more advantage in chronic inflammations than it can possibly be during the cold and variable weather of winter.

"The sensible effects produced by the remedy were tolerably uniform. When the temperature of the inspired air was not above 50° it invariably produced an agreeable sensation of coolness in the chest, occasionally with darting pains extending to the shoulders, which the patients referred to the external and muscular parts. On persisting in the use of the remedy for a long time and repeating it frequently, they sometimes complained of a sense of soreness and fatigue in the direction of the diaphragm, and sometimes also of fulness of the head and vertigo. The most constant effect on the pulse was to render it fuller: when it was preternaturally frequent, it commonly rendered slower; in some instances diminishing it ten to twenty pulsations in a minute; in a few cases, however, especially where it was rather slow, it rendered it somewhat more frequent. It very generally mitigated the cough, diminishing its frequency more than one-half in the course of two or three days, and rendered the expectoration freer and easier, so that the patient would frequently throw it up almost without effort. The effects on the cutaneous function were not less decided: it diminished the morbid heat, and rendered the skin more pliable and pleasant to the feel. The patients that used the remedy to any extent complained continually of great hunger, and it was with difficulty that I restrained them to a moderate allowance of vegetable food.

"Heretofore, in order to give the remedy a fair trial, I have employed it unaided by other means than the observance of low diet, and the benefits resulting have been too uniform and decided to be merely accidental. In one recent case of catarrh, it completely removed the affection in twenty-four hours. In all the old pulmonary cases it has greatly alleviated the disease; and notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances under which these patients are placed, it still seems to be rendering them service. In one case where the cough was almost incessant, I succeeded, in a few days, in allaying it so much as to enable the patient to sleep quietly all night, and his cough is now comparatively rare and trifling.

In two cases of asthma, of many years' standing, the patients acknowledged that the remedy had afforded them more relief than any other means they had employed. The fulness of the pulse, the muscular pains, and the affection of the head, appear to indicate that the blood is diverted from the thoracic organ, and accumulated in other parts of the body. If such be the case, small and repeated venesections would render the effects of the revulsion from the lungs more permanent, and materially aid in removing the chronic engorgements.

"Dr. Binse, the resident physician of the prison, has attended to the administration of the remedy, and taken copious notes of the progress of the cases, which I shall at some future day condense for publication."

ART. IV. Description of a new Stop-cock for Gum-elastic Hydrocele Bags and for the Stomach-pump. By ALEXANDER H. STEVENS, M.D.

THE gum-elastic bag with the common stop-cock, which is commonly employed by the English and American surgeons, is a much neater instrument for throwing an injection into the tunica vaginalis than the syringe, which is, or was, not many years since, used by the French surgeons. Every one who has practised with this instrument, must have depended upon an assistant to close the stop-cock at the moment when he had pressed the contents of the bag into the cavity of the tunica vaginalis, and again to change it when he was about to throw in another bagful. I have seen the surgeon turning the cock with his right hand relax the pressure on the bag, the result of which was, that the injection was partially drawn back.

I have seen the left hand, by which the canula should be kept steady in its place, applied to the handle of the stopcock, and the end of the canula, by this means, slip out of the cavity of the tunica vaginalis, and upon being pushed up, it was thrust into the cellular membrane, which in consequence received the injection; an accident which it is well known is invariably followed by extensive sloughing.

The stop-cock which I offer to the notice of the profession,

in contriving which I have been assisted by my late ingenious pupil, Dr. I. Dwight Harris, is very simple in its construction, cheap and portable, and it is calculated to obviate all the defects I have mentioned as appertaining to the ordinary stopcock. I cannot more briefly describe it than to say, it is a simple pipe, one end of which is fitted to the canula of the trocar, the other and larger end receives another pipe closed at the end which enters the smaller pipe, but having an aperture on one side; the second pipe or hollow cylinder is attached to the gum-elastic bag, and turns within the first. A small groove in the first pipe or a semi-diameter of a very small circle affords a passage to fluids when the hole in the second pipe is turned so as to correspond with the groove in the first; at other times it is closed. Thus the two hands of the operator perform the three steps in throwing in the injection, viz. keeping the canula in place, maintaining a continued pressure on the bag, and closing the stop-cock, which last is effected simply by turning the bag slightly in its long axis. The annexed plate will render more intelligible the structure and management of this instrument.

A, the gum elastic bag, with a brass pipe terminating in a round end fitted to the canula, and having a square shoulder, fitted to a square opening in F, the internal structure of which is shown in figures C and D, except that it wants the lateral pipes of the stomach syringe.

In showing the surgical class the method of removing poisons from the stomach, in the session of 1826 and 7, the experiment was partially foiled by the eyes of the gum-elastic tube becoming stopped up by portions of solid food. To obviate the occurrence of this accident, I had the tube cut off above the eyes, and a perforated hollow ivory ball about half an inch in diameter firmly attached to it.

But the greatest objections to the apparatus for extracting poisons is, that the use of it requires the hands of an assistant as well as of a surgeon. To make this apparatus perfect, it should be made to effect three objects; 1st, To throw a diluting liquid into the stomach; 2d, To remove that liquid with the poisonous matters mixed with it; 3d, To discharge

this mixture without removing the pipe from the gum-elastic tube, and without the necessity of employing an intelligent assistant. These objects seem to be attained in the instrument represented in the annexed engraving.

C Section of the outer pipe of stomach-pump.
D Section of the inner pipe of

do.

E Section of upper cap and piston rod of stomach-pump. In using the stomach syringe, the lower cap formed by D, inserted into C, is kept steady by the left hand of the operator, whose right hand embraces the piston handle. By supinating the right hand, the piston rod and syringe are turned, and the aperture at D is brought opposite to the right hand tube at C, and the syringe is worked until it is filled with the material to be injected into the stomach. Now the piston rod is to be turned again, until the screw in B is in the middle of the groove, in which it moves on directly upward. Thus the syringe communicates with the stomach, and by another slight turn of the piston may be made to discharge itself through the left hand pipe.

ART. V. A Dissertation on the Uniform Action of the Absorbents. By the late CORNELIUS E. DE Puy, M. D.* of New-York.

THAT the action of the absorbents continues UNIFORM throughout every stage of life, and in every condition of the body, whether of health or disease, unless when mechanically interrupted, appears to be almost a necessary consequence to their comparative insulated state, and the independent manner in which they perform their functions. This opinion, which is warranted by an exclusive attention to the nature of the absorbent system, acquires support from a connected view as well as from a detailed examination, of the natural and healthy operation of the other functions of the body; and receives confirmation from the light which the phenomena of diseases shed on the inquiry.

Those who are accustomed to consider the absorbents as the seat of some of the most common diseases, and who daily administer medicines with a view to accelerate their action, and with apparent effect, may at once reject a doctrine as untenable, which appears to be so palpably contradicted by some of the most familiar facts that the practice of medicine offers to common observation. But it is not unusual in medicine for error to assume the garb of truth so speciously as to elude detection, even though it be subjected to daily observation. Perhaps the result of an honest inquiry into the very circumstances which may be objected, and a fair explanation of them, will serve to establish the doctrine against which they may at first appear to militate.

* The melancholy fate of the author of this paper is familiar to most of our readers. The particulars concerning it were detailed in a biographical notice published in the 14th No. of this Journal. The present paper first appeared a few years before his death, but as it is believed that the circulation of it has been rather limited, it is here republished, to gratify the wishes of a number of the surviving friends of the deceased. Whatever opinion may be formed in relation to the doctrines advanced in this production, our readers will have no hesitation to concur with us in awarding to it the meed of talent and ingenuity.

ED.