SUMMARY OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE ELASTIC LIGATURE.

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1. Applicable as a substitute for the knife when the patients are delicate, timid, possibly phthisical, and positively decline to be cut." 2. Appropriate when the opening in the gut is situated unusually high up. 3. Operation followed by no hemorrhage. 4. Patients not necessarily confined to bed after the operation, but may go in the air, and, in some instances, even pursue their ordinary avocations. 5. Little suppuration after the operation. 6. Recovery usually rapid. 7. Operation in many cases may be performed at the surgeon's office, and the patient get up from the operating chair and go home without discomfort.

Lastly, Dr. William Allingham says: "I do not consider the elastic ligature can ever supplant the knife in the treatment of fistulous sinuses. In complicated cases, the knife must be depended upon mainly, but I am of the opinion that the India rubber ligature is valuable in many cases as a substitute, and in others as an auxiliary, to the usually employed method of excision."-United States Medical Investigator.

Lactopeptine.

A year ago we gave a strong indorsement of this elegant pharmaceutical preparation; to-day we repeat it with emphasis. The experience of an additional twelvemonth has confirmed us in our former opinion. The advantages of using a preparation of uniform composition are, we should think, sufficiently evident. If not, then a trial of the article referred to, compared with a mixture made according to the published formula by a number of ordinary pharmacists, will convince the most incredulous. The demand for Lactopeptine is so great that it can always be had freshly prepared; for the same reason the manufacturers are enabled to keep up its standard of excellence.

If any argument were needed against the absurd rule attempted to be injected into the Code of Ethics of the American Medical Association, forbidding the use of articles protected by a trade-mark, it could be furnished by the uniformly

good results obtained from the use of this preparation. If druggists were always honest and competent, and were always in possession of good preparations of pepsin, pancreatine and diastase, such a preparation might be superfluous, but while the contrary is often true of these assistants to the physician, a trustworthy article like Lactopeptine is indispensable.

While cholera infantum is so prevalent in this section, it may not be out of place to again call the attention of physicians to the fact that in Lactopeptine we have an invaluable agent in aiding digestion and arresting the progress of this terribly fatal affection. We have found a combination with bismuth subnitrate of especial value in this disease. - St. Louis Clinical Record.

Treatment of Gonorrhoea.

Having used every treatment I could get from different journals, and a great many sent to my drug store by numerous physicians, I have the right to select and advocate the one that has given me success in every instance, except with those who will not leave off their whisky, and success with that class oftener than failure. If I am advised with at the beginning of the trouble, I prescribe:

dist. water and add chlorate pot. Sig. In

ject three times a day, urinating first.

I also order a mild saline cathartic every third day, and a teaspoonful of Battle & Co.'s Bromidia at bed-time. I find the bromidia to act better than any anodyne I ever used; it successfully prevents painful erections of the penis. After

using the above treatment for five or six days, I then prescribe 10 grains of iodide pot. in a dessertspoonful syrup sarsaparilla. It will cure all cases inside of four weeks. The iodide of pot. is a treatment of my own; I have never read of its · being used in this disease. I attribute my success to the use of this drug. I am anxious to know if it has ever been used by yourself or any of your subscribers. Ricord claims this salt to produce a discharge from the urethra and vagina, resembling blennorrhoea.

S. E. BROWN, M. D., in Med. Brief.

EATONTON, Ga.

"Thimble-Blistering" Method of Using Morphia.
BY J. C. WATSON, M. D.

I beg leave to notice the simple and very useful mode of using morphia which, in my hands for several years past, has given perfect satisfaction, and, in very many instances, has worked as if "by magic."

I shall call this little operation Thimble-Blistering. I claim for it very great advantages as compared with the other modes. of giving morphia, and especially, in my humble opinion, should it substitute the use of the hypodermic syringe, when we shall have compared the relative value of the two modes. I mention as being of greatest importance, in reference to this mode, absolute safety; secondly, its speedy and efficient action; and thirdly, the absence of the annoying, and sometimes even distressing, symptoms which so frequently follow the use of opium or its preparations.

The profession must admit that some deaths have been caused by the use of the remedy when hypodermically administered, even in the hands of skillful and careful physicians, and reasonably to be accounted for. When we once inject under the skin of our patient one dose or repeated quantities, we must take the consequences-be the quantity administered enough or too much. There seems to be no way that I am aware of to take back the dangerous or even fatal dose which we may have innocently used. Do not understand me as

underrating the true value and great usefulness of the needle syringe, as I have owned and used one constantly until a few years since. But, though classed among the bold practitioners, I am free to say that I have never used the syringe without more or less fear and trembling; and on more than one occasion have I agonized and sweated as much as my patient, for fear of having overdone the thing at last, and thereby blasted, for some time at least, my professional reputation and aspirations.

Having claimed for the thimble-blistering process absolute safety, I should give the reason, which is, I think, plain. Having obtained relief with the least amount of morphia, we can wipe away the remaining quantity of morphia with the happy assurance that our patient is in no danger, and in the vast majority of cases, too, he will escape that distressing nausea so often following the use of the remedy when given by the mouth or with the syringe.

I will mention, as some of the minor reasons why I prefer the thimble process, the following: You can find a thimble in any house; any one can use the method with success and safety; no one objects to its use there being comparatively no pain and no danger of abscess; and it may be used on any part of the body, from the heel to the crown of the head.

It is a pleasure to award to my esteemed friend, Dr. John S. Apperson, the credit, and my heartfelt thanks, for having suggested and tried on a patient of ours the mode which impressed me so favorably at the time, and which has caused me to set aside entirely the hypodermic syringe.

An ordinary sewing thimble, a little loosely picked up raw cotton, enough aqua ammoniæ (strong) to saturate cotton without running out, are the preliminary agents required. Gently press the thimble over the selected spot until sensation of heat has been felt for two or three minutes; wipe away any ammonia which may remain on the surface; now, with the finger, rub away the superficial skin; apply dry morphia by at first gently rubbing on, and then carefully adding a drop of water. A small quantity of morphia may be repeated at short intervals

until your patient feels its effects, or is satisfied with the relief obtained.

Be sure you hold on until you get the blistered surface. Don't rub at the skin and then apply the ammonia; otherwise your patient will not be impressed with the beauty or comfort of the operation, and, on another occasion, might throw a damper over your zeal by calling for the syringe, or wishing some other mode to be used.

For affections of the face and head, I select the mastoid portion of the temporal bone as being the best point for the application of the blister.

In conversation with my friend, Dr. Apperson, I find he does not seem to have used morphia much in this way, nor could he tell me when or where he got the idea. Within the last few years, roughly speaking, I have used this mode probably one hundred times, and in but two cases have I had obstinate nausea, and in these I imprudently used too much morphia. -Medical Monthly.

On Catheterism in Cases of Stricture on Physiological Principles.

BY JOHN GAY, F. R. C. S.. SENIOR SURGEON TO THE GREAT NORTHERN HOSPITAL, ETC.

Cases of stricture, I need hardly say, often come under the care of a surgeon, especially in hospital practice, in which, owing to the patient's neglect, a stricture barely permeable becomes almost suddenly impervious, and the surgeon is called upon to procure a passage of some kind for the urine in the teeth of every obstacle, normal and abnormal, that can waylay his efforts and make them difficult. It is to the earlier period in this (the culminating) stage of such a case that the following remarks are designed to apply.

A man, aged twenty-eight, recently presented himself at the great Northern Hospital during my visit. He had suffered from stricture for years; had had urethral discharge in abundance, and chronic balanitis as well. Latterly his urine had dribbled away, and, before reaching the hospital, this resource had failed him.

Catheterism was attempted by skilled hands, but in