N. MATERIA MEDICA, THERAPEUTICS, AND HYGIENE. 551 



vers of the most virulent type ; and, indeed, he prefers the 

 sulphites entirely to quinine, as patients treated with them 

 are less liable to relapse. Typhoid and choleraic fevers are 

 also beneficially affected by these remedies. 



For internal administration, in a curative j)oint of view, 

 Professor Polli recommends sulphite of magnesia, both as con- 

 taining more sulphurous acid, and as being pleasanter to take. 

 As a prophylactic, he recommends the hyposulphite of soda, 

 when it is not to act as a purgative ; and for external use 

 he advises the use of the sulphites and bisulphites of soda, 

 which are more soluble than the magnesian salts. He con- 

 cludes by stating that these salts do not Act as poisons to- 

 ward the several morbific ferments which he considers the 

 cause of zymotic disease ; they do not kill directly the living 

 germs of the organic poisons, but modify the aggregation of 

 the material components of our own organism, rendering it 

 by their presence incapable of being acted upon by these cat- 

 alytic germs. Pamphlet. 



MEAT EXTRACTS NOT NUTRITIOUS. 



The increasing skepticism of physiologists in regard to the 

 nutritive value of the various meat extracts, so much adver- 

 tised at the present day, has been rather fortified by the pub- 

 lication of an elaborate paper of Midler, of Paris, upon the 

 subject of the physiological character of meat extracts in 

 general. In this, starting out with the proposition, first, that 

 meat extracts do not have any nutritive value, and, second, 

 that they sometimes have a certain action which is to be at- 

 tributed only to their mineral principles, and especially to the 

 salts of potash, he proceeds to examine the various prepara- 

 tions, whether bouillons or extracts, and then inquires into 

 the action of the nitrogenous principles contained in these 

 preparations, and finally devotes a third part to a discussion 

 of the action of the potash salts. 



We have not the space to give the details of his elaborate 

 researches under these three heads, but present the follow- 

 ing summary of his conclusions upon the subject : First, that 

 meat extracts are aliments neither directly, since they contain 

 no albuminoid matters, nor indirectly, since their nitrogen- 

 ous principles do not arrest disassimilation. Second, in feeble 

 doses they may be useful by the stimulating action of the 



