Steinmann's woman aged fifty-two. It appears that in a genuine uncomplicated case of delayed impregnation the advent of the catamenia is always found to have occurred late in youth. Out of 401 such cases menstruation was retarded till twenty in 39, till twenty-four in 4, and till twenty-six in 1. As to the retarded first pregnancy, abortion, ectopic gestation, twins, and special renal mischief are relatively frequent. Above all, lingering labor is specially common, statistics even exceeding guesses and a priori reasoning. in this respect. In 12 out of 17 noted by De Koninck labor lasted from forty to fifty hours, the remaining labors being yet longer; I exceeded ninety hours. Feebleness of uterine contraction is absolute from first to last, and independent of any obstetrical combination. They also cause far more physical and mental exhaustion than the vigorous contractions of a young uterus, and at the same time are more painful. There are discrepancies in the “pains” seen in mature primiparæ of the same age, probably homologous with the great variations in the age of menopause observed in otherwise normal women. The uterus may be older in one woman aged thirty-five than in another of the same age. The forceps and other obstetrical operations are often required in the mature. Most of the above facts are easily explained. The excess of male infants borne by mature primiparæ (thirty per cent) is a less explicable phenomenon. Hecker considers the predominance of male infants as a speciality of all primiparæ, but Rumpe turns attention to the fact that in a family of children the predominance of males is commoner the further the mother is from her first menstrual period.—Ibid.

KINESITHERAPY IN HEART DISEASE.-Colombo (Gazz. Med. di Torino, 48, N. 39, 40, 1897,) pleads for a more general use of kinetic treatment in heart disease. Even in advanced cases he seems to think such treatment is very advantageous. Milder forms of treatment, for example, the Swedish method of gymnastic exercise, should be started at first, and afterwards more active methods, for example Oertel's, can be tried. The action of the Swedish method is most marked upon the peripheral vessels, while Oertel's system acts more directly upon the heart itself, so that dividing heart disease into disease of central or cardiac, and that of peripheral or vascular origin, the different methods could be applied accordingly. The Swedish method, moreover, has this advantage, that it can be applied in severe cases which can not leave their beds. Barie (Sem. Med., November 12, 1897.) advocates the treatment of heart disease by Swedish gymnastics. The aim of the exercises is to facilitate the work of the heart by increasing its contractile. power and by lessening the peripheral resistance. The exercises are a series of regulated, combined, or alternating movements of resistance or opposition. The movements employed fall under the main groups: (1) Kneading, rubbing, or stroking of the muscular masses in the limbs and abdomen; (2) movements of circumduction which facilitate the circulation in the main venous trunks; (3) movements which favor respiration. The exercises are very varied, and accomplished by means of passive and active

movements, numerous different manipulations, and by special apparatus. The average duration of the treatment ought not to be less than an hour a day during three months of each year. The treatment is suitable for cases of dilatation, hypertrophy, fatty degeneration, chronic myocarditis, and various neuroses and functional affections of the heart. Such symptoms as shortness of breath, palpitation, insomnia, cephalalgia, giddiness, gastric phenomena, edema, ecchymosis, cyanosis, improve or disappear under treatment. The pulse-rate is lowered, but rises again as soon as treatment is interrupted. Rational application of the treatment does not exclude internal treatment by ordinary medical means, and the two methods may often be employed simultaneously with the best results.-Ibid.

LIVE FROGS AS AN ANTITHERMIC.-An English practitioner of Constanta, Roumania, writes: On the evening of October 19th I was called to visit a Roumanian boy, six years old, suffering from typhoid fever. I found him in extremis, almost pulseless. The child's head was completely wrapped over with a large white sheet, and as I looked at it this enormous white envelope seemed to be on the move, and while I was surveying this covering there crept from under it a small frog, which quietly sat over the child's left arm. It seemed quite content. I immediately called the mother's attention to it and requested her to take the animal away, thinking it had crept there as an intruder. “Oh, no!" said the old lady, "a doctor recommended that a lot of them should be kept to the head to keep it cool." Seeing the head covering still on the move, I raised it for curiosity, and in a second out jumped about twenty other frogs and hopped away in all directions. I have often heard the expression "as cold as a frog," but this was the first time I had seen a frog applied as a headcooler.-London Lancet.

TREATMENT OF ENDOMETRITIS IN BROMINE VAPOR.-Nitot (La Gynecologie, October 15, 1897,) maintains that the correct prophylactic treatment of parenchymatous metritis and chronic salpingitis consists in rapid cure of recent endometritis, which is the starting point of those troublesome diseases. To insure cure a remedy is needed which can penetrate to the deepest recesses of the muscosa, and even the tubes, without dangerous effects. Caustics and fluid preparations do not possess such properties. A gas is required, and it must be freely diffusible, antiseptic, and capable of acting on the epithelium so as to modify without destroying them ("anticatarrhal action"). Bromine emits gas with the necessary qualities; a saturated aqueous solution should therefore be placed in a bottle with double tubing like an ether spray or the chloroform bottle in a Junker's inhaler. A hollow sound, connected with one tube, is passed into the uterus, while the solution is made to bubble by pressure on a ball connected with the second tube. Thus vapor is propelled into the uterus. Nitot claims the best results, and notes that the advantages of gaseous diffusion over intra-uterine injections or other medication are self-evident.-British Medical Journal.

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THE ART OF NEGLECTING WOUNDS.

The New York Post-Graduate Clinical Society* was recently treated to a moving discourse on the novel subject of "The Art of Neglecting Wounds," by Dr. Robert T. Morris, one of the instructors in surgery in the Post-Graduate School.

The author confined his remarks to wounds made by the surgeon when operating, and hints pretty strongly, though he does not say so, that their subsequent treatment even by the surgeon himself might not inappropriately be called "meddlesome surgery."

For instance: In incised wounds (the margins of which have not been quite approximated) the capillaries begin to develop granulation tissue in the coagulated lymph deposited upon the surface in a few hours if the trophic nerves have not been much injured. This granulation tissue is extremely delicate and will not bear handling. When such a wound is suppurating freely the strong temptation to wipe away the pus with sponge or gauze should be resisted for two reasons, first, "Granulation tissue suffers traumatism whenever it is touched, no matter how lightly, and, as a result of such traumatism, there will be developed exuberant granulation tissue, which will be poorly supplied with blood-vessels. We have in weak granulations, so to speak, what might be called 'watered stock.' It is a very common result of our well-intentioned but ill-directed efforts at keeping the wound clean." Gauze upon the granulations will injure the tissue still more, since its filaments entangle the granulations, which on removal of the dress

The Post-Graduate, Vol. XIII, No. 13, January, 1898.

ing are broken off in small fragments. The device which prevents this injury is a covering of very soft gutta-percha tissue or Lister's protective silk. But the surgeon who practices this let-alone method, though backed by sound pathological knowledge and therapeutic principles, will not escape the censure of the family or the nurse, and too often allows his sense of neatness to take precedence of his more sober sense founded upon pathological knowledge.

This "neglect" is particularly desirable when epithelium is shooting across the wound. These hyaline cells are so extremely delicate that the slightest touch will damage or remove them to the detriment of the healing process. The dressing on a suppurating wound should be allowed to remain five or six days. Though the ignorant may find fault with the surgeon for such temporizing, he must insist upon it for the patient's well-being.

Another illustration is drawn from the operation for appendicitis, in which we have adhesions, pus, and wide infection. Here new pathological factors are met with. The peritoneum throngs with polynuclear leucocytes which are engaged in destroying the bacteria. If time be given these faithful guards to mass themselves in the peritoneal lymph channels, they will prevent the extension of the peritonitis from this point. The surgeon, having evacuated the pus, removed the appendix, and inserted the drainage apparatus, is tempted, because of its bad smell, to wash out the wound. Such a measure would not only give the patient detrimental annoyance, but would inflict a new traumatisin upon the tissues. "This traumatism calls out an unnecessary number of leucocytes, and an unnecessary degree of reactive inflammation ensues. If, on the other hand, the colon bacilli are allowed to increase, they will at first produce a very foul odor to the discharge, but in three or four days we will usually find streptococci abundant, and perhaps displacing all other bacteria." In such cases, leave the drainage apparatus in place and "neglect" the wound. Repair and destruction of bacteria will go on much better if we leave the wound alone, after having removed the principal mass--the contents of the abscess cavity."

Another illustration is found in burns of the second degree. Here large blisters have formed and broken, and much skin is denuded of its cuticle. In such a case the author administers an anesthetic, opens. the blebs, removes the detached skin, scrubs the parts with an antiseptic solution, covers the denuded surface with strips of gutta-percha tissue, and leaves the case to nature. When a change is made, it