THE WAR IN GERMANY.

81 regards immediate symptoms, with which such persons often expose themselves to cold and other influences which would seriously affect others ; and even in the signs belonging to various pathological conditions which are often masked by the peculiar apathetic state, as it may be termed, of the

as

function. I am, Swansea, June 9, 866.

nervous

Sir,

your obedient servant, GEORGE PADLEY, L.R.C.P. Lond.

THE CASE OF WIGHT VERSUS FIELD. To the Editor of THE LANCET. to enclose a copy of a letter which has been SIR.,—I beg addressed to Mr. Octavius Field by some of his medical friends

following statement :-"I believe that by preventing or subduing pain we may in a large majority of accidents and. operations prevent inflammatory action." The whole paragraph deserves careful attention, but the words quoted seem I wish to call theto me peculiarly valuable and suggestive. attention of the profession to the theory which these words. I have long thought that medicinal agents which act upon the nervous system control inflammatory action. As the have their share in the origin or progress of those nerves changes which we call inflammation,"and as pain is a symptom of excessive or perverted nerve function, does it not followthat if we arrest excessive or perverted functional nervous action, we are taking direct steps towards arresting the in-fl ammatory process ? When we allay pain we also allay the-

imply.

excessive vascular

action, the

contraction

or

dilatation of

expressing their sympathy with him in regard to the proceed- vessels, &c., which produce congestions and effusions. To destroy pain by opium is as much a part of the antipblogistic: ings in the recent trial of Wight v. Field, and I hope that treatment as to remove heat by cold applications. I hope thein columns week. Had it this for will find your you space time permitted, the number of signatures thereto would have ideas suggested by Mr. Hancock will be carefully examined. I am, Sir, yours obediently, been much greater. W. S. SCHOLEFIELD, M.D. I remain, Sir, yours truly, PickeriDg, July, 1866. J. C. LANGMORE, M.B. 12, Sussex-gardens, July 18th, 1866. Dear Sir,-We desire to offer to you the expression of our earnest sympathy in the annoyance which must have been occasioned to you by the proceedings in the recent case in which your name was made to appear in a law court under

unpleasant circumstances. We, who have had opportunities of knowing your blameless life and honourable career, appreciate highly the excellent personal qualities which you have displayed both in your professional and social relations ; and we feel it a duty to say that very

we are fully assured that the imputations made in the course of the proceedings are really groundless, and that your conduct throughout was marked by kindness and rectitude. We hold that they leave your character stainless, and we are happy to assure you of our undiminished friendship and

esteem.

CHARLES A. AIKIN. A. BILLING, M.D., F.R.S. WALTER J. BRYANT. W. H. BROADBENT, M.D. JOHN H. BRYANT. FREDERICK COCK. ALFRED COLLINSON, M.D. JAMES COPLAND, M.D., F.R.S J. BRENDON CURGENVEN. FREDERICK DANFORD. JOHN GREGORY FORBES. GEO. G. GASCOYEN. GEORGE GASKOIN. WILLIAM HENRY GARDNER. R. DAWSON HARLING, M.D. Lond. ERNEST HART. THOS. HARVEY HILL. HENRY BENCE JONES, M.D., F.R.S. C. HANDFIELD JONES, M.D., F.R.S. CUNDELL JULER, M.D. SAMUEL A. LANE. JAMES R. LANE. J. C. LANGMORE, M.B. CHARLES MALTON. W. O. MARKHAM, M.D.

Octavius A. Field, Esq.

MR.

CHARLES MILES. JOHN MORGAN. WILLIAM B. OWEN. RICHARD QUAIN, M.D. CHARLES ROYSTON. JOSEPH RUSHFORTH. FRANCIS SIBSON, M.D., F.R.S. E. H. SIEVEKING, M.D. WILLIAM SMITH. RICHARD TAMPLIN. JOHN TAYLOR. HAYNES WALTON. THOS. WATSON, M.D., Bart. ERASMUS WILSON, F.R.S.

ARMY MEDICAL EXAMINATION. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—On the 8th proximo there will be an examination at; Chelsea for the Army Medical Department. No doubt the authorities may expect a crush of candidates. I cannot, how-ever, refrain from expressing my surprise at anyone entering the public services at the present time. Some six years ago, when the Royal Warrant was new, and the future of armysurgeons looked bright, I was induced to do so, and deeply have I regretted it. A few months since I determined tosacrifice the time I had spent in the army, as I considered myposition bad and prospects dismal, and as regards promotion utterly hopeless; accordingly I resigned my commission. Far from regretting this step, I can now congratulate myself on a freedom from petty official restraint, and a relief from all fears. of future banishment to unhealthy climates; added to this my income, position, and social comforts, are better than they" would have been years hence, when I had grown grey in theservice. I am convinced that the majority of assistantsurgeons feel their position irksome in the extreme, but, having lost the time, are not now able to begin civil life; and if they dared, they would openly urge students and intending candidates to dismiss the public services from their minds, as theypresent nothing to tempt any man educated as a gentleman and endowed with any professional energy or interest. Conmy mite to the cause of the army medical officer, I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A LATE ASSISTANT-SURGEON OF SIX YEARS’ SERVICE. July, 1866.

tributing

THE WAR IN GERMANY. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) THE number of wounded soldiers brought to our hospitals ii immense. Our extensive permanent hospitals, together with the great number of those erected for the exigencies of war, are quite insufficient to receive all the wounded warriors arriving here day after day from the battle-fields of Italy and Bohemia. Our railway stations, our barracks, a great numbeI of private and public schools, and other institutions, are con. verted into hospitals, and very many poor sufferers have yet to come. The battle at Custozza, the bloody struggles of Nachod, Skalitz, Munchengraetz, Gitschin, where we lost many thousands of gallant men, were mere trifles in comparison with the battle of Sadowa, near Kœniggraetz. The amount of our loss and that of the victorious Prussian army is not yet exactly known, but there is no doubt that the battle of the 3rd of July ranks amongst the most sanguinary ever fought : we hear of forty to fifty thousand men who were wounded, killed, and drowned on this one day. Undoubtedlyyour own daily papers will give you more reliable accounts regarding the loss of both sides than I am able to give, as our Government withholds, with its usual unjustifiable caution, an accurate knowledge of the events from the nation, whose sons have bled for their

HANCOCK’S LECTURES. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—Mr. Hancock, in his second lecture on the Surgery of the Human Foot (THE LANCET, June 30th, p. 707), makes the country.

82 The plan followed with advantage during the wars of 1859 and 1864-viz., to remove the wounded soldiers as soon as possible from the scene of struggle, and to distribute them throughout the different towns and provinces of the empire, with special regard to the native country and birth-place of the individual-is also carried into effect in the present campaign; but the communication in many parts of the provinces being interrupted, the majority of the wounded are brought to Vienna, where they are received with the utmost kindness by the population. Respecting the medical and surgical aid, much care has been taken to provide for the armies-both that operating in the .south and that in the north-a sufficient number of skilled medical officers. Besides the large staff of military surgeons attached to the different corps, and field and garrison hospitals of the acting armies, many private practitioners of high standing in the profession hurried to the battle-field to relieve their .suffering brethren. Amongst these I may mention Dr. von Pitha, the Professor of Clinical Surgery in the Vienna Army Medical School (Josefinum), who is attached to the head-quarters of the southern army; and Dr. von Dummreicher, Professor of Clinical Surgery to the Vienna University, who left with ten assistants for the head-quarters of the northern army. There are many others, whose names are held in honour by us. Besides those medical practitioners whose circumstances permitted them to hasten to the actual scene of strife, the medical and surgical societies of this and other towns vie with each other to render aid to their wounded

oountrymen.

The

simultaneously affected, showing that the same poison all; they have since died. One of the last that occurred during the epidemic introduced by the

almost was

at work in

cases

German emigrants a few weeks ago, was that of a nurse in the foundling ward. It would seem from this that some trace of the choleraic poison was left there, in spite of the great precautions that were taken, and though quiescent for weeks, yet from some cause, probably the great heat and dryness of the weather, it has vivified and multiplied, and come into active operation. Since Saturday, when the nurse and two of the children died, several other inmates of the workhouse have been attacked, some of them living in a totally different part of the building. But the disease has also appeared in the town, more especially in some streets at the north end ; and its progress to a fatal termination has in each case been exceedingly rapid. The number of children attacked in proportion to adults is unusually large. The number of cases from Thursday, July the l2th, to Monday, July the l6th, has been twenty-two, of which thirteen have died, and of the remaining nine not one can be said to be yet convalescent ; on the contrary, several of them are looked upon as hopeless cases. There can be very little doubt that the reappearance of cholera in Liverpool may be accounted for by the great heat and dryness of the atmosphere developing into activity the poison still left amongst us by the epidemic of May, which, in a dense population, it is not possible could have been completely stamped out. The last few days diarrhoea has prevailed very largely amongst all classes. July 17th, 1866.

College of Physicians (Doctoren Collegium)

_________________

.cf this town has formed a committee for the purpose of examining and dressing the wounds of the sufferers as they arrive, of accompanying them to the different hospitals, and of occupying there the places of their military colleagues who were obliged to go to the battle-field. Day and night you will find at the railway stations, and at all other places where the trains stop for some time, a great number of private practitioners, all doing their charitable work quite gratuitously; and that this work is not a very easy one you may judge from the fact that there were days when from fifteen hundred to two thousand men, more or less severely wounded, arrived at the station. In the field hospitals the surgeons also do their best. During the last week I had myself the opportunity every day of examining the dressings of many hundred men, and must confess to having found them as orderly and cleanly as if the wounds had been dressed but a few hours, whilst in fact this had been done in many cases a day or two previously. Up to the present time, the slighter wounded have almost exclusively been sent to the interior of the empire, for whose conveyance complicated arrangements are not wanted. These arrangements, however, are sometimes too simple, and I am sorry to state that I witnessed the arrival of several hundred wounded soldiers, lying in carriages quite open, and thus exposed to the inclemencies of the weather-a state of things which can by no means be excused by the want of better arranged modes of conveyance. Another of my objections is, that the system of distributing the sick and wounded is not carried out more perfectly, as there are many parts of the country where there are no wounded at all, whilst the large densely populated towns are overloaded with them-of course neither to the advantage of the wounded themselves, nor to that of the population of these towns. The excellent English system, of not accumulating a great number of patients in one hospital or at one place, is not yet appreciated or practised in this >country, where some hospitals lodge a population of patients more numerous than that of some little town. Regarding the kind and degree of the inflicted wounds, the treatment, hospital accommodation, &c., I shall write in a few days’ time. To-day I will conclude with the mournful notice that our excellent surgeon, Prof. von Pitha, by whose endeavours many hundreds of soldiers’ and officers’ lives have beer saved, has lost his only son, who was killed in the battle of Skalitz. Vienna, July 9th, 1866.

Parliamentary Intelligence. HOUSE OF LORDS. JULY 12TH. LAW OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AMENDMENT BILL.

THIS Bill, as amended, was considered. Lord CRANWORTH, in rising to move certain verbal amend. ments, said that among the crimes for which persons were to be delivered up to foreign countries was that of murder, but not that of manslaughter. Now if the word " murderwere to be changed in any degree, questions would arise in those countries concerning the legality of delivering up certain persons now handed over to the officers of justice of those countries. He, therefore, proposed to insert a clause to the effect that nothing in the Act shall be deemed to alter or affect the word or meaning of the word "murder"as far as the extradition treaties in question are concerned. This and the other amendments proposed were agreed to, and the Bill was read a third time and passed on Friday. JULY 13TH. THE FACTORY ACTS.

Lord DERBY, in reply to a question from Lord Shaftesbury, announced the intention of the Government to consider an amendment of the Factory Act in relation to the employment of women and children in various manufactures to which the present Acts do not apply, but intimated that the measure, which was in course of preparation by the late Government, was not sufficiently advanced to permit of any action being taken in the present Session.

JULY 17TH. The following Bills received the Royal assent :-Drainage Maintenance (Ireland), Burials in Burghs (Scotland), Lunacy Acts (Scotland). The Dogs Bill

was

THE cholera has again appeared in this town. It first showec itself in the foundling ward of the workhouse last week. One of the nurses was seized with the characteristic symptoms, ani died in twelve hours. Four children under her charge wer.

a

second time.

HOUSE OF COMMONS. JULY 17TH.

__________

LIVERPOOL. OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) (FROM

read

Mr. WALPOLE, reply to Mr. Henley, said that he proposed to take the Public Health Bill, if possible, on Thursday

I

in

next.

VACCINATION BILL.

The right hon. gentleman, in reply to Colonel Barttelot, said he would state, on Thursday, the course which the Government intended to pursue on this Bill. MEDICAL OFFICERS AND WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS

j

(IRELAND).

Sir H. BRUCE asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether