Issue 10, pp. 753-832, October 1861, SMSJ

———828 Miscellaneous. [October,how much less likely delirium tremens is to recur. The patients themselvesare sometimes surprised at the comparative impunity with whichthey can continue their drinking. The author prescribes three or fourglasses a day of an infusion made with three ounces of asarum root, oneounce of valerian root, and half an ounce of orange-peel, but he does notstate the quantity of water employed. In cases of drunkenness, anotherformula is composed of decoction of asarum (made by boiling from halfan ounce to one ounce of the root), six ounces; tincture of valerian, twoto three drachms ; Sydenham's laudanum, gtt.xij ; syrup of orange-peel,half an ounce. A tablcspoonful of this is taken every two hours. Hefinds from two to ttve grains of bismuth, taken four times a day, a valuableadjunct. He has also found the following popular Russian remedyof service in cases of drunkenness :—R. Amnion, carb. half an ounce ;aceti vini, lbj ; oxymel scill. half an ounce. Two tablespoonsfuls everytwo hours. Med, Zcit. Rztsslands and PJtarmaccutical Journal."Mortality from Excision of the Knee Joint.—In a memoirread before the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Krackowitzer discussesmore particularly the mortality attending excision of the kneejoint,and the objections which have been urged against the operation.He has collected, from various sources, two hundred and thirty-threecases, which give 4a result of sixty-three deaths and twenty subsequentamputations ; the rate of mortality being twenty-seven in a hundred ; or,including the subsequent amputations, the ratio of failures being thirtysixin a hundred. Of the two hundred and thirty-three cases, thirteenoccurred in the practice of American surgeons. Four of the thirteenpatients died, and two were under treatment at the time of the report,with every prospect of recovering a good limb."Times.American MedicalExcision of the Hip-Joint.—In the statistics of resection of the hipjoint collected by Mr. P. 0. Price, mention is made of the operationhaving been done 59 times. Of that number 33 recovered with goodand useful limbs and greatly benefitted constitutions ;11 were partiallysuccessful—i. e., the patients lived for periods varying from three monthsto two years, and then died, more from other causes than from a recurrenceof the disease which demanded interference; 14 deaths resulteddirectly from the operation, and in 1 the result was unknown. A fairconsideration of the question would show the mortality from the operationto be only 14 out of the 59 cases, or about 23 per cent. ProfessorPirrie states in his "Principles and Practice of Surgery," that he wasextremely anxious to obtain accurate statistics of this operation, butfailed to "procure them from some parts of the world where it had beenseveral times performed. So far as he has been able to learn, the opcrationhad been adopted in 70 cases, and death has resulted from it in 25.Sayre, of New York, gives an analysis of 30 cases, of which 20 recoveredand 10 died, 4 of the latter within one week after the operation.Lancet.