Transactions of the American Dermatological Association. At the ninth annual meeting, held at Indian Harbor Hotel, Greenwich, Connecticut, on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of August, 1885. Official report of the proceedings by the Secretary, W. T. Alexander, A. M., M. D. New York. 1885.

This is a pamphlet of forty-seven pages, containing a list of the officers and members of the Association. Besides the papers read during the meeting, there is a list of contributions to dermatology, published by members during the year ending September 1, 1885. As evidenced by the excellent character of the papers and proceedings, the society is doing substantial work in the science of dermatology.

J. C. M'G.

A Manual of Microscopical Technology. For use in the Investigations of Medicine and Pathological Anatomy. By Dr. CARL FRIEDLÆNDER, Lecturer on Pathological Anatomy in the University of Berlin. Translated, with the express permission of the author, from the second enlarged and corrected edition, by STEPHEN YATES HOWELL, M. A., M. D., Buffalo, N. Y. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1885.

An English translation of this valuable. working manual will be welcomed by every physician who knows the value of the microscope as an aid to diagnosis.

The author has not only given a faithful translation of the original text, but in many places he has enriched it by the introduction of valuable items brought to light since the German work was put to press. The latest inventions in apparatus and improvements in staining are here to be found, while the comparatively new and fascinating subject of bacteriology is treated in a manner which leaves the student nothing to desire.

Other features of the manual are chapters upon the examination of living tissues, and the study of fluids. The last named is very elaborate, and, addressing itself especially to the needs of the practitioner, will add materially to the popularity of the work. With the exception of one plate, the book is without pictures; but this sets forth in beautiful delineation the chief pathogenic microbes in the diseases of man. Lustgarten's bacillus of syphilis does not appear, and properly, since much doubt has been thrown upon its specific character by recent investigations.

Practical Notes on the Treatment of Skin Diseases; Diseases of the Perspiratory and Sebaceous Glands. By GEORGE H. ROHE, M. D., Professor of Hygiene and Clinical Dermatology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, author of "A Text-Book of Hygiene," etc., Baltimore, Press of Thomas & Evans, 1885. 12mo, pp. 60, flexible paper.

This excellent little book commends itself to the general practitioner especially, although mostly compiled from older and more extended works upon diseases of the skin, as such a book must of necessity be, it is in treatment fully up to date.

The author makes a few rather misleading statements. In referring to the etiology of chromidrosis, he says, "It is not improbable that colored sweat, unless feigned, is always due to the presence of minute organisms." Yet in such cases it is not unfrequent to find either prussian-blue, copper, or indigo, in the secretion.

The only causes of acne rosacea referred to in the book are said to be due to excessive indulgence in wines and liquors, and defective cutaneous circulation in young people. This statement is apt to impress upon the mind the popular error, that a person who, in middle life, has a red nose is a hard drinker, when, in reality, the disease is as frequently caused by exposure to cold, uterine or gastric disturbances and nervous affections.

In the treatment of sycosis non-parasitica, the author says, he declines to treat a patient unless he will consent to be shaved daily or every other day. In this he differs from other

dermatologists, as there are cases without doubt in which shaving is not tolerated, or if insisted upon will only increase the trouble.

J. C. M'G.

Essentials of Vaccination: A Compilation of Facts Relating to Vaccine Inoculation, and its Influence in the Prevention of Smallpox. By W. A. HARDAWAY, M. D., Professor of Diseases of the Skin in the Post-Graduate Faculty of the Missouri Medical College, St. Louis; Member of the American Dermatological Association; formerly one of the Vaccine Physicians to the city of St. Louis. 16mo, pp. 146. St. Louis J. H. Chambers & Co. 1886.

This little book by the eminent Western dermatologist, confessedly a compilation, seems to embrace about all that is practically required to be known on the subject of which it treats. With careful search it is not easy to find any thing not deserving approval. If there were one point we would desire more than another to emphasize it would be the comparative worthlessness of bovine vaccine virus as found generally in commerce in this country.

It is generally so untrustworthy, doubtless for the most part from fraud or carelessness in preparation, that it seems little less than criminal to rely on it for the protection of those who have been exposed to the contagion of smallpox, when good humanized virus can be had. We would always prefer virus that had proved its qualities in the human subject, first using the bovine to be sure of a proper start. The fault of humanized virus is usually the fault of the operator.

D. T. 8.

Practical Suggestions Respecting the Varieties

of Electric Currents and the Uses of Electricity in Medicine, with hints relating to the Selection and Care of Electrical Apparatus. By AMBROSE L. RANNEY, Professor of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, etc. 12mo, pp. ix and 161. Cloth. New York: D. Appleton & Co. The treatise under notice consists of a series of papers on the Uses of Electricity in Medicine, contributed by the author during the past year to the New York Medical Journal, with elaboration befitting the more permanent book-form.

The book is divided into three parts, under the following heads: Electro-Physics; Electro-Diagnosis; Electro-Therapeutics.

The author, who shows full mastery of his subject, has framed a work of refreshing brevity for the general practitioner, who must feel that life is too short to allow of his wandering through the long and intricate ways traversed by most authors upon this overpraised branch of the therapeutic art. The text of Dr. Ranney's work is sufficiently full, and his topics admirably classified, while every feature relative to apparatus and nerve anatomy is made plain by a liberal use of pictorial illustrations.

We gather from the author's not very lucid preface that the present volume is but the vestibule to a structure of imposing proportions soon to be set up for professional admiration, and venture the prediction that the coming book will find readers in inverse ratio to the number and size of its pages.

Electricity has, unquestionably, valuable uses in medicine, but its limitations are clearly measurable and in no sense warrant the unlimited quantities of time, paper, and printer's ink which its enthusiastic advocates are wont to waste upon it.

Translations.

A FRENCH OPINION ON THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.-The Progrès Médicale of December 14th has an earnest article from Comby in reference to the approaching International Congress, from which we make the following extracts:

For many months past, the American journals bring in ceaseless echoes of intestine discussions which may well be effectual, if continued or aggravated, to compromise the success of the Congress or render it impossible. It is in the Journal of the American Medical Association that we find the most complete details of the discord which reigns in the camp of our confrères of the United States. The other medical journals have equally taken part in the polemic, which divides the press as well as the physicians, and which is not in the least extinguished up to the time of this writing.

We cite among the journals which, on the other hand, are far from accepting the point of view presented by the official organ of the American Medical Association, the New York Medical Journal, the Philadelphia Medical Times, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, the Louisville Medical News, the Maryland Medical Journal, the New York Medical Record, etc., without speaking of the English and German, who have deigned to occupy themselves in this affair.

What will be the result of this quarrel? Is it of a nature to compromise really the success of the Congress? If the strife which we have signalized persists, it is evident that European physicians will hesitate a long time before crossing the Atlantic to accept the hospitality of a profession so profoundly divided.

KAPOSI Sums up an exhaustive article on leprosy with the following conclusions:

1. Leprosy, according to prevalent pathological views, is a bacillary disease; but that it is contagious in the same sense as other diseases are, I do not believe. The infectiousness is also hardly explainable by the anatomical location of the tubercles, which extend only beneath the epidermis. In the epidermis itself (with

the exception of G. Thin's single discovery) no one has seen the bacillus. Opportunities for contagion must embrace at least a deep local lesion, intimate contact, and, still further, a peculiar disposition.

2. Symptomatically, leprosy is to be regarded as a disease sui generis, and well differentiated from other similar diseases. Lepra is incurable. By the local application of remedies the absorption of tubercles may be promoted and the general condition improved through various therapeutic measures, but up to this time the actual cure of an undoubted case of leprosy is not known.-Vienna Med. Wochenschrift.

APPEARANCES AFTER DEATH FROM CHLOROFORM (Von Kappler Münsterlingen). In a case of death from chloroform there was found in the heart of a corpse, which showed not the least sign of putrefaction, a bladder of gas the size of a walnut, which analysis proved to consist of nitrogen. Death had resulted from administering a moderate quantity of chloroform quickly and immediately before operation.

The usual symptoms of chloroform-poisoning followed, and on opening the veins, in unsuccessful efforts at resuscitation, neither blood nor gas was discharged.

In another case, where the death of a drunkard occurred, at the age of sixty years, from chloroform, a large quantity of gas was found in the heart, which, upon analysis, also proved to be nitrogen.

Investigations of dead bodies, without reference to the cause of death, show that in the hearts of fresh bodies either no collection of gas recurs, or masses of the size of a pin-head or pea-size at most, and that they consist for the most part of carbonic acid.—Ibid.

IN the Academy of Sciences, of the session November 23d, M. Vulpian read a memoir upon the function of the nerve of Wrisberg considered as a sensitive branch of the facial.

The nerve of Wrisberg, of which the chorda tympani is a production, is at once a nerve of general sensibility, of gustatory sensibility, an M. excito-secretory and a vaso-dilator nerve. Vulpian is prepared to show, (1) That its inter

John Roosa. The ideal cataract operation and the one that many have striven to perform is that in which the lens can be removed together with the capsule without an iridectomy, for in a case of this kind we need have no fear of a secondary capsular opacity or a distorted pupil. The drawbacks, however, have been the great danger of loss of the vitreous humor during the efforts of removing the lens in its capsule, and the dangers of incarceration of the iris in the incision. Dr. Roosa has performed a number of extractions after his method, and we are a witness to many of his happy results. His method consists in making as large an incision as possible, and, after the puncture and counterpuncture are made, he turns the back of the knife against the iris and lens, and by pressure dislocates the lens. It then presents as soon as the incision is finished, and is easily removed by pressure. No iridectomy is made unless the iris should become entangled.

Dr.

Astigmatism is now considered by those who have studied its course most thoroughly to be congenital, and due to an alteration in the curvature of the cornea. The influences at work in its production are, however, still unknown. In watching its progress it has also been found that it generally remains stationary. Samuel Theobald, however, gives the notes of three cases in which, during the course of several years, he noticed an undoubted increase of this trouble. The first case was one of hypermetropic astigmatism, the other two of myopic astigmatism. He concludes that we should expect to meet with this phenomenon more frequently in the yielding myopic eye than in the relatively stable hypermetropic eye.

Dr. Hasket Derby reported two cases of penetration of the eyeball by scissors during the operation for strabismus. The possibility of this accident is apparent to all who have attempted division of the recti muscles. The rarity of it would, however, seem to be due to the fact that operators are not apt to report their failures and accidents. In the discussion Dr. Knapp said he had met with the accident in three cases. We once heard a surgeon of reputation as an operator state that he had met with the same mishap.

practical worth, upon which brief comments will be made in subsequent issues of this journal.

Abstracts and Selections.

CHRONIC CONJUNCTIVITIS DEPENDENT UPON DISEASES OF THE INTRA-NASAL TISSUE.—In a paper read at the meeting of the American Rhinological Association, October 6th, 1885, N. R. Gordon, M. D., of Springfield, Illinois, makes the following observations with a report of two cases whose history and successful treatment may be taken as evidence of their truth. (St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal):

There is a form of conjunctival disease which is dependent upon chronic inflammation of the intra-nasal tissues.

special allusion to the above subject, but many I am not aware that any author has made have given a passing notice, without particular effort to portray the condition of the nasal and ocular mucous surface.

The intimate connection existing between the conjunctiva and Schneiderian membrane through the medium of the vaso-motor and sympathetic nerves does not require elucida

tion.

Observation has taught that irritation affecting the ocular mucous membrane is reflexed to to the nasal mucous membrane, and vice versa: this action takes place through the intervention of the vaso-motor nervous system.

This conjunctival disease is chronic inflammation of the conjunctiva and the connecting tissues, accompanied by increased thickness of the membrane, especially the palpebral portion, which is slightly roughened, giving it somewhat the appearance of trachoma in a mild form; the tarsal cartilages, tarsal glands, and ciliary follicles are more or less involved; marked lachrymation and photophobia; pain is sometimes intermittent, more severe in the afternoon.

These cases are very chronic in character, and possibly in the majority of instances have been cases of trachoma, which may be the legitimate offspring of conjunctival inflammation, the trachomatous growth has either been destroyed by treatment or not appeared as a sequel or complication of the inflammatory action; usually the former condition exists.