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THE BACILLUS OF SYPHILIS.
305
Otology to be held at Brussels in September, 1888. The SUPPLEMENTARY EXCRETION OF URIC ACID. following are the members of the jury: Professors Ilagen- M. BOUCHERON in a communication to the Paris Academy bach-Bischof, Ph,D., M.D., chairman (Basle), Adam Politzer, of has called attention to the various forms in Sciences, M.D. (Vienna), and Burckhardt-Merian, M.D. (Basle); and which uric acid is excreted in addition to the portion carried Drs. Benni (Warsaw) and Gelle (Paris). off by the renal passages, referring specially to the salivary,
digestive glands. He considers that glandular and certain forms of nasal, bronchial, stomachic, and gout, IN a report upon the etiology of acute pneumonia, based other catarrhs are manifestations of the supplementary excremainly upon experiments carried on in the laboratories of tions of uric acid being the most easily detected. The MM. Yulpian and Cornil, Massalango arrives at the following presence of a large quantity of uric acid in the saliva may conclusions (Progrès Médical, 1885, No.32). 1. Every chemical be a premonitory symptom of uricæmic accidents, and a and mechanical agent operating more or less deeply for a diagnostic sign of the nature of these accidents. The most longer or shorter time upon the lungs can only induce the convenient and rapid qualitative test for uric acid is the lesions of broncho-pneumonia, never those of acute fibrinous reaction of murexide. This reddish-purple colouration can lobar pneumonia. 2. The more or less sudden action be obtained by causing the successive reaction of the of cold, as in atmospheric states (the commonly assumed vapours of anotic acid and ammonia upon a few drops of cause of all acute lobar pneumonia) upon animals, has never saliva slowly dried in a porcelain capsule by means of a. succeeded in producing the slightest inflammatory change water-bath. in the pleura or lungs. 3. Nevertheless, there is one agent, A NEW TEST FOR CODEINE. a vital one, which is invariably capable of producing this acute inflammation of the lungs, and this is the pneumonoRECENTLY we announced the discovery of a new reaction coccus, the morphological characters of which have been of digitaline (THE LANCET, July 4th) by M. Lafon. This described by Friedlander and Talamon. At the same time chemist now comes forward with a characteristic test for the natural history of this microbe must be extended, for codeine. A minute quantity, even a fraction of a millinumerous examinations proved its presence in bronchogramme of codeine, imparts a splendid green colour to a pneumonia of children and old people, associated with other solution of one gramme of selenite of ammonium in twenty bacterialforms. In artificially induced broncho-pneumonia cubic centimetres of strong sulphuric acid. It appears that of animals the pneumonococcus was never found. like is the known alkaloid that mucous, and
ACUTE PNEUMONIA.
I
___
morphia
gives anything
only
When selenium is dissolved in strong the sulphuric acid, green colour is the result; and codeine is said to have the power of setting selenium free from the ammonic salt.
the
same
reaction.
QUESTIONS AT THE ASSIZES. MR. JAMES ROBERT MARRIAN, of Birmingham, has been charged on an indictment at the Birmingham Assizes with having unlawfully signed a fictitious certificate of successA FOUR-LOBED LUNG. ful vaccination in regard to a case alleged to have been THE vaccinated by his unqualified assistant, and not by himself. right lung of an Irishwoman aged sixty-two was death to be composed of four well-marked lobes found after It was shown that Mr. Marrian had the same day vaccinated Dr. W. A. a of and it that when batch cerseveral babies, was argued Edwards, of Philadelphia. According to the by tificates was presented to him for signature he innocently description in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, signed the one in question. The judge accepted this view, the upper lobe was normal; the middle lobe was somewhat in the absence of any distinct proof that -Afr. Marrian had diminished in size, as was also the lower lobe; between the VACCINATION
____
been warned of the irregularity to which he seemed to have been a party. He was acquitted. We are glad of this ; but we should advise all medical men to be punctilious in all matters referring to vaccination, and to give the enemy no occasion to complain. -
DR. FERRAN’S INOCULATIONS. THE
two the fourth lobe
was situate. The supernumerary lobe man’s hand, long measuring from six and a half to seven inches; it measured two inches and a quarter at its widest part; its tissue was perfectly normal. The paper in question gives a rgsum6 of other recorded cases of anomalous pulmonary conditions.
was as
as a
Independencia Vgdica says that the Spanish Govern-
PRINCE AND SURGEON. commission to be present at Dr. Ferran’s A TELEGRAM from the Berlin correspondent of the inoculations in D. Benito, and that it has ordered that no one except Dr. Ferran himself is to perform the inoculations. Morning Post states that Prince Louis Ferdinand of Bavaria, This last regulation is considered by our contemporary as an the son-in-law of Queen Isabella of Spain, who has received insult to the medical profession, as if the physicians of Spain the diploma of surgeon at the Faculty of Munich, has been could not be trusted to give hypodermic injections properly! of late rendering great services at the hospital of NymphenOf course Dr. Ferran himself prepares all the bouillons and bourg, where he is practising. superintends everything, but it is really too bad to insist on this giving all the injections with his own hands. FOREIGN APPOINTMENTS. ment has sent a
THE BACILLUS OF SYPHILIS. THE bacteriology of syphilis has entered on another phase. MM. Alvarez and Tavel have found in normal secretions a bacillus which has not yet, they aver, been described. This bacillus is identical in its form and colour reactions with that described as special to syphilis by Lustgarten. The above-named observers think it possible that the bacillus of Lustgarten is not the baneful agent of syphilis. The new bacillus is also stated to resemble the bacillus of tubercle and leprosy in many of its characters and reactions. The
investigation is, however, confessedly incomplete.
DR. BLUMENSTOCK, Professor of Forensic Medicine, has been appointed Dean of the Medical Faculty for the coming year in the University of Cracow. Dr. Blodig has been elected Professor of Ophthalmology in the University of Gratz. ___
Wn understand that the report of Drs. Klein and Gibbes upon their investigations in cholera has been presented to the India Office, but that its publication is postponed until the further portion of the report, contributed by the other members of the Commission in India, has been received by the Government.
Otology to be held at Brussels in September, 1888. The SUPPLEMENTARY EXCRETION OF URIC ACID. following are the members of the jury: Professors Ilagen- M. BOUCHERON in a communication to the Paris Academy bach-Bischof, Ph,D., M.D., chairman (Basle), Adam Politzer, of has called attention to the various forms in Sciences, M.D. (Vienna), and Burckhardt-Merian, M.D. (Basle); and which uric acid is excreted in addition to the portion carried Drs. Benni (Warsaw) and Gelle (Paris). off by the renal passages, referring specially to the salivary,
digestive glands. He considers that glandular and certain forms of nasal, bronchial, stomachic, and gout, IN a report upon the etiology of acute pneumonia, based other catarrhs are manifestations of the supplementary excremainly upon experiments carried on in the laboratories of tions of uric acid being the most easily detected. The MM. Yulpian and Cornil, Massalango arrives at the following presence of a large quantity of uric acid in the saliva may conclusions (Progrès Médical, 1885, No.32). 1. Every chemical be a premonitory symptom of uricæmic accidents, and a and mechanical agent operating more or less deeply for a diagnostic sign of the nature of these accidents. The most longer or shorter time upon the lungs can only induce the convenient and rapid qualitative test for uric acid is the lesions of broncho-pneumonia, never those of acute fibrinous reaction of murexide. This reddish-purple colouration can lobar pneumonia. 2. The more or less sudden action be obtained by causing the successive reaction of the of cold, as in atmospheric states (the commonly assumed vapours of anotic acid and ammonia upon a few drops of cause of all acute lobar pneumonia) upon animals, has never saliva slowly dried in a porcelain capsule by means of a. succeeded in producing the slightest inflammatory change water-bath. in the pleura or lungs. 3. Nevertheless, there is one agent, A NEW TEST FOR CODEINE. a vital one, which is invariably capable of producing this acute inflammation of the lungs, and this is the pneumonoRECENTLY we announced the discovery of a new reaction coccus, the morphological characters of which have been of digitaline (THE LANCET, July 4th) by M. Lafon. This described by Friedlander and Talamon. At the same time chemist now comes forward with a characteristic test for the natural history of this microbe must be extended, for codeine. A minute quantity, even a fraction of a millinumerous examinations proved its presence in bronchogramme of codeine, imparts a splendid green colour to a pneumonia of children and old people, associated with other solution of one gramme of selenite of ammonium in twenty bacterialforms. In artificially induced broncho-pneumonia cubic centimetres of strong sulphuric acid. It appears that of animals the pneumonococcus was never found. like is the known alkaloid that mucous, and
ACUTE PNEUMONIA.
I
___
morphia
gives anything
only
When selenium is dissolved in strong the sulphuric acid, green colour is the result; and codeine is said to have the power of setting selenium free from the ammonic salt.
the
same
reaction.
QUESTIONS AT THE ASSIZES. MR. JAMES ROBERT MARRIAN, of Birmingham, has been charged on an indictment at the Birmingham Assizes with having unlawfully signed a fictitious certificate of successA FOUR-LOBED LUNG. ful vaccination in regard to a case alleged to have been THE vaccinated by his unqualified assistant, and not by himself. right lung of an Irishwoman aged sixty-two was death to be composed of four well-marked lobes found after It was shown that Mr. Marrian had the same day vaccinated Dr. W. A. a of and it that when batch cerseveral babies, was argued Edwards, of Philadelphia. According to the by tificates was presented to him for signature he innocently description in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, signed the one in question. The judge accepted this view, the upper lobe was normal; the middle lobe was somewhat in the absence of any distinct proof that -Afr. Marrian had diminished in size, as was also the lower lobe; between the VACCINATION
____
been warned of the irregularity to which he seemed to have been a party. He was acquitted. We are glad of this ; but we should advise all medical men to be punctilious in all matters referring to vaccination, and to give the enemy no occasion to complain. -
DR. FERRAN’S INOCULATIONS. THE
two the fourth lobe
was situate. The supernumerary lobe man’s hand, long measuring from six and a half to seven inches; it measured two inches and a quarter at its widest part; its tissue was perfectly normal. The paper in question gives a rgsum6 of other recorded cases of anomalous pulmonary conditions.
was as
as a
Independencia Vgdica says that the Spanish Govern-
PRINCE AND SURGEON. commission to be present at Dr. Ferran’s A TELEGRAM from the Berlin correspondent of the inoculations in D. Benito, and that it has ordered that no one except Dr. Ferran himself is to perform the inoculations. Morning Post states that Prince Louis Ferdinand of Bavaria, This last regulation is considered by our contemporary as an the son-in-law of Queen Isabella of Spain, who has received insult to the medical profession, as if the physicians of Spain the diploma of surgeon at the Faculty of Munich, has been could not be trusted to give hypodermic injections properly! of late rendering great services at the hospital of NymphenOf course Dr. Ferran himself prepares all the bouillons and bourg, where he is practising. superintends everything, but it is really too bad to insist on this giving all the injections with his own hands. FOREIGN APPOINTMENTS. ment has sent a
THE BACILLUS OF SYPHILIS. THE bacteriology of syphilis has entered on another phase. MM. Alvarez and Tavel have found in normal secretions a bacillus which has not yet, they aver, been described. This bacillus is identical in its form and colour reactions with that described as special to syphilis by Lustgarten. The above-named observers think it possible that the bacillus of Lustgarten is not the baneful agent of syphilis. The new bacillus is also stated to resemble the bacillus of tubercle and leprosy in many of its characters and reactions. The
investigation is, however, confessedly incomplete.
DR. BLUMENSTOCK, Professor of Forensic Medicine, has been appointed Dean of the Medical Faculty for the coming year in the University of Cracow. Dr. Blodig has been elected Professor of Ophthalmology in the University of Gratz. ___
Wn understand that the report of Drs. Klein and Gibbes upon their investigations in cholera has been presented to the India Office, but that its publication is postponed until the further portion of the report, contributed by the other members of the Commission in India, has been received by the Government.