SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
199 
and evaporation. Tlie experiments tend to prove that hot haths in no way 
affect the diurnal variation of the temperature. 
Injiuence of Medicaments on the Heart. — The Proceedings of the French 
Society for Thei'apeutics contains a paper on this point by M. Bordier, who 
recommends that in all therapeutical experiments the sphygmograph should 
be employed. By the use of this instrument, M. Bordier has been able 
readily to distinguish between drugs which increase and those which dimi- 
nish the tension of the vessels. 
Leptandra and Leptandrin. — The Practitioner for March gives an account 
of some experiments on these substances recently made by two American 
physicians, Dr. Adolphus and Butcher. Leptandra is the name of a plant 
belonging to the Scrophularece. Adolphus recommends it as a cholagogue 
in doses of two grains of the root, or five drops of Merril’s tincture. He 
says it acts at the same time as a tonic, so that it is possible and even ad- 
vantageous to administer this remedy even in typhus and typhoid with 
much diarrhcea (! !), as it increases the digestive power, and also the 
appetite. He says that in desperate cases of typhoid, with extreme collapse, 
and colliquative diarrhoea, he has seen twenty doses of two or three drops 
of the tincture produce marvellous results, and he attributes the action to 
a specific infiuence on the portal circulation. He also recommends, in the 
early stages of the fever, leptandrin one grain, and bicarb, sodse two grains 
every hour. Leptandrin must be given in doses of seven or eight grains to 
act as a pure drastic. In small and medium doses it acts on the liver and 
pancreas. He treats dysentery and cholera infantum with tincture of lept- 
andra and glycerine, and explain its good effects by its supposed stimulant 
action upon the digestive secretions of the small intestines, which increases 
the powers of nutrition. Ammonia in combination with leptandra relieves 
the nervous symptoms in infantile choleraic diarrhoea. The addition of 
leptandra to quinine in intermittent and remittent fevers, according to 
Adolphus, greatly increases the efficiency of the latter. He also reports 
that enlargements of the abdominal viscera are greatly reduced by the use of 
an infusion of leptandra and gentian. In obstinate constipation of children, 
one-eighth grain doses of leptandrin are recommended j and the same drug 
proves useful to habitually constipated adults who become affected with 
bilious remittent. Dr. Butcher by no means confirms the general con- 
clusions of Adolphus. 
Aggregation of Blood-corpuscles in the Vessels in Fever . — Dr. C. H. Bastiau, 
of University College, has published some interesting observations on this 
point. He found, in a case of erysipelas of the scalp accompanied by 
delirium during life, that the small arteries and capillaries throughout the 
grey matter of the brain were more or less occluded by aggregated masses 
of white blood-corpuscles. The same capillary embolisms were met with 
in the kidneys and liver, leading to commencing degenerations of these 
organs. From observations which Dr. Bastian had previously made on the 
microscopical characters of the blood in cases of febrile disease associated 
with high temperature, he was led to believe that the white corpuscles, 
which seemed to show an increased irritability in these affections, might 
cohere so as to form masses capable of occluding small vessels. He is dis- 
posed to attribute the delirium occurring in this and in some other similar 
