NECROLOGICAL.

Hill-The Ohio Medical and Surgical Reporter of July speaking of the recent death of Dr. B. L. Hill, says: 'He has fallen-died prematurely from the effects of his restless activities in the various callings and professions of life-but his life, measured by performances and activity cannot be said to have been a short one. I knew him in early life, in the unthinking freshness of childhood, when the physical nature was predominant and unfolding; was with him when the intellectual and moral were developing in their brightness; when thought, just awakened in all its activity in his early struggles to solve the problems of life and destiny. We saw him early enter on life's activities, for his was not a nature to rest in speculative inactivity. He was for some years Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the Eclectic Medical College, of Cincinnati. Dr. Hill, at a later date, was one of the founders of the Homœopathic College in Cleveland. He at one time held two professorships in it, and lectured there for seven or eight winters. He also filled a professorship for a short time in the Homœopathic College of St. Louis, giving a course of lectures there in 1860. He was the author of a work on Eclectic Surgery, published in Cincinnati in 1850, and also joint author with Professor Hunt, of a work on Homœopathic Surgery, published at Cleveland in 1855. He was also author of a small work much used by homœopathists, called the Healing Art, of which eleven editions have been published.

In 1863 he was appointed by President Lincoln Consul at Nicaragua, where he spent one year, and where his health was much impaired, but he so far recovered his health after his return as to serve part of two terms in the Ohio Legislature.

Dr. Hill was born Dec. 18, 1813, and died at Marysville, California, May 13th, 1871. He had no fears of death and died happily."

X.

Our acquaintance with Prof. Hill continued for about a quarter of a century. We attended his lectures upon anatomy in the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati in 1847. We had previously studied anatomy in the Ohio Medical College under Prof. Shotwell. The latter was a more polished speaker, and the most skilful anatomist, but he did not succeed in imparting instruction as well as Prof. Hill. The one would give a fine lecture, and if the students were attentive they might learn; the other appeared to care but little for oratory, but was determined that those who attended his course should acquire knowledge. We well remember our first botanical excursion with a number of medical students in 1848 in Kentucky. Prof. Hill accompanied us. Without making any pretention to scientific knowledge of botany he pointed out to us a large number of medicinal plants, and told us their uses as then understood. We practised for a short time with his brotherin-law, Prof. Morrow at Cincinnati; we met with him in consultations frequently, and had many opportunities for observing Prof. Hill's skill in practice. He was always ready to suggest practicable expedients in cases of emergency. While lecturing one morning, Dr. Owen, a student, ran into the amphitheatre holding out his right hand which was bleeding: he said that when he was attempting to shoot a rabid dog the animal bit his hand. Prof. Hill closed his lecture, immediately applied ammonia to the wound, and directed him to poultice it, convert it into a running sore, and keep it discharging for two or three months. Dr. Owen, we believe, pursued this course, and we think he is now living, practising homœopathy in the State of Ohio.

When in Michigan, Prof. Hill was as active and energetic as when in Ohio. A member of the legislature of the State, a practitioner of surgery, a speculator in lands, a manufacturer or trader in lumber, etc., etc., nerves always at a high rate of tension. When he left this State he pursued other avocations without doubt as restless as ever.

That he did not survive to three score years is not to be wondered at: we are rather to be surprised that his physical frame endured so long. Such a restless spirit would crush an ordinary body in ten years. E. A. L.

Materia Medica and Therapeutics.

PROF. E. M. HALE, M. D., CHICAGO ILLS., EDITOR.

CUNDURANGO IN CARCINOMA.

Physical Description.-Stem woody, shrubby, and covered with greenish or ash-grey bark, the former tint being due to a coating of lichens on the surface. The branches are from half an inch to little more than an inch in diameter, the average being about the thickness of the finger. The woody fibre is strawcolored and brittle breaking with a sharp fracture; it is almost tasteless, slightly aromatic, and bitter. Bark.-This contains whatever medicinal vritues are in the plant. It is of a grey color, slightly ribbed or fluted longitudinally from corrugation, the result of drying; it increases in thickness in the ratio of increase of the stem in the thicker branches constituting more than half ⚫the weight of the whole, in the thinner somewhat less that half; readily separable from the stem by pounding or bruising, when it comes off in clean, longitudinal pieces; brittle in the transverse fracture, having a warm, comphory, aromatic, and bitter taste, resembling the cascarilla of the older collections. Under the lens it is readily resolved into three layers: 1. The inner layer or cambium of reticular woody tissues, having granules of starch, and particles of resin imbedded. 2. A middle layer of woody fibre and dotted ducts, with resinous particles also in this layer. 3. The cuticular or outer layer of bark-cells, of a brown color, and containing tannic acid and coloring matters.

Analysis-Professor Antisell, of Washington, an accomplished chemist,has made an analysis of the herb. Here is an extract from his report:

"Fatty matter, soluble in ether and partially in strong alcohol, .7; yellow resin, soluble in alcohol, 2.7; starch, gum and glucose, .5; tannin, yellow and brown coloring matter and extractive, 12.6; cellulose liquid, etc., 64.5.

On distillation no volatile oil or acid was obtainable; no crys27-September.

talline, alkaloid, or active principle was separable by the usual method of proximate analysis. Whatever medical virtues the plant may possess must reside either in the yellow resin or in the extractive. The former is soluble in alcohol, the latter in water. In the water decoction some of the resin is diffused, but the greater portion of the resin is not extracted by water. The therapeutic position of the plant, judged from analysis, is among the aromatic bitters."

My attention was first attracted to this remarkable agent during a professional attendance upon Mr. Flores, the minister from Ecuador, through whom his government had conveyed to our Secretary of State a portion of the shrub, together with printed statements of its successful employment by eminent South American physicians.

Fortunately, several cases of unequivocal carcinoma were then under treatment. Accustomed to the remorseless ravages of a malady for which even the surgeon's knife afforded no adequate relief, I approached the experiment not without misgivings of success, but with the fixed purpose to render the test as complete as the limited supply of the plant in my possession would allow.

Mrs. Matthews, the mother of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, had been the victim of mammary cancer for a long period, which had already assumed secondary and constitutional symptoms in a marked degree. On the 29th of April last, I placed her on the decoction of Cundurango, and had the gratification of observing an early and decided change for the better, in both the local and general conditions. One of its almost immediate effects was the relief of pain, and a free diaphoresis, characterized by an odor distinctly observable of the infusion itself. Upon the return of Mrs. Matthews to her place of residence in Indiana, I still continued to direct her treatment, and furnish the requisite supplies of the medcine.

On the 9th of May, just thirteen days after the commencement of the new remedy, her husband addressed me a letter, from which I make the following extracts:

"The stony condition of the tumor has given place to softness. This morning I notice about one-third of the surface has turned from a scarlet to a white color, and it has commenced suppurating as though the thing were dead and coming out. The whole tumor is very much flattened, the discharge is different and not near so offensive. The greatest improvement is in her complexion. From a tallowy, puffy-looking, and somewhat bluish skin, she is regain

ing her old natural look, the skin shrinking, becoming wrinkled and clear.

"I am so happy in the prospect of a cure that I feel like a new man, as though a ton of lead had been lifted from my heart. Is it not a little singular, it has not had any perceptible effect on her nervous system? Her digestion is good, and she begins to feel that she will get well. "

On the 14th of the same month Mr. Matthews writes as follows:

"This is the seventeenth day since I commenced the use of Cundurango ; shall cease for a few days, and note carefully the effect. When I began the treatment, Mrs. Matthews' breast was almost as hard as a stone, about four inches in diameter, the cancer itself two inches in diameter, with raised edges, hard and scarlet-colored, bleeding profusely at the slightest touch, emitting an odor of the most sickening and disagreeable kind, discharging a brownish, cancerous, limpid fluid; the countenance bloated, tallowy-looking, with a bluish pallor of the whole face; the lips turning blue at the least exertion, so that I have been very much alarmed, fearing a rapid crisis and dissolution; at the same time the tumor itself enlarged with fearful rapidity, so much so that I could notice the growth from day to day.

"Now all is changed-the countenance has resumed its old, familiar look; she moves about with great sprightliness, the blue of the lips no longer indicating fatigue or effort. The granular swelling under the chin is gone; strength increasing; the tumor itself much flattened and decreasing in protuberance; the color changing to a white, maturating sore; the limpid cancerous discharge ceased, and in its place a healthy discharge of white matter much less offensive; the hardened glands are soft to the touch, the whole symptoms indicating most plainly to me that the treatment has, so far, neutralized the poison of the blood, and that another short campaign with Cundurango will insure a complete

cure."

On the 2d of the present month I visited Mrs. Matthews, at South Bend, and was indeed astonished at the rapid change which has taken place. The tumor had become soft, the color natural, the secondary glandular deposits had all disappeared. The improved complexion, muscular firmness, and elasticity of spirits, all pointed to an early and complete recovery.

The following extract from a letter of Vice-President Colfax to a friend in Baltimore, concerinng the new cancer remedy has been furnished for publication: "I am glad to be able to tell you that mother is really on the high road, apparently, to perfect cure, ⚫although she has only taken about quarter doses of Cundurango, in consequence of its scarcity. When we left Washington, in April,

her case was absolutely hopeless, her cancer growing fearfully and angrily. Now the tumor is three-fourths gone, and apparently diminishing; pain almost gone, and every symptom favorable. Since the first fortnight she has had only quarter doses, and now has none. She is more like herself than she has been for years. How it cures or effects cancer I cannot imagine. I know how incredulous many doctors are about it, and I would be too, if I had not seen its results. It seems to separate from the blood whatever it is that causes cancer, and I don't know what that is any more than I know why Peruvian bark cures ague. You can tell your friends, however, when they obtain it, they will notice on the fourth day an improvement, and by the ninth day they will see themselves that the cancer is going away-that is, if it acts with them as with cases I have seen. I am longing for its arrival, and glad that Dr. Bliss so promptly sent his partner to that distant region for it. I have most piteous appeals for it from friends,' offering hundreds for it if it will only stop the growth of this terrible disease; but I have not an iota, and I guess all in the United States is now used up."

Mrs. Handy, residing on M Street, in this city, was the next subject of experiment with the Cundurango. This was a highly typical and fearfully advanced case of cancer uteri. The grayish color, unequal, irregular elevations of the ulcer edges, the sympathetic disturbance of the bladder, the paroxysms of intense pain, together with the hot, dry, shrivelled, yellow surface, the wasted muscles, sunken eves, the small, quick, wiry pulse, revealed one of those sad cases, where all hope of remedy fails.

The Cundurango, in the form of decoction, was administered first to Mrs. Handy on the 31st day of last month. A regular record has been kept from day to day, describing the least change of symptoms, but I have not the space to introduce it here. Suffice it that even in this extreme case the beneficial effects of this wonderful remedial agent have been most apparent. The pain has steadily declined, the diseased parts are less tumefied and sensitive, and the discharge is very slightly offensive. The cachectic appearance of this patient has much improved, and she expresses herself as feeling altogether better.

A lady of the family of Hon. Mr. Gorham, Secretary of the United States Senate, has had mammary cancer of several months duration, and her condition was pronounced hopeless by leading Northern surgeons. I was called to see her on the 1st of June, of this year, and found cancer of the breast, with secondary deposits in the shoulder and humeral portion of the left arm, attended by