The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-01 00:00:00

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few to countenance it ; and en Mr. Beecher, who
is inclined to go as far as m Ipeople in negrophi-1
lism, draws the line at the intermixture of blood,-..!
and thinks it best for both laces that they shouldl
remain unmixed. But, whaker -legislators may
enact or preachers preach, there As a mood social
barrier—some may call it a tyranny—which in
America, where negroes are so overabundant, the
negro can never overpass or conquer. His status will
be unchanged if he remain in the country, and all
but the very few who may happen to acquire great
wealth will, in spite of acts of Congress, continue to
be after the war for emancipation what they were
before it—the pariahs of American civilisation.

Extraordinary Sc no at the University
of Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Weekly Review reports the follow-
ing extraordinary incident :—" Professor Simpson,
of the University of Edinburgh, has discovered a
new method of arresting the bleeding in surgical
wounds and operations, by temporarily compressing
together the sides or tubes of the divided vessels by
a needle, instead of tying up their open mouths by
threads which remain for days as foreign bodies
in the wound, and always kill or mortify the end
of the tied artery. Dr. Simpson's new and simple
plan of acupressure has been accepted with much
more favour by the profession than new practical
suggestions usually are. But Mr. Syme, pro-
fessor of clinical surgery, without ever trying the
plan, denounced it some time ago in most dis-
courteous terms before the Medico Chirurgical
Society of London. Lately, Dr. Simpson issued a
quiet pamphlet, styled Answers to the objections
against acupressure, or the temporary metallic
compression of arteries, adduced by Professors
Miller, Erichsen, Neudarfer, Spence, Fergusson,
and. Syme.' Last week, Air. Syme took this
pamphlet into his classroom, and without attempt-
ing to answer the rather unanswerable arguments
which it contains in favour of acupressure, he
scolded at the author, and declared the pamphlet to
be a piece of "- vulgar insolence.' Then came the
denouement. (We quote from the letter of an accu-
rate eye-witness.) With firm hand, teeth com-
pressed, pale lines around his orbits, and altogether
a most determined and savage expression, he tore up
the pamphlet with his fingers, and gave the frag-
ments to his assistants to be consigned to the saw-
dust box with other surgical remains.' One important
addition requires to be, made to our notice of this inde-
cent scene. The whole had given to it a kind of
official character by Dr. John Brown, the assessor
or representative of the Lord Rector in the Univer-
sity Court, accompanying Mr. Syme into his class-
room on this special occasion, countenancing by his
presence and patronage Mr. Syme's proceedings.
The whole transaction is likely, we hear, to come
under the supervision of the University Court."
With respect to this new method of arresting
hemorrhage, which Mr. Syme has condemned in
so remarkable a fashion, the Medical Times says :
" In all his late operations at the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh and at Chalmers's Hospital, Dr. Heron
Watson, lecturer on surgery, and one of the most
expert and able operators in the medical school of
the northern metropolis, has employed acupres-
sure to stem the accompanying bleeding. He has
thus used it in amputation, excision of the knee
joint, extirpation of the mamma, &c., and always,
according to the reports of the eye-witnesses, with
perfect facility and success, and with much greater
expedition than he could have applied the ligature.
Besides, the wounds themselves seem to be all heal-
ing with less irritation and more rapidity than when
the ligatures and their inevitable arterial sloughs
are left imbedded in the closed interiors of the
wounds. Another Edinburgh hospital surgeon (Mr.
Edwards) has used acupressure successfully last
week in two cases out of doors—one of amputation
and one of excision of the knee joint. ' Professor
Pirrie, and Drs. Leith and Fiddes, the surgeons of
the Aberdeen Infirmary, have, for some months past,
adopted the practice with, it is 'stated, the most suc-
cessful results, and have applied acupressure to the
largest arteries opened in surgical operations, as to
the femoral artery in several cases of amputation of
the thigh."

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