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the mouth in doses of twenty minims upon a piece of sugar, and washed down with water. This dose may be repeated every twenty minutes, unless sickness is provoked, when the medicine must be omitted. Vomiting at the outset, however, to remove the contents of the stomach, is salutary, though it must be counteracted when it passes into painful retching and threatens to exhaust. Blood-letting, which is recommended by Dr. Stokes and by Frerichs under certain circumstances, is, in Dr. Thudichum's opinion, always unnecessary. A contraction of the duct is needed for the expulsion of the calculus; to arrest it by bleeding is to endanger its impaction and permanent jaundice. "In gall-stone colic we have the same indications as in parturition with excessive pain-namely, to mitigate the pain without stopping the expulsive contractions."

The author rejects the formerly much-extolled virtues of turpentine as a solvent of biliary calculi whilst in the gall-bladder or ducts, and he cannot agree with Frerichs in the reputed effects of a thin bile in lessening such calculi; but "as we can effect (he proceeds to say) the secretion of a somewhat alkaline bile without interfering with the function of the liver or the efficiency of the bile, it is reasonable to make further inquiries and experiments in this direction." With this view he recommends the employment of phosphate of soda, which is normally present in bile.

This chapter on treatment has appended to it a number of illustrative eases, with the record of which the treatise terminates.

Monographs on particular lesions will always be valued by the profession when they convey the results of original observation and experiment; among such productions we are happy to number this treatise by Dr. Thudichum, and to recommend it to careful study.

ART. III.-Outlines of a New Theory of Muscular Action. By the Rev. SAMUEL HAUGHTON, M.D., F.R.S.-Dublin, 1863. pp. 23. THOSE who have followed the progress of physiological science during the last few years cannot but be aware of the valuable contributions which the Rev. Dr. Haughton has made to our knowledge of the relations which exist between the waste of the body, as indicated by its excretions, and the work performed by it in the discharge of those various physical and mental functions which go to make up the sum total of human life. This little brochure, which is the substance of a dissertation read by its author for the degree of Doctor of Medicine before the University of Dublin, is not so much an extension of his previous researches as a special application of them to one particular form of muscular action. We must, however, before giving a brief outline of its contents, remark, in limine, that the title of the work. does not appear to be a particularly appropriate one. So far as we can discover from a careful perusal of its pages, they contain purely a record of facts, without any suggestion of a theory in explanation. It is possible that Dr. Haughton may have a theory on the subject in

65-XXXIII.

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view, but there are but very slight indications of it in his present publication. We mention this not with the view of detracting at all from the merit of his researches, but to prevent our readers being misled, as we ourselves were, into expecting to find in the work what it really does not contain.

Dr. Haughton divides his subject into three parts, the first of which is devoted to an investigation of the rate of muscular action. He commences by referring to the observations made by Dr. Wollaston and recorded in the Croonian Lecture for the year 1809, on the frequency of the susurrus, or peculiar series of sounds which are produced by the muscles when in a state of contraction, and which is familiar to all who have ever put the tip of one finger into the ear, and at the same time brought the muscles of the obstructing hand or forearm into strong contraction. From an ingenious device which he employed Wollaston was led to conclude that the muscular contractions which contribute to the production of this sound occur with a frequency that varies from fourteen to thirty-six in a second-their average number being between twenty and thirty. In the course of some observations which Dr. Haughton made on the same phenomena, both in his own person and in those of some friends, he noticed that the peculiar tone of the muscular sound corresponded with the notes known to musicians as CCC, or DD D-that is to say, two octaves below bass C and D; and these notes indicate thirty-two and thirty-six vibrations per second respectively. This is a curious corroboration of Wollaston's conclusion, and is more particularly interesting from the fact that, although in the experiment above mentioned the susurrus is demonstrated by means of voluntary muscular contractions, it may be shown to be altogether independent of voluntary action. Dr. Haughton even goes so far as to assert his belief of its being independent of muscular action of any kind, and of its being a sign of the rate at which nervous action takes place in the brain. But of this he gives ⚫no proof whatever, though he hopes at some future time to do so. We may also mention another corroboration of the rate of the susurrus which is derived from its exact similarity to the noise of cab-wheels as it may be heard any night in Hyde-park, which Dr. Haughton calculates is caused by 35-2 impulses per second.

The second portion of Dr. Haughton's work is devoted to an investigation of the amount of work which is stored up in human muscles. For this purpose he selected the force by which the arm is kept extended in a horizontal position, as one of the simplest cases of muscular action, that position being maintained by the action of two muscles only-viz., the supra-spinatus and the central portion of the deltoid. From a series of simple mechanical data he infers that the amount of force exerted, in his own case, during an interval of seven minutes, at the end of which period the muscles became thoroughly exhausted from fatigue, was equivalent to that expended in raising 1083 pounds, or nearly half a ton, one foot in the air. On dissecting and carefully weighing these muscles in a well-developed male subject, he found that their weight exceeded slightly five ounces; whence it follows that one

pound weight of the same kind of muscle is capable of raising 1·56 ton through one foot before it becomes exhausted. This result will probably considerably astonish those who are unacquainted with Dr. Haughton's previous researches on the amount of force expended by the human body in the discharge of its several functions, but the considerations upon which it is founded do not appear to be open to any serious objection. It is somewhat singular that women and boys seem, from Dr. Haughton's experiments, to be capable of sustaining the continuous action of the above muscles, before becoming exhausted, for a much longer period than men can.

In the third and most interesting part of his thesis the author discusses the amount of work done in a day by the human heart. Taking the mean of the weights of the heart, as given by various authorities, at 9-39 ounces, it follows, by a simple calculation on the data just referred to, that the work done by the heart in the twenty-four hours is equivalent to raising the enormous weight of 178.09 tons one foot, or more than one-third of the daily labouring force of the whole body, which is estimated as well by Coulomb and Lamandé, as by Dr. Haughton himself, at less than 400 tons. No fact can be more suggestive than this of feelings of astonishment and admiration at an arrangement by which a small organ like the heart is thus capable of wearying out nearly 200 times its own weight of the strongest muscles of the body without itself becoming exhausted; and no fact can be better calculated to demonstrate the vast energy which is stored up in organized structures. It can hardly be surprising that even Dr. Haughton himself should have felt that so startling a conclusion as this required some corroboration from other and independent sources, and it is no small proof of the originality and ingenuity which have distinguished all of this gentleman's researches, that his profound mathematical acquirements should have enabled him to find in another and totally different set of considerations a most efficient check upon the accuracy of his prior conclusions. Dr. Hales long ago examined, with some care, the force with which a column of blood was projected from a large artery, such as the carotid or crural, in the horse. His experiments, which are detailed in his well known 'Statical Essays,' showed that the maximum elevation of such a column was, at the commencement of the experiment, nine feet, but that it gradually declined to two and a half feet, as the animal became exhausted, and died from loss of blood. These heights denote the hydrostatic pressure exerted by the left ventricle under varying conditions of fulness of the vessels; and as each cubic inch of blood weighs 268 grains, the pressure exerted to maintain the higher of the two columns is equivalent to a pressure of 4.2 pounds on each square inch of the left ventricle. By a most ingenious application of a happy observation made on a jet of blood escaping from the external epigastric artery of a patient in the operating theatre, Dr. Haughton is induced to believe that the pressure exerted by the left ventricle of the human heart is very nearly equal to that which Hales

* Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 1859-60.

established for the heart of the horse; and by a further extension of the mathematical portion of the problem, he estimates from these data that the work of the left ventricle in the twenty-four hours would amount to eighty-eight tons raised one foot. On adding to this sum

ths of its amount for the work done by the right ventricle, the thickness of which bears to that of the left the proportion of 5 to 13, we get a total of 121.82 tons for the whole daily work of the heart. The very close coincidence of this number with the one obtained by Dr. Haughton by calculations founded on his previous observations-viz., 124.6 tons, gives at least a very strong probability in favour of the accuracy of his estimate.

We take this treatise to be one of the most valuable contributions which has been made to the science of exact physiology for many years. No one can read it without seeing that its author is not only possessed of such an acquaintance with the mathematical element of physiology as to give him great facilities in dealing with some of its more recondite problems, but also that he is a man of no ordinary originality and power of observation. We shall look with the greatest interest to the further development of his researches, and we hail with pleasure the accession to the ranks of our profession of a gentleman who promises to do such good service in its advancement.

ART. IV.-1. Mentone in its Medical Aspect: being Letters addressed to a Medical Friend. By JAMES LEWIS SIORDET, M.B. Lond.London, 1863.

pp. 111.

2. Menton; Essai Climatologique sur ses differentes regions. Par le Dr. JAQUES FRANCOIS FARINA.

Essay on the Climate of Mentone. By Dr. J. F. FARINA.

THANKS to the efforts of Dr. Bennet, one of the first pioneers in the cause, and of the other medical valetudinarians whom a too zealous devotion to their profession has driven to follow him in his rambles in search of health, the merits of the little village that nestles in the sheltered bay which is bounded by Capes St. Martin and Murtola, and which has, within the space of thirteen years, belonged successively to the Prince of Monaco, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Empire of France, are by this time pretty well established. One would have thought that enough had now been written to afford the public the most ample information on all points connected with its situation and climate upon which they could possibly have desired to be enlightened, had not long experience taught us that such subjects as this possess an irresistible fascination for a certain class of authors, and that of "making books" on them there is literally "no end."

Here are two very creditable little brochures on Mentone in its medical aspect, each of which is so like the other in its general character that, apart from the peculiarities of style by which every book is distinguished, and from the somewhat different "stand-point" from which a casual English medical visitor and a French physician prac

tising in the town, may be supposed to view certain questions, either might have been written by the author of the other. The object of Dr. Farina, whose name by the way is pleasantly suggestive of that odour which is nominally supposed to be manufactured in Cologne, but of which no small quantity "hails" from the less classic shores of Jersey, is plainly stated in the preface to his work, which, with a judicious foresight, he dedicates to "Monsieur le Préfet," to be "to plead the cause of a district which recognises in the question of climatology the elements of its future prosperity." We have hardly any right to be surprised if, under these circumstances, the hue which tinges our author's description partakes somewhat of the colour of the rose. If the future prosperity of Mentone is to depend upon the reputation of its climate, it is clearly the duty of every patriotic Mentonian at least to say nothing which can discredit its reputation, even if he does not feel it to be his implied duty to give its defects the thickest coat of whitewash. We have, therefore, reason to feel satisfied with the candour which admits that it is not in every case of phthisis that the climate of Mentone is calculated to be beneficial, and which points out to its inhabitants the necessity of backing up the flood of good fortune which has so unexpectedly set in upon their shores by the construction of appropriate residences for the increasing influx of strangers, the laying out of new roads, and a regard for various improvements, sanitary and otherwise, which the rapid enlargement of the town renders indispensable. Although Dr. Farina's work is written mainly, as he himself implies, with the view of awakening the attention of his fellow-citizens to the importance of these considerations, it may be read with advantage by those who, in going to Mentone for the recovery of their health, may be desirous of a concise account of its principal characteristics from a writer whose professional avocations and lengthened residence may be supposed to give to his statements the authority of experience.

Dr. Siordet addresses himself more directly to the wants of the invalid, and his work, though less pretentious in size than those of some of his predecessors, is essentially practical in its aim. He describes with a clearness which makes his account well fitted for the perusal of the non-professional reader, the climate, locality, and resources of Mentone, pointing out with impartiality its weak points, and recommending those precautions which his own experience as an invalid has suggested as desirable. The intending traveller to Mentone who wants a readable, and at the same time a concise and trustworthy guidebook, may safely consult Dr. Siordet's work, which is furnished, as is also that of Dr. Farina, with copious tables of meteorological observations.

ART. V.-The Natural Laws of Husbandry.

By JUSTUS VON Liebig.

Edited by JOHN BLYTH, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in Queen's College, Cork.-London, 1863. pp. 416.

THOUGH it is foreign to the design of our Review to notice works on agriculture, we are for once tempted to make an exception in favour

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