866 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



EXTERNAL SYMPTOMS OF STARVATION, AS OBSERVED IN THE FAMINE 



DISTRICTS OF IRELAND. 



IN grown-up persons, besides an amount of attenuation, which 

 seems to have absorbed all appearance of flesh or muscle, and to have 

 left the bones of the frame barely covered with some covering which 

 has but little semblance to anything we would esteem to be flesh, the 

 skin of all the limbs assumes a peculiar character ; it is rough to the 

 touch, very dry ; and, did it not hang in places in loose folds, would be 

 more of the nature of parchment than anything else with which I can 

 compare it ; the eyes are much sunk into the head, and have a dull, 

 painful look ; the shoulder-bones are thrown up so high that the col- 

 umn of the neck seems to have sunk, as it were, into the chest ; the 

 face and head, from the wasting of the flesh and the prominence of 

 the bones, have a skull-like appearance ; the hair is very thin upon the 

 head ; there is over the countenance a sort of pallor, quite distinct 

 from that which utter decline of physical power generally gives in 

 those many diseases in which life still continues after the almost entiro 

 consumption of the muscular parts of the body. In the case of tho 

 starved young and we saw many hundreds there are two or three 

 most peculiar characteristic marks, which distinguish them from the 

 victims of other mortal ills ; the hair on a starved child's head becomes 

 very thin, often leaves the head in patches, and what there is of it 

 stands up from the head ; over the whole brow, in many instances, 

 over the temple in almost all, a thick downy sort of hair grows, some- 

 times so thick as to be quite palpable to the touch ; between the fin- 

 gers there are sores ; very often there is anasarcous swelling of the 

 ankles. In the majority of famine cases, there is either dysentery or 

 chronic diarrhoea. Such is to-day, drawn in no exaggerated colors, the 

 condition of Connaught. The devastation had been long preparing, 

 and it is Complete. Times, Sept. 2th, 1850. 



TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD. 



THE practice of the transfusion of blood from the veins of a healthy 

 individual into those of one diseased, with a view of restoring health, 

 was, it is well known, followed to some extent in times past. During 

 the past year the practice has been revived again at Paris, in a par- 

 ticular instance, at the Hospital of St. Louis. A young woman, during 

 her accouchement, had suffered from severe hemorrhage, and from the 

 loss of blood was sinking rapidly. Under these circumstances, the 

 director of the hospital, M. Nelaton, made up his mind to try the oper- 

 ation of the transfusion of blood. One of the hospital assistants offered 

 to supply the necessary blood. A vein in his arm was, therefore, 

 widely opened, for the purpose of obtaining rapidly the requisite quan- 

 tum. This blood was received into a basin kept at a temperature of 

 abo*ut 95 Fah., and transferred without loss of time to a hydrocele 

 syringe similarly warmed. In the mean time, M. Nelaton discovered, 

 by the aid of an incision of two centimeters, the median cephalic vein, 

 which was dissected and raised with a loop of thread. Taking hold, 



