FACTS AND OBSER,VATIONS. 
323 
Smallpox and Vaccination. —Considerable alarm is 
felt at the increase of • smallpox. The Smallpox Hospital is 
full to overflowing, and the temporary wards, which have 
been provided by some parishes, are equally so. Most of the 
cases occur in adults or young persons who have been vac¬ 
cinated. Many questions will naturally be raised by this 
outbreak, especially as to the efficacy of vaccination as usually 
performed. Doubts will be expressed as to the amount of 
care taken in selecting vaccinifers with good vesicles, and as 
to the care taken to use only clear lymph, and not serum or 
blood, which may be made to exude by jobbing a vaccine 
vesicle with the point of a lancet. It seems to be universally 
felt that a large number of cases is requisite in order to 
enable any vaccinator to keep up a good succession, week 
after week; that it is a mistake to appoint too many vac¬ 
cinators ; and that it is better that students should learn 
this operation from the public vaccinators than at the 
hospital .—Medical Times. 
Metropolitan and International Dog Show. —The 
Directors of the Agricultural Hall Company have, at the solici ¬ 
tation of a large number of nobility and gentry, and encouraged 
also by the extraordinary success of the show of last year, un¬ 
dertaken to conduct and carry out a great Metropolitan and 
International exhibition of dogs, to take place in the Agri¬ 
cultural Hall at Islington, during the Derby week. 
New Class of Counter-irritants. —Dr. Desmartis 
is stated to have cured painful maladies by causing insects 
to sting the parts affected, and this has been practised by 
him, more or less successfully, for the last fifteen years. His 
experiments, too, have been tried on plants as well as animals. 
Corroborative of his views is the tradition that leprosy is 
curable by the poison of certain serpents, and at Havana the 
poison of the scorpion is considered a remedy for yellow fever. 
M. Gasparin succeeded in repeatedly getting rid of rheuma¬ 
tism by allowing a wasp to sting the part, and by the same 
means an attack of bronchitis was overcome by him. 
Formation of Hippuric Acid. —The production of 
hippuric acid, the presence of which characterises the urine 
of the herbivora, is due to the large quantity of carbon con¬ 
tained in their food. It, however, like urea, is not formed 
directly from the food, but is a result of the metamorphosis 
of the nitrogenous tissues. Its existence in urine is proved 
by evaporating it to one third its bulk, and then adding 
hydrocliloric acid. In a few hours linear and branch crystals 
will appear. 
