as is manifested by the young in reading Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver's Travels.*

The great and pressing want with us now is some new, improved and better mode than any hitherto made known to us, for studying the materia medica, which shall render the acquisition of a competent knowledge of it for practical purposes, more facile and less laborious and irksome than any method hitherto practiced.

Very many plans and methods have been from time to time. devised and promulgated, some of which were really ingenious and useful; still, a better plan is yet a desideratum.

Knowing well the character of the American mind, I deem it not too much to hope and expect that some ingenious and fortunate individual will yet, and possibly before the lapse of many years, strike out some new and truly effective method, which shall confer immortality upon his name and procure for him the endless benedictions of all homœopathists.

We cannot know who the fortunate individual may be, but the prize thus to be won ought to and will stimulate the inventive genius of every true lover of the science until the wished-for result is reached and perfected. In the bright future, when years and centuries and ages shall have come and gone, bidding a mute adieu to earth's millions; when better governments and better laws shall have replaced those that now are essentially vicious; when the laws of health shall have become perfectly understood, and their adoption and observance shall have become the rule as now they are the exception; when all the cognate branches of the science of medicine shall have been improved to their status of possible perfection; when, as a corollary of the better condition of the physical man, his mental and moral status shall have evinced an approximation toward the angelic state, what may we not— what should we not expect from our ever-growing, ever-perfecting materia medica? What, but the rescuing of the race of man from most of the moral and physical evils, which now seem his inheritance, and which now beset him with such demoniac force and malignity? What, but the reproduction of the "Golden Age,” when the lives of men shall be measured by centuries as now by decades and lustrals? When sages, and seers, and poets, and prophets shall sing the happiness of the race in Arcadian vales, and

The work of Dr. Hughes (1st volume) has been reprinted by Mr. Radde, of New York, with the addition of a full and complete index, which was a desideratum in the English edition.

man, regenerated and rejuvenated, once more enjoy the felicities and glories of the primeval age.

NOTE. I have not the vanity to think, for a moment, that the estimate I have formed in the preceding essay of the value of the labors of the several persons I have therein spoken of will be universally, even if generally, approved. I am too painfully aware to conceal the fact, that there are some, perhaps many, who are disposed to depreciate the labors of all our writers; to belittle, in fact, the labors and productions of such men as Hering, Hull, Lippe, Gross, Hempel, Hale, and many others in our own country, to say nothing of European authors.

But believing, as I do, that ali the writers named, and many others, had no wish, design, or intention but to promote the sacred cause of homœopathy by their labors, I am bound to accept the results for what they were intended, however short they may have fallen of the mark they aimed at; and although much of what we have from our best writers is greatly imperfect, yet it is all worthy of honorable mention, and as it is not in my nature to "damn with faint praise," all I can say is that the estimate I have given of the men spoken of, and of their labors, is my own, given to please nobody but myself. Nor do I desire to displease any one. The value I have expressed as attaching to the work of any and all men, is such as I believe will be found ultimately to be sanctioned by time and experience, which are ever "the great touchstone" of truth, when applied to the labors of mortals.

ARTICLE LXXVIII.

Thermometrical Phenomena in Disease. By JOHN J. MITCHELL, M. D., of New York.

Among the many mechanical contrivances, having for their object accuracy in diagnosis and certainty in prognosticating the result of disease, perhaps none promises to be of more general application or of greater usefulness than the thermometer. Although it has been employed for years by the physiologists, and its indications noted in many conditions of the body, yet anything like a systematic study of its teachings, has been but recently undertaken.

For our present knowledge of the thermometrical indications in disease, we are principally indebted to Wunderlich of Germany,

Ringer and Aitkin of England, Compton of Dublin, Flint and Dacosta of our own country.

In presenting to the Society an abstract of the experience of the profession upon this subject, I shall be obliged to avail myself of the investigations of these careful observers, being able to add the personal observation of a few months only.

It has long been well known that the temperature of the body varies quite sensibly in disease, but it is only recently that the fact has been revealed that the amount of this variation is a more constant and reliable indication as to the character of the disease, and the progress it is making than the pulse of the patient, and with the general symptoms, giving us data upon which to found a prognosis far more accurate than it would be possible for us to form without it. It frequently enables us to decide upon the existence or non-existence of a particular disease hours before the rational symptoms and the physical signs would enable us so to do. A thermometer for chemical observations should have its stem bent to an obtuse angle, so that the bulb may be conveniently placed within the axilla, (the seturation best adapted to the purpose,) with the face of the ivory index directed forward. A selfregistering instrument is convenient, but not necessary. The range of the thermometer should be taken twice daily, between the hours of 7 and 9 A.M., and about 7 P.M. It will be necessary for it to remain "in situ" for about five minutes, or until the mercury ceases to ascend.

Beginning our investigations with the study of the normal temperature of the body, we find that it varies according to the age. It is but very slightly affected by the thermal condition of the atmosphere. It is lowered by sleep, a full meal, or the use of alcohol, but it is slightly elevated by the completion of the digestive forces. At birth it will usually be about 100° Fahrenheit. It falls rapidly to 95.5°, but during the course of the first 24 hours rises to about 98.5°. Between the ages of four and six it ranges about 990; between six and fourteen, 99.2°. In the adult, from 97.6° to 98.4°.

In general terms, for the purpose of our investigation, it will be safe to put the normal temperature of the child before ten years of age at 99°, and the temperature of the adult at 98°. The variation of a single degree, either above or below this standard is, in the vast majority of cases, indication of disease, and this more or less acute according to the amount of the varia

tion and the characteristics of the attack. It has been asserted that an increase of ten in the number of the cardiac pulsations will correspond to an increase of one degree in the temperature. But this rule is subject to so many variations as to be of no avail in practice.

Among the cases of unusual variation and contrariety between the pulse and the thermometer, the following have been gleaned from the records of European observers:

If any should have failed to consider the subject of thermometry in diagnosis, it may not at once seem clear to them that the noting of so slight a variation can be of any practical application; but careful consideration will convince them, we think, that in very many cases requiring acute discrimination, we may, by the aid of the thermometer, so exclude the similar diseases as to ren der our diagnosis almost certain. We would here hastily refer to a few of those diseases, which by the unwary practitioner might be mistaken, the one for the other, and we think a mere reference to them will convince that if we were able to exclude inflammatory action, either general or local, a diagnosis would be comparatively easy. This the thermometer generally enables us to do.

Pleurodynia may at times be mistaken for pleurisy, but if the temperature of the body is not above 98.5, the maximum of health, we may be certain the disease we have encountered is not pleurisy. Peritonitis and a hyperæsthesia of the abdominal walls are, in a like manner, distinguished by an abnormal or a normal temperature respectively.

Pneumonia may be simulated by hysteria, and in the early stage of the disease, when the physical signs would naturally be absent or marked, the diagnosis may be far from easy, but the thermome ter is the unerring guide in such a case, that even the will of woman cannot falsify.

Prof. Austin Flint, in the N. Y. Medical Journal for November, 1866, narrates the following case: A young German emigrant

was admitted into the hospital with vomiting and diarrhea, and no previous history was obtained. The dejections were not choleraic, and both diarrhoea and vomiting were promptly arrested. The urine was scanty and not albuminous; the pulse was frequent and feeble; the surface presented marked capillary congestion, and he was greatly prostrated. On the third day he was somnolent, and he gradually became comatose without the occurrence of convulsions. After the coma was developed, he came under my observation, and the diagnostic problem was, whether the coma depended on uræmia, on cerebral meningitis or on typhus fever. Narcotism was excluded, inasmuch as the respirations were not diminished in frequency, and the pupils were not contracted. The symptoms pointed strongly to uræmia, but it was desirable to exclude effectually typhus and meningitis. This was done by the thermometer, which showed the heat of the body to be 97.5°.

The patient succumbed, and the autopsical appearance in connection with the history during life, led to the conclusion that the patient, when admitted into the hospital, was in the stage of reaction after an attack of epidemic cholera.

Dr. Compton, in part 54 of Braithwaite's Retrospect, reports the following: "W. H—, aged 29, a well nourished man, of rather sallow complexion and somewhat excited manner, having an occasional spasmodic way of speaking, complained, on admission into the hospital, of sore throat. Upon examination, both tonsils and the back of the pharynx were seen to be considerably inflamed. He gave an imperfect history of having been ill about a week. This, at first sight, seemed to be merely a somewhat severe case of tonsilitis, and no further examination seemed necessary. The case was left to be made out by the clinical clerk before the visit next day. Finding, however, the man's temperature to be 105.4°, I was interested in the case, and made out on examination, the existence of partial trismus, and that the tongue, when protruded, deviated slightly towards the right side. The prognosis was deemed unfavorable, and the man died within twelve. hours of admission, the case being one of septicæmia.”

Having thus given an imperfect idea of the importance of their mometric observations in diagnosis, we will proceed to speak of the special diseases, in which its use is most frequently called for.

In the treatment of typhoid and typhus fevers, it will be found useful to the general practitioner. By its aid diagnosis may be assured before the eruption makes its appearance, and by its care