Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris. 151 



in administering it great attention must be paid to regulate the 

 doses according to the strength and constitution of the patient. 

 The work has been published some years, but has only lately 

 attracted the attention of the Academy. 



New Instrument for Lithotrity. On the 16th of May, M. Leroy 

 d'Etolies, to whom we are indebted for most of the instruments used 

 in lithotrity, presented a new curved instrument, which he uses 

 to break the stone, in cases in which a straight cylinder cannot pos- 

 sibly be introduced. The Monthyon prize of six thousand francs 

 was adjudged to M. Leroy for his various instruments. 



Anatomical Phenomenon. M. Combetti, in the sitting of the 23d 

 of May, read a memoir, containing the particulars of the case of a 

 young girl, aged ten, who had recently died in the hospital for Orphans. 

 Alexandrine Labrosse was born at Versailles in 1821 ; her father 

 was healthy, but her mother weak, and worn out by excesses of 

 every description. The child came into the, world meagre, but well 

 formed ; it was very weak, and at two years old had not cut its first 

 teeth. It was not able to articulate a word until after it was three 

 years old, and could not stand alone until it had completed its fifth 

 year. To this backwardness of corporeal developement was added a 

 great imbecility of mind. At nine years old she was admitted into 

 the Orphan hospital, at which time she was labouring under a pa- 

 ralysis of the abdominal extremities. M. Combetti did not see her 

 until January, 1831, when she had been three months in bed. Her 

 face was pale, and her features emaciated and oppressed with 

 stupor ; she never spoke, and, when addressed, replied in monosyl- 

 lables, but always to the purpose; she lay constantly on her back, 

 keeping her head inclined towards the left side ; she could scarcely 

 move her legs, but they retained all their sensibility ; her hands were 

 unaffected. She had long had glandular swellings of the neck ; she 

 afterwards had a mild carbuncle on the buttock, and an ulceration 

 of the foot. She was ultimately attacked by an intestinal affection, 

 which carried her off on the 25th of March last. The body was 

 dissected thirty hours after the death. The lungs were found 

 crepitans, but full of miliary tubercles. The intestinal surfaces 

 offered no appearance beyond what was usual in cases of similar 

 disease. The cranium was of the ordinary thickness ; the meninges 

 offered nothing particular, the brain appeared in its proper state, 

 except that it was rather large. A small sanguineous effusion of 

 recent date was observed in the thickness of the left posterior lobe. 

 The tentorium of the cerebellum being opened, the marrow cut in the 

 direction of the occipital orifice and the encephalic mass removed and 

 turned over, there was observed 1. a large quantity of serosity filling 

 the occipital fossa ; 2. in the place of the cerebellum a cellular, ge- 

 latinous, semi-circular membrane of about an inch and three quarters 

 diameter transversely, and connected with the medulla oblongata by 



