Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

—138 Editorial. [February,will shrink with as much horror from hanging a lunatic as theywould now do from burning a witch. Dr. Winslow's paper was,as might have been expected, an extremely well-written andphilosophical essay, and was listened to with a degree of atten*tion which, at any rate, argued a desire on the part of the mem*bers of the Juridical Society to learn what they could.- It waspainfully evident, however, from the discussion which followed,that the minds of the audience were unprepared to grasp thegreat truths laid before them,- and we therefore hope that theauthor will follow up this paper with another, in which, bygiving copious details of cases, he may furnish the legal mindwith a species of food which it can assimilate more readily thanthe recondite truths of psychological philosophy."Researches on Arsenic.—Dr. Blofidlot, of Nancy, has just observed afact which explains the contradictions encountered by inexperiencedchemists in attempts to detect arsenic in connection with organic matters.-It is this:—that when substances poisoned have been left toputrefy, some sulphuret of arsenic is formed at the expense of the sulphurettedhydrogen, and this, as is well known, escapes detection "by Marsh'sapparatus. Sulphuret of arsenic also forms when the suspected mattersare carbonized by the action of sulphuric acid after the process of Flandinand Danger. The sulphuret of arsenic may be extracted by washingthe carbonized mass with ammonia ; this dissolves the sulphuret ; thenconvert the arsenic into arsenic acid (AsO 5 )' by means of boiling nitricacid, so as to obtain a second solution ; this, added to the first, may thenbe tested in March's apparatus. [Amer. Jour, of Sci. and Arts.EDITORIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.Meckel's Ganglion.—In the January number of theAmer. Journalof Medical Sciences, we find a paper from the pen of Professor J. M.Carnochan, of New York, on the Exsection of the Second Branch (SuperiorMaxillary) of the Fifth Pair of ^serves, for the cure of facialNeuralgia. On account of the originality of the operation, its uniformsuccess, and the heretofore almost hopeless character of this disease incertain forms, we have deemed it proper to transfer from that valuablequarterly, the entire article to our own pages.The operation proposed,and thrice successfully performed, by the distinguished reporter, meetswith our unreserved approval. If it is objected by any one, that theoperation is horrible, he can be answered,that it is to eradicate a worsethan horrible disease, a living and unending agony, to which even deathitself is preferable, and that the use of chloroform, insisted on by the