croup, which may be attributed to the length and severity of the late winter. The confined parts of the town appear still to be the most unhealthy. Within the walls of London, and in the ten parishes of Westminster, the burials exceed the christenings; whereas, in the seventeen parishes without the walls, and in the twenty-three out. parishes in Middlesex and Surry, the christenings excced the burials very considerably. REPORT OF DISEASES. DURING the last two months, catarrhal complaints have been frequent, and the family of winter coughs numerous, and, in some cases, distressingly severe. The most frequent form of pulmonic affection in the Reporter's practice has been simple cough, cough with dyspnea, with hoarseness, and with hæmoptoe. In some instances, the hoarseness has continued troublesome after the cough has ceased. This is strikingly exemplified in an African, aged fifty years, who left Jamaica whilst only eighteen years old, and has since been engaged as a musician in the army. He was af. fected with very severe cough, and occasionally spat blood, though in small quantity; his strength was much reduced, and he became extremely hoarse. The cough and hemoptoe left him in the course of six weeks, under the use of an oily emulsion, with equills and digitalis; but the hoarseness continues intractable. His big manly voice,' for he was a strong man, has sunk into something smaller than childish treble.'-If any of the readers of these observations should have found a successful remedy for hoarseness, where the voice is reduced to a whisper after a cough, their imparting it, through the medium of our Journal, may be productive of benefit.-In another case of cough, in which hæmoptoe occurred in considerable quantity, the patient, an elderly thin man, getting rid of twelve ounces of blood at a time, sometimes as often as every six hours for two days together, relief was at first obtained by a draught of Infus. Rosa, Magnes. Sulphat, and Tinct. Digitalis, every four or six hours, a blister being applied on the chest. But some days after the complaint was seemingly removed, the bleeding returned with such violence, as to threaten dissolution, when the following draught produced a speedy and most salutary effect. R. Plumbi Super-acet. gr. iij. Infus. Digitalis, 31. Tinct. Opii, gr. v. M. ft. haustus 6ta quaque horâ sumendus. Nausea and pain in the bowels occurred after the third draught, but the bleeding stopped, and the man is at this moment quite well, though probably doomed to another not very distant attack of his dangerous malady. In youth there is some chance for a man who has escaped from such a complaint, to become strong after it, and the disposition to the disease may be destroyed; but after the middle period of life, there is less hope for any such favourable change of constitution, and it becomes imperious that an individual thus unhappily circumstanced should be most careful in avoiding the exciting causes of the disease. In this affection, as in many. others, no certain routine of practice can be laid down; it is a very common practice to take away blood, besides what the patient is pumping up. It will be gratifying to the writer of this article to obtain the opinion of some of his experienced brethren on this subject; also on the effects of emetics in hæmoptoe, as recommended by German physician, whose name he at present forgets. டி In the case of a girl aged fourteen, of slender nake, and who has not menstruated, affected with chorea to a considerable degree, a fair trial has been given to active purgatives for two mouths, without the slightest alleviation of symptoms; but with manifest reduction of strength and flesh. This plan of treatment was enforced soon after the disease first appeared." For the last month it has been abandoned as hopeless, and steel and zinc have been taken, and the shower and cold bath used, but hitherto without effect. Amongst the acute diseases which have lately occurred, were cases of eynanche tonsillaris, measles, and small-pox. In two bad cases of measles, one of which died, the mother affirms, that both the children had been af. fected with the complaint hefore. One of the cases of small-pox occurred in a boy aged fourteen, whose face exbibited one mass of scab, the disease being far advanced before a physician was called in. He recovered, contrary to expectation. The tide of plebian prejudice still sets strong against vaccination; and its cause is not aided by the ill-timed zeal of those of its advocates who go about, lancet in hand, almost compelling poor ignorant women to have their infants inoculated with cow pock matter. The great work will proceed; but its progress will not be accelerated by beginning with the uninformed portion of our population. In the Westminster Hospital, a very large Inguinal Aneurism has been the subject of an operation performed by Mr. WHITE. One ligature alone. was used in the tying of the iliac artery. Mr. White, in this operation, avoided the division of the lower edges of the internal, oblique, and transversalis muscles, which mode of operation had, in two cases, left the parts divided so extremely weak, that a considerable hernial tumour was the consequence, which required for its support the constant application of a bandage. The fibres of these muscles were divided down to the peritoneum, at a distance from their lower transverse edges, and Mr. White had no difficulty in securing the artery. This operation, although performed on a very unhealthy patient, has been attended with unusual good results. The thermometer, placed in the ham of the limb the day subse quent to the tying of the vessel, was at 95, which was the temperature of the rest of the body. The man was enabled to walk, without the assist ance of crutches, three weeks afterwards; and suffered, in a comparatively small degree, those irksome sensations of numbness, and want of motion in the extremity, which ordinarily have occurred in other cases. An operation, we believe, new in the annals of surgery, has also been undertaken by Mr. WHITE, on a patient, at Cambridge. The history of this case, we have been told, is, that, from a blow received six years ago on the lower jaw, there had been, during that time, a slow accumulation. of diseased structure; the eye was considerably protruded from its orbit, and the health of the patient had suffered very materially. Mr. White, from an examination of the parts, suspected the jaw to be dead from the symphisis to its articulation with the head, and undertook its entire removal. This was accomplished by dividing, with Iley's saws, the bone into three portions, after separating the external parts. Not a vessel was tied during the operation. The bone was entirely dead; and the patient, who, during many years, could barely separate the jaws to admit even spoon with his food, can now receive and masticate, with the remaining under half, solid animal and other nutriment without the least difficulty. This patient, we have also been informed, had not slept in a horizoɔntaf position for the last five years, the accumulation of the secretions from the diseased parts producing, when recumbent, so much irritation in the parts about the throat, as to threaten suffocation. Since the operation, all this distress has ceased, the face has acquired its original size, and the generat health of the patient has been established. We trust Mr. White will give gs an ample detail of the history of this disease, and its treatment. MONTHLY MONTHLY CATALOGUE OF MEDICAL BOOKS. The and Physiological Examrzni THE Physiognomical System of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, the Nervous System in general, and of the Brain in particular, and indicating the Dispositions and Manifestations of the Mind. By J. G. Spurzheim, M.D. Illustrated with nineteen copper plates. Royal Svo.-Baldwin and Co. Delineations of the Cutaneous Diseases comprised in the Classi fication of the late Dr. Willan: being a re-publication of the greater part of the Engravings of that Author, in an improved State, together with a new Series, which will comprehend the remainder of the System, as completed in the Practical Synopsis of Dr. Bateman; the whole being intended to illustrate the principal Genera and Species described in that Work. By T. Bateman, M.D. F.L.S. Fasciculus 1st. 4to.-Longman and Co. Observations on the Animal Economy. By a Physician.-Callow. An Illustration of Mr. Hunter's Doctrine, particularly_concerning the Life of the Blood, in Answer to the Edinburgh Review of Mr. Abernethy's Lectures. By Joseph Adams, M. D. 8vo. Callow. The Case of Joanna Southcott, as far as it came under his Professional Observation, impartially stated. By P. Mathias.-Callow. The Surgeon's Vade. Mecum, containing the Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment, of Surgical Diseases, accom. panied by Engravings, to illustrate the modern and approved Me. thods of Operating; also, select Formula of Prescriptions, and a Glossary of Terms. 12mo.-Longman and Co. The Art of Preserving the Sight unimpaired to an extreme Old Age, and of re-establishing and strengthening it when it becomes Weak; to which are added, Observations on the Inconveniences and Dangers arising from the use of common Spectacles, &c. &c, By an experienced Oculist. Second edition. 12mo. Colburn. The Institutions of Physiology, translated from the Latin of Professor Blumenbach, with additional Notes, illustrative and emendatory. 8vo. boards.-Cox and Son. A Bill for Enlarging the Charter of the Society of Apothecaries in the City of London, granted by his Majesty King James the First, and for better Regulating the Practice of Apothecaries throughout England and Wales. Svo. sewed.-Callow. Anatomical Plates of the Bones and Muscles, diminished, from Albinns, for the use of Students in Anatomy and Artists, accompanied with explanatory Maps. By Robert Hooper, M.D. A rew Edition, in 12mo.-Çallow. Anatomical Plates of the Thoracic and Abdominal Viscera, for the use of Students in Anatomy and Artists, accompanied by ex. planatory Maps. By R. Hooper, M.D. A new ed. 12mo.-Callow, TO CORRESPONDENTS. We regret that Mr. Stephenson's Communication arrived too late for the present month. We have also been favoured, as usual, with several Articles, which want of room, and the lateness with which some of them were received, have occasioned us to defer till a future Number. Among them are Communications from Drs. Clarke, Robertson; Messrs. Hey, Bush, Walker, Rowe, Macheil, &c. &c. THE Medical and Physical Journal. 3 OF VOL. XXXIII.] MARCH, 1815. [NO. 193. For the Medical and Physical Journal. Remarks on Fractures of the Extremities, with the Description of an Elastic Iron Cradle for Fractures of the Leg; by FRANCIS BUSH, Surgeon. AS S the result of many practical trials, I feel confidence in recommending the method now suggested of confining fractures of the extremities, especially those of the leg and thigh, as better calculated to prevent deformity of the parts injured: at the same time it occasions less pain to the patient NO. 193. than than any hitherto taught in the schools of surgery, or by writers on that subject. I might never have paid so much attention to the treatment of such case, but for an accident which occurred on my own person. A horse having tumbled with me and fractured my leg, rendered the method of confining the bones, with the greatest certainty and ease, a matter peculiarly interesting to me; and led to the use of the Elastic Iron Cradle (see Plate, fig. 3d). It is formed by two pieces of thin hoop iron, from half an inch to an inch wide; one of them is bent like a stirrup under the foot, and over each ankle, reaching up to the knee on both sides; the other is bent in such a manner, that, when applied, it fits to the shape of the back part of the leg, reaching from the ham to the heel, and is continued the length of the foot, or rather longer, so that when the patient is placed on his back, with the knee bent, the foot joint of the cradle receives the bedclothes, and prevents them from resting on the toes: these two pieces are rivetted together in that part which is placed under the foot. The elasticity of each blade or strip of the cradle, should be enough to admit the dressing of any wound complicated with fracture, by being bent from the leg, and just so much that when the three ends are confined to the leg by a circular strap placed below the knee, their pressure should be firm, regular, and yet easy to the patient, on every part of the leg to which they come in contact. A cushion may be placed under each blade of the cradle, and any bandage, to confine dressings, where necessary. The limb being put into its natural shape, the cradle is to be applied to it, and secured by a circular leather strap placed just below the knee, and one also a little above the ankle, if found necessary (see Plate, figures 1 and 2). Some Observations on the Management of Fractures of the Thigh, written by me, were published in the year 1809. The work in which they were inserted being of confined circulation, I shall describe the method there recommended. The ends of the divided bone being brought to their natural situation, they are secured by four splints of polished deal, each an inch and half wide, applied to the naked limb by four strips of adhesive plaster. One of the splints should be placed anteriorly, two laterally, and one posteriorly, each being the length of the thigh; they should then be secured by four bands of adhesive plaster, placed at convenient distances (see plate, fig. 2); the bands may be loosened or tightened, as may be necessary. I have treated many cases in this manner, where the swelling has not required their being loosened or removed during the cure. The patient 3 should |