clitoris and of the labia minora has been followed by the most satisfactory results. In cases of erotic mania, marriage has been advised as a means of preventing an otherwise fatal result. When this is impracticable, an attempt may be made to subtitute another object for the affections.

GLYCERINE LYMPH.-In Prussia regular re-vaccination is very generally practised, the law making the precaution obligatory on every person, and the authorities conscientiously watching over its performance. As a natueral result cases of smallpox are very rare. It has, however, been objected, there as here, the lymph is scarce. To make the most of such lymph as there is, government has tried its application mixed with glycerine, and the result has been so successful as to lead to a public recommendation of the mixture to official vaccinating surgeons. The manner in which the glycerine lymph is prepared is thus described by the Reichsanzeiger: The pustules of a healthy vaccinated person are opened with a needle, and the effluent matter carefully removed by means of a lancet, the same instrument being gently applied to assist the efflux. The lymph is then best placed in the hollow of a watch glass, and there mixed with twice its quantity of chemically pure glycerine and as much distilled water. The liquids are thoroughly well mixed with a paint brush. The mixture may be preserved for use in capillary tubes or small medicine glasses. The lymph thus procured is considered equal in effect to pure lymph; care must, however, be taken to shake it before use. As the same quantity that now suffices for one is thus made to suffice for five, the discovery ought to be extremely useful in crowded cities.

A WOMAN WITH FOUR BREASTS.-The Medical News and Library for April contains an account of a woman who was possessed of four breasts, two in the normal position and two in the axillary region. The latter two had attained about the size of an orange. She was delivered of a dead premature child, and, in spite of an attack of fever, the secretion of milk was regularly established in all the breasts; but, when examined microscopically, the milk of the supplementary breasts was found to be of a much purer quality.

Pathology and Microscopy.

PROFS. D. A. COLTON, M. D, AND SAMUEL A. JONES, M. D., EDITORS,

THE MICROSCOPICAL DIAGNOSIS OF BLOOD.

In noticing the last edition of Taylor's "Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence" the Quarterly Fournal of Microscopical Science says: “Of all the applications of the microscope to criminal cases the detection of the stains of human blood have gained the most interest in the public mind. Ever since the discovery of the persistent character of blood-globules the investigation of the nature of blood-stains has occupied the attention of microscopical observers. Unfortunately, however, for medical jurisprudence, the human blood-globule cannot always be distinguished from the blood-stains of the lower animals. From a vast number of investigations, more especially those of Mr. Gulliver, the size or the form of the blood-globules of the lower animals has been ascertained. Where the size or the form of the blood-globules of the lower animals differ much from the human globule they may be distinguished, but it requires a very practised eye to say to what animal a particular globule belongs. The oblong forms of the globules of birds, reptiles, and fishes are the great distinction of the blood-globules of the classes below the mammalia. Size is the great distinction between the various groups of mammalia, but in some instances, as in the dog, their size approaches so near that of a man that it is difficult to recognize the difference. It is very evident that in the present state of our knowledge of this subject great caution is required in giving opinions on facts where the lives of individuals are concerned. It is, however, a matter for especial regret that these subjects are not brought more systematically before the mind of the medical

student in his ordinary course of study. It is on the medical man in ordinary practice that the law (of England,—S. A. J.), through the Medical Examiners' Act, throws the whole burden of making these investigations, and yet the law gives the right to men who have undergone no examination on these subjects to assume the position of witnesses on these important subjects in all our courts of law."

The concluding paragraphs call attention to a feature which we hope one day to find in our own country: "Just in proportion as the facts collected by microscopic observers are found to bear more or less on the causes of death or other incidents connected with our legal courts, it is important that the medical evidence should be given by men thoroughly instructed and competent to observe with the microscope. Dr. Taylor even raises the question in this work as to whether it is possible to instruct the ordinary medical practitioner in such a way as to make him a reliable witness on microscopic points in a court of law. At any rate, it appears that the time is coming when encouragement should be given to the special education of a class of men who should be independent of all the calls of practice, and who, by their great knowledge of subjects involving microscopic examinations, should be called in in all cases where such acquirements may be required in cases before our coroners and criminal courts."

Setting aside this subject in the purely legal point of view, we would ask how many of our busy practitioners give the requisite amount of time necessary to make the microscopical diagnoses which the welfare of the patient not unfrequently demands but as unfrequently obtains? "Forewarned, forearmed" is as true in medicine as in the less vital policy of daily life. We are emphathically reminded of this by the following experience: We this day made out the "death certificate" of a patient to whom we were called just twenty-four days ago to say if he had phthisis pulmonalis or chronic bronchitis. Up to this date the attending physician had declared that he would soon have him all right. The remorseless precision of a microscopical examination of the sputa (of twelve hours' "raising") necessitated such a prognosis as we hope we may never again

be forced to make to a wife and children. With due warning the heart can prepare for and submissively bow to the inevitable; but an unexpected doom crucifies love and racks even philosophy. More than all, such a diagnosis as could have been easily and positively made in this very case eight months ago might have prolonged life by a timely hint of the benefit to be had by seeking refuge from the rigors of a Northern winter in a kindlier climate. Mind you, I do not unqualifiedly condemn the practitioner who committed this error. I know that he rejoices in a "large practice," and I also know that poor Tom Hood wrote:

"Evil is wrought by want of thought,

As well as want of heart."

If any young doctor, waiting for "practice" and half heartsick, reads this, I would say to him, from the very depths of a sympathy which comes from having known that waiting and that heart-sinking, do not aim for the "large practice." If it comes upon you early, ten to one you are doomed to a thirdrate mediocrity. Aim first to do thoroughly the little that falls in your way. Repetition will secure the facility of the adept, and when in God's good providence the harvest is ripe for your sickle depend upon it you will have developed the "thews of Anakim" in those long hours of heart-sinking, but also of sublime well-doing. I am almost afraid that I can remember a time when this philosophy would have seemed to me as malapropos as the usurer Seneca's "Praise of Poverty" written on a table of gold; but to-day I will stand by this: First, the world needs the capable workman too much to never use him. Secondly, God loves the true workman too much to ever forget him.

We are not disposed to share Dr. Taylor's doubt in regard to the capacity of the "ordinary medical practitioner"—that is, if we may first be allowed to qualify the "ordinary." Some men are "ordinary" from the very egg, and such were never intended for microscopists or anything else. Like Holmes' bugs in tavern bed-posts their chief purpose is to signalize Nature's horror of a vacuum, in dread of which she makes a great many things merely to occupy so much of space. Other men make themselves "ordinary" by indolence, or by false pursuits.

Given one of the latter, and, with the desire, he surely can become a microscopical expert.

This very study of the blood of the vertebrata isn't a bad beginning for such an one. It is also fine practice for the young physician. A few hints may not be amiss. "The persistent character of the blood-globules" makes them capable of preservation as "objects," and a comparative cabinet of the bloodglobules of the vertebrata would be a fine and valuable acquisition. To prepare a "slide" showing the blood-globules is a thing easily learned, and is withal good practice to acquire facility in the art of mounting. Having made the cement cell on the ordinary slide with Bell's cement, and the whirling-table, we have found it the best plan to first let the blood coagulate. A small portion of the "clot" is then made to touch gently the clear glass in the centre of the cell. The slide is then placed under a bell-glass to dry, which soon occurs. centered on the whirling-table, and with a small camels'-hair brush a very thin film of gold-size is painted upon the upper wall of the cell. Then the thin glass cover is properly adjusted and the prepared object laid away to dry. The only "knack" is in using the right quantity of gold-size-too much will run in and fill up the cell. No cement is needed at the periphery of the cover. When well done this "dry-cell" mounting is among the neatest-looking work of the microscopist.

The slide is then

From these preparations the form of the blood-globules can be learned, and this is a study which educates the eye; but to become an expert it will be necessary to study the blood under every imaginable condition. Staining different fabrics with blood and then extracting it is a pursuit which will keep the repining devil away for many a long day. When Browning's micro-spectroscope can be purchased one is in the way of making contributions to science in this slightly-worked field. To make reliable measurements a Frauenhofer's micrometer must be had, and to get it will constipate the pocket of most young doctors.

The student will find Gulliver's praiseworthy and accurate blood-globule measurements in "Gerber's Elements of the General and Minute Anatomy of Man and the Mammalia,"