DR. HOEFER AND M. DUMAS ON "THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE OF ORGANIC LIFE."

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DISLOCATION OF THE FEMUR IN A CHILD. a similar case in practice neither am I aware that such a one has been noticed by any medical authority. A fine boy, three years old, dislocated the femur upwards and backwards. The child was on the lap of a servant outside a jaunting car; at the falling of the horse, she threw herself off, and pulled her charge with violence to the ground. I found the boy with inverted knee and foot, swollen buttock, and the limb shortened two and a half inches. I grasped the ankles with my left hand, my right finger being placed on the hip to observe trochanteric changes. During a gentle act of extension, in which I

I

NEVER

to the

met with

directly forward, my fingers maintaining a scrutinising pressure on the hip-joint, where a solid fulness existed, I felt an obscure rubbing motion, which terminated a

"THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE OF ORGANIC LIFE."

following,

turned the foot

in

DR. HOEFER AND M. DUMAS ON

sudden snap.

stantly restored

The

extremity

to its natural

was

in-

length and elapsed, and

" IN fact we have ascertained by the result of every kind of evidence, that animals do not create true organic matter, but that they destroy it; whilst plants, on the contrary, habitually create the same matter, and destroy but little thereof, and that only for particular and determinate purposes. " Thus the grand laboratory of organic life resides in the vegetable kingdom ; it is there that vegetable and animal matters are formed, and at the expense of the atmosphere. « Vegetable matter passes ready formed into herbivorous animals, who destroy a portion, and accumulate the remainder in their tissues. " Herbivorous animals pass ready formed into carnivorous animals, who destroy or preserve them according to their wants. " Lastly, during the life of animals, or after death, these organic matters, gradually destroyed, return to the atmosphere whence they were derived." Thus (says Dumas, after making the above extract from Hoefer’s " Histoire de la Chimie,") closes the mysterious circle of organic life on the surface of the globe. The

form. Three months have now the articulation remains free from ill consequences. Those who reason from the structure of the hip-joint at so early a period, may deny the possibility of dislocation, and surmise that the accident was one of separated epiphysis, or fracture of the femur in a high atmosphere contains or engenders the oxisituation. But the symptoms, the snapping, dated products, carbonic acid, water, azotic the immediate restoration to natural form, acid, oxide of ammonium. Plants, true and the rapid recovery, oppose such an apparatus of reduction, separate their radicals, carbon, hydrogen, azote, ammonium. opinion. As liability to such displacement must With these radicals they form all the organic henceforward be allowed, it may be one of or organisable matter which they yield to and some of the animals. These, in their turn, true apparacommon occurrence, celebrity of certain bone-setters may be tus of combustion, reproduce by their action attributable to their address in an accident carbonic acid, water, oxide of ammonium, which regular practitioners are not prepared and azotic acid, which return to the air in to encounter, by pre-conceived notions of order to reproduce anew, through revolving articular non-liability to such a luxation.- centuries, the same phenomena. Mr. Kirby, in Dub. Med. Press, Oct. 26. And if to this tableau, already so striking on account of its simplicity and grandeur, we add the undisputed part which is enacted FAVUS CONFHRTUS. by solar light, the only power capable of COUNTLESS, almost, are the means re- setting in motion this immense machinerycommended for setting up a new action in machinery unto the present moment inthe scalp in all cases of favus. Of all the imitable--that the vegetable liingdom conapplications the iodide of sulphur, the sul- stitutes, and is the means whereby is effected. phuret of potassium, and the carbonate of the reduction of the oxidated products of potass, are incomparably the best. The the air, we shall be struck with the meanformer should be employed in the pro- ing of these words of Lavoisier :" portion of ten grains, or a scruple, to the Organisation, feeling, spontaneous moounce of lard. If the ointment be of a tion, life itself, exist only on the surface of greater strength than this, it is very apt to the earth, and in places exposed to light. give rise to an eczematous affection of the We may say that the fabled Promethean scalp, by irritating it too powerfully ; it may torch was the expression of a philosophic be used twice a-day. Active as this prepa- truth which had not escaped the ancients. ration undoubtedly is, it occasionally fails, Without light, nature was without life ; she especially in chronic cases of the disease, was dead and inanimate ; a beneficent God, occurring in a scrofulous subject. We con- in creating light, spread over the earth fess that we have seen no local applica- organisation, feeling, and thought." These words are as true as they are beautition comparable to this.—Med. Chir. Rev., If sensation and thought, if the most Oct.

ful.

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noble faculties of the soul and of intelligence, being of a scrofulous habit, but chiefly in need a material covering in order to manifest consequence of two deservedly eminent surthemselves, it must be that plants are geons, who had stated that such a course charged to weave the woof of such covering, would in all probability be fatal. So confiwith the elements which they borrow from dently, however, did I anticipate a different the air, and under the influence of that light result, that I urged him to adopt the plan, which the sun, its inextinguishable source, and by steadily persevering in it for six pours constantly and in torrents on the sur. weeks he was completely restored to health. I have witnessed several similar cases so face of the globe. treated, and with the same success.-Mr. Toogood, Provo Jour., Oct. 15. MILD MERCURIAL FRICTION. IT is a common practice with persons in THE TREATMENT OF PNEUMONIA certain class of life to apply to quacks for IN GUY’S HOSPITAL. the cure of venereal disease, which often subjects them to a complicated set of effects THE PURE ANTIMONIAL CURE. extremely difficult to eradicate. If the No one mode of treatment should be patient has been quickly salivated, and is of a scrofulous habit, the difficulty is much in- adopted in pneumonia. To say that venecreased. In these cases I have found the section, twice or thrice repeated, or antislow and cautious introduction of mercury mony, or calomel and opium, should always by friction a more effectual mode of removing be the remedy, would be dangerous in the train of distressing symptoms which practice. If the disease existed always in follow a mistreated case, than any other plan persons of the same habits, country, and of treatment. locality ; was always presented in the same For instance, P. F. contracted a chancre, stage, uncomplicated (and so on), then one and was very quickly salivated, and ap- treatment might be adopted with advantage; parently cured. Several years after, I was and tables, showing the cures and deaths, again desired to visit him, when his state from one or the other mode, might be trusted was deplorable; exfoliations of bone had I as guides. But each case should be more or I shall presently taken place in the skull, arms, and legs, the less studied by itself. abdomen was greatly distended, partly with have to reeommend moderate venesection, fluid, and partly tympanitic. All hopes of followed by calomel, opium, and antimony; cure had long since been abandoned, and he but a young man was admitted into Guy’s sought relief from large doses of opium. hospital a few weeks ago suffering from Ten grains of mercurial ointment were care- pneumonia, passing to the second stage; no fully and slowly rubbed into the thighs every indication of tubercles could be discovered; night, and five drops of Fowler’s arsenical he had no typhoid symptoms; but he was so solution given three times a-day. The good feeble that bleeding would have killed him, effects were soon apparent; in ten days the or antimony would, 1 belibve, have exabdomen was reduced five inches, and by tinguished life. He was treated for the first perseverance in this plan for six weeks, with twenty-four hours with ammonia ; after a milk diet, all the wounds healed, and he which he was ordered in a pill,-two grains so perfectly recovered that he shortly after. of blue-pill, two of extract of hyoscyamns, wards married. and one of ipecacuanha,łand a draught, In another case, the patient, a surgeon, composed of ten minims of liquor potassae had, from time to time, taken, first, and an ounce and a half of decoction of small doses of the oxymuriate of mercury in bark, every six hours; a blister to the side, sarsaparilla; then a regular course of mer- and mild nutritious diet. It is true that a cury in the usual way ; then haddaily appli- few days after, when he had improved in catiou of lunar caustic to the sore and sur- power, he was put upon calomel and opium, rounding parts, with tonics ; then fumigation and antimony ; but these were withdrawn in of the throat with cinnabar ; while a fourth two days. He then had merely a little surgeon, who stood at the head of the pro- saline medicine, followed by quinine; fession, assured him that his cure would be blisters to the affected side were several efiected by Velno’s vegetable syrup. All times repeated during the period, and he this in vain; he had abandoned himself to left the hospital in a few weeks, cured of die. I earnestly entreated him to rub in his inflammatory complaint, though still very small quantities of mercurial ointment, weak. He will probably ultimately die of and in one weeli he derived benefit from its phthisis. use. The pains gradually abated, he got In the average of cases in this hospital a sleep, the sore healed, his strength returned, considerably larger proportion of those who and in six weeks he resumed his practice. were bled recovered, than of those who were In a third case I recommended, also, very not. But that venesection is therefore admild mercurial friction. To this, however, vantageous in pneumonia, abstractedly con. the friends objected, partiy on account of his sidered, could not be fairly supported, as a