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being procured in Edinburgh. Perhaps this note on thehistory of an interesting epoch in surgery can hardly beconsidered complete without reference to the experimentswhich the eminent French physiologist Flourens made

upon dogs, and published in March, 1847. Flourens statesthat he chloroformed animals and exposed the spinalnerves, and found the posterior roots insensitive. He con-cluded from his experiences that chloroform was far too

dangerous an agent for use in general surgery, but historyhas reversed the decision of this great man, as she has thatof many another. -

PARDONABLE AND UNPARDONABLE ERRORSIN DIAGNOSIS.

THE July number of the Gdasgotv Medical Journal con-tains a paper by Dr. Russell on Errors in Diagnosis ofInfectious Diseases based on recent occurrences in the

experience of the sanitary department of Glasgow. The

paper is also published separately, and we commend it tothe careful consideration of every student and practitionerof medicine. Nobody but a fool thinks diagnosis alwayseasy, and every wise practitioner will learn much from hisown mistakes and from the mistakes of others, until hebecomes so careful and experienced as to be seldom atfault. Dr. Russell shows how necessary it is for a

sanitary authority to make use of these very mistakes.The " authority " exists to prevent the spread of disease.When an error of diagnosis is committed and a case sentas infectious, when it is not so, into an infectious hos-

pital, the patient may catch the infection; still more sowhen a very infectious disease is taken for one but little

infectious,-as when a case of typhus is overlooked and

regarded as a cold, or as enteric fever-many others catchthe disease, and not a few of them die. The paper isadmirable in its details, and in its suggestions for theavoidance of errors. One mistake Dr. Russell thinksalmost unpardonable-that is, " certifying a person to have’fever,’ or a febrile disease, when the temperature isnormal." Here, the simple expedient of using the thermo-meter would prevent a mistake. Not, perhaps, always, forwe have known cases of unmistakable scarlet fever in

which, for a day or two, the diagnosis was uncertain fromwant of the high temperatures which are generally foundin this disease. But certainly the use of the thermometershould never be omitted, and if it records a normal

temperature the diagnosis of " fever " should be withheld.Another admirable hint for cases in which a high tempera-ture is found is to make sure of the absence of local disease,such as pneumonia, or pleurisy, or tonsillitis. These should

always be looked for. If the practitioner is in any doubthe should wait a day or two till the development of symp-toms makes his diagnosis more certain. It is instructive tonotice the diseases in which error is most frequent. It is

satisfactory to find that in the grave case of scarlet fevererrors are not common-only 3 per cent. They were excessiveinthecaseof "enteric," ‘typhus," "fever,"and"diphtheria."Of persons sent into the hospital as suffering from entericfever, 17 per cent. were not so sufiering, and nearly all ofthese had no infectious disease at all. In forty-two suchcases of error, fourteen had pneumonia, five had simplediarrhoea, four disease of the brain, five various chronic

diseases, and four had typhus. Ten were absolutely non-febrile. Of the cases certified as diphtheria, nearly 24 percent. had not diphtheria ; half of the errors were scarletfever cases. Of cases sent in vaguely as "fever" 26 percent. had no infectious disease whatever. It would be agood rule never to certify "fever" until it is possibleto define the fever. "Fever" per se means nothing.Errors in diagnosis are least frequent in the diseases of whichpractitioners see most, as scarlet fever, measles, and whoop-ing-cough. Typhus is rarely seen nowadays out of Liver-

pool or Glasgow, and hence is the subject of error in no lessthan 44 per cent. of cases. It cannot be diagnosed till theeruption appears, and this is not the case till about thefifth or sixth day. So consummate and careful a judge asDr. Murchison well said, I I The diagnosis is not always soeasy as might be imagined." This is especially true in

regard to cases in dark and narrow rooms. The moral ofthis fact is that students should lose no reasonable oppor-tunity of seeing and studying typhus. It is gratifying toknow that the sanitary authority of Glasgow has set anexample to all other authorities in placing its infectioushospital at the service of medical teachers and students,and that by the rules of the General Medical Councilstudents are now required to give proof of having had oppor-tunities of seeing infectious cases. With such clear indica-tions of an enlightened wish to advance the study of thesediseases, their diagnosis and treatment will be so facilitatedas to reduce errors to a minimum, and greatly curtail theirprevalence. ------

DO SAFETY LAMPS INJURE MINERS’ EYES?

IN a notice under the above heading which has appearedin our contemporary The Engineer, it is stated that miners’agents frequently meet with men who complain that safetylamps have injured their eyes. The difficulty seems to beto obtain a lamp which shall constitute an efficient safe-guard to the flame and yet give a good light. Manydevices, it is said, have been tried, and it is admitted on allhands that the light afforded is miserable, scarcely morethan is sufficient to make darkness visible. We shouldhave thought there was little difficulty in constructing anelectric lamp which should have an accumulator at the baseand a glass cover to the light which would be strongenough to bear the rough usage to which such lamps arenecessarily subject. The small coal might be used to drivean engine by means of which the accumulators could becharged, and if enough could not be stored in this way tolast for several hours, wires might be carried to a centralpoint of the workings, whence, when exhausted, a freshsupply could be procured. The problem of a good andsafe light ought not to be insoluble.

"POSTHUMOUS LABOUR."A CORRESPONDENT writes:—"At Moglia, in the province of

Mantua, occurred a case of post-mortem delivery in somerespects unique. A woman, Lavinia Merli by name,subject to chronic epilepsy, had suddenly lapsed into thecataleptic state when in the eighth month of pregnancy.So death-like was the trance that she was certified as deadand ordered to be buried. The coffin containing the unfor-tunate woman was closed and deposited in the mortuarychapel pending the gravedigger’s work, when next morningit was found with the lid raised. The woman’s body-nowa corpse-was horribly contracted, and, closely pressedbetween the knees, lay a new-born child, quite dead. The

gravedigger and his men, for reasons of their own, kepttheir discovery a secret and buried the two corpses. The facts,however, leaked out, and the judicial authorities, aided byphysicians from Mantua, at once proceeded to exhume thecoffin and examine its contents. A very minute and pro-longed inspection was made, with the result that the phy-sicians declared themselves satisfied that the mother was

already dead when the child was expelled from the womb.From the position of the bodies and the commencingdecomposition in which they were found, taken in con-

nexion with other considerations set out at length in theoflicial report, the conclusion was arrived at that the

gases, disengaged by the putrefactive process, and seekingan exit, had forced out the foetus ; that, in short, the casewas one undoubtedly very rare, but by no means unpre