ART. VII.-REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL. The following is the list of cases treated at this valuable institution during the year ending on the 28th of April last. 1 Two cases of stone in the bladder were cured by lithotripsy and two by lithotomy. ART. VIII-A MODE OF RELIEVING PATIENTS LABOURING UNDER ENLARGEMENT OF THE VEINS OF THE TESTICLE. BY THOMAS WORMWOOD, ESQ.1 Assistant Surgeon and Demonstrator of Anatomy at Bartholomew's Hospital. When cases of varicocele are allowed to proceed without any active means being adopted for their relief, the patients may experience much inconvenience from pain in the loins and spermatic cord, and frequently are incapacitated from walking any considerable distance. P. W., aged 19, applied to me in the year 1832, in consequence of a circocele of very large dimensions, which had existed two years, and had been progressively getting worse. The veins were distended to the size of a large apple; so much was he inconvenienced, that a walk of half a mile produced great pain in the back and spermatic cord. After a consultation with Sir A. Cooper, cold lotions, suspensory bandages, &c., having been employed without affording the slightest relief, Sir Astley recommended the removal of a portion of the scrotum. To this proceeding the patient would not consent. I therefore adopted the following mode of treatment:— A ring, about an inch in diameter, made of soft silver wire, of a suitable thickness, was padded, and covered with wash leather. Through this I drew the lower part of the scrotum, whilst the patient was in the recumbent position, and the veins comparatively empty. I then pressed the sides of the instrument towards each other with sufficient force to prevent the scrotum escaping. The use of this instrument every morning before the patient rose from his bed, enabled this gentleman to walk nineteen miles on the third day after the first application; and although he has for six years worn an instrument of this description, he has never experienced the least inconvenience. And I may add, that other patients, (and amongst them medical friends), labouring under varicocele, have found the greatest relief from this simple contrivance. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. Professor Yandell's Address to the Medical Society of Tennessee.1 We have seen few ephemeral publications-addresses to medical societies, introductory and valedictory lectures, for example-which have impressed us more favourably than the one before us. It is creditable to the author in its spirit and in its execution; and its main object appears to be to attract the attention of the profession to a proper estimate of its best interests, and the best means of furthering them. The peroration, necessarily a little more apostrophic, and certainly somewhat more florid than the rest, may give an idea of the author's style. "Mr. President: In casting your eye over this body you find vacant the seats of a number of those members who were of our first meeting, and who encountered disease among the early settlers of Tennessee;-and as you 1 London Medical Gazette, April 28, 1838, p. 194. 2 An Address delivered before the Medical Society of Tennessee, at its eighth annual meeting at Nashville, on the 7th of May, 1838. By Lunsford P. Yandell, M. D. Published at the request of the Society. 8vo, pp. 23. Louisville, Ky., 1838. extend your view over the state, you will find few of the pioneers of the profession. In reference to that body and period it may be said, "Star after star decays, Every bright name that shed The first generation of physicians in Tennessee has passed away; and we stand here their successors and representatives. They spent their days in the discharge of labours "huge and hard"-labours which demanded great bodily strength, industry, and courage-pursuing their way along blind uncertain paths-encountering hardships and privations to which these luxurious days afford no parallel. Amid such lives of toil, there could be but little leisure for study. Few books were reprinted in America, and few could be commanded. Those men had small advantages of professional intercourse. Schools of medicine were remote, and the expense of visiting them beyond the ability of most practitioners, and above all, they were without the advantages of the periodical press. These difficulties have passed away with the generation of men who lived in the midst of them. And with all the augmented means and facilities which we enjoy—with macadamised roads, and the power of steam to hasten our travel-pursuing our professions in crowded, cultivated cities, or in thickly settled neighbourhoods, and with increased leisure thus for study-brought into contact with all parts of the country, and light from the farthest east flying to the remotest west with more than the speed of the revolving seasons-the discoveries at Paris or Vienna transmitted to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Louisville or St. Louis, as if by telegraphic agency-with these enlarged efficiencies, shall we be accounted to have discharged the whole amount of duty to our profession, if we pursue them with no more than the ardour and success of our forefathers? Nay! with the multiplication of means has come a heavier weight of responsibility. We are invoked by the laborious example of our predecessors-by the clamorous wants and imperfections of the healing art-by the complicated sufferings of our fellow men -by the efforts of the profession in other lands-by our pride of state, and pride of profession, to transmit the science of medicine to our successors enriched by our labours."-p. 23. We observe, by the way, at page 11, a trifling inaccuracy in ascribing to the Institute of France that which appertains to the Ecole de Médecine,— the latter forming no part of the former. Mr. Sinclair's Address to the Graduates of the Medical College of Georgia.1 There are several strong recommendations to this valedictory lecture. It is brief, terse, and appropriate. If brevity be proverbially the soul of wit, it is equally so, we think, of such productions. Kramer on Diseases of the Ear.2 Our opinion of this excellent work has been amply exhibited,—in the first place by the commendatory notice we took of it in our first volume; and in the next by our reprinting it in the "Library." We need only remark, at present, that it can now be procured in a separate form. 1 Address to the Graduates of the Medical College of Georgia, delivered April 2, 1838. By the Rev. Elijah Sinclair, one of the Board of Trustees. Published by order of the Board of Trustees. 8vo, pp. 11. Augusta, 1838. 2 For the title see Books Received, at the end of this number. * Intelligencer, I., 438. Grätzer on the Diseases of the Fatus.' The subject of diseases of the fœtus is by no means devoid of interest; yet it has been but little attended to. It embraces of course all those affections that are connate, and several of which demand the attention of the surgical practitioner more especially. Of course they cannot become of therapeutical importance until the child is born, but the mode in which they are induced in utero involves mary questions of interest in pathology. Dr. Grätzer is not the first writer on this subject. In the year 1702, a thesis was defended by Dr. Düttell; and ex professo treatises or essays were subsequently published by Valentine, Shurig, Ohme, Zierhold, Hoogeveen, Engelhart, Ohler, Seeligman,10 Zuccarini," Hufeland,12 Hardegg, 13 Billard, 14 Bergk, Zurmeyer, and others. 8 15 16 3 5 6 The work of Dr. Grätzer considers, 1. The general diseases of an acute character; 2. General diseases of a chronic character; and 3. Local diseases. Calculous Formation in the Tonsil."-Dr. Wedding, of Stuhm, in Prussia, reports the case of a farmer who had been subject to quinsey from childhood, and who consulted him in regard to the state of his left tonsil. Dr. S. found the gland as hard as a pigeon's egg, uneven, knotty, and highly vascular, but not painful or tender. After an interval of some months, an abscess formed in the part, which, on bursting, gave exit to a stone of the size of a hazel-nut, and with the form of a mulberry calculus. The tonsil healed without permanent induration. English Physicians in France.-The affair of the English physicians at Boulogne has terminated in the condemnation of Drs. Carter, Scott, Shuter, Allatt, and Galbraith, to the payment of a trifling fine, which, however, is equivalent to an interdiction from practising medicine in France. This decision has naturally been very unsatisfactory to the English residents at Boulogne, who have forwarded a petition to the king of the French on the subject; but their application will, probably, be of no avail, for we have been informed that, at a recent meeting of the senate of the University of France, not less than ten demands from foreign physicians for permission to practise, have met with a decided refusal. A leading French medical journal suggests, that physicians furnished with diplomas from any foreign Die Krankheiten des Fœtus, von Dr. J. Grätzer, ausübendem Arzte und Geburtshulfer. 8vo, s. 272. Breslau, 1837. 2 De morbis fœtus in utero materno. Dissert. inaug. præs. Fr. Hoffmann, defend. Philip Düttel. Hal. 1702. 3 De Morbis Embryonum, Giess, 1704. 4 Embryologia historico-medica, Dresd. 1752. 5 Diss. de morbis recent. natorum chirurgicis, Lips. 1773. 6 De notabilibus quibusdam, quæ fœtui in utero contingere possunt, Hal. 1778. 7 Tractatus de morbis fœtus humani, Lugd. But. 1784. 8 Dissert. sistens morbos hominum a prima conformatione usque ad partum, præside Gruner, Jen. 1792. 9 Prolegomena in embryonis humani pathologiam Dis. inaug. Lips. 1815. 10 Dissertatio de morbis fœtus humani. Erlang. 1820. "Einiges zur Beleuchtung der Krankheiten der menschli. chen Frucht. Erlang. 1824. 12 Journal der praktish. Heilkunde, Jan. 1827. 13 De morbis foetus humani. Tubing. 1828. 14 Traité des maladies des enfans nouveaux-nés et á la inamnelle. Paris, 1828. 15 De morbis fœtus humani, Lips. 1829. 16 De morbis fœtus. Bonn. 1832. 17 Berlines Zeitung, June 7, 1837. |