lxiv GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



There are few subjects more interesting to the general 

 public than those relating to questions of Health and Dis- 

 ease, and consequently we have given considerable space in 

 the Record to matters connected with new remedies and the 

 best methods of maintaining the health of the household, the 

 city, and the nation. As usual, the Materia Medica has been 

 enlarged by the introduction of various new remedies ; and 

 the old ones have become better understood, some that for- 

 merly occupied a prominent position in the favor of the Fac- 

 ulty having fallen into disrepute. Chloral hydrate continues 

 to retain its place as a valuable remedy, sometimes single, 

 and sometimes combined in the form of a crotonate, sulpho- 

 hydrate, etc. Its use has been warmly recommended in cases 

 of cholera. 



Alcohol, which, in the form of spirituous liquors of one 

 kind or another, has long been used as a remedy, has been 

 recently denounced as unworthy of its reputation by a large 

 number of the most eminent physicians in London, Avho, in 

 the form of a protest, have taken strong ground against it, as 

 in most cases actually doing more harm than good, and, at 

 any rate, as imparting a thirst for intoxicating drinks, which 

 is likely to do, on the whole, more injury than its benefits as 

 a remedial agent can recompense. 



The employment of carbolic acid has also increased very 

 greatly, not simply as an antiseptic in preventing the spread 

 of disease, or destroying any active lingering germs, as small- 

 pox, cholera, etc., and an application to diseased surfaces, but 

 also as a remedy in the way of an internal application. A 

 hypodermic injection of this substance is considered by Dr. 

 Declat as a most valuable antagonist to malarial and febrile 

 diseases, and as producing a change for the better, in certain 

 cases, in a much less time and more efficiently than any other 

 remedy known. 



A mixture of chloroform and morphine as an ana3Sthetic 

 continues to be highly recommended by some, the combina- 

 tion producing a given effect with less evil results than a 

 sufficient quantity of either substance taken separately. 



Xylol, one of the coal-tar derivatives, has been warmly 

 urged by the physicians of Berlin and elsewhere as more or 

 less a specific in cases of small-pox. Its trial, however, in 

 this country does not appear to have confirmed that opinion. 



