APOTHECARIES' HALL.

NAMES OF GENTLEMEN to each of whom the Court of Examiners have granted Certificates:

METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER,

By Messrs. HARRIS and Co., Mathematical Instrument Makers, 50, High Holborn.

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Medical and Physical Journal.

415, VOL. LXX.]

SEPTEMBER 1833.

[87, New Series.

ADDRESS.

THE Proprietors of the "LONDON MEDICAL AND PHYSICAL JOURNAL" having deemed it advisable to make an alteration in its size and time of appearance, think it necessary to state their reasons for the change.

When this Journal was first published, and for many years subsequently, the interval of a month between each publication was sufficiently short for the sober wishes of our medical ancestors. But, with the progress of time, new wants arose it was found that the last blunder of a coroner, or the last squabble at a debating society, could not possibly keep for a month, and medical newspapers were devised, to supply this deficiency in our periodical literature. The desired object was attained; and the medical newsmonger, feasted with ever fresh intelligence, looks upon a monthly Journal with the same eye with which a London politician regards the slow Mercury or Flying Post, that satisfies the ruder taste of his rustic contemporaries. But the interval, so long to many readers, is far too short for the Editor, who, while correcting the last proof of one number, is already arranging his materials for the next. We are not desirous, therefore, to court popularity by subdividing our Journal into weekly sections, whose quadruple alliance might still form a faint imitation of our former selves. Again: the writers whose practical observations should constitute the great attraction of a work of this kind would be unwilling to entrust them to a Journal whose rapid phases would condemn their lucubrations to the destruction which, according to Southey, fugitive pamphlets both invite and deserve. We have therefore chosen the contrary alternative, and have determined that the "London Medical and Physical Journal" shall in future appear as a Quarterly Review.

It will be divided into two principal departments, namely, Reviews of English and Foreign works; and the Collectanea, or general receptacle for miscellaneous information. To these a third will occasionally, and we trust frequently, be added, namely, Original Communications; but as genius cannot be tasked, and those whose observations are most worthy of being recorded are often deficient in time or inclination to note them down, it may perhaps sometimes happen that this division may be wanting.

Our Reviews will be characterised by good temper and fairness; inclining, in doubtful cases, to mercy rather than rigid justice: yet we shall not think ourselves obliged to profess our profound respect for every careless compiler, nor shall we declare each mawkish treatise, as it drops stillborn from the press, to be an ornament to our shelves, and indispensable to the library of every medical student.

To the longer reviews of important works will be appended brief notices of No. 87, New Series.

415.

2 A

those less interesting works which may not seem to demand a detailed analysis; so that the reader who looks into our pages as a mirror of current medical literature, will rarely indeed be disappointed, but will see the smaller, like the larger features, faithfully reflected.

The immense mass of practical information offered by our brother Journalists in France and Germany will be diligently analysed. Our pages will frequently be embellished by translations from these sources, which will be found under our Miscellaneous Department. Gräfe and Walther's Ophthalmological Journal, Siebold's Journal für die Geburtshelfer, (Journal for Accoucheurs,) and the well-known periodical conducted by Hufeland, will be among those to be regularly consulted.

In compiling our COLLECTANEA, we shall aim at bringing together a large quantity of useful and readable matter, and, if we find a passage to our purpose in an old writer, we shall extract it with as little scruple as if it were in an essay just wet from the press; remembering the praise that was lavished on Oribasius of old for his diligence in studying the opinions of former physicians: Εἶχε γὰρ οἷα μέλισσα σοφὸν νόον, ἄλλοθεν ἄλλα

Ἰητρῶν προτέρων ἄνθεα δρεψάμενος.

And now a word as to Medical Politics. We hold, with the Spartans, that in times of civil dissension it behoves every citizen to express his opinion, not shrinking from the fight, but, when necessary, taking his share of hard knocks with a good grace.

We profess, as is customary, impartiality. By this we do not mean, as is sometimes meant, that we have no opinions, but look upon right and wrong with equal indifference. We mean that, in the disputes which now agitate the medical republic, we shall regard a good argument with equal favour, whether it comes from the right or the left, believing, with Boyle, that though "testimony is like the shot of a long bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter, argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether discharged by a giant or a dwarf." We shall not, therefore, in these professional skirmishes, adopt the rule of more earnest warfare, and judge the combatants by the colour of their uniform: green, blue, or brown, are alike to us. Nay, more; we shall sometimes avail ourselves of the privilege claimed from time imme morial by the umpires in matrimonial disputes, and adjudge both the contending parties to be in the wrong.

Two numbers of the Medical Quarterly Review will form a volume, which will be furnished with an ample and correct index of the matters contained in it.

The first Number will appear on the 1st of October, price five shillings; and the work will be punctually delivered to subscribers by the publisher, or any local bookseller, at 17. per annum. As very few copies will be printed more than are subscribed for, it is desirable the names of subscribers should be forwarded without delay, either to their booksellers, or the publisher, J. SOUTER, 73, St. Paul's Church-yard.

ADVERTISEMENTS and BILLS will be charged as follows: Under six lines, 58.; quarter of a page, 8s. ; one-third, 10s. 6d. ; half a page, 158.; three-quarters of a page, 20s.; an entire page, 30s. Bills stitched in the Review, 30s.; and if above eight pages, 21. 2s.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

GONORRHEA.

Case of Gonorrhea, produced by swallowing Gonorrheal Discharge. By Dr. TAZENTRE.

[WE will not take upon ourselves to determine the degree of credit which our readers may give to the inferences drawn from this extraordinary, and to us quite novel, case. The fidelity of the relator we can have no right to question; but we confess we are inclined to suspect that some deception was used, or that some more ordinary cause than that assigned produced the gonorrhoeal symptoms in the female upon whom the disgusting ruse was practised. Upon these points, however, we leave our readers to form their own opinion. The following is a correct account of Dr. TAZENTRE'S curious detail, from the Archives Générales, Juin 1833.]

In the inaugural dissertation which he defended at the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, Dr. Tazentre laid down the following proposition: "Gonorrhoeal matter taken into the stomach, and the dose! repeated for several days, may produce syphilitic inflammation of the urethra." This opinion was founded upon the following very remarkable fact, which we are assured is faithfully and exactly given.

M. N., fifty-five years of age, an old sailor of licentious habits, was married to a young woman of twenty. The matrimonial tie did not, however, confine him from drunkenness and debauchery. About three years after his marriage he suspected that his wife played him false, but he had no proof that his suspicions were well founded. Having contracted a very severe gonorrhoea from one of his mistresses, he was anxious to cohabit with his wife, with whom he had had no connexion for two or three months, in order that he might communicate the disease to her, and then accuse her of having infected him. By this stratagem he hoped to extract from her a confession of her frailty. But she had observed that he looked unwell, and appeared to be suffering for many days, and she consequently refused the marital privilege. Baffled in this attempt, he had recourse to another expedient: he gave her secretly, mixed in milk or orgeat, a quantity of the gonorrhoeal discharge, which he collected in a glass. He played this disgusting trick for eight or ten days, when one morning his helpmate unexpectedly entered the room, and detected him in the act of mixing something white with the milk that she had left upon the

table for her breakfast. She accused him of doing something wrong, and declared she would have the milk analysed by a chemist. Alarmed at her threat, he confessed his perfidy. The woman herself was very naturally apprehensive that injurious effects might arise from the sort of poison she had taken, and she communicated the whole story to her parents.

Dr. Tazentre was acquainted with the family, and he was consulted upon the occasion. As yet Madame N. complained of no pain in the genital organs, nor was any discharge or inflammation detected, upon an examination made by Dr. T. himself. As he could not anticipate what phenomena might result from this new mode of infection, he merely prescribed a light and temperate diet, and occasional warm baths. Four days afterwards the patient again applied to him, complaining of pains in the vagina. He again examined her, and found the parts tumid and painful; and around the urethra there was considerable inflammation. On the following days the pain, particularly in making water, became much more severe, and the discharge more abundant. She had, in fact, all the symptoms of virulent gonorrhoea. A small reddish-looking streak extended from the clitoris to the groin, the glands of which were painful.

As the nature of the case was no longer doubtful, an appropriate treatment was adopted, and in about a week mercury was given internally, as Dr. T. was convinced of the existence of constitutional disease. Under the influence of this treatment Madame N. soon perfectly recovered.

Having been entrusted with the secret of the family, Dr. Tazentre's assistance was asked for in the husband's case. He also recovered from his gonorrhoea in about three weeks. Dr. T. obtained from him a particular account of the whole circumstances of the above related facts. He confessed every thing without reserve, and said that he had been anxious to communicate gonorrhoea to his wife, without exciting her suspicions, in order to force her to a disclosure of her infidelity. He added, that he was sure of infecting her by the means he adopted; for that formerly, wishing to revenge himself upon some person against whom he had a grudge, he had given him syphilis complicated with gonorrhoea, by administering, in the manner above mentioned, gonorrhoeal discharge; and that it was in the colonies, where such tricks he declared were occasionally resorted to, that he had learned this mode of poisoning.

Dr. T. remarks, that this curious and unique fact, if confirmed by others of a similar nature, would be important in medical jurisprudence. It proves, in his opinion, the specific