ART. VII.

Thefaurus Differtationum, Programmatum, &, i, e. A Thefaurus ..of inaugural Differtations, Theles, and other the moft felect Pieces, relating to the whole Circle of Medicine. Collected, i publifhed, and fupplied with the neceffary, Indexes. By Edward Sandifort, M. D. &c. Vol. II. † 4to. Rotterdam, -1769

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HE firft article in this fecond volume of the Thefaurus, is a letter from Dr. Tiffot to Dr. Haller, concerning, the fmall-pox, apoplexy, and dropfy. Dr. Tiffot declares against the use of opium in moft cafes of the fmall-pox, on account: of the heating qualities of this medicine. In an epidemic small pox which prevailed in the city where our author refided, opiates were freely adminiftered; while in the Foundling-Hofpital of the fame city, little or no opiate was given :-great numbers died in the city, very few in the hofpital."

After this he found, by further experience, in the year 1749, that opiates were prejudicial in the inflammatory finall-pox, and the more fo the more fevere the difeafe and the more acute the fever, and especially in the fecondary fever which is of allothers, he fays, the most acute. Opiates, he adds, encrease the heat and putrefaction; they likewife encrease the affections: of the brain, the anxiety, and the difficulty of refpiration; and they check the fecretions.-Tralles, Simpfon, and Young have formed the fame judgment with our author, concerning the ufe of opium in the fmall-pox.

Opiates, Dr. Tiflot fays, are ufeful in the fmall-pox, when there is great languor and irritability; they quiet the nerves and ftrengthen the circulation; they are alfo useful where a diarrhoea threatens the life of the patient.

The mineral acids are very strongly recommended in the fecond fever, and indeed through the whole course of the. difeafe, whenever the heat, anxiety, delirium, or putrid fymptoms are confiderable.

Dr. Tiflot adopts Friend's method of adminiftring purgatives, and begins with them from the commencement of the fuppuratory fever, and even earlier, if the fymptoms are very

acute.

The foreness of the throat, he fays, does not arife from puftules feated in this part, as hath generally been supposed, but from an inflammatory infarction of the pharinx and its neighbourhood, and frequently piccedes a falivation. Four diffections are mentioned, where the patients died of the fmall-pox, but there was not one puftule to be found either in

For our account of the first volume of this work, fee the Appen-. dix to the 36th vol, of the Month. Rev. p. 28.

the

the larinx, trachæa, lungs, or the whole alimentary canal. The parts, he fays, were fometimes inflamed, putrid and wafted; and he apprehends, that internal ulcerations, fucceeding inflammations, have been mistaken for pustules.

The remaining parts of this letter contain fome practical obfervations on the apoplexy, palfy, and dropfy. We shall give our readers a fhort account of what our Author fays, concerning the application of electricity in paralytic affections.-He firft confiders what are the effects of the electrical fhock on the human body; and then inquires how far it may be of advan tage or disadvantage in the disease in question.

Of the Effects of Electricity in Paralytic Affections. The electrical thock, fays Dr. Tiffot, produces the following effects on the human body. 1. It makes the pulfe more frequent; and it is found, he fays, from experience, that this acceleration is in the proportion of fix to five. 2. It confequently encreases the heat and plethora. 3. It invariably promotes perspiration; and frequently, likewife, other evacuations, viz. ftools, urine, &c. 4. It excites hæmorrhages; and particularly that from the nofe. 5. It occafions pain in the part to which it is applied; the cutis is injured; there is an involuntary action of the mufcles: and it more powerfully restores the irritability of the heart, after it is feparated from the body, than the acid of vitriol. 6. There is the most violent convulfive fhock; and this is fucceeded by weakness of the head, giddinefs and reftlefs fleep accompanied with ftartings and anxiety. 7. Laffitude and debility are the neceffary confequences of the Ipasm and fever. 8. The refpiration is often rendered laborious. 9. A palfy of the extremities and of the whole body have been obferved; which in the inftance of OPELMAYERUS proved fatal, and might be faid to be a paralytic death. 1o. It kills like lightning. 11. Bodies which have been diffected after a long courfe of electricity, have had the veffels of the brain turgid and diftended with blood. 12. Electricity applied to other animals, hath produced ftrong convulfions, convulfive rigidity, involuntary evacuations, palfies, anxiety, frothing at the mouth, fyncope, and fudden death, with extravafation of blood in the lungs and brain.

From this black catalogue, Dr. Tiffot concludes, that the chief effects of electricity are, to excite fever, convulfion, and plethora. He adds, it forces the blood to the head; and may either produce or encrease a palfy.

What then, fays he, are the ufes of electricity in the pally? He anfwers; ex precedentibus patet. The fever and plethora are prejudicial. And as to the fpafms or convulfions, they are almoft univerfally to be feared; for they difturb the circulation and frequently occafion a paify. Electricity therefore is not to

be

be indifcriminately applied in every paralytic affection, but only when no bad effects are to be apprehended from fever, fpafm, or plethora.

Under the direction of a skilful phyfician electricity may be ufefully applied; but if confidered as a specific in the difeafe in question, it may produce the worft effects. So long ago as the year 1746, Camper obferved, that it excited fever; and fufpected that it was prejudicial to the nerves.

Dr. Tiflot apprehends that electricity may be useful, in those conftitutions which are relaxed and deficient in irritability. Anger likewife, and electricity, he confiders as fimilar in their effects on paralytic patients. In fome paralytic cafes, electricity has restored the powers of the body, in others it has totally destroyed them. Anger has been found to be accompanied with the fame effects.

We fhall conclude this article with obferving, that the effects of electricity as applied with different degrees of ftrength to the human body when in health, do not appear to be clearly and fully afcertained: its effects in the difeafed flate, and the cafes in which its ufes are particularly indicated, are ftill lefs clearly afcertained. The public, however, is indebted to Dr. Tiffot for what he has written on this fubject.

The second article contains the history of a diflocation of one of the vertebræ of the back, complicated with a fracture: and the third article, the hiftory of an impeded birth from a ten'dinous membrane which furrounded the os internum uteri. Art. IV. An inaugural Differtation on the Pleurify and Peripneumony. By F.Wendt.

This is a valuable differtation, containing many useful obfervations, drawn from a variety of cafes and diffections which occurred to the author in the hofpital at Gottingen.

Art. V. A medical Differtation on a double Wound of the Colon which was not fatal. By J. H. Vogel,

Befides the particular cafe which is here related, Dr. Vogel has likewife collected from a number of authors a variety of hiftories, to prove that wounds of the inteftines, though extremely dangerous, are not always mortal. `

Art. VI. An Account of a human Monfler, which was brought forth at a Twin Birth. By C. W. Curtius.

The production of this monfter is fuppofed to have been the effect of a strong impreffion on the imagination of the mother from the fight of a bear. The author takes occasion to make fome obfervations on fuperfætation, and on the effects of the mother's imagination on the foetus.

Art. VII. On the Struture and Formation of the Bones. A difficult and abftrufe fubject; and which the author leaves involved in as much darkness as he found it.

Art,

Art. VIII. On the Foramina of the Skull, and their Ufes. By J. G. Jankins.

The Author proposed to have given a complete hiftory of the foramina of the fkull, and likewife of the parts which pafs through thefe openings; but a premature death prevented his finishing the work. He confiders the differences in thefe foramina both with refpect to figure and magnitude; and the appearance in the infant, the junior, and the adult'; and he proves that thefe varieties are by no means to be confidered as mere lufus nature. He divides the foramina and cavities intò prôper claffes, and then enters upon a more particular examination. Art IX. A Method of injecting the fmall, and particularly the cutaneous Veins of the human Body. By the fame.

The ufual method of filling the fmaller branches of the veins, is by forcing the injection into the larger trunks of thefe veffels; in this method, however, the valves are a very great impediment to the free diftribution of the injected liquor. The method propofed and practifed by profeffor Jankins is, to inject by the artery; the injection will thus follow the courfe of nature, and pafs, like the blood in the circulation, from the arteries into fmall branches of the veins.

In the fucceeding article, we have fome anatomical obfervations, which occurred in the diffection of a female fubject, who' died of a confumption; thefe obfervations chiefly refpect fome peculiarities in the appearances of the mufcles and the vifcera. Art. XI. Contains fome Obfervations concerning the Commencement of Refpiration; the Phrenic Nerve; and Animal Heat. By H. Á. Wrisberg.

The expanfion of the thorax, and the first act of infpiration in the new-born infant, have been attributed to the force of the external air infinuating itself into the lungs; but our author deduces the firft motion in the process of refpiration from the action of the intercoftal mufcles, and confirms this opinion by a variety of obfervations and arguments. The conftant and regular fucceffion of expiration to infpiration, have been accounted for from the preffure which is regularly made on the phrenic nerve by the diaphragm and the diftended lungs during every infpiration; this theory is proved not to be founded on facts. Animal heat is confidered as peculiarly connected with the brain and nervous fyftem; and hence, as the celebrated Roederer obferves, it is to be deemed an attribute of the animal and not of the vegetable kingdom.

Art. XII. An inaugural Differtation on the Continuation of Membranes. By A. Bonn.

The Author of this differtation has collected from the best writers whatever relates to his fubject, and has further illuftrated it by his own inquiries.-1. He treats of membranes in general.

2. Of the cutis; its minute anatomy, and the varieties which occur in its continuations. 3. Of thofe membranes which are found under the cutis. 4. Of thofe membranes, which cover the cavities of the head, breaft, and abdomen.

The thirteenth article contains fome practical obfervations on the medical virtues of the corrofive fublimate as directed and recommended by Van Swieten.

The Hydrocephalus is the fubject of the two fucceeding articles. In the first of thefe, we have the hiftory and diffection of a patient, who had laboured under an internal hydrocephalus from her infancy to the forty-fifth year of her age. Dr. Whytt, in his obfervations on the dropfy in the brain, has much more clearly marked out the diftinguishing character of this difeafe, than any other author.

Art. XVI. A medical Differtation on the Angina or Sore Throat of Children, which has of late years been obferved in the Neighbourhood of Stockholm and Upfal. By H. C. D. Wilcke.

This epidemic angina appeared at Stockholm, in the years. 1755, 1757, and 1758.-At Upfal and in that neighbourhood in 1751, and 1762.—It was more malignant in England, and is defcribed by Fothergill, in his Account of the Sore-throat attended with Ulcers, as it occurred in 1747 and 1748. Starr likewife has published an Account of the Morbus ftrangulatorius, in the Philofophical Tranfactions, 1750, No. 495. And Huxham has more particularly defcribed it, in his Differtation on the ulcerous Sorethroat, as it appeared in the year 1751, 1752, and 1753. Chomel, Malouin, Wedelius, Zaffius, and a number of other authors, mark its appearance in France and other parts of the continent. It is likewife defcribed by Italian, Spanish, and Neapolitan phyficians, as it appeared in 1620, and many fubfequent years.

We have fome doubt whether the epidemic which has been noticed by fuch a variety of writers, can be ftrictly confidered as the fame difeafe: if it is, it admits of great variety in the appearances.

We fhall tranflate our Author's general hiftory of the epidemic, as it appeared at Stockholm in December 1757.

The patient firft experienced fevere chills, which in the afternoon were fucceeded by intenfe heat. The chills and heats continued in the fame manner, but became daily more moderate. In the mean time, the neck or at least one fide of the neck was ftiffened, and frequently attended with a cough and hoarfeness. At the fame time, there was an ulceration of the

The works of Dr. Robert Whytt, &c. published by his fon, 1768. See Rev. Vol. xxxix.

APP. Rev. vol. xlii.

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