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against homœopathic practitioners are standing in their statute book, they will give a point blank denial to the oft-repeated assertion that medicine is a liberal science. As the allopathic journals are closed to our remonstrances, we are obliged to have recourse to the public press; and this protest is sent in the hope that a wholesome public sentiment may influence the future proceedings of the British Medical Association, and bring them more into harmony with the higher professional feeling and with the spirit of the age."

How far this weighty protest-for which our colleagues are deserving of the warmest praise was successful in producing a "wholesome public sentiment" in the "proceedings of the British Medical Association," the previous quotations will sufficiently show. Our colleagues made one grave mistake-they appealed to the reason of the members of the Association. So far as the protest was intended for the Liverpool public that was quite right; but the Association has already made up its mind that a profession of a belief in homeopathy is highly objectionable, and the very last thing the Association cares to do is to reason about it or to listen to the reasoning of anyone else. it cares for is to find adequate expression for its sentimentssuch as they are !-to make it as uncomfortable as possible for all those who profess homoeopathy, and at the same time to do nothing that shall indirectly advance the system. Whether or not homoeopathy is true is no concern of theirs -hence the uselessness of appealing to their reason. Homœopathy is tabooed, and for these gentlemen that is quite sufficient. How far the sagacious critic of the Lord Chief Justice was satisfied with his attempt to save the Association from "advertising homœopathy," "we must leave his own conscience to answer. The verdict of the Liverpool public was emphatically not on the side of Hahnemann's traducers.

The other the self-glorifying-function of the Association was ably performed this year by Dr. Waters, of Liverpool,

* The law excluding homoeopathists is, as stated in the note, p. 370, no longer on the statute book, but its purpose is answered by the rejection by the electors of every candidate suspected of homoeopathic proclivities.

the President. According to the Standard's report of the proceedings, his inaugural address closed as follows:

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"And amongst the many changes which revolving years would bring, might they not hope that . there would come a fuller recognition of the claims of its members to some of the higher honours of the State? The presence of medical men in the House of Lords would strengthen the powers of that House and beneficially influence legislation. But if the results to which he has alluded were to be realised, then must all unwise legislative restriction on the work of the physiologist and pathologist be withdrawn; then must all measures which fettered the action of the original investigator be removed; and he trusted that by the labours of the Society, which had been established for the cultivation of medicine by original research, a more enlightened. public opinion would be formed, which would aid in bringing about these results." (Applause.)

The modesty of all this is sufficiently self-evident, requiring no comment. "Our Old Nobility" must feel deeply honoured by such flattering attention paid them by the self-chosen representatives of the "noble "profession. How eagerly they will welcome the first batch of medical peers as a "tonic "-if they believe Dr. Waters-to the failing powers of their House! On the other hand, when once Lord Purgem, Lord Vaccine and Lord Vivisect are seated on its benches homoeopathists and the profanum vulgus may look to it. The former, on confession of their hated belief, will be compelled to quit the realm, and the latter must submit without question to be treated according to the teaching of the schools. No paltry excuses of conscientious scruples will be allowed to interfere with the doctors' mandates. Re-vaccination every few years will be made compulsory, and a dozen other vaccinations à la Pasteur will be enforced. Crochet-mongers will be ruthlessly suppressed; and no cant about morality will be allowed to interfere with any proceedings which the medical profession shall decide to be necessary. The golden age of medicine and science will have come.

The British Medical Association has a future before it !

375

REVIEWS.

On the Nature and Propagation of Asiatic Cholera. By W. WAKEFIELD, M.D. Paris, 1883.

THIS is a translation of the author's thesis for the M.D. of Paris, and is a good résumé of the current doctrines relative to the nature and mode of propagation of cholera. The theory as to its origin most favoured by the author is that it is caused by a parasitic organism of low type, several varieties of which have been found in the evacuations both upwards and downwards. He says that this theory was first promulgated by Boehm in 1838, but this is not correct; for we find that Hahnemann in 1831 ascribed the origin of cholera to minute living organisms, and it was on this theory he founded his camphor treatment. Our author, while not distinctly asserting that this contagium vivum of cholera can be spontaneously germinated outside the body, holds that the germs or spores of the contagium thrown off by the evacuations may be developed into a more advanced stage by certain conditions of soil, filth, and moisture. The spores as they are given off by the evacuations are not, he says, capable of giving the disease, for the evacuations of patients have been swallowed with impunity. (This is of course a merely negative experiment, for the experimenters may have been insusceptible to the disease as so many are who live within the area of infection.) They have to undergo a further stage of development outside the body before they are capable of causing the disease. When developed to the requisite degree the contagium vivum may be conveyed by air, water, or fomites-such as bedding, towels, clothing, or the like.

The author gives several striking instances of the cholera contagium having been conveyed by the wind, by a draught of air, and by a dust storm.

Dr. Wakefield's pamphlet is interesting and instructive. The author has evidently had in India considerable experience of the disease, and his opinion as to its origin and mode of propagation is worthy of attention. We wish his grammar were deserving of equal laudation. In this respect, however, he is rather weak, not being apparently aware that a plural noun requires a plural verb and corresponding pronoun, Thus such phrases as "there exists certain low organisms," "the infective influences of choleraic discharges attaching itself," "germ-bearing excreta spreading itself," "this same phenomena was observed," "the dejecta undergoes," "the sources from whence the natives of India draw their supply of this necessary article has," "ordure and refuse of every description is," " the same influences which causes," are somewhat at variance with the time-honoured rules of Lindley Murray.

The Prophylactic Power of Copper in Epidemic Cholera. By A. DE N. WALKER, M.D. London: 1883.

In this pamphlet Dr. Walker has collected a number of instances of the prophylactic power of Copper in cholera, a power which was known to many before Hahnemann, and which was corroborated by Hahnemann,

The mode of preparation of the metal for administration advised by Dr. Walker is quite different from that described by Hahnemann, or from the method followed in the British and American Pharmacopoeias, but resembles that recommended by Buchner in his Hom. Arzneibereitungslehre, namely, by precipitating the metallic copper from a solution of the sulphate by means of honey. For prophylactic purposes he advises the giving every morning and night three drops of a mixture of the 3rd and 6th decimal

attenuations and wearing a copper plate across the abdomen eight and a half inches long by five and a half inches wide, which is surely needlessly large.

Essai sur les Hématocèles Utérines intra-péritonéales.

Par

Le Dr. M, JoUSSET, ancien interne des hôpitaux de
Paris et de l'hôpital des Enfants-Malades.

Ir is with sincere pleasure that we welcome Monsieur Jousset fils to our ranks as a combatant, and to our literature as a contributor-patris digni, dignus filius.

Dr. M. Jousset, in a thoroughly readable pamphlet of 170 odd pages, gives a most admirable and exhaustive résumé of the literature of intra-peritoneal hæmatocele. The pathology of this very interesting and important subject is especially well treated, and as this form of hæmatocele is usually fatal* the opportunities of working out its morbid anatomy are naturally most favorable. this account we must not find fault with our author that he devotes so notably small a space to "treatment," for of over 170 pages only seven are given to the consideration of curative or palliative measures.

On

At the head of these Dr. M. Jousset rightly places "rest," then he proceeds to speak of "Opium," recommended in the form of pilules of the first centesimal dilution, or preferably in certain cases, hypodermically, in the form of Morphia.

The use of ice topically and the subcutaneous employment of Ergotin are next suggested.

Dr. M. Jousset commends the use of alcohol when life is menaced by deadly faintings. His favourite forms are champagne and cold brandy and water. The latter compound has a strange look in its half English dress (potion de Todd).†

* Dr. M. J. thinks differently, but there seems little doubt that the cases of recovery diagnosed as intra-peritoneal were really outside that sac. The accurate differentiation is beset with difficulties.

+ In his life the late Dr. Todd, on account of his faith in stimulants, was

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