Strychnine, this poison can only be detected in the body provided it has been administered in quantity more than sufficient to cause death; but if the poisoning by Strychnine has been chronic, and has resulted from a quantity not greater than just necessary to cause death, it cannot be detected by the chemical examination of the stomach and intestines; and that it is probable that that part of the Strychnine which has destroyed life is decomposed in the living body.

Marshall Hall's Test.-Physiological effects of Strychnine.—A frog was placed in a very dilute solution of Strychnine; in a short time it became tetanic and showed evidence of Strychnine poisoning. He found that one-four-hundredth part of a grain of Strychnine dissolved in six drachms of water caused the frog to be violently tetanic; and in two other experiments he detected quantities, in one case of one-five-hundredth, and in another of one-one-thousandth of a grain of Strychnine. Dr. Harley, of the University of London, says the physiological test is the most reliable one known. He applies it by in jecting the fluid into the thoracic duct or the abdominal cavity. When the poison reaches the lungs, it is rapidly absorbed through the pulmonary capillaries. He says a solution containing so small a quantity as one-sixteen-thousandth part of a grain of the pure alkaloids in jected into the lungs of a small frog, caused it to be violently tetanic in nine and a half minutes, and it died in two hours; though frogs may be tetanized by other means than by Strychnine, this test is the most delicate known, and of great value when employed in connection with others.

MOTOR NERVES.-Belladonna.-It acts as a depressor or paralyzer; action only local, paralyzes the stomach, relaxes the sphyncters; does not produce general paralysis.

Homœopathic use.-It gives relief in enuresis, involuntary micturition and defecation; the second or third dilution rarely fails. It is used antipathically as a local application to spasmodic strictures; rigidity of the os-uteri in parturition or dysmenorrhoea; stricture of the urethra, retention of urine, chordee, &c.

Sympathetic-It is used to contract the arteries in some inflam mations when it can be made to operate through the vaso-motor nerves. Mammary abscess may be prevented by the local application of Bell. to the inflamed breast. But in substance it may increase the pain as it does that of a boil.

Belladonna, succeeded by Pulsatilla, may be given in idiopathic tetanus which has arisen from deranged menstruation, or other causes

connected with the utero-genital system, and where the extremities are for the most part affected with the morbid contractions. It may also be sometimes given in the last stages of traumatic tetanus, when there is delirium, dilated pupils, and great mental anguish.

Arnica should be used both internally and externally, in all injuries which threaten to tend to tetanus. This remedy possesses the power of warding it off, when it might otherwise have occurred without its use, and should always be resorted to when danger is anticipated from a wound.

Trismus following an Injury; Ignatia. The patient begins to manifest trismus or lock-jaw, by stretching of the limbs, complaining of much pain in the neck, or of stiffness in the neck or the back; he soon has cramp or pain resembling the joints of the jaw, in the cheeks near the ear; he has constant inclination to yawn, but is unable to open his mouth sufficiently; he is fretful, irritable, difficult to please, grows worse when he is touched and handled. Give it every two hours.

Mercurius-After Ignatia has been tried, and the lock-jaw has commenced; the back is stiff and rigid.

Belladonna-When the face is red, and the rigidity great.
Aconite The patient grows red and pale alternately.
Bryonia, or Veratrum-Where the patient becomes cold.
Secale-When warmth makes him worse.

Hypericum-When the original injury is affective.

Ruta A redness first appears round the wound.

Chloroform.-Case by Dr. Dick, of Buenos Ayres.-A mulatto sailor, aged thirty-two, admitted to the British Hospital with two slight. ly incised wounds, one on the scalp, the other on the hand, inflicted five days before. Two days after admission, symptoms aggravated; frequent spasmodic attacks amounting to opisthotonos (backward); the least touch or breath of air excited the paroxysm; profuse perspiration. Chloroform, ten drops every twenty minutes, administered through the vacancy left by a missing tooth. The paroxysm soon ceased, but tenseness and rigidity of the cervical and abdominal muscles continued. Next day pressure on the abdomen did not excite the paroxysm, though it had done so before. Chloroform, thirty drops every half hour. Next day no paroxysm, muscles hard and unyielding. Chloroform continued for several days. There was no paroxysm till the twelfth day of treatment. The Chloroform had been omitted by mistake, and he had a very severe attack of eclampsia. Neglect was guarded against and there was no return. Fourteenth day, slept for the first time since the beginning of the disease. The bowels (which Croton Oil had failed to regulate before) now began to act naturally; and from this time the symptoms began to be mitigated. He had less difficulty in swallowing; cervical and masticatory muscles became slightly moveable. On

the twenty-third day the pulse was feeble, and he desired animal food. The Chloroform thirty drops every two hours till midnight. Thirtieth day, muscular movements free and almost natural, save occasionally a convulsive twitch in the wounded arm. Speech not quite natural. He remained feeble but otherwise in good health.

TETANUS CHRONIC.-Case by Dr. J. H. Payne.*-Mr. C. H., aged twenty-six, dark complexion, intelligent and temperate, had hæmorrhage from the lungs at seventeen, supposed to have been caused by a fall two months before; but for near two years preceding he had chronic eruptions (scabies); itching and burning, especially at night. From a few small pimples it increased and covered the whole body. This eruption was entirely suppressed by treatment-supposed to be cured by a mercurial ointment. After this suppression, cough and hæmorrhage continued from seventeen to near nineteen years of age He then began to have cramps in his hands and feet. In Jan. 1847, Jan. 20, cramps more severe; the head drawn forward, then backward, the muscles rigid and inflexible, face livid, with frightful contortions and great distress. The attacks would last from a few days to six months, then leave him after having the severest ones; after an interval of uncertain length they would return as bad as ever.

In 1849 he had cholera; this relieved the spasms for four months They then returned with new vigor. In 1852 the joints were dislocated; first the lower jaw, then the shoulders, lastly the hips, then all three would be dislocated in a spasm. He tried the treatment of the best hospitals in Boston, Rio, New-Orleans, San Francisco, was given up as incurable. Rigid diet, traveling, sea voyages, mineral waters, hot and cold baths, turpentine in large doses, issues, setons, blisters, bleedings, enemas of tobacco, and narcotics of all kinds were fully tested, without benefit. His physicians often gave him five ounces of laudanum in one hour in advance of the cramps, with but little effect. Six ounces of chloroform administered in an hour and a half rather made the spasms worse. In 1855, April 27, he came under the care of Dr. Payne. The patient would then be seized with the spasms without warning; face and knees drawn together in an instant with great force (emprosthotonos.) All the flexor muscles of hands, feet and body contracted, inflexible, rigid, whole person presented the form of a large ball. Spasms of the intercostal muscles, diaphragm and abdomen so intense that they produced a large cavity at the base of the horax, apparently displacing all the internal organs of the body; face suffused by a dark livid flush, and miserably disfigured by the perverted action of the muscles. After the distortion continued from two to twenty minutes, in an instant his condition was reversed. The head

* Amer. Hom. Rev. Vol. 2, p. 278, &c.

thrown backward, striking his feet with violence. The feet would piss the head nearly a foot, which curved the body in the shape of a hoop or ring. This curvation was so sudden and so forcible, that he would be thrown far from the bed, if not held by assistants. All the extensor muscles of the body were rigidly contracted and inflexible, at the same time in a continued spasmodic twitching motion.

"During these severe contortions, both shoulders, the lower jaw, and sometimes one of the hip-joints would be dislocated, requiring each time much strength to reduce them. The head was drawn back, the larynx forward, the tongue dragged down the throat, or convulsively protruded, nearly causing suffocation. The blood at times gushing from the mouth and nostrils in large quantities; the eyeballs spasmodically rolling, producing a frightful distortion of the face, expressing the greatest agony." In the course of twenty-four hours "both shoulderjoints and the lower jaw were dislocated twenty-seven times, and one or the other of the hips five times, requiring to be reduced each time causing distinct snaps when the bones returned into their sockets And when the head was raised from the nuchæ, a distinct snap could be heard in any part of the room; during the severest spasms he was always delirious, or unconscious, the pulse not perceptible, and respiration nearly ceased, having the appearance of a person in a fit of epilepsy. The spasms left him greatly prostrated, his limbs and flesh sore as if badly bruised; sometimes heavy sleep followed. He was greatly reduced in flesh and strength; the face of a yellowish sickly look, the eyes deeply sunken in the head; tongue coated yellowish brown; no appetite, continued thirst; constipation; stool only once in nine or ten days; evacuations small, dry and dark colored; urine scanty, without sediment, brown-red color, voided with burning pain. He was melancholy, morose, depressed; easily enraged; nothing pleased him; despaired of being cured; confusion, drawings, shootings in the whole head.

This case was treated by Dr. Payne first with Stramonium, thirtieth, April, 27, 1855, at intervals, for eighteen days. During the action of the Stramonium there was a change in the symptoms: "The pains became more acute, the spasms drew him differently, and he felt differ ently from what he had ever done before. The spasms were postponed to a later hour, they did not last so long, and the time between them was shorter. The symptoms having assumed the form of epilepsy, with violent congestion, face more livid and purple than ever before, roam at the mouth, and a heavy sleep after the spasms, Bell. sixty-fifth was given in alternation with Saccharum-lactis for four weeks, or till June 15. There was then improvement in all the symptoms; fewer spasms, less severe; joints not so often dislocated, and he had passed several nights without any spasms. The congestion decidedly better

On learning fully the history of the case, it was considered that the psoric affection was the cause of all the trouble, and now (June 20th, 1855,) Sulphur 100° was given, two tea-spoonfuls from a solution every eight hours for five doses, Sac.-lactis for a week, and repeat the Sulphur as before. Continued this for six weeks longer. Then gave Sulphur, 200°, in the same manner. Under the use of Sulphur he improved rapidly. The spasms gradually decreased in frequency, remaining absent one, two, three, or more days at a time. After Nov. 1st., he had no severe spasm. After a few weeks a large number of small, dark, livid abscesses appeared on the face, and then on different parts of the body. These were a long time in suppurating; some were as large as a quarter of a dollar, and left without discharging. Some continued for six months.

2. HYDROPHOBIA.

"So bends tormented Tantalus to drink,

While from his lips the refluent waters shrink.
Again the rising stream his bosom laves

And thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves."

The name hydrophobia, or dread of water, is given to that dreadful malady which follows the bite of a rabid animal, and the introduction of its saliva into the blood. A dread of water is commonly a prominent and characteristic symptom of the disease; but it is by no means one that is invariably present. Cases are reported by Hunter, Frank, and Eberle, in which no unpleasant consequences followed the use of drinks, from the commencement to the fatal termination of the disorder. We ourselves have seen a rabid dog, that would, without hesitation, plunge into the water and drink during the whole course of the disease, without exciting spasmodic contractions, or any other disagreeable symptom.

Rabies originates spontaneously in animals of the canine species, like the dog, the fox, the wolf, &c., and appears to consist of a morbid deterioration of the saliva. The precise nature of this deterioration, or of the specific poison which this fluid contains, is at present entirely unknown; but in regard to its specific action upon some portion of the nervous centres there remains no doubt, although pathological anatomists have hitherto failed to detect the peculiar diseased appearances to which it gives rise. Perhaps this may be accounted for when we call to mind the proneness of pathologists to regard congestion of the blood-vessels, redness, effusion, softening or induration as the only morbid appearances indicative of previous disease, while, in point of fact, as shown by the pathological investigations of Dr. Hugh Bennett, by means of the microscope, "important changes may take place in the