Medical Chemistry. 83 
This able and enlightened physician then goes on to ob- 
serve -— 
“In publishing these researches, almost three years ago, 
my principal object was to attract the attention of practi- 
tioners to a subject which appeared to me worthy of inter- 
esting them. 
‘¢ My wish has been accomplished even beyond my hopes. 
“The medical faculty of Paris have placed the Prussic 
acid in the number of remedies recommended by the new 
Codex ; and many physicians, both French and foreign, 
have not only repeated but have greatly extended my ex- 
periments.” (Observations.) : 
“It is therefore with pleasure and gratitude that I pro- 
ceed to record the results obtained by my brethren. 
Dr. Fontanelles ina pamphlet published in 1817 at Mil- 
lan, expresses himself thus :’’— 
“‘] have obtained wonderful results from the prussic acid 
prepared according to the process of Scheele, upon four 
children of the same family affected by the whoopmg cough: 
I put three drops of the acid into an ounce of distilled water, 
and caused this mixture to be given every two hours by a 
spoonful at once ; the children themselves, frankly stated to 
me, that having commenced the use of this remedy in the 
morning, they did not experience at night, those paroxysms 
of coughing, which had threatened to suffocate them :—that 
they slept well, and that on the fourth day from their be- 
ginning the use of this liquid, the whooping cough disap- 
peared from two of them, and from the other two a few days 
after.” 
The experiments of Dr. Fontanelles were suggested by 
reading Dr. Magendie’s memoir. Dr. Manzoni at Padua 
in an augural thesis, states various interesting observations, 
derived chiefly from the practice of Dr. Brera. A woman, 
aged twenty-nine years, of a sanguine sthenic and irritable 
temperament, was brought to the clinical institution at Pa- 
dua, without having received any relief, although advanced 
to the seventh day of a very severe pleuro-peripneumony. 
Ten ounces of blood were drawn—and a little time after, 
eight more; thirty drops of prussie acid were given im an 
emulsion of gum arabic, during the day, and twelve more in 
the night; the following day, the urine became copious, and 
full of sediment; after this the expectoration diminished— 
