TRANSACTION'S OF THE SECTIONS. 109 



him to be bled, ad deliqiiium. This took place after a small quantity 

 of blood had flowed from his arm while he was in an erect posture. 

 After a few days, he was still perfectly dark: an incision was now 

 made over the sagittal suture from the forehead to the occiput. It 

 was filled with peas. In three or four days, precisely at the time when 

 suppuration began to take place, the patient declared that he perceived 

 light, but was scarcely believed, since the pupils were still widely dilated 

 and quite insensible to a strong light. In the course of a few days it 

 was quite evident that he saw ; he could tell when two or three fingers 

 were held up. For some weeks the uis was stiU quite irritable, though 

 vision had become in a great degree restored. 



The subsequent treatment of the case consisted chiefly in occasional 

 leechings, purging, and low diet : when the issue healed, which was 

 not till it had been kept open for some months, a seton in the neck was 

 substituted. Under this treatment the case has terminated in a complete 

 recovery of the blessings of sight. 



Abstract of an Unpublished Work on Tetanus. By James O'Beirne, M.D. 



Surgeon Extraordinary to the King, &;c. S(C., Dublin. 

 ' ■ Dr. O'Beirne commenced by showing the very extensive opportunities 

 which he had enjoyed, both in his military and civil life, of observing 

 and treating this most fatal and mysterious disease, the laborious re- 

 search, and the patient and strictly clinical observation which he had 

 devoted to the investigation of the subject from a very early period, 

 particularly for the last fifteen years. He then repudiated all other 

 species of the malady than the traumatic and the idiopathic, to the latter 

 of which he applied the term " atraumatic," as being more expressive 

 and scientific. He admitted no such varieties as trismus, tetanus, rectus, 

 or pleurosthotonos, recognising only opisthotonos and emprosthotonos. 

 Instead of dividing the latter varieties into acute and chronic, he pro- 

 posed dividing them into the peracute, acute, subacute, and chronic. 

 He agreed with most authors upon the causes, but considered certain 

 unknown electrical states of the atmosphere as the most general and 

 operative. The extreme periods of the accession of the traumatic 

 species, he stated to be the fourth and seventeenth days from the inflic- 

 tion of the wound, and also stated that it never attacks after the cica- 

 trization of a wound, or during an inflamed state of a wound, and that 

 it does not supervene upon burns, scalds, military flogging, or other in- 

 juries of the skin which do not penetrate the fasciae or the muscles. He 

 asserted the general character of the disease to be the same in all 

 climates and countries, and to have been the same in all ages. He de- 

 nied the existence of any premonitory symptoms, and stated that the 

 disease is never ushered in or attended by cutaneous eruptions, or by 

 any febrile symptoms ; that it has no tendency whatever either to crisis 

 or to sudden disappearance ; and that recovery invariably takes place 

 slowly, the period varying from eighteen days to seven, eight, and even 

 nine weeks. After making these and many other novel statements re- 

 specting the attack, course, and termination of the malady, he described. 



