12. The temperature is somewhat lowered by a non-poisonous dose, thus placing it in the class of cooling medicines.

13. It diminishes perspiration, and the skin becomes a little drier than in the normal state.

14. It has this advantage, that it can be administered in a definite dose, just enough to produce anæsthesia, for example, and no more; while in the inhalation of chloroform, the amount of its vapor which is inhaled is never definitely known. When we give chloroform, we are never sure what we are doing, and it is from this cause chiefly that chloroform is dangerous.

15. Its action is exactly that of chloroform, but is longer in producing its effect, and its action continues much longer.

16. In some cases chloral causes a muscular and emotional agitation, resembling alcoholic intoxication, but the intoxication is neither disgusting nor disagreeable.

17. In almost all cases, the sleep induced by chloral is remarkable for the complete anæsthesia with which it is attended, and it is rarely accompanied with hyperæsthesia.

18. The anesthesia is proportioned to the dose given; and under a dose of from thirty to seventy-five grains, according to the age of the patient, cauterization with Vienna paste, or even the extraction of teeth, may be performed without sensation.

19. Compared with opium, which often causes vomiting, which destoys the appetite, which stimulates and heats, which constipates, which excites perspiration, which induces sleep but slowly, and then heavy sleep, which is followed by prolonged drowsiness, chloral does not excite vomiting, nor cause constipation; it increases appetite; it dries the skin and cools it a little; it induces quick and prolonged sleep; on waking there is no heaviness or drowsiness, and it may be taken many days in suc

cession.

20. In large doses, chloral lowers the temperature of the body, producing the sensation of coolness, while opium, on the contrary, raises the temperature, and produces a sensation of warmth, which induces perspiration.

21. A dose of from forty-five to seventy-five grains of hydrate

of chloral may be repeated two or three times a day without harm, and the result will be two or three hours of sleep from each dose, followed by a short period of waking.

22. As a remedy, it is sedative in the violent pain of gout, in the agonizing pain of nephritic colic, or of toothache, and also in the pain of burns or scalds. In short, it is the best of the anæsthetics administered by the stomach.

23. In cases where chloroform is desirable, as in labor, to lessen the pain of natural accouchement, in obstetrical operations, or in child-bed convulsions, the hydrate of chloral is equally available.

24. Finally, in severe chorea, when we wish to arrest the convulsions speedily, in consequence of the danger to the patient from the violence of the convulsion alone, hydrate of chloral is the most efficient remedy known.-Pacific Med. Jour.

ANALYTICAL DEPARTMENT.

"Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, frangit nucem."-PLAUTUS.

Michel's Process for Removing External Tumors.—The preparation used in all cases where the tumor can be reached, externally is made in the following way. Asbestos, as soft and free from grit as possible, is reduced by rubbing between the hands to the finest possible fleecy powder. It is then mixed thoroughly with three times its own weight of strong sulphuric acid (SO,HO), and worked into the desired shape with a silver or gold spatula. Mr. Bell remarks that the practical working of this powerful but simple escharotic is very remarkable; it destroys rapidly and completely whatever tissues lie directly beneath it, and in doing so neither causes the extreme pain which might naturally be expected, nor the local inflammation and general feverish symptoms which render similar applications undesirable.

NOTE.-Prof. Holloway has been unable to prepare this Department. The editor has given the best practicable substitute.-ED.

In its application it is requisite that the patient should be so placed that the surface of the tumour is level. The adjoining parts of the skin are to be protected by a broad circle of collodion and a thick pad of soft linen. Nearly the whole surface of the tumor is to be then covered with a layer of asbestos and acid, the thickness of the latter being about half an inch for a tumor the size of a hen's egg; and, to insure that the contact is uniform, the surface of the asbestos is to be covered with sovereigns. The skin beneath the mass is rapidly destroyed, a very narrow white circle making the separation between the dead and living skin. The pulse remains quiet. The patient complains of considerable pain whilst the skin is being penetrated; it is not unbearable, however, and becomes much lessened after the first twenty minutes. Soon a slight oozing appears at some point from beneath the mass, the careful sopping up of which requires the undivided attention of the operator or experienced nurse for some hours. The length of time required for the destruction of a tumor varies with its size, its nearness to the surface, and the capability or the special tissue to resist the action of the mass; but in one of the size of a hen's egg the first application may be left on from 8 A. M. till 10 P. M., when it may be removed; made up afresh to half the size, and reapplied for the night, being finally removed on the following morning. The wound should appear quite dry, and the darker and more depressed it is the better.

The healing process then alone requires to be attended to, and this is divided by Mr. Bell into (1) the stage of quiescence, (2) the suppurative stage, and (3) the healing stage, for the treatment of each, of which minute directions are given. Mr. Bell is quite aware that this plan of treatment will not prevent the return of malignant disease, but he claims for it the the following advantages:-1. That the shock of a surgical operation is entirely avoided. 2. That besides the tumor very little of the surrounding parts are injured or removed. And 3. That a malignant tumor when removed by means of the escharotic is not so rapidly recurrent as when it is excised.

Through ill health, Mr. Bell has been unable to follow up this mode of operation, and has left its prosecution in the hands of Mr. Henry Robinson.-Ex.

Post Mortem Elevation of Temperature.-Few physicians are aware that so far back as the year 1770 the celebrated physician, De Haën, of Vienna, observed that an elevation in the temperature of the body occurred in the death-agony, and persisted for some time after death had actually taken place. The observation, however, was soon forgotten, and it is only recently, since attention has been especially directed to the changes occurring in the temperature of the body in disease, that the fact has been reëstablished. The point has been made the subject of a prize by the University of Berne, and the prize has been carried off by M. Valentin, a relative, we believe, of the well-known physiologist. The following are the principal results at which he has arrived. The development of heat after death is common to all bodies, though varying in degree in different instances. As soon as the development of heat in the body after death is greater than the coætaneous loss of heat by physical causes, an increase in the temperature occurs. This occurs, consequently, either from an increase in the development of heat, or from the concurrence of circumstances diminishing the loss of heat. The post mortem elevation of temperature primarily results from the persistence of the vital processes which ordinarily lead to the development of animal heat, even after the heart has ceased to beat. Augmentation of these processes, which especially result from certain nervous influences, may cause great post mortem elevation. The occurrence of rigor mortis, although causing the elimination of some heat, is yet only of subordinate influence on the general elevation of temperature that occurs after death. It is not improbable that post mortem disintegration and decomposition may to some extent aid in the post mortem elevation of temperature. The loss of heat after death is, cæteris paribus, much smaller than during life, owing to the cessation of respiration, and the diminished evaporation from the skin, and this may also be accessory to an elevation of temperature without the

actual generation of heat. Valentin to draw the foregoing conclusions were made on the dog, rabbit, pig, guinea-pig, marmot, pigeon, and frog.—Lancet.

The experiments which enabled M.

Yellow Fever in Buenos Ayres.-At the beginning of this year Buenos Ayres had a population of more than 180,000. Towards the close of January (which is a summer month in that part of the world) yellow fever began to show itself in that city, and by the end of the first week in February the deaths due to it numbered 50. The fever increased in severity, and 1,757 persons died of it during the last week of March. The latest official returns show the deaths during the week ending April 12th to have reached 2,926. The total mortality due to yellow fever in Buenos Ayres during the period from the 1st of February to the 12th of April is given officially as 9,758, and probably exceeds that number.

These statistics, however, do not give an adequate idea of the extent of the calamity. As the fever increased in severity the inhabitants began to fly from the city into the country, and from 180,000 the population of Buenos Ayres had sunk to 30,000 by the beginning of April. There was, therefore, a mortality of about 3,000 in one week among a population of 30,000-decimation in one week.

Buenos Ayres lies very low, part of it being only a few feet above the level of the sea. Cesspools abound in it. There are more than 60,000 cesspools, many of which have been in use for more than a century; some, it is said, for two centuries. Since the outbreak of the plague attempts have been made to clear out some of these cesspools--a proceeding which we cannot help regarding as very hazardous. The streets have been covered with gas-tar; carbolic acid has been thrown about in all directions; and turpentine allowed to diffuse into the air, in the hope that the ozone generated by the slow oxidation of the turpentine might aid in arresting the contagion-Ex;

Fission of Red Blood-Corpuscles.-Dr. Laschkewitsch, of Charkow, places on record, in the last part (Heft iii.) of Strick