things or drunk beer. The catamenia, for the last two years, have been feeble, but regular, lasting two days, and preceded by pain in the back and depression of spirits for four or five days.

I was called to see Mad. K. R. on the 29th of March of this year, at noon, and found the following symptoms present. The patient was in bed, and complained of headache, pains in the loins, lower abdomen, and urethra during micturition. Pressure on the region of the kidneys, as well as over the ovaries, bladder, and urethra, was attended by pain. The face was flushed, the eyes dull and rather fixed, there was much fever, the skin moderately moist, no appetite, tongue not coated, stools natural, urine reddish brown, neither oily nor albuminous. Frequent twitching of the muscles was observed, a symptom the patient was subject to, especially during sleep. She had been perfectly well the previous day and night, but felt ill upon rising. The catamenia had occurred at the regular time a fortnight before. I ordered Acon. 1 and Bellad. 1, gtt. ii., alternately every

two hours. March 30th. The patient passed a poor night, but was rather better than worse at 10 a.m., when my visit was made. The medicine was continued. At 2 o'clock p. m. I was urgently sent for, and found the following state. The patient was almost destitute of sensibility, although previously she had complained of severe headache; the face was red, the eyes fixed, half open and turned upwards, cramps in the limbs, pressure on the region of the kidneys and bladder caused violent pain, the pulse was very frequent, the skin hot but moist, occasional muttering of single words. The urine as yesterday, still no albumen. At midday she had taken some light soup, and felt pretty well until 3 o'clock, when the aggravation became much worse until the time of my visit. Prescription, Helleb. nig. 1, and Acon, 1, gtt. ii., alternately every two hours.

March 31st. The patient had been somewhat delirious during the night, but had slept for two hours towards morning. When I saw her at 9 a.m., she expressed herself as feeling better. There was no headache, the eyes were no longer fixed but natural, the pain in the region of the bladder or ovaries and kidneys abated. Twitching of the muscles had taken the place of the cramps of the limbs, but were not frequent; the fever was less; only the ardor urinæ remained. The urine was scanty, brown-red, and slightly turbid. Continue the medicines every three hours, In the after

noon at 5 o'clock the patient complained of nothing except the ardor urinæ. The sensitiveness of the parts to pressure was still the same. Her appetite, especially a longing for coffee, which with her is a sure sign of restored health, had returned.

April 1st. She had passed a good night, and felt so well that she wished to rise. Her appetite was good; pressure on the regions. formerly painful gave her less uneasiness. The fever much abated. Ardor urinæ alone remained unchanged. Canthar. had been of no service, I ordered Cannabis 1, a drop every hour.

As in her former attack

April 2nd and 3rd.-The improvement went on rapidly. She was up some hours without suffering, but still the urine retained its burning character. Prescription, Arsen. 2nd dil., three drops every three hours.

April 4th.-Ardor urinæ lessened. General health so improved that she was able to attend to her domestic duties. No pain on pressure in either the region of the kidneys or bladder.

April 5th.-Ardor urinæ gone.

Zeitschrift für Hom. Klinik. Mai, 1855.

Mastitis Neonatorum.

This affection occurs in both boys and girls whose father or mother is scrofulous. It often appears on the second, third, or fourth day, but more frequently between the seventh and tenth days, after birth. It is characterized by a swelling of a conical shape, having the nipple in the centre. The swelling is red, hot and tender, and the child cries when it is touched. At the commencement of the disease there is always an erysipelatous redness, which, as the disease advances, becomes deeper tinged. In most cases the inflammation was subdued by the use of conium 6, a dose every two hours, internally, and the external application of conium 2. In the few cases in which suppuration took place I was unable to establish the conditions of its occurrence, so as to arrive at any general conclusions on the subject. In such cases the symptoms observable were the same as usually occur in like cases. As soon as the redness became more intense than usual I employed emollient cataplasms, and in every

instance opened the abscess. After the discharge of the matter the wound readily healed. Conium was employed for the remaining hardness, internally and externally. The whole duration of the disease was never less than eight, and never more than fourteen days. -Dr. Teller, in Zeitsch. f. Hom. Klin., 15 Aug. 1855.

Sweet Saliva.

K.—late military inspector of a prison, of robust make, occasionally subject to constipation, complained in June of discomfort, anorexia, occasional nausea, fulness in the abdomen and constipation. His most annoying symptom, however, was a considerable flow of sweet saliva. The urine was normal, both in quantity and quality. As this secretion bore no proportion to the saliva, and as the sweetness of the saliva was only experienced in a limited portion of the buccal cavity, I examined the latter completely, but with the exception of a white tongue, such as is usual in smokers, I found nothing of a morbid character. I should observe that the patient had been a smoker, but that since his illness he had lost his relish for tobacco, and had consequently abandoned its employment.

I first gave nux vomica, and after it had been taken two days, the discomfort, the nausea, the fulness of the abdomen and the constipation were gone, but the sweetness of the saliva persisted as before. I next tried pulsatilla, but it had no effect on the morbid state of the saliva. I tested 3 ozs. of the saliva for sugar after Böttcher's method, but could not find a trace of it. I now made up my mind that the patient was labouring under an affection of that branch of the laryngeal nerve which goes to the sublingual gland, or unites with the submaxillary ganglion. With this idea a multitude of hypotheses presented themselves to my mind, but none of the medicines I gave had any effect on the disease. Among others I tried dig., mez., plumb. and again puls. After three weeks of treatment the patient began to grow impatient, and at the recommendation of a medical friend I gave him sulphur. One drop of the tincture in half-a-pint of water, a teaspoonful every two hours. After using this for three days the flow of saliva as well as the sweet taste was gone, and since then he has had no return of it.-(Dr. Teller, Zeitsch. f. Hom. Klin., 15 Aug. 1855.)

MISCELLANEOUS.

ON TRITURATIONS.

BY MR. HENRY TURNER, HOMEOPATHIC CHEMIST. THE truly valuable method of preparing medicines by prolonged trituration with an inert substance is almost peculiar to homœopathy. The principal object sought to be attained by it is to reduce substances, otherwise insoluble, to a state of minute molecular subdivision, turning every particle inside-out, making it present an universal surface, and putting it into a condition to act out, under appropriate circumstances, its peculiar medicinal effects, and prepared to exhibit those properties which before were packed and hermetically sealed up within its own bulk.

This process, which at first was only applied to metals and other insoluble substances, such as Charcoal, Sepia, &c., has been advantageously applied to other substances, as Arsenic, Tartar emetic, &c., and also many vegetable substances which are only procurable in the dry state, such as Nux vomica, Cinchona, &c., and it has even been proposed to extend it to fresh vegetable substances, by making triturations with the juice of the plant or the plant itself; but it does not appear likely that these latter preparations possess any superiority over those prepared by preserving the juice by means of strong alcohol, and as they are more troublesome and consequently more expensive, it is not likely they will ever come into general use. Some of the dry vegetable substances, such as Nux vomica, Ignatia, Cinchona, Ipecacuanha, and many others of the same class, may, I think, be used in triturations with some advantage, especially now that we have a machine for preparing them (which I shall describe presently), the applied force of which can be adapted to the nature of the substance operated upon, and when necessary, made double or treble what it would be possible to apply by hand labour.

For our triturations it is absolutely necessary that the Sugar of milk should be perfectly pure, a state in which I have never yet found it in commerce. The increasing demand for this article has caused it to be kept for sale by many of the wholesale drug houses. I have lately examined a good many such samples, and besides the ordinary impurities, such as dust, wood and soot, most of them

contained cane sugar, and some of them in considerable quantity. I have found what I obtained from the Continent to be the purest, though not absolutely, nor sufficiently so to be used for triturations without recrystallization from distilled water and alcohol. This process, owing to the high price of alcohol in this country, renders purified Sugar of milk a very costly article; but there is all the more need, on this account, to insist on its importance. The conscientious pharmaceutist will often have to spend much time and money in obtaining, in a pure and proper state, what he could easily have obtained for a few pence if his conscience had been easily satisfied, and from which he could have made a preparation equal in appearance to what, to him, has been so costly.

For triturations, mortars and pestles of porcelain, unglazed inside, must alone be used, and of these there ought to be a SEPARATE ONE FOR EACH MEDICINE, or at least for each of the polychrests. For although washing and subsequent exposure to a high temperature may appear sufficient, I very much doubt if it is so in reality. We must bear in mind that we are treating of medicines which are so far dynamic as to be inappreciable by any of our senses. But suppose they had each of them a strong sensible property in addition to the medicinal one, such as Musk has, for instance, or the Proto-iodide of mercury, we should then have no difficulty in perceiving how insufficient all our washings and scourings and heatings are to purify our utensils perfectly. All who have tried will know that it is impossible to cleanse a mortar that has triturated Musk, from its smell, or one that has been used for Proto-iodide of mercury, from its colour. Why is this? It is not because these two substances are more adhesive or tenacious than others, nor because there is any special affinity between the substance of the mortar and these medicaments. There can be little doubt but that it is, because the mortars themselves are to some extent porous, though inappreciably so, and that every substance triturated in them for any length of time enters into the substance of the mortar itself, so that no amount of washing can perfectly detach it, and the only reason why we do not perceive it in other substances is, that they possess no remarkable sensible properties, as these two do, in addition to their medicinal ones, and therefore their presence, though highly probable, is not recognised.

It is also indispensably necessary that our triturations should be prepared in a suitable apartment. The room ought to be airy and