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ON THE DIRECTION OE THE NUTRITIOUS EORAMINA OE 
THE LONG BONES. 
By John Cooper Forster, F.R.C.S., M.B. Loncl., 
Assist. -Surgeon and Lecturer on Anatomy at Guy’s Hospital. 
In a communication to the Royal Medical and Chirurgi- 
cal Society, the author, after describing the sources of blood- 
supply to the long bones, called attention to the following 
facts : — That the epiphyses of the various bones invariably 
join their respective shafts earliest at that extremity towards 
which the nutritious foramen is directed ; that where there 
is only one epiphysis, the nutritious artery always takes a 
course from that part ; consequently, that in early life the 
best nourished and most vascular end of any one of the long 
bones, and, therefore, that end at which union of the epiphy- 
sis with the shaft will first take place, may be predicated 
from the direction of the various formarina. The author 
concluded by remarking, that the direction of the nutritious 
foramina being in early life invariably towards certain joints 
these are at that time most frequently the seat of disease, 
and that at adult age, as the epiphyses become united to the 
shaft of the bone, the joints away from the nutritious fora- 
mina are those most commonly affected. — Lancet . 
SUBSTITUTE EOR LARD IN OINTMENT. 
In our last, we adverted to a plasma for this purpose. The 
following has since appeared in our contemporary, the 
Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions , from the pen of Mr. 
James J. T. W. Smith. 
ee In consequence of the objections to lard in the making of 
ointments, I was led to try an experiment, for the purpose 
of producing an ointment which would readily wash from a 
wound without the addition of soap or any other agency save 
water, of good consistency, not variable with change of tem- 
perature, easily miscible with substances soluble in water, 
and free from oxidation. As far as theory goes, I can see no 
evidence to show why the following formula could not be 
advantageously adopted : 
R Powdered Fuller’s Earth ; 
Glycerine, aa §j. M. 
“ The fuller’s earth should be in an impalpable powder, 
