THE MADRAS MONTHLY JOURNAL OP MEDICAL SCIENCE. "We have received the first two numbers of a new monthly mediperiodical which has commenced its existence in Madras with the current year. We are glad to hail this event as a token of increasing scientific zeal and activity in the sister presidency. Notwithstanding the talent and energy of the editor of the Madras Quarterly, the parent of the paper under notice, of whom thero cal
is
a
graceful obituary
notice iu the first
number,
its existence is
THE INDIAN MEDICAL G-AZETTE.
g{3 said to have been
"urgently
intermittent."
An existence of this
sort can
only arise from two causes; namely, lack of contributions, or negligence on the part of editor and publishers. In the case of the Madras Quarterly, the latter cause may fairly be eliminated ; and assuming the first cause as the true one, the question comes^to be?Is it probable that a monthly publication can command a supply of matter which a quarterly failed to obtain ? Let us hope that our Madras brethren will triumphantly carry their new organ of scientific and professional thought and expression, through many years of a brilliant, useful and punctual career.
The matter contained in these numbers is of very unequal Among the original essays, the first is a carefully
value.
written
"Report
of the Government
Lying-in Hospital
for the
year 1868," by W. H. Harris, M.D. This paper is particularly interesting, as showing that the practice of midwifery is becom-
ing possible
in this country, and it is to be
the scientific
training
of native
women,
hoped and
that in time
the exhibition
of the success of scientific treatment and appliances in difficult labour, will materially diminish the sacrifice of life, which at present prevails. In the second number, P. T. Mootoosawmy, " the calamitous results which cm.,m.c., gives illustrations of necessai ily follow the practice of midwifery by untrained and ignorant women. No more important subject could have been selected for the first pages of a new journal. Dr. Harris' statistics are subject to several fallacies, which he frankly admits, and there is reason to believe and hope that the proportion of all forms of morbid labour, and the death-rate from these, a3 shown in the report, are higher than they would be, were the total number of deliveries in the area whence cases are brought known, and the cases themselves taken to hospital in time for efficient and successful treatment. Dr. Harris believes that hajmorrhage, both during and after labour, is more frequent and fatal in the tropics than in temperate climates. Major Beddome contributes a careful paper describing some new lizards, illustrated very fairly. Two papers?one on the therapeutical value of amorphous quinine and other alkaloids obtained from cinchona barks grown in India, by "W. It. Cornish, F.R.C.S. ; and another, on quinovin," by J. Broughton, Esq.,?touch perhaps the most important subject with which we have to deal in India, namely, the most efficient and least costly means of curing malarious fevers. It is an exceedingly difficult subject, a3 the success of any method of treatment is not shown so much by the rate of mortality by the amount of drug used, the average number of of attacks, the average duration of treatment, &c., as by a careful comparison of the issue of the same type of disease under different modes of treatment, and no treatment; not only in respect of these points, but a3 regards future health of the individual, and the presence or absence of complications and sequelae. The tabular forms, purporting to show the effect of "
[Apkil 1,
In one of Dr. Porter's cases the same accident
occurred,
1S70. without
serious consequences. A very creditable report of the out-docr practice of the Triplicane dispensary by Native Surgeon Moodeen
Sheriff, C.M., M.C., show3 this sort
charge wise."
can
of
how interesting and useful a paper of be. "We recommend it to the notice of all officers in
dispensaries
with the advice
"
Go and do thou like-
We have no hesitation in
saying that a vast amount of useful and valuable observation and experience is yearly lost in India, simply for want of recording. Now that the work of the department is not sedulously pigeon-holed, as it used to be, there is no excuse for any man withholding his mite of information under the impression that it won't be valued. Moodeen Sheriff (1) relates a very good case of fatal compression with suspicion of intoxication, in which he took care to render his diagnosis certain by eliminiating the latter. This case read be instructively might by Police and Police Surgeons at home. He also brings forward a curious theory, not unsupported, with regard to exposure to cold and wet being an This observation, and the very excitant of hydrophobia. important point of practice depending on it, we recommend to our readers. The disease in question is common enough, and a point of this sort should excite no common interest (2.) The " editorials" of our contemporary are vigorously written. The opinion so strongly stated that medical administration in India has been disjointed and requires concentration, centralizing and re-arrangement, coincides with what we have frequently put forward ourselves. The grievances of the Indian Medical Service are put forward forcibly. This sort of thing can, however, be overdone, and we think that a scientific journal would act more properly by giving the first place to questions, sanitary and otherwise, of scientific interest, and of medical administration, and reserving the personal and precuniary grievances of the service and the members for a subordinate position. We should have liked to see a greater number of cases and original observations, which are after all the back-bone of a medical journal in the " Medical Miscellany." The propriety of increasing the expense of a very expensive periodical by re-printing some sixteen pages of " circulars, and calling them medical intelligence," is very doubtful. It is to be hoped that more interesting subjects of "correspondence" may turn up as this paper ages. The only representative in this department is one Civis," who obtains seventeen lines to elaborate a flippant pleasantry, of which he 'must have ere now become heartily ashamed. In parting we wish our Madras contemporary a hearty Godspeed. "
these arugs, is far too meagre to be of much use, and general are exceedingly deceitful and in
impressions unreliable.
therapeutics
Dr. Smith's paper
on
"zymotic
disease" in the
written, but he advances nothing which has not been repeatedly advanced by others. Papers of this sort are of doubtful benefit. Dr. Porter gives a short detail of six cases of the extraction of guinea-worm successful and rapid Avith the aid of carbolic acid. His paper reads interestingly beside another, which is reproduced from the Dublin Quarterly of August 1SC9, on septic infection, owing apparently to the consequence of the breaking of a guinea-worm during extraction. second number i3 well
Who shares with another contributor the unique position of the only two living graduates of the Madras University, and very deservedly, it appears, won the rank of Honorary Assistant
(1.)
being
has
Surgeon.
(2.) His remarks on the treatment of dysentery and tetanus are worthy of notice. It is remarkable that in the severe outbreak of variola, which he describes, " previous vaccination did not afford an exemption to its " usual extent; and that cases were rather modified than prevented by the great prophylactic. The prevalence of several eruptive fevers simultaneously is au illustration of a hitherto unexplained circumstance not
of unfrequently
occurrence.
is
a
graceful obituary
notice iu the first
number,
its existence is
THE INDIAN MEDICAL G-AZETTE.
g{3 said to have been
"urgently
intermittent."
An existence of this
sort can
only arise from two causes; namely, lack of contributions, or negligence on the part of editor and publishers. In the case of the Madras Quarterly, the latter cause may fairly be eliminated ; and assuming the first cause as the true one, the question comes^to be?Is it probable that a monthly publication can command a supply of matter which a quarterly failed to obtain ? Let us hope that our Madras brethren will triumphantly carry their new organ of scientific and professional thought and expression, through many years of a brilliant, useful and punctual career.
The matter contained in these numbers is of very unequal Among the original essays, the first is a carefully
value.
written
"Report
of the Government
Lying-in Hospital
for the
year 1868," by W. H. Harris, M.D. This paper is particularly interesting, as showing that the practice of midwifery is becom-
ing possible
in this country, and it is to be
the scientific
training
of native
women,
hoped and
that in time
the exhibition
of the success of scientific treatment and appliances in difficult labour, will materially diminish the sacrifice of life, which at present prevails. In the second number, P. T. Mootoosawmy, " the calamitous results which cm.,m.c., gives illustrations of necessai ily follow the practice of midwifery by untrained and ignorant women. No more important subject could have been selected for the first pages of a new journal. Dr. Harris' statistics are subject to several fallacies, which he frankly admits, and there is reason to believe and hope that the proportion of all forms of morbid labour, and the death-rate from these, a3 shown in the report, are higher than they would be, were the total number of deliveries in the area whence cases are brought known, and the cases themselves taken to hospital in time for efficient and successful treatment. Dr. Harris believes that hajmorrhage, both during and after labour, is more frequent and fatal in the tropics than in temperate climates. Major Beddome contributes a careful paper describing some new lizards, illustrated very fairly. Two papers?one on the therapeutical value of amorphous quinine and other alkaloids obtained from cinchona barks grown in India, by "W. It. Cornish, F.R.C.S. ; and another, on quinovin," by J. Broughton, Esq.,?touch perhaps the most important subject with which we have to deal in India, namely, the most efficient and least costly means of curing malarious fevers. It is an exceedingly difficult subject, a3 the success of any method of treatment is not shown so much by the rate of mortality by the amount of drug used, the average number of of attacks, the average duration of treatment, &c., as by a careful comparison of the issue of the same type of disease under different modes of treatment, and no treatment; not only in respect of these points, but a3 regards future health of the individual, and the presence or absence of complications and sequelae. The tabular forms, purporting to show the effect of "
[Apkil 1,
In one of Dr. Porter's cases the same accident
occurred,
1S70. without
serious consequences. A very creditable report of the out-docr practice of the Triplicane dispensary by Native Surgeon Moodeen
Sheriff, C.M., M.C., show3 this sort
charge wise."
can
of
how interesting and useful a paper of be. "We recommend it to the notice of all officers in
dispensaries
with the advice
"
Go and do thou like-
We have no hesitation in
saying that a vast amount of useful and valuable observation and experience is yearly lost in India, simply for want of recording. Now that the work of the department is not sedulously pigeon-holed, as it used to be, there is no excuse for any man withholding his mite of information under the impression that it won't be valued. Moodeen Sheriff (1) relates a very good case of fatal compression with suspicion of intoxication, in which he took care to render his diagnosis certain by eliminiating the latter. This case read be instructively might by Police and Police Surgeons at home. He also brings forward a curious theory, not unsupported, with regard to exposure to cold and wet being an This observation, and the very excitant of hydrophobia. important point of practice depending on it, we recommend to our readers. The disease in question is common enough, and a point of this sort should excite no common interest (2.) The " editorials" of our contemporary are vigorously written. The opinion so strongly stated that medical administration in India has been disjointed and requires concentration, centralizing and re-arrangement, coincides with what we have frequently put forward ourselves. The grievances of the Indian Medical Service are put forward forcibly. This sort of thing can, however, be overdone, and we think that a scientific journal would act more properly by giving the first place to questions, sanitary and otherwise, of scientific interest, and of medical administration, and reserving the personal and precuniary grievances of the service and the members for a subordinate position. We should have liked to see a greater number of cases and original observations, which are after all the back-bone of a medical journal in the " Medical Miscellany." The propriety of increasing the expense of a very expensive periodical by re-printing some sixteen pages of " circulars, and calling them medical intelligence," is very doubtful. It is to be hoped that more interesting subjects of "correspondence" may turn up as this paper ages. The only representative in this department is one Civis," who obtains seventeen lines to elaborate a flippant pleasantry, of which he 'must have ere now become heartily ashamed. In parting we wish our Madras contemporary a hearty Godspeed. "
these arugs, is far too meagre to be of much use, and general are exceedingly deceitful and in
impressions unreliable.
therapeutics
Dr. Smith's paper
on
"zymotic
disease" in the
written, but he advances nothing which has not been repeatedly advanced by others. Papers of this sort are of doubtful benefit. Dr. Porter gives a short detail of six cases of the extraction of guinea-worm successful and rapid Avith the aid of carbolic acid. His paper reads interestingly beside another, which is reproduced from the Dublin Quarterly of August 1SC9, on septic infection, owing apparently to the consequence of the breaking of a guinea-worm during extraction. second number i3 well
Who shares with another contributor the unique position of the only two living graduates of the Madras University, and very deservedly, it appears, won the rank of Honorary Assistant
(1.)
being
has
Surgeon.
(2.) His remarks on the treatment of dysentery and tetanus are worthy of notice. It is remarkable that in the severe outbreak of variola, which he describes, " previous vaccination did not afford an exemption to its " usual extent; and that cases were rather modified than prevented by the great prophylactic. The prevalence of several eruptive fevers simultaneously is au illustration of a hitherto unexplained circumstance not
of unfrequently
occurrence.
