SYPHILIS IN ANIMALS. 
591 
refers to the practice of a celebrated ph} r sician, Ho-a-tho, who 
flourished between the years 220 and 230 of our era. It states, 
when about to perform certain painful operations, “he gave the 
patient a preparation of hemp” (hachich), and that at the end 
of a few moments “ he became as insensible as if he had 
been drunk or deprived of life.” After a certain number of 
days the patient was cured, without having experienced the 
slightest pain during the operation. In a subsequent notice he 
also adds, that the same physician used the hydropathic system 
as a cure for certain diseases, among others chronic rheumatism. 
— Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. 
SYPHILIS IN ANIMALS. 
The highest authorities have always considered syphilis as 
a disease peculiar to man, and incapable of being communicated 
by inoculation to animals. Hunter and Ricord were both of 
this opinion. In 1844, however, M. Turenne informed the 
Academy of Sciences that he had succeeded in inoculating a 
young monkey, and even presented the animal to the Surgical 
Society. The medical public ridiculed the assertion, and, even 
so late as the present year, M. Ricord professed his belief that 
it was impossible to transmit the malady to animals. M. 
Turenne, not discouraged, continued his experiments. On the 
5th of June last, some virus was obtained from Ricord’s 
Hospital, and a monkey inoculated with it in the presence of 
several members of the German Medical Society of Paris. 
Ulceration was soon produced, and to test its nature, Dr. De 
Welz, agrege of the Medical Faculty of Wurzbourg, resolved 
on inoculating himself with some pus taken from one of the 
sores on the monkey. This was done on the 9th of June. On 
the 1 3th, M. Ricord examined the sore produced, but declined 
pronouncing on its nature. On the 14th, M. Ricord himself 
inoculated Dr. De Welz a second time, and on the 15th re- 
cognized the first sore as a true venereal chancre. On the 
18th, the characters of the sore were so well marked, that M. 
Ricord presented M. De Welz to his class, confessing that the 
experiments of M. Turenne had fully confirmed the fact of 
transmission to animals. MM. Velpeau, Cullerier, and other 
medical men, examined the sore, and agreed that they were 
true chancres. The question, then, appears to be decided. — 
Western Lancet and Hospital Reporter. 
