Vol. XXII. No. 10.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE JiTEWS. 



157 



der answering very well, — and the diet should be 

 restricted to liquids, which, on account of the pain 

 caused by mastication, will probably be the only 

 food that the patient desires. Aperient and cool- 

 ing medicines, and morphia in full doses to procure 

 sleep, may be administered. Under such treatment 

 the severity of the pain generally diminishes in a 

 few days, and the disease may terminate in reso- 

 lution. It may, however, terminate in a discharge 

 through the Eustachian tube or the membraua 

 tyrapani ; but, as space will not permit the discus- 

 sion of chronic otitis in this article, the special 

 treatment of these cases must be deferred until 

 some future time. 



J. H. E. 



[Specially compiled for the Popular Science NewH.] 



MONTHLY SUMMARY OF MEDICAL 

 PROGRESS. 



BY W. S. WELLS, M.D. 



At the recent meeting of the French Association 

 for the Advancement of Science (^T Union Med.) 

 M. Gillot communicated an article regarding the 

 tongue as a guide to the diagnosis of lesions of 

 the intra-cranial blood-vessels. 



In the ordinary examinations of the tongue only 

 the ufiper surface is usually inspected, and the 

 under surface is seldom noticed. 



Dr. (Jillot refers to this neglect, and asserts that 

 the under surface may present certain points of 

 diagnostic significance. 



In a young and healthy person the veins alone 

 are prominent beneath the mucous membrane; but 

 with the advance of age, or as a result of disease, 

 these veins become dilated, tortuous, or varicose, 

 and the venules and capillaries become visible. In 

 many cases little dilatations, like grains of sand, 

 may be seen on the smaller vessels, and may be 

 few and dis.seminated, or numerous and grouped 

 together. They are usually situated a short dis- 

 tance from the tip of the tongue, on either side of 

 the median line, or near the root of the organ. 



Their color varies, according to their size and 

 the condition of the general circulation, from a 

 bright red to purple or almost black. 



These projections, as claimed by Dr. Gillot, are 

 true miliary aneurisms, caused by a thinning of 

 the walls of the vessels, and are analogous to the 

 aneurisms occurring on the blood-vessels of the 

 brain. He believes that the existence of theise dila- 

 tations of the blood-vessels of the under surface 

 of the tongue is diagnostic of a similar condition 

 of the blood-vessels of the brain. The circula- 

 tion of the tongue has very close relations with that 

 within the cranium, — the same influences which 

 act upon the one, acting also upon the other, — and 

 the inspection of the under surface of the tongue 

 furnishes as valuable an indication of the state of 

 the cerebral circulation as does the examination 

 of the cavity of the eye by the ophthalmoscope. 



Dr. Gillot refers the primary cause of these mili- 

 ary aneurisms of both the tongue and the brain to 

 the so-called arthritic diathesis, and says he has 

 never seen these dilatations in any but those suffer- 

 ing from gout, rheumatism, gravel, and heart dis- 

 eases of arthritic origin. He therefore urges in 

 the aged, and those presenting rheumatic and 

 gouty symptoms, a careful inspection of the under 

 surface of the tongue, as likely to assist materially 

 in averting, by proper treatment, grave cerebral 

 disorders. 



M. Schwartz lately read to the Surgical Society 

 of Paris a communication on a case of pressure 

 paralysis from a callus, reported by M. Marchand. 

 A man aged twenty-nine had been thrown from a 

 horse, sustaining a fracture of th.> upper etid of 

 the fibula, with posterior luxation of the tibia. A 



plaster-of- Paris splint was applied; but when it was 

 removed, at the end of six weeks, the patient was 

 found to be suffering from various distuibances 

 of sensibility and motion. 



The foot was in an equinos position, and auass- 

 thesia and paralysis existed in the parts supplied 

 by the external popliteal nerve. The electrical 

 contractility was abolished, and a marked degree 

 of atrophy existed. 



There was considerable callus at the seat of the 

 fracture of the fibula, and pressure here caused 

 pain. Thinking that the nerve might be impris- 

 oned in the callus, M. Marchand laid bare the 

 tumor, and discovered the external popliteal nerve 

 passing over it. On following up the trunk of the 

 nerve, it was found to be embedded in a mass of 

 hard fibroid tissue. 



When freed from this, the nerve was found en- 

 larged at this part, and congested. 



The wound healed readily, but it was only grad- 

 ually that motion and sensation returned ; and it 

 was remarked as singidar that the power of vol- 

 untary movement was gained before the restora- 

 tion of electrical contractility. At the end of seven 

 months the patient's condition was nearly normal. 



M. ^Marchand referred to the rarity of this acci- 

 dent, but called attention especially to the excep- 

 tionally good results following the release of the 

 imprisoned nerve. In some of the cases previously 

 reported, slight or no improvement was obtained 

 by operation, and in others inflammation of the 

 nerve occurred, necessitating ampiitation. 



Another case is published {International Jour. 

 Surg.) of preservation of severed digits, this one 

 being remarkable for the length of time which 

 elapsed from the time of the accident until the 

 adjustment of the part. 



A boy while splitting wood cut off a part of his 

 right thumb. It dropped to the ground, and he 

 ran into the house. The mother hunted up the 

 father, who went to the barn, harnessed the horse, 

 found the severed piece of thumb, wrapped it 

 with the stump in a cloth, and drove nearly three 

 miles to the doctor. Fully an hour and a half 

 elapsed before the doctor saw him, when he re- 

 moved the cloth, and found the thumb lying loosely 

 in the bandage, and covered with sand and dirt. 

 The doctor cleansed it and secured it to the stump. 

 It united promptly, and two years afterwards it 

 was hard to tell which thumb had been injured. 



Dr. W. J. Clai'p (London Lancet) reports a case 

 of tetanus successfully treated with strophanthus 

 The patient was a man aged twenty-three. Three 

 weeks previously he had an accident by which the 

 nail of the little finger of his left hand was torn, 

 from which he suffered severe pain; followed, in 

 time, by burning pains between the shoulders, 

 extending down the spine. Subsequently followed 

 rigidity of the abdominal muscles, spasms of body, 

 chest, arms, thighs, and legs. The jaws became 

 locked, countenance anxious, face and mouth con- 

 tracted, pulse quick and wiry, temperature 108° F. 

 The urine was dark and scanty, without deposit; 

 bowels con.stipated. 



Various remedies were with diificulty given, 

 without improvement; and it was determined to 

 give strophanthus a trial. Dr. Clapp employed 

 tabloids containing two minims each. One was 

 given every three hours, it being with difficulty 

 placed in his mouth, and cold water, also, after 

 each tabloid. The second day after this treatment 

 with strophanthus a decided improvement was 

 noted. The doctor could open the patient's mouth 

 sufficiently to introduce the mouth of a feeding- 

 cup. The spasms in all the affected parts became 

 less frequent, the pulse quiet, and the tempera- 



ture lower. Nourishment was increased. The 

 frequency of the doses of strophanthus was grad- 

 ually lowered. The urine became copious and clear, 

 all the symptoms abated, and in a fortnight the 

 man was able to walk and take food as usual. 



Burns being so common an accident, and often 

 so difficult to treat, the following formula is recom- 

 mended by an exchange : — 



R. Tannin 4 grams. 



Alcohol (95°) 4 " 



Ether sulph. rectf ,30 " 



M. Paiut the parts with this two or three times a 



(lay. 



After evaporation of the ether, there remains a 

 fine pellicle of tannin over the burn, which excludes 

 the air, and takes away the pain and inflamma- 

 tion, and the cure is much more rapid than with 

 the various collodion preparations. The first paint- 

 ing of the parts should always be preceded by a 

 careful antiseptic washing, to remove foreign sub- 

 stances that may have adhered, and all blisters 

 should be punctured before applying the remedy. 



If some time has passed before treatment, a 

 slight coating of iodoform should be powdered over 

 the part first. 



THE DIAGNOSIS OF HUMAN BLOOD. 

 Du. Henry Form ad contributes an elaborate 

 article upon the comparative morphology of the 

 blood-cells to our always interesting contemporary, 

 The Journal of Comparative Medicine. Dr. For- 

 mad's studies have not led him to any especially 

 new results, but they confirm views previously ex- 

 pressed as regards the size and appearances of the 

 blood-cells, and some useful directions are given 

 for examining blood-stains and measuring the cor- 

 puscular elements. It is a tribute to the accuracy 

 of Gulliver's original measurements that Formad 

 adopts the figure ^^^g inch as the average diameter 

 of the red corpuscle. Our author also supports the 

 claims of the late Dr. J. G. Richardson in regard 

 to the value of very high powers in the measure- 

 ment of the blood-cells. 



For testing the question whether a certain sub- 

 stance is blood or not, the spectroscope and chem- 

 ical reagents come into play ; but for the recognition 

 of human blood the microscope alone is of any 

 value, and the sole method yet found available with 

 this instrument is that of measurement of the cor 

 puscular elements. The differentiation of mam- 

 malian blood from that of lower orders of animals 

 is made easy by the fact that in mammals alone is 

 tlie cell round and non-nucleated. The differenti- 

 ation between the blood of man and that of lower 

 mammals depends entirely upon the micrometer. 



Only the following animals have corpuscles larger 

 than man, i e., larger than ^^j^ of an inch; viz , 

 the elephant, great ant-eater, walrus, sloth, platy- 

 pus, whale, capibara, and (according to Wormley) 

 opossum. Animals the corpuscles of which are 

 slightly below man in size, i.e., having corpuscles 

 from ^^jjy to 5^'iy^ of an inch average diameter, are 

 the seal, beaver, musk-rat, porcupine, monkey, 

 kangaroo, wolf, and guinea-pig. None of these 

 are domestic animals. All other animals, includ- 

 ing all domestic animals, have blood-corpuscles 

 of a mean diameter less than j-gV^r of an inch; and, 

 in fact, those animals which, as a rule, are blamed 

 for blood-stains found on the clothing and apparel 

 of criminals (ox, pig, horse, sheep, and goat) 

 have corpuscles with an average diameter less than 

 n^Ti of an inch. 

 The above facts are formulated as follows : — 



The blood-corpuscles of birds, fishes, and 

 es, being oval and nucleated, can never be 



1. 

 rept 

 mistaken for human blood 



2. Fresh human blood cannot be mistaken, under 



