560 Reviews. [July, 



that the infliction itself is reformatory, and cannot in any way be 

 regarded as a scourge. The remorse, and the resolution to reform, 

 sometimes carried out, and at others broken on the recovery of the 

 patient, combine with the physical result of the disease itself to ex- 

 hibit in a most striking manner the full meaning of the author's title, 

 • Beneficence in Disease.' If the lesson has been without effect, and 

 the patient returns to the poisoned fountain, inducing successive dis- 

 eases which at length put an end to his life, it cannot be said that he 

 has been condemned to death by disease, but rather, on the view ex- 

 pressed by Mr. Toynbee, that the general injuries which the sufferer 

 has inflicted upon himself have jbeen so serious as to prevent the 

 visible disease from serving any longer as a corrective, and that he 

 has succeeded in spite of natural safeguards in putting an end to his 

 earthly existence. 



Returning to the pamphlet before us, we find the reparative action 

 of disease exhibited in cases which have come under the author's 

 immediate notice ; and as they are interesting illustrations of the 

 principle he enunciates, we will extract a few of them for the perusal 

 of our readers : — 



" Case 2. — A gentleman hunting galloped along a green lane through a 

 wood, and a twig of an overhanging beech-tree penetrated the tube of 

 the left ear and lacerated the drum. Inflammation and suppuration and 

 catarrh of the dermoid layer followed ; another form of disease usually 

 called otorrhoea, thus presented itself ; after a short time, however, the 

 aperture healed, and the hearing was restored. 



" Case 2a. — A young gentlemen of scrofulous diathesis received from 

 his tutor an unexpected box on the ear. As is not unfrequent, when 

 unexpectedly concussed, the drum was ruptured, pus was soon effused, 

 and what would formerly have been called a troublesome case of otorrhcea 

 set in. For instead of the orifice of the drum healing, as in the 

 former case, the discharge continued for months, and the affection was 

 but slightly influenced by treatment, until the scrofulous tendency had 

 been overcome by general means : then, under the use of local remedies, 

 the healthy state of the drum was gradually restored. 



" In these two cases, the reparative character of the disease was, I 

 think, manifest. In the first case the injury to the drum alone had to be 

 repaired ; in the second, the injury which the system had suffered like- 

 wise demanded repair. 



" I will cite two more illustrative cases. 



" Case 3. — A gentleman, riding at a gate, was carried by the swerve of 

 his horse against a high hedge ; pain in the right ear followed and con- 

 tinued to increase for three or four days, although leeches, fomentations, 

 and blisters were resorted to. When called in about the seventh day, I 

 found the dermis much swollen, at its middle part, where a small black 

 point was seen in the centre of the mass. I removed the black speck, 

 which proved to be a thorn, and the patient was speedily well. 



" Case 3a. — A scrofulous lady, who was much out of health, when 

 picking her ear, let a pin fall into the meatus ; during attempts at its 

 removal, the point of the pin was pulled by a pair of forceps into the 

 substance of the meatus and there left. Inflammation and suppuration 

 round the end of the pin followed, as in the preceding case, but it extended 

 to the mucous membrane of the tympanum, thence to the membranes 

 of the brain, and caused death. 



