is, that the current does not pass beyond the handle till the sponge is in contact with the vocal cords. . Its employment is indicated in functional aphonia, and in most cases of vocal weakness, where there is no structural disease."

Dr. Mackenzie has published a short work on this subject, entitled The Treatment of Hoarseness and Loss of Voice by the Application of Galvanism to the Vocal Cords.

In conclusion, we wish this edition the same success as the first. The importance of the subject to every medical man is daily becoming more felt, and though every practitioner cannot become such a proficient as to enable him to operate with facility, yet the most over-worked can in a few days master sufficient to enable him to make a correct diagnosis, and not treat every sore throat with a sponge full of caustic wash inside and a fly blister or iodine outside.

The number of laryngoscopes which have been sold within the last year to medical men in the country parts of Ireland shows with what earnestness Irishmen take advantage of the progress of science; to each of these we would say, get the second edition of Mackenzie.

We are glad to see by an advertisement in the front of the volume that the diseases of the throat which we promised our readers in our review last year, is in the press. If it rivals its predecessor the two volumes will form a complete manual of laryngoscopy.

On Diseases of the Respiratory Passages and Lungs, Sporadic and Epidemic: their Causes, Pathology, Symptoms, and Treatment. By WALTER GOODYER BARKER, M.B. Lond.; Senior Medical Officer to the Worthing Infirmary; Fellow of the Meteorological Society, &c. London: John Churchill & Sons, New Burlington-street. 1866.

THE object of this book being professedly to bring before the notice of the profession a cause of disease, and especially of lung disease, sporadic and epidemic, which Dr. Barker considers is not sufficiently recognized, viz., atmospheric vicissitudes; and, particularly, as in his preface he claims consideration for his views, the result of fifteen years' close attention, we naturally expected this subject to be largely dwelt upon, and exhaustively handled. We are sorry, however, to say that our anticipations have not been VOL. XLIII., No. 85, n. s.

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fulfilled; and we find more written on the symptoms and the treatment of diseases than the cause producing them.

Dr. Barker, apologizing for affixing to his book such a high sounding and comprehensive title, explains that his original intentions were very circumscribed, but that, as he proceeded, he found so close a connexion between cause and effect, it would have been impossible to have demonstrated the one without giving a description of the other, and then, by a necessary consequence, he was led to speak of the remedies.

To his conclusions, as to the meteorological causes of most, or indeed of all, lung diseases, he was inductively led-1st. By a constant observation of the causes of coryza, not merely the normal atmospheric changes which produce this affection, but also the artificial mode of living, which exposes us to so great fluctuations of temperature. 2nd. By observing that, as a rule, diseases of the respiratory apparatus are ushered in by little or no constitutional disturbance, this being consecutive to, and in accordance with, the local disorder. And 3rd. By the greater frequency of coryza, compared with bronchitis, and this latter with pneumonia, the difference corresponding, as Dr. Barker supposes, with the exposure of each part to the external atmosphere.

Diseases of the lungs Dr. Barker divides into four classes

I. Those which have their origin chiefly or altogether in the immediate contact of the atmosphere upon the diseased part. Under this head he treats of coryza, laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia.

II. That which is produced by the application of cold to the surface of the chest, viz., pleurisy.

III. Epidemic disease, as influenza, hooping-cough, and measles. IV. That which arises from constitutional causes, either hereditary or engendered, viz., phthisis.

In Chapters III. and IV. laryngitis and tracheitis are considered under three heads, according as inflammation attacks the epithelial lining of the larynx and trachea, the basement membrane, and the sub-mucous areolar tissue. Under this last comes croup. Dr. Barker's views of this disease are thus expressed:-"There is no reason to suppose that there is anything specific in the nature of this disease, or that it is limited to the trachea, but rather that the formation of a false membrane is owing entirely to the severity of the inflammation by which plastic lymph is thrown out. This lymph is allowed to accumulate, on account of the feeble expulsive

power of infantile life, and, therefore, becomes moulded to the trachea." The small size of the larynx, and the undeveloped nares of the infant, so that the air cannot be sufficiently altered as regards temperature and moisture, before coming in contact with the mucous membrane of the trachea, are additional reasons why it is so often a disease of childhood.

With respect to the particular condition of the atmosphere under which the disease is lighted up, Dr. Barker's inquiries have almost invariably enabled him to trace its origin to exposure to a cold dry air. The few cases which had occurred in his own practice had always taken place in the Spring of the year, and with the prevalence of an easterly or north-easterly wind; while he has never known a case to occur when the wind blew from the south, southwest, or west.

Passing by an uninteresting chapter on bronchitis, acute and chronic, we come to one on asthma, in which we certainly expected to see the subject of the connexion of this disease with atmospheric phenomena fully discussed, but, beyond a casual one, no mention is made of the atmospheric vicissitudes being its cause; and knowing the great benefit asthmatic patients derive from change of air from the sea-side to the interior, from the country to town, and even to particular parts of town, we are sadly disappointed to find the subject thus summarily dismissed:-" With respect to the atmosphere and locality best suited to the asthmatic, there is so much variety of opinion, and so much caprice in individual cases, that no rule can be laid down."

As neither time nor inclination permits us to give a full synopsis of this work, we intend merely touching upon a few additional subjects, from which the author's views can best be gathered.

In the chapter on pneumonia, Dr. Barker writes:-" Bronchitis and pneumonia, viewed as to the cause, may be considered as the one disease, differing only in degree." Learning that such is his opinion on this all-important affection of the lung, we are not surprised to read that, in the first stage, of Laennec, he treats his patients, as he does a case of acute bronchitis, by bleeding, active purgatives, antimony, and bringing him under the influence of mercury. As this line of treatment is so directly opposed to that now almost universally recognized, especially in the asthenic type of disease so prevalent at present, we can easily understand how beneficial, if not absolutely necessary, the tonic treatment he advises in the third stage will prove.

The most interesting part is that in which Dr. Barker treats of epidemic disease, and penetrates, in particular, the mysteries of influenza. The views hitherto entertained on the subject of its cause he shows to be erroneous, and unsupported by observation. Influenza was attributed at first, in 1633, to a dense fog, by Paulini; to thick sulphurous vapours, by Læu, in 1729; to electric and telluric phenomena, in 1732-37; some combinations of selenium, being assigned as its cause, by Dr. Prout; and by Weber a negatively electrical state of the atmosphere. In 1847, Dr. Peacock considered it due to a poison of a telluric or atmospheric character. Later still, ozone was thought its cause; and, lastly, Dr. Barker advances atmospheric vicissitudes. "I approach," he writes, "this subject with some diffidence, because the opinions that will be advanced are not only opposed to those of the wisest and best of our profession, but, so far as I have been able to discover, of every medical man who has written on the subject." Its nature, he considers, may be thus briefly expressed:-" Influenza is coryza associated with inflammation of the fauces, pharynx, larynx, trachea, and upper bronchi; and, in more severe cases, of their minute ramifications;-and if there be further extension of it, to the air sacs, we say it is complicated with pneumonia." And further on he writes:-" Influenza has no essential character whatever."

After some eight pages devoted to proving the causes of the severe and terribly fatal results of influenza to be the same as those which intensify the other scourges of mankind, viz., cholera, typhus, scarlatina, &c., he asserts, without, we think, anything like conclusive reasoning, that the essential cause of this disease is exactly the same as that of coryza, namely, the sudden fluctuation of the temperature of the atmosphere, and especially the cold of the north and north-east winds, and differs from coryza alone in degree as the cause is an exaggerated one, the effects, therefore, are exaggerated.

Hooping-cough is alike referred to the same source; but, as if Dr. Barker had not ridden his hobby enough, he astonishes us by classifying measles with influenza and hooping-cough. He says:"The exciting cause of measles is undoubtedly the same as of other lung diseases"! The only reason we can see brought forward for this novel and startling theory is the circumstance of the respiratory organs being invariably affected in each.

We have now come to the close of our review, already too long, and without further comment leave the worth and usefulness of such a work to the individual judgment of the reader.

Cancer: A New Method of Treatment. By W. H. BROADBENT, M.D., London; Assistant-Physician to St. Mary's Hospital; and Lecturer on Physiology at the St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. London: John Churchill & Sons.

"He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises, is a charlatan; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary, is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficiency than his own experience warrants, is an impostor."-LAVATER. Aphorisms on Man.

WE wish to draw attention, by a few lines, to Mr. Broadbent's new treatment of cancer. Few who have closely studied the reagents which affect the cancer cell will have escaped the momentary impression that in acetic acid there was a remedy for the disease, if it could be brought into contact with all the component cells of a cancerous tumour. This preliminary difficulty Mr. Broadbent thinks he has surmounted by a process of hypodermic injection. We shall let him speak for himself:

"The hypodermic syringe is now in the hands of every physician, and it seemed to me that by means of this instrument, some fluid might be injected into the tumour which might so far alter its structure, and modify its nutrition, as to retard or arrest its growth. Various substances presented themselves to my notice, and acetic acid was selected for the following reasons:

"1. This acid does not coagulate albumen, and might therefore be expected to diffuse itself through the tumour. The effect would thus not

be limited to and concentrated in the point injected.

"2. If it entered the circulation it could do no harm in any way, either by acting as a poison or by inducing embolism.

"3. Acetic acid rapidly dissolves the walls and modifies the nuclei of cells on the microscopic slide, and might be expected to do this when the cells were in situ.

"4. It had been applied with advantage to open cancer and to cancerous ulcerations.

"The experiment was made, and it was found that acetic acid, though in healthy tissues it causes very severe smarting and burning, unless very strong, gives little pain when thrown into malignant structure. On the other hand it acts energetically on cancer, but has comparatively little effect on normal structure."

The cases of this method given are but four in number, and their