68 OK DIGITALIS, WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE UniXE. 



hours after, when, on looking at a light, you see it surrounded 

 by a halo, presenting the prismatic colours, and not quite close 

 round the light, but with a dark space between. This halo 

 increases in diameter the farther you move from the light, and 

 becomes smaller and narrower as you approach. I have noticed 

 an appearance exactly similar when light cirrhi were crossing 

 the moon. Homolle and Quevenne say that a slight opalescence 

 is noticeable in the lens (crystalline), and the pupil is somewhat 

 dilated and less contractile. I did not notice any particular 

 difference in the pupil, and the appearance is not due to its 

 dilatation, for I found it quite distinct on looking through a pin- 

 hole in a card. Though on looking I could not detect any 

 opalescence, Messrs. Homolle and Quevenne are probably right 

 as to there being opalescence somewhere, for this would produce 

 the effect noticed. 



On the Uterus. — Mr. Dickinson* found that digitalis has a 

 powerful influence in causing the uterus to contract and stop 

 haemorrhage. A few minutes after the draught of ^iss. of the 

 infusion is swallowed, the patient complains of acute pain in 

 the back and hypogastrium, like those of the first stage of 

 labour, then blood, solid and fluid, is ejected, and the discharge 

 is absent for some hours, when the pain subsides, and it 

 returns, but less and less, after each dose, till it disappears. 



On the Genital Organs. — Stadionf finds that digitalis and digi- 

 taline possess the power of temporarily annulling the activity 

 of the sexual organs, and is thus a true antiaphrodisiac ; with 

 this conclusion I am disposed to agree. M. Brughmanst has 

 stated the same thing, and advises its use wherever turgidity of 

 these organs is to be averted, whether as after-treatment of 

 surgical operations or for other causes. 



Mode of Action of Digitalis. — Having considered the general 

 action of digitalis, and the manner in which it affects different 

 parts of the animal economy, we now come to a question of 

 great difficulty, and one on which there has been much dispute 

 — the mode in which it acts. 



* Med. Chir. Trans., vol.^39, p, 4. 



t Year Book Sydenham Society, 1862, p. 451. 



X Eevue Med. Chir., Paris, Dec. 1858. Half-yearly Abst., vol. 24, p. 108. 



