MEZEREON, AND ITS SUBSTITUTES.

404 fill up the space between the top of the Royal Medico-Botanical Society," which is catheter and the shoulder of the syringe calculated to lead the student in materia with sealing-wax. The sealing-wax will medica into error. The passage is in an incorporate itself with the material of the article on the bark of the ulmus campestris, catheter, and adhere inseparably, while and is as follows :it will form an exact cast of the nozzle « If we should be enabled to find in our and shoulder of the syringe, and, con- islands substitutes for mezereon, for sarsa. sequently, fit it accurately. The advan- parilla, and for cinchona bark, we shall be tages of this instrument are obvious; it conferring on our fellow countrymen a benecan be inserted, with the least possible fit which will be appreciated by all those irritation, to any distance along the urethra who are capable of judging of the import. (to suit the theory of the operator as to the ance of the objects we have in view." This conditional preposition certainly principal seat of the disease), and there held steadily. The l:ps of the urethra can be implies that the Daphne mezereum is not c mpressed on it so as to retain the injection indigenous, and that we have no indigenous much more effectually than on the nozzle of substitute for it. Now, it does appear in the syringe, and with much less irritation. the works of Smith, Hooker, Lindley, and A dozen syringefuls of the injection can be many others, that the D. mezereum is indi. employed with as little inconvenience as genous, and even if it were not so we have one, since the pipe of the syringe is inserted the D. laureola, whose sensible properties each time in the tube, which remains all the are very similar, and whose medicinal virwhile motionless in the urethra. As the tues have long been considered to be nearly, syringe and tube fit so nicely, when the if not quite, equal to its congener. I have piston is depressed, the urethra becomes repeatedly employed the root of the D. distended with the fluid, and not a drop mezereum, grown in gardens in this country, escapes until the nozzle be withdrawn, when and gathered by myself. I am very much the elasticity of the urethra forces the injec- inclined to believe, that a considerable protion back through the tube. portion of what is sold in the market as I generally have two bottles of injection mezereon is the Daphne laureola. in use, one containing only distilled water, Had the remark which occasioned this the other containing two grains of sulphate paper issued from a less important source, of zinc to the ounce. I commence by pour- I might not have thought it worth while to ing equal parts into a gallipot, and apportion notice it, but coming from the Professor of the quantities afterwards according to the a " Royal Society," and under the sanction irritability of the urethra. I find the proper of the learned and scientific council of the strength usually to lie between one and two society, it did appear to me to demand atgrains, which I can best bit by adopting tention, especially as it is acknowledged this plan of two bottles, and if I require it that such information as I have now given stronger, I avail myself of a third bottle, con- is a public benefit. I am only surprised taining four grains to the ounce, which I that such obvious truths should at this day require to be stated in a periodical medical employ in the same manner. I have also frequently used a similar tube oublication. I am. Sir. vour’s resnectfullv. JOSEPH HOULTON. as a female catheter, and can confidently affirm, that for all the circumstances in which London, May 27,1840. such an instrument is required, I know of none so manageable and universally appliAMPUTATION OF FINGERS. cable as this. The tube should be held between the thumb and middle finger, while the fore finger covers the orifice at the bulTo tlte Editor of THE LANCET. bous extremity, and presses it onwards, by SIR:—In amputating a finger, or part means of which it is passed gently and in cases of accident, it seems to firmly, and the bed-clothes escape the least thereof, soil, since the stream of urine is completely be a matter of little import to many surgeons under the controul of the operator. That I whether the operation be performed at a may not be behindhand in that solemn medi. joint, whether the articulating extremity be cal trifling so prevalent now-a-days, I have removed, or whether the ablation be made designated this instrument the Gynandric in the continuity of a bone; while others Tube, thereby intending to intimate that its contend that the removal should always take place at a joint, because a round arti. utility extends to either sex. cular surface is thus presented to the parts left for its covering, instead of the sharp MEZEREON, AND ITS SUBSTITUTES. edges of a bone produced by amputation in its continuity. Before coming to a concluTo the Editor of THE LANCET. sion upon this subject, let us first glance at SIR:—I observe a very curious assertion the anato.nical structure of the fingers, antt in a paper by DtB Sigmond, in the last pub- then direct our attention to the practical ’

lished part of the " Transactions of the results derivable from each plan,