susceptibility of the nervous system, the action of chloroform is quicker, more complete, and therefore more dangerous.

8. Chloroform has produced instant death from syncope, or cessation of the action of the heart; it is therefore extremely dangerous in cases where the heart's action is enfeebled by lingering disease, by fear, by valvular or aneurismal disease, by old age, by sudden or large losses of blood, or any other cause of weakness.

9. There is no reason for diminution of confidence in the efficacy and perfect safety of sulphuric ether; while there is unanswerable reason why chloroform should be abandoned, as its use involves the risk of a falal result, which can neither be foreseen nor prevented, from the immediate suspension of the powers of life during its administration, or consequent changes in the nervous and vascular sys

tems.

10. That while sulphuric ether will produce safely all necessary results expected of anaesthetic agents, no one is justified in submitting his patient to the risk of his life by using chloroform, simply because it is more agreeable, more powerful, cheaper, or more portable.

The above conclusions will apply to chloric ether as well as to chloroform, with a due modification for the inferior strength of the former, and for the fact that as yet no fatal effects have followed its use, as far as I know. Many surgeons speak highly of it as an anæsthetic agent, and are satisfied of its safety. But as chloric ether is a tincture of chloroform, or a mixture in variable proportions of the latter with alcohol, it must obtain its anæsthetic effects from chloroform. Alcohol cannot diminish the danger in idiosyncrasy or in conditions where chloroform has proved fatal. Though its odor is more agreeable, the quantity required to produce insensibility is as great as that of sulphuric ether, and the same time is required in both; it also irritates the skin, is more apt to produce nausea and vomiting, and greater disturbance of the nervous system. Says Dr. Hayward, "I cannot divest myself of the belief that chloric ether is an unsafe anæsthetic agent. * I fear that if it be used

*

with the same freedom that sulphuric ether is, we shall soon have to record some very different results. We cannot be by any means certain that death, when not looked for, may not follow its exhibition."

19 Tremont Row, Boston, Sept. 3, 1850.

On the Passage of Hydrogen through Solid Bodies.-M. Loyet states that he has passed hydrogen gas through gold and silver leaf, through double folds of tin leaf, and through thin laminæ of gutta percha obtained from a solution of the latter in chloroform. The same author, however, adds that he has not been able to effect its transmission through the thinnest plate of glass.-London Medical Gazette.

KOUSSO FOR TAPE-WORM.

KING'S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.-Continued success of the Kousso in promoting the expulsion of Tape-Worm.

(Under the care of Dr. BUDD, and Dr. TODD.)

In former numbers of THE LANCET, have been cases noticed in which the Kousso was found very efficacious for procuring the expulsion of the tænia solium. This plant is now acknowledged to be so useful in tape-worm, that it seems almost unnecessary to adduce new cases; we shall, however, just sketch a few of those which were lately benefitted by the Kousso, as they present various features of interest.

The first case, as taken from Mr. Jordan's notes, runs as follows: -Rebecca R., twenty-two years of age, is a native of Wapping; she went to Devonport when seven years of age, but only stayed there about a fortnight, with this exception she has constantly lived in town, generally at Wapping, but about eighteen months ago she spent a year at Peckham. Patient's sister, who has been dead #nine years, also suffered from tape-worm, which remained upon her to the time of her death. Patient likewise knows of a neighbour of hers in Wapping, close to her own home, who suffers from the tænia. This latter person and the above mentioned sister are the only people she knows to be thus affected. The water is supplied by the New River Company to the whole neighbourhood.

Patient was quite healthy until about two years ago, since which time she has had great pain in the side and stomach; her appetite was good, but she used to feel sick on first getting up; she had, however, no idea that she had harboured a tape-worm until a week before Christmas, when she first passed joints of it, and from that period, such joints have been passed almost every day.

Twice since she first noticed the joints she has passed long pieces of the worm, once after opening medicine, the other time without any such agency. She has never taken any turpentine nor any other remedy expressly for the worm.

Patient was admitted under the care of Dr. Budd, and took the Kousso at half-past nine in the morning the day after her admission; and, after taking a dose of castor oil in middle of the day, the worm was passed with a motion, at a quarter to five in the af ternoon. This entozoon was nearly three yards in length, and the narrow segments approaching to the head were attached to it, though not the head itself. The medicine gave patient a slight feeling of sickness, which soon went off again. Her appetite was bad on the day she took the Kousso, and she felt weak. With the exception of the tape-worm, patient seems to have generally had good health, she has only a slight cough. Her mother and sister died of phthisis, but patient's appearance is remarkably florid and healthy.

The day after admission this woman left the hospital in good condition, without passing any more of the worm.

The second case was admitted under the care of Dr. Todd. The subject is a young woman, native of Scotland, four months advanced in pregnancy. She complained to Mr. Steele, the housephysician, that she was in the habit of passing long round worms, but when she brought the joint, which she had lately evacuated, they were found to be pieces of the tænia solium. When the nature of the worm was ascertained, the patient was admitted into the house, and took the Kousso in the morning; at seven in the evening she went home, and a quarter of an hour after she had reached her residence, she passed five yards of the worm.

The third case was sent to Dr. Todd from the country. The patient is a middle-aged woman residing at Bow, who took the Kousso at three o'clock in the afternoon, and left the house immediately afterwards, promising to bring the worm as soon as she should evacuate it. The next morning she brought a tape-worm measuring about six yards in length.

When con

The fourth case, who was admitted under the care of Dr. Budd, is that of a man, about forty-six years of age. His health has, in general, been pretty good; last winter, however, he was attacked by cholera, and treated in King's College Hospital. Whilst labouring under this disease, patient did not pass any joints of the tape worm, though previous to his being visited by the epidemic he had now and then evacuated portions of the tænia. valescent, he took some oil and turpentine, and by the agency of this medicine he voided a few joints. From that period he continued passing joints, and was admitted under the care of Dr. Budd, May 3, 1850. Patient took the Kousso in the morning, and had two doses of house medicine during the day. At six o'clock in the evening, he passed a tape-worm of a very great length, since it measured nearly ten yards. The next day he voided a piece, six inches long, which came evidently from very near the head. It is to be regretted, as we stated before, that this medicine is so expensive; still, when it is considered how rapidly and effectually it promotes the evacuation of the tænia, the 17s. 6d. can hardly be looked upon as a high price; the more so, as, in hospital practice, the patients need stay in the house but a short time. It will be extremely interesting to keep an eye upon these patients, in order to ascertain whether the benefit is of a lasting or a temporary kind.

Lancet.

A FRUITFUL MOTHER.-The census taker in the western part of Scioto county, Ohio, informs the editor of the Portsmouth Dispatch, that he visited a family in which the mother had recently given birth to her twentieth child. He says it was a sight worth beholding to see the youngsters running about the house, ranging from small to great, like the pipes of an organ.

ON THE USE OF WATER-PILLOWS.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-I have been appealed to by Mr. Hooper, of Pall Mall East, relative to a letter which he has shown me in "THE LANCET" of a late date, with a comment of the editor upon it; and as he subjected himself to considerable expense, in the year 1846, in endeavoring, at my suggestion, to make a safe and durable watercushion for various purposes, I feel that I ought not to refrain from stating that he then succeeded to my satisfaction, that since that time I have used it with great benefit in private, and have had several in use at St. George's Hospital for nearly two years, by permission of the governors.

Having thus done only justice to Mr. Hooper's zeal, I cannot perhaps better recommend the water-cushion which he made for me, to the notice of the profession, than by repeating the substance of some remarks which I made to the students of St. George's Hospital in May last, in part of a clinical lecture on the case of a boy, with disease of the cervical spine, who had been lying on one of these cushions from the time of his admission, with large sloughing sores on the sacrum and trochanter, from pressure on the spinal marrow. I remarked, that those who were most sensible of the great advantages and comfort of Dr. Neil Arnott's hydrostatic bed, were also best acquainted with the circumstances which prevented its employment in some of the very cases in which it was most required, independent of the expense of frequent renewal of the India-rubber sheeting, which was easily injured by very trivial causes; that in the case of this body, and of all cases of disease about the cervical region, the bed was contra-indicated, because the least pressure on any part of the bed was liable to alter the position of the body, while the head remained quiet on the pillow, or vice versa, and that every movement so effected made the diseased cervical region the centre of motion, although the very part in which rest was most desired; that for exactly the same reason the waterbed could not be used in fractures of the thigh, either simple or compound; nor even in fractures of the leg, unless they would bear being firmly bound up; nor in many of the more painful cases of ulcerated cartilages of the hip and knee, although in so many of these cases, weak and exhausted, nervous and fat people were very liable to bed-sores from lying in one posture. I said also, that very stout people could seldom employ the water-bed from their not retaining the level posture; and that rheumatic persons also frequently found they could not lie on it, without a return of their complaint, from the dampness and coldness they often experienced. I said that, on these accounts, I had long wished for some better substitute for the water-bed than the soft cushions of wool and hair,

covered with silk, and the air-pillows, of various forms, the hardness of the compressed air in the latter, and the necessity for frequent adjustment with any of them, frequently leading, especially in the hands of awkward nurses, to the very evil they were designed to obviate; that I had often tried the common Macintosh pillows of different shapes, filled with water instead of air and that they would do for the less weighty parts of the body, but that the pressure of the trunk of the body, assisted by the effect of warmth, made it impossible to use them without their soon leaking a little, with constant fear of deluging the bed, and the floor and ceiling below, by sudden bursting of the bag.

I remarked, further, that having received, nearly three years ago, a circular from Mr. Hooper, of Pall Mall East, concerning what Dr. James Arnott had called his current apparatus I had gone to his house to look at it; but that I had found it useless for my purpose, being of ordinary Macintosh material, however well it might do to lay over inflamed parts, in the manner proposed by Dr. Årnott; that Mr. Hooper, after many trials of different materials, which were all unsafe for use, had made one of thick Vulcanized India-rubber, without any cloth whatever, which had alone answered for what I wanted, and that I had tried it for some time, and then applied to the Board to have some made for the Hospital, where they had been used constantly for a long time, as they (the students) saw in the boy whose case I was speaking of.

I added, that these water-cushions were not only useful, as a most valuable substitute for the water-bed, where the sacrum and hips were threatened with sloughing, or in which sloughing had actually taken place, but that they were often employed where the scapulæ, or spine, or heels, were in danger, when the patient was lying down or reclining; that he might also sit on it when the os coccygis and ischia required defence in this posture; and that in injuries, such as fractures or diseased joints, the arm or the leg was often laid lengthwise, with much advantage, on the same water-pillow, to save the elbow or the heel from the effects of pressure, the water diffusing it so equally over a large surface; and moreover, that with such a cushion, warmth or cold could also be used, if two tubes and stopcocks were fixed to it, as in Dr. J. Arnott's current apparatus, though I myself only used one to fill it with and let out the water, both of which could be done while the bag lay under the patient, beneath his sheet or blanket, or next to his person. I explained also, that the bag was only to be about half filled with water, and that if the person was heavy, it was necessary that the two ends should be folded or compressed by a weight or by some other means, to keep a sufficient quantity of water beneath the body, instead of its being driven into the two ends. I have little to add to what I thus stated a few months ago, except that Dr. J. Arnott informed me, I think, that he was now using Vulcanized