The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-30
MEDICAL.

An An@sthetist is the latest medi-
cal title. 1t has been bestowed upon a
medical officer of the Chelsea Hospital.
An anasthetist may be described as a
person without any feeling.
DIR. RosenJhal reports an interesting
case of hysterical trance in which a
country practitioner declared death to
have ensued. A looking-glass held to
to the lips did not show any moisture,
and melted sealing-wax dropped on
the skin caused no reflex movements.
Rosenthal, who was accidently present,
found the skin pale and cold, the pupils
contracted and insenSibie to light, the
upper and lower extremities relaxed,
the hearts impulse and the radical
pulse imperceptible. Auscultation,
however, showed a feeble, dull, and
intermittent sound in the cardiac re-
gion. No respiratory murmurs were
audible. All the muscles of the face
and eXtremities responded well to the
faradic current. Although the patient
had been apparently dead for thirty
two hours, he thereupon informed the
relations that it was only a trance.
and recommended that attempts at
resuscitation should be perseveringly
followed. On the following day he
received telegram to say that the
patient awoke spontaneously twelve
hours afterward, and gradually re-
covered her speech and movements.
-Four months afterward the patient
called upon him, and informed him
that she knew nothing of the COM
mencement of her attack of lethargy;
that she had afterward heard the peo-
pie about her talk of her, but had
been utterly unable to give the slight
est sign of life. Two years afterward
she was still alive and tolerably well.
Rosenthal appropriately likens this
condition to that of nightmare,
where, in spite of distressing sensa-
tions, the dreamer is unable to call fol-
help or to make any movement which
might save him from some imagi-
nary impending danger.
In phthisis and bronchitis, Renzi
and Rimuno report good results from
the inhalation by spray of iodoform
dissolved In turpentine.
Phenoresorcin is the name of
mixture composed OF carbolic acid
sixty-seven per cent and resorcin
thirty-three per cent. The addition of
ten per cent of water makes fluid
which can be diluted p. +. n, making
powerful antiseptic wash.
NJ. Vulpian, in his lectures upon
the vaso-motor system seems to have
demonstrated that the present pop
ular theory of cerebral an@mia caus-
ing sleep is not correct. He argues
| first that insomnia is frequent at
tendant of general ansemic conditions.
The idea that drowsiness after meals
is caused by derivation of blood to the
stomach and intestine is disproved, he
says, by looking at the turgid
eountenance and throbbing temporals
of the sleeping gourlnand. Vulpian
was never able to produce sleep by
COMPRISING or litigating arteries that
supply the encephalon, nor by galvan-
izing the cervical sympathetic, and
thus producing cerebral unsuitable
examined the membranes of the brain
| of numerous animals whom he had
placed under anasthet5cs or hypnotics.
In none of them was there any nota-
BILE change in the vascular supply. He
concludes that the vascular supply
has nothing to do with the causation
Of sleep; that any slight anamia
which may accompany this condition
is result, not cause. NJ. Vulpian
furnishes no substitute for the theory
he destroys. He simply considers
sleep to bera habit of the nervous sys-
tenn of relapsing into state Of torpor.
The most generally accepted theory
now is probably that of Prof. Preyer.
Medical Record.
In the present agitation over trich-
inous pork and adulterated lard, the
Investigations made some years ago
by DR.. w. t. Belfeld and Mr.. II. F.
Atwood, of Chicago, may be cited.
They examined the pork in the yari-
GUS packing houses of that citx an,}
found trichin@ in eight per
specimens, the parasites
about $1,000 to the cubic ind
gentlemen believe that in
human beings with trichinI very
much more common and less injuri-
Gus than is COMMONLY supposed.
They have made the interesting dis
covery that small portion Of sui
| phurous acid dissolved in the brine In
which hams are picked will kin al
the trichina. Medical Record