ILLUSTRATED JOURNALISM.

776 he thinks it will be found the most convenient and that the breathing remained good for fully forty-five seconds expedient method of admitting patient-’, as most recent after the pulse had ceased beating, and only then began to cases of insanity are urgent. One advantage of the Act fail. I may mention that the amount of chloroform used it consists in the protection gives to medical men gene- did not exceed one teaspoonful." of In persons of intemperate habits more or less fatty who certilicates insanity; and another is rally sign that it allows persons wishing to place themselves under changes are found in the organs, as in this case, and the heart sharing this morbid change is more prone to succumb care and treatment to enter private asylums as voluntary or to unwonted exertion. The prolongation of the period of order medical without certificate. Mr. boarders, any Street gives useful hints to medical practitioners in filling struggling, which slow chloroformisation renders inevitable, up certiticates, and generally goes over the clauses in the seems to be peculiarly unfavourable to fatty hearts by the New Lunacy Act which anect the interest of members of greater strain it causes. The muscles of the abdomen and, cliest walls become rigidly fixed, and so respiration and blood the profession in their dealings with the insane. circulation are hampered; and the heart, called upon to contract and dilate under increased pressure, fails to accomplish ILLUSTRATED JOURNALISM. the task, and fatal cardiac syncope ensues. The postWHILST fully admitting the skill and enterprise with mortem examination in the case mentioned above showed, which our young contemporary, the Daily Graphic, is en- moreover, that the ventricular wall was thinned, and so a. gaged in attempting to furnish a pictorial record of current further disabling factor was at work. The publication oif affairs, and giving the management full credit for their such cases is of great value ; indeed only by this means can endeavour to arouse an interest in the work of our great we hope to accumulate trustworthy clinical knowledge metropolitan charities by illustrations of hospitals and their the action of chloroform. inmates, we feel constrained to point out that such representations may, if care be not exercised in the selection of THE PAVY GYMNASIUM, GUY’S HOSPITAL. "subjects," tend to defeat their purpose. This caution is, AN interesting ceremony took place on Wednesday, we think, justified by the publication of a sketch in the Oct. Stb, at Guy’s Hospital, when Dr. Pavy formally handed issue of that journal for Oct. 6th, to which a correspondent over to the Gymnasium Committee of the Student’s Club has drawn our attention. The artist has depicted what the gymnasium which he has built and furnished for theiy purports to be a scene in the "surgeon’s room " of a well- recreation. Mr. Arthur Durham, the President of the known hospital, and our correspondent remarks that "if Student’s Club, took the chair at the meeting which patients see that the privacy of hospitals is liable to be in- was held in the gymnasium, and there were vaded " in such a manner, "they will not resort to hospitals present the Treasurer of the Hospital, Mr. Shaw except in cases of the last necessity." We confess that there Stewart, many members of the hcspital staff, and a, is some reason in his remark, and could at least have hoped number of students. Dr. Pavy, who was received that the artist had selected some other subject for the dis- large with great enthusiasm, pointed out the physiological play of his talent. To be sure, he might quote the example reasons which had led him on his retirement from the of not a few pictures in the Paris Salon (notably one now to staff of the hospital to choose a gymnasium as a be found in the Salpctriere Hospital) in justification of his acting to the present and future students, and expressed a gift selection ; but the taste for such realistic reproductions of fervent wish that it be a means of promoting their the out-patient room has happily not hitherto been culti- health and success. might Mr. Bligh, the secretary of the vated on this side of the Channel. gymnasium, in heartily thanking Dr. Pavy for his generous gift, made an interesting statement as to arrangements that have been made for instruction and class practice in gym. DEATH UNDER CHLOROFORM AT BRISBANE. nastics. The meeting broke up with three cheers for DR. WM. S. BYRNE, hon. physician to the Brisbane Dr. Pavy. The gymnasium, which is situated in the General Hospital, has favoured us with the following account quadrangle of the New College, is fitted with all the most of death during the administration of chloroform :and about modern appliances, and is adjacent to the bath-rooms and a man of "N. ___

.

M——,

intemperate habits,

forty years of age, was given chloroform on August 12th for the purpose of having several fistulæ in the perineum opened up. Dr. Love administered the anaesthetic, and I was about to operate. The patient was prepared in the usual way, a brisk purge having been given the night before, and no food being allowed for six or seven hours prior to the operation. About thirty drops were sprinkled on a flannel, and for about ninety seconds everything seemed to be mosb satisfactory, but shortly after some more chloroform had been dropped on the flannel the patient became very excited and the face suffused. Immediately after his pulse became very weak, and I called Dr. Love’s attention to it, but then it had stopped altogether, although the breathing was quite as good as one could wish. The chloroform was at once removed, and we waited the development of events, trusting the pulse would improve as the man was breathing so well; but aftcr the space of fully forty.five seconds his breathing began to fail, and artificial respiration and all the usual remedies were used for a long time, but without avail. I was present at the post-mortem examination, which disclosed lungs infiltrated with tubercle, a heart healthy as to the valves, but walls of right ventricle rather thin, and a liver slightly fatty. This case is interesting from the fact

lav atories. ____

THE CASE OF PAUPER LUNATICS.

magistrates have incurred a just rebuke at a coroner’s jury of that city for having strangely neglected to take proper precautions for the safe custody of a pauper lunatic who recently committed suicide in the Fishponds Workhouse. The pauper had on more than one previous occasion manifested a suicidal tendency, and had been certified as insane by the medical officer off the workhouse. The medical officer’s certificate was duly submitted to the magistrates, who, however, formed an opinion of their own, and refused to make the THE Bristol the hands of

necessary order for the detention of the unfortunate as a lunatic. The consequence was that she was left to take her place among the other inmates of the institution, and easily found an opportunity of committing the suicide on which she was bent. In view of what has occurred, it cannot now be contended that the magistrates were not wrong, or that the medical officer was not right; and in this state of facts it is worthy of note how serious an infraction of the law in its spirit, if not in its letter, the mistake of the magistrates involved. The Act of last year expressly provides that no person shall be woman