MEDICAL AND SURGICAL ASSOCIATION. 155 



the patient, than if no such method were employed. — Hernia had 

 been reduced by applying cupping-glasses, and wooden pads been 

 found serviceable by American surgeons, applied with the common 

 truss, instead of the usual soft pad. — British surgeons have stood 

 foremost in performing operations upon the large arterial trunks, 

 setting the example now followed by other countries; the carotids 

 still continue favourites for experiments upon animals, and in some 

 instances on the human being; and both have been tied in man at 

 the interval of seventeen, and even of twelve days, with a favour- 

 able issue ; man, however, cannot bear a ligature simultaneously 

 to both carotids, although some animals suffer little from such a 

 proceeding. For a vascular tumour of the scalp, both carotids in 

 man have been tied with a curative result by Professor Kuhl, of 

 Leipsic. Pressure, when the brachial artery is wounded at the 

 bend of the arm in bleeding, has been so often recorded as successful, 

 that it ought to be regarded as the general rule of treatment, when 

 a competent surgeon is called soon after the injury. — The practice 

 of treating varicose veins, by pinching them with forceps, and by 

 passing needles through or beneath them, so as to compress the vein, 

 had been much resorted to, and approved. — The author thought the 

 attention of surgeons required to be awakened to the detecting of 

 recent dislocations of the joints, which are always reducible. The 

 dislocated hip had been reduced after nearly a hundred days, and of 

 the elbow at seventy : the use of the dynanometcr, for measuring 

 the force applied by the pulleys in reducing old dislocations was 

 recommended, and can be obtained of Mr. Weiss. — Upon the exci- 

 sion of diseased joints, the Memoir of Mr. Blackburn was named as 

 the best Memoir in the country from the pen of a student. No 

 department of simply operative surgery has been more fruitful of 

 good results than the excision of diseased bones ; and the upper, as 

 well as the lower jaw, and many other bones of the face, have been 

 recently thus proceeded with. — The little value attached to the 

 practice of midwifery in this country, was referred to, and a belief 

 expressed that hereafter the present state of things would, in the 

 retrospect, be thought very anomalous, when those gentlemen who 

 practise it are regarded as fit only for a secondary station in the 

 profession. A knowledge of diseases of the placenta was advancing 

 in this country. The use of the speculum was also becoming more 

 general, facilitating a correct knowledge and an efficient treatment 

 of uterine disease, which formerly went on uncontrolled by art. 

 Remarks upon polypus uteri, and upon prolapse and inversion of the 

 organ, were added, and the numerous instances of the Cesarean ope- 

 ration having been lately performed in different countries, were 

 adduced, as indicating the improving condition of this branch of 

 practice, which flourishes best where it is most encouraged. 



The conclusion of this elaborate essay had reference to the press, 

 the great and mighty engine for the advancement of the medical, as 

 well as of all other sciences ; the necessity of attending to the style 

 as well as to the matter, was insisted upon, and the important office 



