1824.] 
prevent Letters and Packets being sent 
otherwise than by the Post; to punish 
Persons embezzling printed Proceedings 
in» Parliament, or Newspapers ; and to 
allow the President of the Commissioners 
of Revenue Enquiry to send and receive 
etters and Packets free from the Duty 
of Postage. 
Cap. X XI. To reduce the Duties on 
Importation of Raw and Thrown Silk, 
and to repeal the Prohibition on the Im- 
portation of Silk Manufactures, and to 
ant certain Duties thereon. 
Cap. XXIL. Yo repeal the. Duties 
onvall Articles the Manufacture of Great 
Britain and Treland respectively, on their 
Importation into either Country from the 
fi) (1, obese g eae 
Cap. XXIII. Zo amend an Act of 
the Fifty-seventh Year of his late Ma- 
Medical Report. 73 
jesty's Reign, for abolishing certain 
Offices, and for regulating certain other 
Offices, in Ireldid; so far as relates to 
the Commissioner's uf the Buard of Works 
there. 
Cap, XXIV. For transferring se- 
veral Annuities of our Pounds per 
Centum per Annum, transferrable at the 
Bank of Lreland, into Reduced Annuities 
of Three Pounds Ten Shillings per Cen- 
twm per Annum. 
Cap. XXV. To repeal so much of 
an Act passed in the Ninth Year of the 
Reign of King William the Third, as re- 
lates to Burials in suppressed Monaste- 
ries, Abbeys, or Convents, in’ Ireland ; 
and io make further Provision with re- 
spect to the Burial, in Ireland, of Per- 
sons dissenting from ‘the Established 
Church. 
MEDICAL REPORT. 
ReEpPoRT of Diseases and CASUALTIES occurring in the public or private Practice of the 
Physician who has the care of the Western District of the City Dispensary. 
— zo 
¥ W Har lies they do tell about this 
; iodine,” was the remark recently 
of- a medicat friend to the Reporter; and 
it is more than probable that an undue 
partiality has been taken to this drag by 
some’ practitioners of the greatest credit. 
Like -prussic acid and fox-glove, iodine 
has been administered under the presump- 
tion of its specific power, which the pte- 
scriber has felt determined shall be ful- 
filled: he has consequently allowed fancy 
to mix too much with his perceptions, aid 
thus, in a certain sense, has become mad 
in the persuasion of its sdnative virtnés. 
Let us, however, while condemning and 
rejecting enthusiastic feelings, be careful 
against falling into the torpor of onbelief. 
There are, it seems to the writer, some 
medicines, and iodine is one of them, that 
do occasionally mfluence’ the absorbeut 
organization in a manner almost amount- 
ing to specific agency. That this portion 
of the system is thus under the command 
of sepatate operation, has, indeed, been 
denied: some will teli you that there is 
no direct. way of getting at absorption, 
and that it is only the blood-vessels and 
nerves which may be primarily or posi- 
tively acted on. Lt must, indeed, be 
admitted, that a great deal is obseure,.or 
but dimly seen, in reference to the lym- 
phatic ‘vessels; both im their natural 
state and when under the impression’ of 
Morbitic or medicinal processes; but that 
we sometimes can excite and controul 
absorption ,in. an immediate’ manner, 
scems to the Reportes’s perception suffi- 
ciently made out, The abundant good 
that mere pressuye, properly applied, will 
Operate upon diseased parts, may be 
MonTHuLy Maa, No, 598. 
taken in proof that the absorbents are 
under positive coutroul; and to deny that 
such good is to be effected by such mea- 
sures, is to declare ourselves under the 
decided and absorbing influence of indo- 
lence or prejudice. To the case of Mrs, 
Desormeaux, of Somers Town, the writer 
has more than once allided already; and 
he has now to say of this case, in addi- 
tion, that large masses of cancerous sub- 
stance and surface tiave been dissipated 
under Mr. Youne’s plan of pressure, while 
Dew and healthy flesh and integument 
have taken their place. Another case too 
has been recently seen by the writer, in 
which a carcinomatous ulceration of the 
breast has been made entirely to, disap- 
pear, under fhe treatment by bandage ; 
and the subject of which (the wife also 
of a medical man) expresses herself grate- 
ful fo the operator, not only inasmuch as 
she is cured of caiicer, but’also, because 
her ‘feelings and heaith, \generatly, ‘have 
been abundantly improved. ' 
Let it be recollected, that it is not to 
cancerons ulceration alone that these’ pro- 
cesses apply. Other chronic ailinents are 
equally under their grasp; and it is, in- 
deed, questionable, whether, both patho- 
logically and practically, we inay not be 
‘too macly guided ‘by nosological niceties 
and mere notional distinctions respecting 
these kinds of diseases altogether. 
The epidemics of the present motith 
have been inflamed throats and swoilen 
salivary glanis; these, however, though 
in some instances they have proved severe, 
have not for the most part called for any 
treatment beyond the ordinary routine, 
Some menaces, here and there, of low 
L fever, 
