In the parturient chamber, where every thing goes on harmoniously, and nature uninterrupted performs her work, and the midwife does comparatively nothing but look on as an idle spectator, what simpleton who can handle a pair of scissors, or tie a sailor's knot, can not officiate with equal dexterity and skill.

Dame nature well her part displays,

And silly midwives get the praise.

But not every labor is a natural one; and hence the necessity of having midwives competently educated and scientifically prepared to manage every class of labor, and to know how to do, and what to do in every case of emergency. A timid midwife or one who is liable to faint on uncommon occasions, as is the case with some, is a very unsafe person, and totally unfit for the profession. In labors requiring the use of instruments, there is not one female in a hundred who acts in the capacity of an obstetrician who would know when and how to use them. Indeed, few ever saw the forceps, or the perforator, or the vectis, or the crotchet, and probably could not tell the difference between them, were they submitted to their examination.

Well now, in a case of instrumental labor, how would one of these unfledged midwives get along. The difficulty of the case would cause them to vanish at once, and the scientific physician would be called to discharge the arduous responsibilities of his station, in relieving the patient. from her critical situation. Such instances have happened, and where, too, valuable human life has been sacrificed by the inexcusable ignorance of some tom-fool of a midwife, who not knowing enough to stop convulsions by the removal of the cause, has been obliged to be superseded by the hand of science, though too late to save life.

It is certainly sickening to see these counterfeit pimps of the obstetric art, vaunting themselves on their superior knowledge, as though no one knew any thing but themselves. At every professional call, they swell up like a toad bitten by a venomous serpent, and strut off with all the pomposity of a Turkish Bashaw. One would think, to hear them discourse on their favorite topic, that they had consulted every volume on obstetrics from the elder Ramsbotham down to Dr. Maygrier; whereas, if the truth was known, very few ever even saw a treatise on midwifery ; and, if any are in possession of a library, it is not of so vast a magnitude but a common sized pill box might contain every volume. Really, I do not wish to bring reproach upon our cause by enumerating among the ignorant those who hold themselves up as obstetric practitioners. I should, indeed, feel rejoiced to have this department of medical science in the hand of females;-this I have always contended for. But let them be educated for the practice;-let them go through a regular course of instruction at some medical Institution, and become an honor to the profession by their scientific medical attainments. To have every stupid non-compos-mentis engaging, "per saltum," in the important office of a midwife, is dishonorable to the profession, injurious to our cause, and hazardous to the individual who entrusts herself in such unsafe hands. In the dark ages of monkish superstition, when the most intelligent could not read the alphabet, it would have accorded with the ignorance of the

times to have employed such loggerheads to assist in bringing our offspring into this "breathing world." But times have materially improved. Ignorance is evaporating before the light of science; people are informing themselves on the great matter of medicine, as well as on other matters; and, while the means for obtaining knowledge are abundantly scattered around us; while Institutions of our own order exist furnished with all the necessary apparatus for illustration; and while competent instructors are employed to teach and communicate the "utile dulci," there is not the slightest excuse for those who remain in ignorance. If they have reasons for not embracing these privileges, then let them step aside, and others more capable fill their places. I know some female obstetricians whose entire library consists of one single duodecimo volume, a work of such ordinary merit, that no medical man even thinks of recommending it to his student, a mere obsolete paraphrase of operative midwifery, which they have occasionally glanced at, and, profiting by a few ideas contained therein, have sallied forth with a "little brief authority," believing themselves amply prepared for the practice. Now it would not be at all marvellous, if in the few cases they attend they should be signally successful, and be looked upon as wonderful creatures; because, while every thing in the lying-in chamber goes on well, so go they.

I have known them to be sent for far and near, to which call they are always ready to respond. Their vanity is easily inflated; a slight puffing almost throws them into convulsions. But, notwithstanding their seeming success, what are they after all? If you mentally percuss them, they are as resonant as an empty water cask, and so shallow, that it would not occupy more than one minute's time to tell all they know.

Surely, this is a great country, and great are the people who inhabit it. I may have written rather earnestly on this subject, but I trust I have said nothing more than what is called for, under existing circumstances. I believe that the public welfare demands something more than a mere superficial education as a preparatory measure for the practice of midwifery. More knowledge than can be obtained from the reading of a flimary treatise of some half dozen pages. A. R. PORTER,

Waltham, Feb. 10th, 1849.

A REPTILE CAN LIVE IN THE STOMACH.

DR. NEWTON :-In Vol. II, No 23, of your valuable Journal, there is an extract from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal under the following caption, "Can a reptile live in the stomach?" The writer asks, whether it is possible for a reptile to live in the human stomach? and, if so, how long? Could it not only live, but grow?" He then states the case of a Mrs. W. who ejected a live snake, seven inches long, of the green species, and says, that, on being put in water, it lived two days and died.

It is an arrest of the law of development; and the individual, belonging to the genus reptilia and the species serpentaria, on being taken into

the stomach, experienced this arrest, and became accommodated to the new element in which it was placed. There is nothing, in the whole compass of human science, more fully confirmed, than the law of development under electric action. If the tadpole is kept submerged a few feet in water, instead of having its gills changed to lungs and its tail to legs, it remains almost in statu quo; and, in the room of becoming the frog, which, in form, activity, and life, is a splendid link in the chain of comparative anatomy and progressive existence, it is a homely, misshapen creature, though it grows and is exactly adapted, in all its parts, to the circumstances under which it lives. It is an instance of arrest, under forced circumstances, of the laws of progressive, organic, animal existence. In the larva of the bee, a change of conditions, arresting or accelerating development, changes the time, sex, and form, together with the nature, habits, and disposition. By placing the cell in a vertical position, instead of horizontal, the female bee, the queen, is produced in sixteen days. Materia is piled around the larva, a non-conductor of electric action, the cell is proportionably lengthened, and the larva nourished; and, we have the queen,-larger, and more intelligent, amative, vindictive, and politic. By placing the larva in a horizontal position and adjusting circumstances, the venters are matured in twenty days; while, by a further adjustment, the male bees are retarded to twenty-four days. Here sex and the whole formation of each individual bee are changed, by circumstances more or less favorable to the formation of animalized matter, into independent individual existence. It is the same in vegetables. If a crop of oats is regularly mowed off, sufficiently high not to destroy vegetable life, and yet so low as to prevent its going to seed, there will, the next year, come up from the roots a crop of rye. Now, by an arrest of the law of development, there is an entire change in species. The great principle sustained by geology and electro-chemistry is,-that independent existence is the result of organic laws, and that, as it regards any kind of mineral, vegetable, or animal, it will be, as to its perfection or imperfection, according to its position in the scale of progressive existence, and as are the circumstances favorable or unfavorable to any special individual development. In the instance before us, in the exclusion of light and air, together with a higher temperature, we have the arrest, the disturbing and retarding circumstances; and the question is, at once, scientifically and truly answered. A reptile can live and grow in the human stomach, but in an imperfect state of development. It is changed in its form, and viscera,-its nature and disposition, as are the circumstances. To the question, How long could it live and continue to grow? we answer, As long as its nature and the circumstances admit.

But, a reptile can live elsewhere in the human body. In the "Ladies' and Gentlemens' Magazine, Lon. 1798," we have a well authenticated fact, that one was taken out of the heart of a middle aged man. He had suffered during two years a dreadful pain in the heart; and so sure was he that there was an animal living in his heart, that he earnestly requested, that, after he was dead, his heart should be taken out and examined. A post mortem examination was held, by five physicians, in the presence of his friends. The heart was taken out and laid on a plate, and a small

portion cut from the side of the right ventricle. The section discovered a small hole as large as a goose quill of the largest size. A similar section was taken from the left ventricle directly opposite the former; and, two small holes were discovered. The operating physician inserted small probe, and a live snake protruded its head! When extracted, it was found to be nearly six inches long and to have two tails,-the bicaudation being perfect and commencing rather below the middle of the animal. It was so perfectly serpentine in its form and aspect, that individuals shuddered on beholding it. Six or seven, who witnessed this fact, made oath of its verity, before a Justice of the Peace. Its double tail was, no doubt, caused by the double action of the heart, as the blood, in electric appulsion, circulates through its auricles and ventricles; causing its form to assume, as a copy, something of its creating and sustaining envelope and causality. We need not inquire how it got there, because, in this instance, its very form indicates, that it was there formed--created. . If new bone can become formed around an old carious or rotten bone, and a small cylindrical hole remain, till the last particle is removed, it is well for men of the medical profession, not only to observe and make known the fact, but to demonstrate plainly and conclusively the laws of electric action by which it is effected; and, if an animal, of any kind of the entozoa, or even the reptilia, is discovered, it is equally their duty. Ignorance prepares us to marvel, science to admire. The former leads to apathy, indolence, and error; the latter, to activity, intelligence, and truth.

Lowell, Jan., 1849.

JAMES S. OLCOTT.

HEPATIZATION OF THE LUNGS..

DR. NEWTON;-About two years since, I was requested to be present at a post mortem examination of a middle aged female, in order to test the truth of mesmerism, or, rather, the truthfulness of a clairvoyant. Although it was an entire failure on the part of the individual, yet, there was one circumstance among others, which directed my attention to the laws of electric action in connection with vitality, disease, and death. This circumstance was, the hepatization of the lower portion of the lungs. The question with me was, why and how did they turn to that consistency which gave them the semi-appearance of liver? Or, in other words, what is the philosophy of the fact? This I shall briefly explain, and present the result of my inquiries then made. The individual is, with all his organization, in a perfectly healthy condition, a perfect whole. Each part is absolutely and relatively dependent. In embryonic existence, the central organ is the heart; and, after the viviparous animal has breathed, the primary centre of electric action is the lungs. Unless they play, there is not a continuation of life in independent existence; and, when they cease, there is an end of life in this line of electric action and formation. The not knowing and regarding of this fact has resulted in ten thousand errors, through the whole circle of vivific phenomena, in this

line of electric action and formation; because, having placed the centre too low in that part, which is evidently so as presented to the eye, the whole equipoise has been a misnomer and miscalculation. Try the case. The heart beats in all the vertebrata, whether for a longer or shorter time the atmospheric air be excluded in the lower series; as, in the amphibea, from the lowest term, which will give the animal a cordacting vitality eight months in twelve, to the highest, which admits not more than fifteen minutes exclusion from freely circulating and respired atmospheric air. Now, in the homo race, the exclusion in two minutes brings on asphyxia, a comotose state, and death. What was the centre? The lungs. In a stroke of the sun, on post mortem examination, what is the point affected? Not the brain but the lungs. In medical jurisprudence, as it regards infanticide, what is the first organ examined? Is it the heart? No; but the lungs! What is the direct inference? Why, that, with man, the lungs are the centre of life. Here it is that the blood is electrified, and prepared in energetic materia to cause the heart to pulsate; and here it is, that the extra incorporated animalized matter, which determines above the cardiac region, must be thrown off from the system. The lungs take in the freely circulating electric fluid in the air, uecessary to carry on life, and throw off the carbonic acid gas, or, in other words, every thing not necessary to life, which determines on this centre of animal independent existence. In the subject of post mortem examnination, the left ventricle of the heart was firmly attached to the pericardium, and the pericardium, to the left hypochondrium; and the right lobe of the liver to the left. The chest was filled with a yellowish water. In this fluid, the lungs had to play and perform their functions; but this fluid was that animalized materia which, in a healthy condition, would have been thrown off from the system; and a relatively large proportion has escaped from the liver, retaining, though in a fluid state, its nature. Now there is a point of self protection, self preservation, and resistance, beyond which no organ in the body can act and the lungs, through their absorbents, are necessarily compelled to receive this hepatic materia, and the self-formative action of the lungs necessarily changes the lungs themselves to liver. The formation is more or less perfect, according to the time, the extent of disease, and the natural vigor or debility of the individual constitution. The lower portion of the lungs is hepatized, because this was first submerged in the water, causing the hydro-thorax. In the hepatization of the lungs, we have an instance of animalization, under the laws of electric action, of a marked and distinct character.

Perhaps the inquiry may arise, How came the heart to be fastened to the pericardium? There were five conical ligaments extremely tough, having the base resting on the heart, and the apex on the pericardium. These were an inch long. These conical ligatures were composed of the materia thrown in electric action from the heart, which could not be taken up by the pericardium, and, at that point, because, it was at that point, that the pericardium was fastened to the chest. Under other circumstances of disease, or, in health, of strong passion, the electric fluid, not being passed freely through the blood and whole system, frequently softens the muscle and nerves of the heart itself; and we have, in disease, the ruptured, and, in sorrow, the broken heart. Would it not be well,