although it is one of the best simple bitters that grow in this country. As is well-known, it is an evergreen, with a perennial creeping root of a bright, golden yellow color, whence its name, gold thread. The leaves. are ternate, and stand on long, slender stalks, while the flower stem is round and longer than the leaves, and surmounted with a quite small white flower. It grows abundantly on this continent, from Canada to Virginia, in wet and boggy places. It flowers in May. All parts of the plant may be used, but the root only is officinal. This occurs, dried in loosely-tangled masses of long thread, like filamentous roots, generally commingled with leaves of the plant. It has an orange-yellow color, is almost without smell, and a pure, simple bitter taste. Prof. Proctor is of the opinion that the bitter principle is berberina, an alkaloid existing in several of the bitter plants; and judging from its general effect, I should presume his opinion is correct. It contains little if any tannin. I found the gold thread a most valuable remedy in dyspepsia, and general debility following cinchona in the treatment of protracted cases of intermittent fever, where we wish to increase the appetite. It is also especially useful combined with ptelia or gentiana, as a promoter of the appetite in marasmus and female diseases; in the latter it is peculiarly beneficial. My usual presciption is one ounce each of the coptis trifolia and ptelia trifoliata, and one-half ounce race ginger, put in one quart of diluted alcohol. Of this give a tablespoonful three times a day. When the above is not acceptable to the stomach, omit the ptelia, and increase the quantity of the coptis.

A decoction of the coptis, sweetened with honey, has long been used as a wash in aphthous sore mouth of children, but is hardly active enough to be of much benefit.

I feel it always preferable to use remedies indigenous to our own country, and trust to be able to call attention, from time to time, to other native plants, the use of which has been neglected for want of proper notice and trial.—St. Louis Medical Reporter.

Selections.

ON A NEW METHOD OF EXPELLING TENIA.-By Dr. Lortet.-From the researches of modern helminthologists, it is known that two kinds of tape-worm may be found in the human intestine, the bothriocephalus and tænia solium. These two worms are frequently confounded by phys

icians, but the difference may easily be made out, by the fact of the former having the genitals upon its broad flat surface, the latter presenting them on its margins. The bothriocephalus causes but little annoyance, and is easily expelled. The ethereal oil of male fern or Peschier's pills, followed by a mild oleaginous purgative, will rapidly remove this unpleasant habitant from the intestines. But in certain localities this worm will appear again and again with hopeless obstinacy, being reproduced, not from the cephalic extremity left adherent to the mucous membrane, but by the ingestion of fresh cysticerci. In some places upon the banks of Lake Leman, it affects the inhabitants almost in the manner of an epidemic. The bothriocephalus rarely affects Frenchmen. The tænia solium, on the other hand, is very common, and it is a remarkable fact, that great difficulty is often experienced in driving this worm from certain patients, although they avoid with the greatest care the originating causes of the affection. In order to treat the patient rationally, it must, a priori, be established that it is necessary.-1. To administer some substance, which will kill, or at least render inert, the worm, without exciting contraction of the intestines; and 2dly, to give to the patient afterwards a mild oleaginous purgative which will remove the worm without breaking it up. Inhalation of ether, or its direct absorption by the intestinal canal, after it has been administered either in capsules, or evaporated with syrup, will produce anæsthesia in the entozoon, which is then carried without violence to the rectum, from which it may be expelled entire and alive by a dose of some mild purgative.

Dr. Lortet has tried this remedy in only a few cases, but it has always succeeded, even in two patients in whom all other remedies had failed. The following is his method: To give in one dose 20 grammes of ether, which in two hours is followed by 30 grammes of castor oil. The worm is discharged without causing pain, entire, or almost so, and always with the cephalic end intact.-Leavenworth Med. IIerald.

ANDROGYNISM.--It may be a misfortune to be born a woman, as it is unquestionably a misfortune that some women are born, but as it is impossible for the leopard to change his spots, and any attempt in that direction only mars his beauty, so is it impossible for a woman to change her sex, and any effort in that direction not only makes her riduculous in the estimation of all true women, but also destroys in her all that is lovely or loveable in the estimation of men.-Idem.

SULPHITES IN MALARIAL FEVERS.—It is claimed that the sulphites of soda, lime and magnesia, are very enectual in the cure If the inerent

forms of malarial fever. Scruple doses every two or three hours are recommended. Will some of our readers make some experiments, and inform us of the results ?-Idem.

LEAD COLIC TREATED BY COLD.-The topical application in lead poisoning has been tried in Clichy, by Prof. Monneret, in over forty cases with complete success. Iced drinks and injections, the cold shower bath two or three times a day, and ice bags, or ice poultices (of fragments of ice laid in dry linseed meal) are used. The pain and other symptoms disappear " as if by enchantment," and in two or three days the bowels are natural.-Phil. Med. and Surg. Rep.

MURIATE OF AMMONIA IN SENILE GANGRENE, AND TETANUS.-Senile gangrene has been treated with remarkable success by Dr. Chas. Gru. He plunges the limb into a foot-bath containing about a half pound (250 grammes) of muriate of ammonia, and retains it there for several hours. Fomentations of the solution are constantly applied on the exterior. Under this application the normal heat and color of the limb gradually

return.

In tetanus it is recommended in doses of two or three drachms a day in large quantities of water. It brings on an abundant diaphoresis, with which critical evacuation the disease is said to yield.-Idem.

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TAPE WORM.-Measles in the hog is the encysted stage of the Tania Solium. Measley flesh being eaten, the little cysts, which consist of the future head of the mature animal, inverted, escape from the sacs within the stomach, unless previously destroyed by cooking, and attach themselves by their armed heads to the intestinal walls. From this head are developed, one after another, the joints which make up the body of the tape worm. The first formed, or oldest joints, when sexually mature, escape from the intestinal canal, and, being eaten by swine, the ova they contain are set free. During digestion the egg shells are dissolved and the minute embryos find their way into the tissues again, forming measly pork. In this stage the tapeworm is called cysticercus cellulosœ.—Am. Nat.—Med. Inves.

CARBOLIC ACID.-Applied to hemorrhoids, carbolic acid corrugates the sac. It will destroy pediculi of all kinds. The full strength is escharotic, but diluted in glycerin (5 drops to the ounce), it forms an agreeable application.-Idem.

Recommended by Dr. H. P. Merrill, (Richmond Jour. Med.), as a potent topical application to combat chronic pharyngitis; when the disease has extended into the trachea and bronchi, beyond the reach of the brush, inhalation of iodine and camphor is confidently advised. The author remarks: I have employed these inhalations of both iodine and camphor vapor in many cases of pharyngitis, bronchitis, catarrh, and coryza, with excellent effects."

66

A tablespoonful every two hours.-Jour. Therap. Med. Chir., Sept.

1866.

PERCHLORIDE OF IRON IN CHOLERAIC DIARRHEA.

Solution of the Perchloride of Iron,..... 30 drops.

Simple Syrup,.......

GARGLE OF PERCHLORIDE OF IRON.

Solution of Perchloride of Iron, (29.70

per ct. of the dried salt.—30 Beaumé)... 1 drachm.
Water,

1 ounce.

Recommended at every stage by Mr. Guersant, who also uses, for the same purpose, two tablespoonfuls of a solution containing one-tenth of its weight of permanganate of potassa to a glass of water. Lint used in dressings may be saturated with this mixture.-Bulletin Therap.

Dr. Leclerc mentions a case of numerous maculæ, remaining in the case of a young woman who had been successfully treated for syphilitic papules, which had obstinately resisted alkaline baths, corrosive sublimate baths, and sea-baths, which yielded to three bathings with this solution.

Mix; frictions morning and night; do not irritate the skin.