Am'Ma3uri884arm'}  Varieties.  293 
4.  Sterilizing  the  infusion  requires  much  care  and  labor,  and  may  not 
always  be  practicable.  It  will  doubtless  retard  the  decomposition,  but  it 
will  not  prevent  it  entirely. 
5.  The  full  therapeutic  utility  of  jequirity  will  only  be  attained  when 
chemistry  shall  have  succeeded  in  preparing  an  alkaloid  of  it,  which  will 
keep,  and  the  strength  of  it  is  properly  known. — Med.  and  Surg,  Rep., 
March  22. 
Value  of  Ether  and  Chloroform. — Dr.  J.  W.  Parkinson's  conclu- 
sions are  as  follows  :  1.  That  ether  is  as  efficient  an  anaesthetic  as  chloro- 
form. 2.  That  there  are  fewer  cases  in  which  its  use  is  contra-indicated.  3. 
That  it  is  a  safer  anaesthetic  in  the  hands  of  the  most  experienced,  and  by 
inference  corresponding  in  an  increased  ratio  with  those  more  or  less 
unskilled.  4.  That  the  use  of  chloroform  with  our  present  knowledge  and 
experience,  in  preference  to  ether,  where  no  contra-indication  to  the  latter 
can  be  shown,  is  adding  materially  to  the  risk  of  the  patient  and  the 
responsibility  of  the  administrator. — Paeif.  Med.  and  Surg.  Jour. 
Toxic  Action  of  Copper. — It  seems  to  grow  more  and  more  doubtful 
whether  copper  can  be  reckoned  among  the  poisonous  metals.  Of  course 
in  large  quantities  it  is  noxious ;  but  this  is  true  of  alcohol  and  of  many 
other  compounds  which  cannot  fairly  be  considered  as  poisonous.  The 
latest  experiments  tend  to  indicate  that  at  any  rate  copper  is  not  a  cumula- 
tive poison,  like  lead.  MM.  Houles  and  De  Pietra  Santa,  in  a  recent  com- 
munication addressed  to  the  Acad6mie  des  Sciences  of  Paris,  report  that 
they  have  been  unable  to  discover  any  injurious  action  on  the  health  of  the 
workmen  engaged  in  the  copper  industry,  and  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  so-called  u  colique  de  cuivre,"  asserted  in  the  eighteenth  century 
to  be  a  definite  disease,  does  not  exist. — Lancet;  Louisv.  Med.  News., 
March  15. 
Turpentine  as  a  Prophylactic  in  Infectious  Diseases.  —  The 
"Medical  Record"  tells  us  that  H.  Vilandt  writes  in  the  "  Ugeskrift  for 
Laeger,"  vol.  viii,  No.  8,  1883,  concerning  the  value  of  the  oil  of  turpen- 
tine in  the  treatment  and  prophylaxis  of  diphtheria  and  the  exanthema- 
tous  diseases.  He  states  that  he  has  never  seen  any  of  these  diseases  spread 
from  a  sick  child  to  other  members  of  the  family  when  this  remedy  was 
employed.  In  many  of  his  cases  no  isolation  could  be  attempted,  as  the 
mother  was  the  only  female  in  the  family,  and  was  obliged  to  take  care  of 
both  the  sick  and  the  well,  continually  passing  back  and  forth  from  one  to 
the  other.  His  method  was  to  pour  from  twenty  to  forty  drops  of  a  mix- 
ture of  equal  parts  of  turpentine  and  carbolic  acid  into  a  kettle  of  water, 
which  was  kept  simmering  over  a  slow  fire,  so  that  the  air  of  the  sick- 
room was  kept  constantly  impregnated  with  the  odor  of  these  two  sub- 
stances. He  claims  also  that  by  this  means  a  favorable  influence  is  exerted 
upon  the  exudation  in  diphtheria,  although  it  is  by  no  means  curative  of 
the  disease,  and  should  never  be  relied  upon  to  the  exclusion  of  other  rem- 
edies.—infect  and  Surg.  Rep.,  March  29,  1884. 
