BOOK NO TICES. 509 



local affection characterized by a marked tendency to take on, putrefactive decom- 

 position, he has trusted most to the free and constant application of antiseptics, 

 and when their employment has been adopted from the first, and been combined 

 with judicious alimentation, he has seldom seen blood-poisoning ensue. In con- 

 sequence of the great power which salt possesses in preventing the putrefactive 

 decomposition of meat and other organic matter, Dr. Day has often prescribed 

 for diphtheric patients living far away from medical aid the frequent use of a gar- 

 gle composed of a table-spoonful or more of salt dissolved in a tumbler of water, 

 giving children who cannot gargle a tea-spoonful or two, to drink occasionally. 

 Adults to use the gargle as a prophylactic three or four times a day. 



GAS TREATMENT OF WKOOPING-COUGH. 



In the treatment of whooping-cough in gas works, as lately resorted to, es- 

 pecially in London, the purifying chamber consists of a large room with doors 

 and windows freely open, and each contains twenty-four vessels, holding five 

 cubic meters of depurating substance — lime and sulphate of iron mixed with saw- 

 dust — through which the gas has to pass. When the workmen are emptying and 

 refilling these vessels, the children with whooping-cough are placed around it, 

 and inhale the Vapors which escape; they are in an atmosphere containing ammo- 

 nium sulphide, carbolic acid and tarry products. As to the efficiency of this 

 treatment, one physician reports that of 120 cases persevered with, in twenty 

 there was entire failure, forty-eight showed improvement, and the rest were cures; 

 it is thought, however, that it acts only upon one element of the malady, viz., 

 catarrh. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



The American Cyclopedia. Entirely revised and fully illustrated, with maps 

 and engravings, 16 volumes octavo, D. Appleton & Co., New York. For 

 sale by L. B. Bailey, Kansas City, general agent for Western Missouri. 



About a quarter of a century ago the Messrs. Appleton commenced the pub- 

 lication of the New American Cyclopaedia, having for its design "to furnish a 

 condensed exhibition of the present state of human knowledge on the most im- 

 portant subjects of inquiry." Its editors were George Ripley and Charles A. 

 Dana, aided by nearly one hundred collaborators in America, Great Britain and 

 Europe. The work was conducted so ably and impartially that it speedily achieved 

 the greatest popularity of any ever published in this country. It was virtually a 

 library in itself, and its fortunate owner had little need to consult any other work 

 of reference. 



