was formed at the bottom of the vessel; the linen, when moistened, did not become viscid to the finger; the precipitate caused by the addition of nitric acid was much more copious than had been the case with the sperm-stained linen, and the liquid, when evaporated, became coagulated, and gave out an odour of animal gelatine. These negative proofs were made more satisfactory, by comparing the results with those obtained from linen stained with a leucorrhoeal discharge; the same precipitation by nitric acid, the coagulation by heat, and the giving out of an odour of animal gelatine.

The conclusions which M. Chevalier arrived at were

1. That the red stains on the chemise of the girl had been caused by blood.

2. That the alkalinity of the water in which the linen had been immersed was of accidental occurrence, as other linen, free from all stains, produced the same phenomena.

3. That the yellow spots on the chemise had been caused by the fæcal discharge.

4. That the other stains had been caused by the vaginal mucus, and not by seminal fluid.-Journal de Chimie.

Cayol, in the second and third grand divisions of his Treatise on Cancerous Diseases, a mat rially improved edition of which is now before us, passes in review the therapoia and empirical nostrums, whether external or internal, which have obtained notoriety in France, Germany, and Great Britain.

In this article, it is intended to notice the most important of M. J. B. Cayol's remarks, particularly in reference to his unwearied research, and success in imparting a knowledge of the ingredients of the recipes of Dubois, Bayle, Plenck, Storck, Lambergen, Gerbier, and Gamet, &c. With the

VOL. XXI. No. 42.

only other prefatory remark which we deem it necessary to make,that a leading object with us is brevity, we proceed at once to the

FIRST CHAPTER.

External Remedies.

Arsenical Preparations. Of these, the white arsenic of commerce is unquestionably the most efficacious. It does not cure the disease, but acts on the degenerated parts, which it destroys by its energy, as an escharotic. It was first used by Fusch, in 1594. His formula was composed of white arsenic, chimney soot, and great serpentary root. Its application to ulcered surfaces was occasionally followed by fever, accompanied with rigors, vomitings, fainting fits, requiring the renouncement of the remedy.

45

Rousselot's and Frère Come's Powders. The merit of these powders consisted in different substances being combined with the arsenious acid, by which its deleterious effects on the system were obviated, without impairing its action as an escharotic. Rousselot's powder was composed of dragon's blood and cinnabar, of each two ounces-white arsenic, two grains. The whole mixed, and thoroughly pulverized.

Frère Come made use of similar ingredients in different proportions, adding to the melange grs. xviij. of the powder of "Savatte brulée."

Professor Dubois for many years made use of this formula

Dragon's blood, j. Cinnabar, 3ss. Arsenious Acid, 388. Reduce the whole to powder, and mix thoroughly.

When about to use the above, Dubois added saliva, in sufficient quantity to form a paste, with which the crusts and excrescences on the surface of the ulcer were smeared: and above this he uniformly applied a stratum of arsenical paste, about two lines in thickness, which he covered with cobwebs (toile d'araignée.) The eschar separated

about the twelfth or fourteenth day. The same remedy was advantageously employed upon the wound resulting from an extirpated cancerous tumor, when the disease threatened to repullulate.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the famous powder of Pierre Alliot made a great noise: from the testimony of Vacher and others, it was a preparation of arsenic, no way superior to the arsenical paste. The same may be said of the solution of arsenic, used in England by William Shearly as an escharotic.

Preparations of Lead. To discuss scirrhous engorgements, and even cure ulcerated cancers, saturnine extract, and other preparations of lead, were much praised by Goulard, physician in Montpellier, and many English and German practitioners.

Marvellous properties were attributed by Brambilla to a plaster, composed of red oxide of lead, olive oil, and turnip juice. Lead, however, in Cayol's opinion, can be regarded only as an admirable sedative; for, says he, "the observations of these physicians prove that they gave the name scirrhus, to engorgements not of a cancerous na

ture.

A preparation frequently employed by Bayle with advantage is thisGolden litharge, Vinegar of each, 3vj. Good Olive oil, zij. The litharge triturated in a porcelain vessel, adding the vinegar gradually; next the oil, drop by drop, "continuing the trituration until the mixture has acquired the consistence of half-congealed oil. He spread this liniment over the whole surface of the ulcer by means of a pencil, or with the brush of a quill. By the addition of a sufficient quantity of virgin wax, it may be converted into an ointment. The remedy is particularly advantageous to lull the pa ins of cutaneous cancer." Vegetom neral water is likewise employed with he same view.

Preparations of Iron. Mr. R. Carmichael, of Dublin, in 1806, published

an essay On the Properties of Carbonate of Iron, applied to the treatment of cancerous maladies. Five cancerous ulcers of the face and of other parts, he assures us, were completely cured by being sprinkled with this salt, very finely powdered. Dr. Hall, of London, doubted the nature of the maladies cured by Mr. Carmichael; but he regards carbonate of iron as a valuable remedy in the treatment of phagedenic ulcers, simulating cancer.

Mercurial Preparations. The solution of hyperoxygenated muriate of mercury, recommended by A. Wilson, vapour of cinnabar, &c. which have been vaunted as anti-cancerous, have never cured cancerous diseases; but venereal affections only, which, by degeneration, have assumed the appearances of cancers. Cayol makes an important remark" Mercury, in whatever form administered, has always appeared to us to be hurtful, in diseases truly cancerous."

Alkaline and Acid Substances. These have been employed in turn, in accordance with the ideas adopted, as to the nature of cancer. M. Martinet, rector of Soulaines, pretended to having cured many occult cancers, by compresses steeped in a solution of ammonia; drops of the alkali were prescribed at the same time internally. Solution of potass was prescribed by Dr. Barker.

Carbonic acid gas was confidently proposed by Peyrilhe (who never could see any thing in cancer but an alkaline acrid), not only as palliative, but as calculated to effect a radical cure. Oxygenated muriatic acid was spoken of in high terms about the same epoch; but of the much that is written, little is trustworthy.

Animal and Vegetable Substances. With regard to these, as in the case of alkalis and acids, their ephemeral reputation is partly owing to hypothetic fancies, charlatanism, and fortuitous circumstances.

Sedum acre, first recommended by Quesnay, has very recently been noised abroad by Lombard, chief surgeon to

the Military Hospital of Strasburg, who recounts many remarkable cures effected by this plant, fresh and applied to ulcers regarded as cancerous. Solander and Colden had formulæ, in which the juice or extract of the phytolaca decandra was the chief ingredient. Expressed juice of foxglove (fresh) diluted in the proportion of a spoonful to a pint of water, to be used in soaking compresses. Gastric juice of animals, (Senebier of Geneva). Ox blood proposed by Vanevy as a succedaneum for gastric juice.

Cataplasms of the pulp of carrot were eulogized A.D. 1766, as very efficacious, especially in cancer of the breast, by Sultzer, chief physician to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. This remedy was abandoned, from want of success, in the practice of the French; but, in the interim, Bridault submitted it to experience, with the precautions adopted by every judicious practitioner: and in 1802 he published, what an experience of five and thirty years had apprized him, as to the medicinal properties of carrot.* Cayol, from many trials of this root, coincides with the observations of Bridault, viz. that " carrot cataplasm is inefficacious against cancer; but that it can ameliorate, and even cure, many dartrous, scrofulous, or other affections, which sometimes possess all the appearances of cancer, and which, frequently determine this unfortunate organic degeneration in predisposed subjects."-Clinique,p.521.

Opium, hemlock, hyosciamus, and belladonna, have likewise been used in the form of cataplasms, plasters, fomentations, &c. &c.

M. Steidèle indulged sanguine hopes of his ability to cure cancer, whether occult or ulcered, by the persevered-in application of compresses steeped in liquid laudanum, provided, (added M. Steidèle, and what an important qualifier!) "that the patients were not old; and, that their viscera were in a sound state." Cayol quotes, Journal de Med. tom. 82.

Cauterization. Confessedly the first
Traité sur lar carotte, 8vo.

means resorted to for destroying cancer, was the actual cautery, (Hippoc. Epidem. Lib. vij.) M. Leconte hit upon the ingenious idea of cauterizing the lower lip by solar heat, placing the affected part under a very powerful lens;-the operation was very successful. This practice, more curious than useful perhaps, is thus commented on by Cayol: "It is certain that this kind of cautery has not, like the actual cautery, the inconvenience of losing a part of its heat, before acting to the depth required; nor that of burning the neighbouring parts; but a solitary observation does not suffice for appreciating an operative process; and it does not appear that this possesses any advantage over the arsenical paste."

Electricity.

Dr. Easton (Dublin) relates the case of a lady, who, after having been capsized by a thunderbolt, saw, to her infinite surprise, a scirrhous tumor of the breast disappear. No remedy had been employed.

Cayol judiciously withholds his assent from the conclusion, arrived at by other authors, that electricity should be numbered among the curative means of cancer. "What comparison could be established between the effects of electricity with the precautions necessary not to compromise the life of patients, and the commotion produced by a clap of thunder?"-Clinique, &c. p. 523.

Different Topical Applications.

The reputation of antiseptics or delersives has been founded on erroneous diagnosis.

Standard authors having asserted that cancer in the last stage has been cured by Plenck's vulnerary water, it would be inexcusable not to indicate its composition. Take of—

Lime water, one pound,

Burning soot from an oven, an ounce, White lead, half an ounce, Mix and boil for quarter of an hour, and add

† M ́moires de la Societe Royale de Médécine, An. 1776,

520

Liquid myrrh, half an ounce. Compresses or charpie steeped in this liquid were applied to the surface of the

ulcer.

It would appear that the ancients did not employ internal remedies in treating cancerous diseases. Tumors of the mammæ, accompanying a kind of false pregnancy, were attempted to be discussed by reinducing the catamenial excretion. Hippocrates directed a decoction of elaterium to be quaffed, if the cancer followed a diarrhoea or rebellious cough; and, that the ulcer should be dressed with the dust of calcined copper.

Celsus says expressly that cancers which neither fire nor iron can heal are incurable.

If cancerous tumors attained a certain volume, Galen admitted their nature to be incurable, and contented him

[Oct. 1

self with indicating such remedies as were calculated to check their progress.

In modern times a multitude of substances have successively been extravagantly praised in the internal treatment of cancer. Not one of them can be regarded as a specific. The majority of external remedies in different doses and forms have been administered internally. Storck's preparation of the ertract of hemlock is unquestionably the most celebrated of these.

Hemlock. Cayol describes minutely the neccessary pharmaceutic processes from the time proper for gathering this valuable plant till ready for being prescribed. The hemlock (conium maculatum) flowers in May and June, when it should be gathered and pounded with a wooden pestle in a marble mortarnext submitted to pressure-the juice passed through a strainer-thickened at a slow fire; to the consistence of thick extract; and lastly, mixed with a sufficient quantity of the dried leaves reduced to powder, to give it a pillular consistence.

One or two grains of this extract are commenced with evening and morning, gradually increasing the dose to a drachm and a half or two drachms daily. After each dose, the patient should drink a cup of tea, veal broth, or elder-flower water. In general, to obtain good effects from hemlock, the dose should be raised until slight vertigo, trembling, disagreeable feelings in the eyes, or diarrhoea, result. Should these symptoms be carried the length of poisoning, acids, emetics, &c. must be resorted to.

Should the cancer be external, various preparations of hemlock may be used locally; the leaves being applied in their natural state, or as cataplasms. The decoction serves for fomentations or injections.

When the dried leaves only can be had, a small bag may be filled, dipped in boiling water, and applied to the part affected, when at a tepid temperature.

Hemlock plaster may be applied on indolent or somewhat painful scirthi.

Such are the preparations with which Storck (believed at least that he) cured