Boys," with the coöperation of their para- retreat from the gaze of men been the mour, Blanche Douglass, a courtesan of proper instinct of the Malleys, that in this New York city. All of these suspected community such a course, if not voluntary, parties were held for trial for murder, but owing to some device of the State the courtesan Douglass was not tried, being held for "developments."

would have been made involuntary with them; that they would have been repudiated universally and forced to leave a community in which they had disgraced themAt this celebrated trial, recently com- selves and degraded humanity. But such pleted, it was proved that while Jennie was not the case. This infamous pair held Cramer was an imprudent girl, there was "a reception" at a hotel on the night of nothing to show a previous criminality. It their acquittal; large numbers were inwas proved that the Malleys, by various vited; and, mirabile dictu, large numbers atdevices (rides, suppers, walks, etc.), to cor- tended!! rupt her, finally determined to introduce to A Bacchanalian revel was that!! The her the prostitute Douglass, as a virtuous orgies of Ashantee cannibals drinking woman, and at a supper given by the Mal- gore from the red skulls of their recent leys, at the family residence (and while the victims are tame in comparison; and the family were absent), to so ply her with wild war dance of American savages around wines, and wiles, as to then effect her ruin. the stakes holding their captives writhing in The prostitute Douglass feigned sickness the fatal fires, are far less infamous in coldat that supper, and as her companion, Jen-blooded cruelty, and in dastardly infamy. nie Cramer, was asked not to leave her, A Bacchanalian and brutal orgie!! they both spent the night in that house; by the next morning, the victim, Jenny, ceased to be a virtuous girl.

It was proved in court that evidences of recent sexual violence were manifest at the post-mortem; that there was enough arsenic found in the body to produce death; and that there were none of the usual evidences of "death by drowning." Medical science made a clean and clear case of a most iniquitous infamy, terminating in a foul murder; but the State failed utterly to show that the Malleys were, either or both, the cause of the death. They were therefore acquitted legally, but retired covered with the just suspicion of having perpetrated all that is foul and cowardly and criminal in man!!

Did not the ghost of the murdered girl rise up, at least in imagination, to the entertainers and the entertained, to curse such bestial festivities, and the beastly crowd which enacted them? And should not the just detestation of society, of man as well as of God, blast the perpetrators and abettors of such infamies?

Such cannibal-like orgies should cover this country with remorse and shame, even if enacted in the wild fastnesses and lawless hamlets of Dakota and Idaho; in the brutal collections of adventurers in the early days of Deadwood city, and in the mining camps of Western frontiers; but what is to be said, when near the centre of New Haven, the circle of fashion, and culture and refinement, of morality and One would suppose that this infamous propriety, such infamies are perpetrated pair would gladly have slunk away, not only without social remonstrance, without legal from the theatre of their recent shame and restraint, and without clerical rebuke!! ruin, but from the notice of respectable Should not such a record, such a chapter men. In an old State, justly celebrated for in American History, teach all that the its intellectuality, its refinement, its mental Phariseeism which ascribes the possibilities and moral culture, its social conservatism, of such iniquities to frontier barbarity, and and a well known pride in its New Eng- to the atrocities so often ascribed to land morality and propriety, one would American slavery has yet a profitable, if a have supposed, had not such a desire to surprising and a bitter lesson to learn; that,

as of old, it is better to cast out the beam the injury received was evidently of so sein its own eye, before noisily stigmatizing rious a nature that the patient was not exthe mote in the eye of its brother?

pected to survive. Next day, however, he Of course such reflections are not neces- rallied, and no bad symptoms showed themsarily the function, even in part, of the selves. There was no vomiting; the bowels Medical Press, but after recording the acted regularly; and no peritonitis supertriumphs of Medical Science in this re-vened. Last week, however, he complained markable case, it has been simply impos- of pain in the left lumbar region, and some sible to avoid placing on comparative swelling showed itself, accompanied by a record the failure of the law and of the rise of temperature. On the 23d ultimo, pulpit; the failure of the Press and Professor George Buchanan cut into this of Society; to show the conspicuous error of swelling, with antiseptic precautions, and all Pharisees who teach that barbarism, found a cavity filled with blood. On introeven of the most fearful and disgusting ducing his finger, he came upon the broken character is to be found only on the transverse process of one of the vertebræ ; frontiers of civilization! Amid all of these and further examination detected the bullet failures, the pure light of medical science lying in the erector spinæ muscle of that has shone purely and brightly, and it is a side. The patient has progressed very favorpleasing duty of its Press to place this ably since the operation." fact conspicuously on record.

WINKING. Said Mrs. Gallagher: "I think it is wrong to make these soda fountains so shiny, white and dazzling. They don't trouble me, but I've observed that

GUN-SHOT Wound of the VERTABRÆ.— Since the fatal wound of Mr. Garfield all injuries to the spinal column, from gun-shot missiles, have a peculiar in, my husband can never look at one without terest. The following report of a wound winking." which was treated in the Glasgow (Scotland) Hospital, and reported in the British Medical Journal, will be read with pleasure: CREDE'S METHOD.-Crede's method is a "There is at present in the wards, under method advocated by Crede to assist the the care of Professor George Buchanan, an uterus in its efforts to expel the placenta. interesting case of gun-shot wound of the It consists in seizing the uterus between abdomen. About three weeks ago, the the fingers and thumb through the abdomipatient, a young man aged 26, was acci-nal walls and thus expressing the secundentally shot by a companion, while examin- dines as one would squeeze a pit from a ing some revolvers. The two were standing cherry. Fehling employed it in ninety cases, quite close to one another at the time of and has compared the results with those the occurrence, and the bullet entered the in ninety-five cases in which the placenta abdomen of the wounded man. He was was allowed to come just as nature expelled without delay removed to the infirmary. it. The average loss of blood in the first On admission there, he was found to be in a state of great collapse; and an examination revealed a wound just below the ensiform cartilage, and to the left side. From this wound, which evidently communicated the time required for expulsion was 13.4 with the abdominal cavity, some bloody serum issued. The patient complained also of pain in the left thigh and leg, which was relieved by flexing the limb. No wound of ninety-five other cases they came away inexit of the bullet could be detected; but tact.-Mich. Med. News.

ninety was five ounces, and the time required for expulsion of the placenta 7.7 minutes. In the cases left to nature the average loss of blood was 7.10 ounces, and

minutes. In eighty-five of the ninety cases of Crede's method the membranes came away entire, and in ninety-one of the

GAILLARD'S MEDICAL JOURNAL.

Vol. XXXIV.

(Formerly the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal.)

NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1882.

It has been supposed that calabar bean applied to the eye causes contraction of the pupil by paralyzing the dilator muscle, and thus permitting of unrestrained scope to the action of the sphincter pupillæ. But such a view is as unfounded as that according to which atropia is assumed to cause dilatation of the pupil by paralyzing the sphincter, and thus permitting of unrestrained scope to the action of the dilator pupillæ.

No. 21

which Dr. Wells states that he had found belladonna cause an increase of the range of sight in the myopic eye.

At present, the generally received doctrine as to the action of belladonna in reducing the state of refraction of the eye, seems to be that it causes temporary paralysis of the apparatus which adjusts the eye for near vision, and thus giving scope to the operation of elasticity by which it is supposed the eye is reduced to its lowest state of refraction. In regard to the dilatation of the pupil which accompanies this reduction of the refractive state of the eye, it is according to the received doctrine also attributed to the unrestrained action of the dilator pupillæ permitted by a supposed temporary paralysis of the sphincter pupillæ occasioned by the belladonna

I long ago showed that such views are inconsistent with the facts of the case. I maintain that reduction of the eye to its lowest state of refraction, along with dilaAs atropia, besides causing dilatation of tation of the pupil by belladonna, is as much the pupil, reduces the eye to its lowest state the result of a special muscular action, of refraction, so calabar bean conversely, at independently of the paralysis of any anthe same time that it causes contraction of tagonistic force, as is the increase of the the pupil, brings the eye into a state of refractive power of the eye with contracadjustment for near vision. tion of the pupil by calabar bean.

That belladonna, when applied to the In an article by Dr. Iwanoff, of Kiew, in eye for the purpose of dilating the pupil, Graefe and Salmisch's Handbook of Ophhas the effect at the same time of reducing thalmology, there are two figures of the it to its lowest state of refraction, was muscular structure of the ciliary body. In pointed out long ago by Dr. Wells, a native the one it is seen that the circular fibres are of Charleston, South Carolina, but latterly represented as more strongly developed practising as a physician in London. In than the radiating fibres; whilst in the the volume containing his celebrated essay on Dew,—an essay eulogized by the late Sir John Herschel as an admirable example of ingenious experiment and inductive reasoning,—there is a paper on Vision, in

other, there is scarcely any trace of the circular fibres at all, but as is seen, there is a strong development of the radiating muscular fibres. Now let me call attention to the fact that the eye in which the strong

101

development of the circular muscular fibres the crystalline lens, by which the eye is ad

existed was a hypermetropic eye, whilst the eye which presented the strong develop ment of the radiating muscular fibres, but scarcely any trace of the circular, was a myopic eye.

justed for near sight, consists in an increase of the convexity of its anterior surface which is thereby, at the same time, approximated towards the cornea. The change in the form and position of the lens, adjusting the eye for distant vision, consists in a diminution of its convexity and a recession of it from the cornea.

comes firm and loses elasticity, we can readily perceive how the adjusting power comes at last to fail, and also how, as a matter of course, no adjusting power remains in an eye after the removal of the lens for cataract, even although the patient be a young person.

Let me ask, then, what do those facts indicate in respect to the junction of the two sets of muscular fibres of the ciliary body in question? Does not the fact of the strong) Remembering that the lens enclosed in its development of the circular fibres in the capsule possesses, especially in early life, hypermetropic eye indicate that it must be a high degree of elasticity, we can readily the agent by which adjustment of the eye understand how it is capable of undergoing for near sight is effected, considering that these changes by pressure on it at its cirin the hypermetropic eye the effort to main- cumference, and how on the remission of tain adjustment for the vision of near ob- the pressure it regains its original form. jects is necessarily in constant operation?i As with the advance of life the lens beAnd does not the fact of the strong development of the radiating muscular fibres in the myopic eye indicate that they must be the agent by which the adjustment for vision at the greatest distance the eye is capable of is effected, seeing that in the myopic eye the effort to see further off is more frequently required to be made than Calabar bean, besides exciting contraction any effort to see nearer? To these ques of the pupil, induces in the eye the state of tions I have no hesitation in giving an affirm- adjustment for the vision of near objects. ative answer. I am, in short, perfectly sat- The circular muscular fibres of the ciliary isfied that the circular muscular fibres of body must thus be excited by calabar bean the ciliary body produce adjustment of the as well as the sphincter pupillæ. eye for the vision of near objects, and that The contraction of the sphincter pupillæ the radiating muscular fibres cause adjust-muscle ceasing the pupil falls into a mement of the eye for the vision of distant dium width by virtue of the elasticity of the objects. And in explanation of the mech-iris, unless contraction of the dilator pupilanism of the action of these two sets of læ immediately supervenes. So also, the muscular fibres in producing the results contraction of the circular muscular fibres mentioned, I have little to add to or retract of the ciliary body ceasing the adjustment from the account I have given of the sub- of the eye falls into a state of relaxation, ject in my work on Ophthalmic Medicine by virtue of the elasticity of the lens and and Surgery. I shall therefore give a sum- parts around it. mary of that account and afterwards wind This state of relaxation, however, is not, up this paper with a history of my employ- as is commonly alleged, the extreme dement of calabar bean, locally applied, as a gree of adjustment for distant vision. means of treating paralysis of the muscles believe it to be only an intermediate state supplied by the third and fourth nerves, and a analogous to the state of medium width history of my employment of atropia, lo- of the pupil. The true state of full adjustcally applied, as a means of treating paraly-ment of the eye for the vision of distant sis of the external rectus, which is supplied objects, we have seen reason to believe by the sixth nerve. is an active state as well as adjusting for The change in the form and position of the vision of near objects and that the ex

terior and radiating muscular fibres of the ciliary body are the agents by which that adjustment is effected.

I have said that the change in the form and position of the lens adjusting the eye for seeing at a distance consists in a diminution of its convexity and a recession of it from the cornea. That the lens is during the adjustment of the eye for distant vision, actually thinner than it is in the dead eye, is a fact which has been ascertained by the ophthalmometric observations of Professor Helmholtz.

In like manner, when adjustment of the eye for near objects ceases, it is not necessarily succeeded by the lowest state of refraction the eye is capable of;-nor vice versa, is adjustment of the eye for the vision of distant objects, when it ceases, followed by the high state of refraction adjusting the eye for vision at the nearest point of distance It has been alleged that in cases of paralysis of the oculo-motor nerve, in which the power of adjustment of the eye for near vision is lost, the eye is reduced to the lowest state of refraction; and this has been adduced in support of the opinion that the state of adjustment for vision at a distance is a passive one. But such is not the fact any more than that the pupil is at the same time widely dilated in such cases.

In cases of paralysis of the oculo-motor nerve the pupil remains in or about the middle width, being brought thereto, on the suspension of the action of the paralyzed sphincter pupillæ by the elasticity of the iris, and it still admits of becoming fully dilated on the application of atropia to the eye. In such cases the adjustment of the eye is in like manner in an intermediate state, and may still be reduced to its fur

Dilatation of the pupil accompanies adjustment of the eye for the vision of distant objects. If, therefore, adjustment of the eye for the vision of distant objects be effected, by the exterior and radiating muscular fibres of the ciliary body, we see that they act in concert with the radiating muscular fibres of the iris which dilate the pupil. Atropia, at the same time that it excites dilatation of the pupil by stimulating to contraction the radiating muscular fibres of the iris brings the eye into the state of the lowest refraction. It is, therefore, to be inferred that supposing the exterior and radiating muscular fibres of the ciliary body be the agent of adjustment for distant thest point by the application of belladonna vision, these fibres must be, like the radiator atropia. ing muscular fibres of the iris, susceptible The muscular fibres adjusting the eye of the stimulating influence of atropia. for distant vision are like the dilator pupillæ Contraction of the radiating muscular muscle, under the control of the sympafibres of the iris ceasing, the pupil falls into thetic nerve. Not being, therefore, in a a medium state of dilatation by virtue of case of paralysis of the oculo-motor nerve the elasticity of the iris, unless contraction paralyzed any more than the dilator pupil of the circular muscular fibres constituting læ, they may still be exerted as usual along the sphincter immediately supervenes. with the dilator pupillæ. And in addition So also, contraction of the exterior and radi- to this, it may be observed that as the eyeating muscular fibres of the ciliary body ball cannot, in a case of paralysis of the relaxing, the adjustment of the eye comes oculo-motor nerve, be converged, but is back to an intermediate state by virtue of directed either forward or somewhat to the the elasticity of the lens and surrounding temporal side, there is, consensually with parts, unless the muscular action causing the action of the external rectus, a tenadjustment for near objects is immediately dency towards dilatation of the pupil exerted. When contraction of the pupil greater than the middle state, and a tenceases it is not necessarily succeeded by dency towards adjustment of the eye for great dilatation; nor, on the other hand vision at a distance beyond what I consider when dilatation of the pupil ceases, is it to be the mere middle state, or state of renecessarily followed by great contraction laxation of adjustment.