SEBACEOUS MALIGNANT DEGENERATION.

former times was thrown across our scientific paths from the University of the northern capital. Such an one-to use the words of a great writer-" has given hostages to Fortune, against the issue of anything inferior to the repute he has won, and therefore are we not so surprised as gratified in receiving the present voluminous and valuable contribution from the author’s hand. Nearly one thousand pages are contained in it, and almost every department of practical medicine is to some extent alluded to; and although far as we are from being disthat posed jU1’al"e in verbo 1)wgistri, we can conscientiously non tetigit quod non ornavit. In Dr. Bennett’s Lectures exist,a happy and harmonious union of theoretic and practical information, of "case" and commentary, of description and illustration, of historic record and suggestive lucubration-in fine, that satisfactory exposition both of the science and art of medicine, worked out by energy from ample opportunities, which stamps these lessons as belonging to the most important professional publications of the day. To review in detail a work of such character is impossible with the SEBACEOUS MALIGNANT DEGENERATION. limited space only at our command which a weekly journal To draw the reader’s attention to some can afford to give. WE have recently noticed in our " Clinical Records" several its more important features, and to the salient few of instances in which the contents of cysts had suppurated, one of its is we can hope to effect. all that matter, subject gf them being a large sebaceous tumour of the scalp. On the points 27th of February, an elderly woman was brought into the Of course, not the least important of these are the author’s theatre of King’s College Hospital, with a large and prominent various discussions " on the diminished employment of bloodulcer on the top of her head, the margins being so prominent letting and other antiphlogistic remedies in the treatment of It appeared that acute as to resemble an oval ring encircling it. inflammation," and his "reply to the objections which there was formerly here one of the ordinary sebaceous tumours have been urged to the author’s remarks" on the subject of inof the scalp, which became inflamed, and was followed by ulceration and sloughing, and finally degenerating into a sort flammation generally and to its cognate topics. But as our pages of malignant or possibly true epithelial cancerous growth. have been so lately redolent of all sorts of views upon theseThere was now no appearance of the original tumour. A sup- matters, we shall at present pass them sub silentio. After an in. purating cyst of the scalp not unfrequently assumes an un- troductory address, Section I. is occupied by observations on healthy action, which resists every method of local treatment; "Exanination the Patient." These form an admirable of pre. removal, therefore, is the only resource, and this was practised to clinical discussion of lude the records which follow the in the instance Mr. with results. Fergusson present by good the "Principles of Medicine" in Section IL The first Lecturecontains a chapter on the "Use of the Microscope," in which SEBACEOUS ENLARGEMENTS. the author pretty plainly expresses himself as to the real value of the expensive and complicated instruments which are so THESE growths have been referred to on so many ourselves :L occasions that it would seem almost superfluous to speak of frequent amongst " The large London instruments require an equipage or a them again. However, an unusual situation was chosen for theappearance of one a short time ago-namely, beneath the porter to transport them from place to place; even the putting chin of an elderly man in King’s College Hospital, which Mr. them in and out of the large boxes or cabinets that are built Fergusson removed. At the same time another was removed around them is a matter of labour. In short, notwithstanding from beneath a man’s right eye, on the cheek. Both were the splendour of the screws, the glittering of the brass, and the filled with steatomatous matter, and the cysts, from their ad- fine workmanship, there can be little doubt that on the whole herent nature in these situations, had to be dissected out. It they are very clumsy affairs."......" A very imposing mass of was otherwise with several tumours of the same kind which Mr. brass-work and mechanical complexity is no guarantee that Pollock removed from a woman’s head, at St. George’s Hos- you will see objects better, or, what is of more consequence, pital, on the 14th of January, as cyst and all came away in the become good observers; on the contrary, the more unwieldy usual manner of the treatment adopted. These scalp tumours the instrument the less disposed will you be to use it. Besides, may appear very simple to the looker-on, but what the surgeon the habitual employment of artificial methods of moving about has to fear is erysipelas, which carries off patients in spite of the object, as by the screws of a movable stage, will prevent his most strenuous efforts to save them. How many sad in- your acquiring that dexterous use of your fingers and accuracy stances of the kind could be collected from the records of our of manipulation which are at all times so useful. Nothing, in. hospitals ! deed, can be more amusing than to see a man twisting his screws, pushing his heavy, awkward stage about, and laboriously wasting time to find a minute object which another can do in a moment, and without fatigue, by the simple use of hi& fingers."-p. 65.

of the arm. There seemed to be but one tumour, about the size of a walnut and over it the tendons of the pectoral muscle slipped in various movements with a sudden jerk. The axillary vessels and nerves lay close to the inner border. As the growth was increasing, it was extirpated in the usual manner. A long incision, carried down to the bone, exposed, however, three growths, arranged in linear series according to the long axis of the limb. Of these, the middle one was the largest, and had presented itself first to notice. The two others were scarcely as large as a filbert; and the lower one was crossed by the external cutaneous nerve. They were all formed of soft and vascular, but healthy cancellous texture, and were coated by cartilage. There was no haemorrhage, and the patient is now convalescent. Mr. Coote remarked, that he had once before met with a similar case in a young lad, aged fourteen. That these exostoses, or rather osteophytes, were easily cut through, but that there was occasionally a tendency in them to return. He had noticed also, that after the diseased part had been fairly exposed, other smaller growths were commonly seen in the immediate proximity.

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Reviews and Notices of Books.

Clinical Lectures on the Principles and Practice of lffedicine. By JOHN HUGHES BENNETT, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Senior Professor of Clinical Second Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, &c. &c. Edition, with 468 illustrations on wood. pp. 951. Edinburgh : Adam and Charles Black, 1858. THERE are few names written with more honourable mention in the history of the medicine of the day than the name of the author of the above work. No individual has worked harder and effected more in furtherance of its progress than he has, and we do not do injustice to others, and but justice to Dr. Bennett, when we say that he is not the least of the now limited number of praiseworthy men who are striving to reflect something of that brilliancy which in

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Of course the value of the whole article on the Microscope is maintained by the source from which it proceeds-viz., ao accomplished histologist not seeking to invest his pursuit with unnecessary expense, trouble, or difficulty. The instrument he recommends for all the usual purposes of the medical mas is one by Oberhaeuser, procurable in Edinburgh for about .677’ Section IL, " Principles of Medicine," forms quite an epitome of general pathology and morbid anatomy. In it diseases are first divided into those, 1, of nutrition; 2, of innervation. The author, whilst discussing "healthy and diseased nutrition," gives as his views of the origin of fibrin, that the latter must have a double source-viz., one in the solution of both kinds of blood-corpuscles, another from disintegration of the tissues. 108.) Under " healthy and diseased innervation," he

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