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of sulphureous mineral waters,.goat’s whey, tepid bathing, decoc-tion of sarsaparilla, or blood-let-

ting ; but that such cases may haveoccurred to other practitioners, Iam not disposed to doubt. !

I have met with several cases I!,wherein very delicate women haveborne dead children at the seventhmonth, but not putrid ; and have,where I did not suspect venerealtaint, constantly succeeded in avoid-ing the accident by a rigid con-finement, even to one floor, and bya very strict attention to keep thebowels gently free, from the ear-

liest period of gestation to the endof the eighth month ; and several,to whom I gave permission to goout at that time, have thanked

me, saying they were never so

happy as in their connnement, andwould not accept of my offeredemancipation. I do not remembera single instance where good health,good looks, and a continuation ofbearing living children, were notthe rewards of the confinement.

Every man engaged in my pro-fession must have met with deadand putrid children, the result ofaccidents, but they are not suchas the learned author points out,and require no further notice.

If the above cases and observa-tions should appear to be worthyof a place in the Transactions ofthe Medical Association, as a re-ply to the very interesting paperwhich I have perused with suchpleasure, I shall feel obliged bytheir insertion.

HYDROPHOBIA.

A long letter appeared on this

subject in the Morning Post of

Wednesday, in which the writerseverely animadverts on the treat-ment adopted by the Surgeons andPhysicians of Guy’s Hospital, inthe case of hydrophobia lately re-ceived there; and the minute de-tails of which were accurately andoriginally* published in TfiE LAN-crT of Sept. 18. Our report pre-sented the most complete historyofthe disease, with its post mortem ap-pearances,that ever appeared beforethe British public, and which, butfor our exertions, would have beenentirely lost to the bulk of the pro-fession in this country, and on theContinent. The case has beenread with great interest by theprofessional and extra-professionalpublic, and has afforded an oppor-tunity to one of the latter class towrite, in the letter before us, a se-ries of very unwise observations.;and he has foolishly attempted toinsinuate himself as the publicchampion, by asserting the powerof habit, in creating indifferenceon the part of the medical profes-sion to human suffering. We denythis charge ; it is as unfounded asit i8 malignant, and we boldly as-sert, that at no former period wasthe comfort of the patient more as-siduously studied, consistently withhis safety, than at the present era.of medicine. The majority of the

persons who now practise surgeryare men who have enjoyed a libe-ral education, which has expandedthe moral faculties, and given rise tothat refined feeling and taste whichdistinguish the gentleman from thebarbarian. That man, therefore,is the friend of the public who en-deavours to accelerate the progress

* We say originally, because the Edi-tor of the e Morning Post, contrary to

his usual courtesy, omitted to namethe source of the intelligcncf.

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of knowledge. The writer of the let-ter in the Post has displayed hisliterary acquirements by translat-ing the discoloration of the thala-mi nervorum opticorum, present-ed by section, as the discolorationof the eye and its socket; he hasalso discovered " a fever producedby a relaxation of the nerves," ofthe existence of which we professourselves ignorant ; and we wouldadvise this gentleman to compre-hend a theory, before he attemptsto criminate a practice. As to the

rapid increase of the pulse, afterthe abstraction of the first twentyounces of blood, it certainly oughtto have determined the operatorsnot to have proceeded farther, andtheir having done so evidently has-tened the dissolution of the unfor-tunate patient. The injection ofwarm water’into the veins had not,in this case, a trial, and the suc-cess or failure of that remedy isnot in the slightest degree affectedby the result ; thus much, in can-dour, is due to M. MAGENDIE.Whether any specific poison be

communicated by the bite of a ra-bid animal, capable of producingthe train of symptoms designated- hydrophobia, or whether those

symptoms are merely the result ofa lacerated wound in an irritableconstitution, are still questions ofdispute with many of the mosteminent medical characters. The

subject is altogether pregnant withdifficulties, and as yet we are notin the possession of a sufficientnumber of facts to lead us to any.definite conclusion. It is well

known, that of many persons bittenby the same animal, some will beaffected while others will altoge-ther escape. Again it is knownthat some individuals are entirelyinsensible to the influence of par-

ticular poisons, while others are

more easily affected by such agentsat one time than at another. Thebodies of those persons who havebeen destroyed have, upon exami-nation, been found to possess somepeculiar structure, some deviationfrom the natural figure, either ofthe bony envelope of the brain, orsome ossific deposits on the spinalmarrow, which, acting as me-

chanical stimuli, rendered the ner-vous system in the highest degreeirritable.

There is evidently a difference be-tween tetanus and hydrophobia, al-though we admit that there is someanalogy in the two diseases. Intetanus the muscles of the larynx,pharynx, and indeed the whole ofthe muscles concerned in the pro-cess of deglutition, are rigidly con-tracted, and that contraction is

perfectly involuntary; but this is,not the case in hydrophobia, theactions of the muscles, though vio-lent, appear to be in some degreeunder the influence of the will, andin the case at GUY’S, the manswallowed his saliva very readily,and to which he even called theattention of the spectators.

Hydrophobia, then, may still beconsidered one of the opprobria ofsurgery, and which stain on itssplendour we hope to see speedilyremoved by the concurrent influ-ence of talent, and perseverance.

The dog that was inoculated bysaliva taken from the hydrophobicpatient has not yet exhibited anypeculiar symptoms. It still ap-pears to be perfectly well, and takesits food as usual