by which, he declared, their healing was hastened and the pain was made to disappear at once. The method consisted in the application of compresses wet with a decoction of thirty parts of valerian root in one thousand parts of water. Of fifty patients treated in this way, with only two had benefit failed to result, whether the wounds were lacerated or contused, but it is expressly stated that the treatment is of no avail for deep wounds. In one instance, warm injections of the decoction were used for otitis media. The anodyne effect is attributed to the action of the valerianic acid, on the terminal nerves, and an antiseptic influence also is credited to the remedy.New York Medical Jonrual. TERATOMA OF THE PITUITARY GLANDS. — H. Beck reports, in the Prager Ztschr. für Heilkunde, 1884, Bd. iv. Hft. 4 u. 6, his examination of a tumor of the pituitary glands, which Chiari found in a woman seventy-four years of age. It had caused trouble of vision, by producing a flattening of the optic chiasm. The tumor was the size of a walnut, and contained a cyst with gelatinous contents, teeth, and bones; the cavity was lined with ciliated epithelium.Centralbl. f. d. med. Wissensch. August 2. 1884.-Medical News. MISCELLANY. DOES DEATH STING?-Read before the "Nous Club," of Birmingham, Conn., by Geo. L. Beardsley, A. M., M.D., and published in the Med. and Surg. Reporter. The dread of dying is quite as intense as the instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, it is not improbable that numbers would care less about living were the modes of leaving the world a theme for happy contemplation, or an innovation to the routine of plodding, that was agreeable. One is remarkably exempt from the crime of hasty induction if he affirms that there is no sane or healthy mortal who anticipates his extinction with any degree of pleasure. This generalization is made in the face of the religious exaltation which is declared by the affected as potent enough or so possessing as to overcome the innate fear of dying. It is almost demonstrable that this religious ecstacy is a species of hysteria-if so, the assertion just made holds good. This horror of passing into the untried country is mainly explained by the tutored notions of the hereafter. A writer has said that the Christian only demurs about dying the savage counts it a pleasant journey. Even the brute is to be envied for its immunity from encounters with the harrowing apparitions which often follow fast the soul in its escape from the earthly environment. But with the moral aspects of death we have no concern. If one can rationalize a conception or frame a hope that will assist him to die serenely, quite loath would we be to dispossess him of the inclination. It is the purely physical features of dissolution on which just now we are content to ponder. The material phenomenon of death, that is, the process, independent of the "wages of sin," are much more delectable topics for a review than is ordinarily allowed. ́ In its chemical reference, dissolution betrays nothing that is repulsive or allied to suffering. Decay is in the domain of the same law as growth. The two are the termini of the series of evolutions which the process of being involves. Now, the molecular changes in repair are never apparent to the sensory centres. The transit from state to state in the genesis of matter are without the cognizance of the feelings equally after birth as during the intra-uterine captivity. No meter has as yet gauged or determined the individual accretions resulting in a healthy assimilation. In the full fruition of the process one sees the gain, but never can he count the steps, much less is he sensible of the mutations. The germination of a cell is so strangely, so quietly perfected that no tissue can predicate of itself what are its interstitial changes. The function of growing is automatic— the individual renders no assistance, and without the slightest cerebration or effort of consciousness, is operated upon by forces whose silent combinations can never be registered or criticized. The same physio-chemical energies are concentrated in the cataclysm of the cell as in its proliferation, only the reciprocity is uneven, the balance between repair and waste is lost, or rather, in favor of the latter. The function of dying is purely vegetable-we fall to pieces like a flower. This very fact that the process is chemical confirms us in the conclusion that the final "throe" is as painless, as the inconvenience is nothing to the foetal pilgrim when he treat death as a friend of their infirmities. Hanging is, naturally, rated next to crucifixion, a most distressing procedure. But it is reported of those who have been saved from the strangulation, that the agony promised to be brief, and was succeeded by hallucinations of the most fascinating variety. touches on daylight. A moment's examination of the way we are to die will show signs of goodness in our "taking off." The degree of sensibility is proportioned to the integrity of the tissues. An inflammation heightens it, age depreciates it. Any de fect in nutrition disturbs the comfort of the individual until the carbolic acid generated in the devitalization of the blood becomes One would fain believe that the kind fixed in the cells or is no longer displaced. God, who suffered us to feel no sigh in The sensory ganglia everywhere lose their coming, would take no delight in turning irritability by virtue of this poison, and our farewell into writhing. Nay, he does cease to conduct currents. The criteria of not quit us at the last. He is our greatest death are being satisfied, and the process benefactor in 'allowing us to sleep out of is consummated when this extinction of weariness. Death is assuredly no tax-colsensibility prevails at the ultimate filaments. lector-its "jaws" are not the clutches of During the progress of this dissolution of an assailant there is no "victory to the the nerve force, this creeping on of the grave"-the ghost speeds away from us as numbness of death, the individual is rap- it entered, with no ruffle. The pain of idly passing into a condition of repose, and death, as Shakespeare has it, is most in apinstead of torture or pangs, a degree of prehension. It is the fear of the lonely self-satisfaction oft approaching enthusiasm night, not the throes of nature, that makes is realized. The sensations peculiar to the the leaving painful. Those who are self therapeutical preparations of haschish, possessed, or who are not racked by unwelopium, ether, etc., are not improbably come surroundings, or who are not terrified akin to the mental activities of the dying. by a cultivated awe about the damnation Barring the hallucinations experienced in bottled up for special misdemeanors, these the stupor as it gains on the patient, the sink into the embraces of death with a longmoribund is familiar with naught that bor- ing for the lull it brings to the heavy heart ders on suffering. This carbonic acid has and jaded muscle. The countenances of poisoned or narcotized the several ganglia, those who have died on the instant, as from and reflex productions are interdicted. A lightning, aneurism or pistol shot, is reconsummate analgesia prevails. In short, markably placid, and not infrequently it is the notion of pain is forbidden the instant chronicled of this or that death bed that in that any stimulus fails to excite a response. spite of the violence of the inflammation, The condition of this irritability is that the the patient met death with ease, on acnerve centre and track be sound. If this count of a "saving faith." It can hardly vigor vanishes, reflex phenomenon are at be allowed that a faith can be "saving" an end, and suffering, physiologically enough to be antidotal to a vigorous pain, speaking, is impossible, because of the ar- but the statement is nice, by way of conrest of the function of the sympathetic... firmation of the theory that the real agony of the dying is not the reflex disquiet, but the setting in order for leaving. Fortunately for a wholesome study of ones demise, there is testimony abundant, from vivisection, from accounts of those who have been restored to consciousness, and the affirmations of the dying, that there is no physicial recoil from death. Burney tried hard to resist the efforts made to resuscitate him from drowning, so bewitched was he by his prolonged slumber. Dr. Solander, the traveler, was so delighted with the sensations of excessive cold that he was the first to lie down in the snow to realize the luxury of such a death. Wm. Hunter was sorry he was not able to write how easy and delightful it is to die. fants die as serenely as they breathe, and not infrequently those advanced in years In memory as if it were yesterday. To men of science, of profound intellect and deep thought, I have related the occurrence and requested a solution, but in no single instance have I been favored with an attempt to solve the problem. There it remains unparalled in its mystery, the recondite cause unexplained and unapproached. I have often thought of committing it to manuscript, and as often failed from the obvious fact that the little attendant circumstances which give supreme interest could not be mentally photographed or pictured in pen and ink by even the most dexterous adept. I could state that a man in vigorous health "foretold his own death, and without any apparent cause fulfilled his prophecy," but that alone would fall unheeded, unremembered, and devoid of lasting in terest, unless the little links in the wondrous chain could be made to appear, and these could not be reproduced. The study of mental phenomenon is of peculiar interest. Willingly or unwillingly we must admit that whether by dream or simple impression there is such a thing as presentment, being a witness that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in" our "philosophy." Herewith I submit a statement of the case: Mr. S., the subject of this narrative, was about fifty years old, of good health and average mental ability. In his earlier ye rs he had been a very devout Christian, but latterly had been remiss in Christian duty, though not chargeable with immorality. His habits were frugal in every particular, with the exception that occasionally it was thought he had partaken too freely of spirituous liquors. Early one morning I was sent for, as his family physician, to see him. I found him seated in a chair, perfectly composed, and apparently at ease. To my inquiry concerning his health he replied: “I am very weli.” "Why then did you send for me?" "I did not send for you, and did not want you to come, but my wife would send for you." At this moment the wife beckoned me into another room, and related nearly verbatim the following: "Last night my husband retired to bed before I did, and when I afterwards went in with a light he rose up and inquired who were those three men sitting on the chairs. I told him there were none there. He laid down for a few minutes, then arose and talked. I asked him who he had been talking with. He said he had been talking with those three men who were sitti' g at the foot of the bed. I asked him who they were. He replied: 'I don't know, I never saw them before, but I think the middle one is Jesus Christ, and he told me that on tomorrow at a little past twelve o'clock I should be taken with shaking and should die before the sun set.' "This morning my husband rose as well as usual, ate a hearty breakfast, and yoked his oxen for a load of wood. When ready to start, he said: 'What's the use of this? I am going to die before night, and I won't go for wood.' He unyoked his oxen and went into the house." Then it was that Mrs. S. sent for me. I then went to Mr. S. and asked if he would take some medicine. He said: "I will take all you have in your saddle bags. You can not kill me nor can you cure me. I shall die as I said I should." "Well, Mr. S., if you are to die this day and appear befere your Maker, what are your prospects for the future?" He replied with great solemnity and emphasis: "If the doctrine of election be true I shall be saved, for I do believe that I was a Christian." Lest I might overlook any important feature in the case, I sent for another physician for counsel, who pronounced Mr. S. free from disease and retired. To me there was sufficient interest in the beginning to secure my undivided attention to the end. The prophecy had stated that the shaking was to commence after twelve o'clock, which permitted all forenoon to frame a theory and adopt a treatment. My conclusion will, I trust, receive the full concurrence of the profession. It was that if there was anything supernatural I could only be a spectator, but if it were the result of morbid imagination the appropriate treatment would be to destroy the imagination till the time fixed for his demise had passed. At a little past twelve his prophecy began its fulfillment. He commenced to shake, which I promptly met with a teaspoonful of laudanum. (This was fifty years ago, and before the days of anesthesia.) Waiting with intense anxiety to see the result of this heroic dose, I found it produced no effect, not the least, but the shaking increased. I gave another tablespoonful without any effect, the shaking increased. I gave at intervals another and another and another till I exhausted a four-ounce vial. After this I only looked on and waited on the issue. When the shaking became so terrific as to prevent his retaining his seat on the chair, he was laid on the bed on his back, in which position it required four men, one for each arm and one across each leg to keep him on the bed. This condition so continued till near sundown, when the shaking and breathing simultaneously terminated. His stra ge prophecy had been literally fulfilled. Was it imagination? S. WILLARD. [May not the man have been addicted to the use of opium? Else how could such quantities of laudanum have been without effect upon him?-ED. Courier.] THE EARTH OUR LAST RESTING PLACE. -Next to Italy the United States favors cremation more than any other country. Scientists have stated their arguments in its favor. The request of the late Dr. Gross, that his body be burned, shows how honest must have been his convictions on this subject. But it must become much more common before the public mind will sanction the procedure. Setting aside the opposition which it meets from the expressed popular sentiment, it cannot become, within a reasonable period, an ordinary method of disposing of the dead, from the fact that many eminent sanitarians and men prominent in the medical profession do not regard it necessary. In a recent article on the subject, the Lancet of June stated reasons for preferring "earth to fire as the means of dissolution of the dead body." They were these: that burning is unnecessary, because burial can do the same work as safely and effectually, and with less offense to custom, and because for various reasons it is not possible that it should ever be entirely superseded or even probable that it should cease to prevail over cremation. It is claimed that cremation destroys the infectiousness of disease after death. But a deep and proper burial is a perfect safeguard against the propagation of disease. There is little to be feared after the body is once buried, but it is the period between | death and the interment that this danger is to be guarded against. At this time cremation has no advantage over burial. It is not the mode of disposing finally of the body, but the proper accommodations for its immediate strorage, that is at fault. It is the poor and not the rich family that is most liable to suffer. In the crowded tenement of large cities no appartment can be given up to the dead. The family must live in the room in which the corpse is kept. A proper burial furnishes no arguments in favor of cremation, but there are measures connected with the rite that are most objectionable. The storage of bodies in private vaults, which are frequently visited; or worse, cording them up in the public vaults of the cemetery, which are constantly being entered by the numerous visitors; enbalming the bodies, using metallic casks, superficial graves, or graves overcrowded, shallow soil, and like unsanitary measures and conditions are the objectionable practices that are justly criticised. The casket should be no more durable than the strength necessary to insure safe transportation and handling. Every means and precaution should be used to secure the most rapid dissolution of the body. If interments are conducted, and the buriel sites are selected under the direction of an unbiased judgment, educated in sound sanitary knowledge, that practice which has so well served the rich and the poor, from which all classes are most benefited, and which is most agreeable to the general public, will continue to be observed, and the long train of relatives and friends will, for the future as in the past, follow that which is corruptable, and see it consigned to its final resting place.—Physician and Surgeon A BUSY LIFE.-A correspondent of the Canadian Medical Journal for July gives an interesting glimpse of a many-sided man-the distinguished professor of pathology at Berlin, Professor Virchow. After a short sketch of his life, the different chairs of instruction he has held, the noted men who have been his pupils and assistants, including Klebs, Recklinghausen, Rindfleish, the recently-dead Cohnheim, Liebreich, Hoppe-Seiler, Orth, Ponfick, etc., we are shown how after forty years of teaching he still works. "For the first three or four Mondays of the semester, from 7:30 to 10 a.m., he per forms an autopsy before the class, giving detailed directions as to methods and the proper modes of observation. On Wednesday and Saturday are held the famous demonstration courses on morbid anatomy, in which the material for the week, often ten or fifteen cases on each occasion, is brought before the students. The time occupied is at least two and a half hours, the first half of which is taken up by some special subject, the pathology of which is well illustrated by the specimens at hand. At 11 a.m. he gives each day a lecture on special pathology. Politics and anthropology now absorb the greater part of his time. He is a member of the German Parliament and of the Prussian House of Representatives; and I noticed a day or so ago in one of the daily papers that Virchow had spoken in one of these thirtyeight times during the session. It need scarcely be stated that he is an advanced Liberal. He is also a member of the City Council-not an idle one either, as the copious literature of the "canalization" (drainage) system of the city can testify. His archæological and anthropological studies are most extensive, and it is upon these subjects that he now chiefly writes. When one turns to the Index of the Berlin Archælogical or Anthropological Societies, the figures after the name stand thick and deep, just as they do in a similar index of medical subjects. He has been collaborator with Dr. Schliemann in several of the important works issued on Trojan antiquities. His collection of skulls and skeletons of different races, one of the most important in Europe, will doubtless find an appropriate place in the new Archaelogical Museum erected by the government. There are those who grudge him the time he spends on politics and his favorite studies, but surely he has earned a repose from active pathological work, and may well leave section cutting and bacteria staining to the smaller fry; and when we consider that in addition to the classes above mentioned he is President of the Berlin Medical Society, and edits his Archiv, now a large monthly journal, it can scarcely be said that he neglects professional duties. On all questions of general, medical and scientific interest his utterances are not infrequent, and display a judicious conservatism -as witness his sound position regarding the Darwinian theory as opposed to the vagaries of Hæckel, It is satisfactory to note that the attack of gouty nephritis of some eighteen months ago appears to have left no trace. Aged, of course, he is (he is now sixty-three), but there is still a vigor and sprightliness in the wiry frame which bespeak years of continued activity."Boston Med. and Surg. Journal. DR. KUCH'S CAREER.-An interesting sketch of the life of Robert Koch, the discoverer of the cholera germ, the man whose name is at present in everybody's mouth, appears in a recent number of the Gartenlaube. Dr. Koch, who is now 41 years old, is a native of the Hartz Mountains. In 1866 he took his M. D. degree. For the next six years he slowly and laboriously worked his way upward as assistant physician in out-of-the-way hospitals. Fortune did not smooth his road, and when in 1872 he got an appointment at Wollstein, the struggle for existence had again to be fought for seven years. Under circumstances so unfavorable for scientific research he prosecuted his studies with a success which secured a worldwide recognition of his genius. His first distinction was won by the publication of the results of his quiet labor on the methods of the artificial dyeing of microscopic objects, especially of bacteria. By the general public his discovery could not be appreciated, but those who understood the value of these researches in the prosecution of the study of bacteria knew that with it a new era had dawned for science. conviction has been brilliantly confirmed. During the last five years he has succeeded in identifying the germs of cattle disease, of consumption, and of cholera. These discoveries are not incidental strokes of good luck, but the natural fruits of his own system of research. The significance of these discoveries is felt even by those who have no knowledge of medicine. Experiments in vaccination with the poisonous matter, experiments in disinfection in laboratories, wholesale experiments in the disappearance of epidemics-all these are but links in the chain, the last link of which, the destruction of the germ of the disease, is no more unattainable, but has become even probable. Honors have been conferred on Dr. Koch and his colleagues on coming home from India, the breedingplace of cholera. They have received titles and orders, to which, in honor of the personal danger of the voyage of discovery, This |