bone, and must have passed through the mass of short flexors of the thumb. Not the least degree of pain, or even of sensation, was produced by this puncture. The part was desired to be poulticed, and the wound appears to have healed by the first intention; for the poultice was considered by the patient to be quite unnecessary after the second day, and he left London, to embark for the West Indies, at Gravesend, in three or four days afterwards, without having experienced the smallest inconvenience from it. I heard from his friends, before he left the river, where he remained a few days, that he was in his usual health.

Most of the cases of anesthesia which have been mentioned by authors, have occurred in paralysis; in which complaint the degrees in which motion and sensation are lost, are very various, and do not bear any constant or regular proportion to each other. Where the anesthesia has been wholly, or nearly complete, it has generally been described as taking place in one side of the body, while loss of the power of motion has occurred in the other. An interesting case of this kind is given in the second volume of the Transactions of this Society.* The principal circumstances relative to it consisted in a weakness and diminution of voluntary power in the left side of the body, attended with a slight degree of numbness in its upper extremity, and a total loss of sensibility in the left side of the head, and in the right side of the body, from the neck downwards. In this case, there were some of the perversions of sensation, which I have mentioned as occurring in the present, particularly as to the feeling produced by cold water, which invariably appeared to be lukewarm.

I have met with two instances very nearly resembling that which I have now laid before the society. The first occurs in the American Medical Repository, and is communicated in a letter from Dr. Samuel Brown, of Lexington, in Ken

* History of a case of singular nervous affection, attended with anomalous morbid symptoms. Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. II. p. 215.

These cases I have met with since the paper was read to the Society.

tucky, to Dr. Miller, one of the editors. It is dated June 30, 1799, and is as follows.*

"Mrs. M'L. of Bairdstown, in Kentucky, aged about 40 years, has been deprived, for more than two years, of the power of sensation in her hands and feet. She is quite insensible of the effects of cutting instruments, or of burning coals applied to them. In one instance, when she was employed in shaping a piece of wood with a knife, she incautiously turned her eyes on some other object, and cut off the end of the thumb of her left hand, without perceiving the smallest sense of pain. She cannot, from her sensations, discover the least difference between a hot and a cold iron, and has frequently burnt the skin and flesh to a considerable depth, by mistaking the one for the other. These wounds and burns heal without any uncommon difficulty. Notwithstanding this total loss of sensibility, she retains the power of motion in full perfection, and pursues her domestic employments without any remarkable inconvenience. All her animal and vital functions are in a natural healthful state, and her spirits are regular, nay even cheerful. She feels no inconvenience from her complaint, except a sense of fulness in the veins, which she ascribes to the slow circulation of blood in the extremities. As the sense of touch however is entirely lost, she finds it difficult to retain substances in her hands without looking at them, as it is by sight, chiefly, that she regulates the degree of muscular contraction necessary to their retention. On turning her eyes aside, she often drops glasses, plates, &c. which she holds in safety as long as she looks at them. A variety of remedies had been tried without any effect. I was desirous of witnessing the effects of electricity. Although it produced very considerable contractions in the muscles of her arms, down to her wrists, the effects of it on her hands were scarcely perceptible. After two or three days however, she imagined that she was

* Medical Repository and Review of American Publications on Medicine, Surgery, and the auxiliary branches of Philosophy, vol. IV. p. 225.

sensible of some kind of sensation from strong shocks, and was therefore advised to continue the application of it. Volatile liniment was prescribed, and rollers to support the veins which appeared relaxed and distended by their contents. Of the result of these experiments I have not yet been informed, as my patient lives more than seventy miles distant from Lexington."

The second case is given in a note in the Philosophie Zoologique of Lamark. It is there mentioned, on the authority of M. Hebreard, that a man of 50 years of age, had for 14 years the right arm completely insensible. The limb, nevertheless, preserved its activity, size, and power. On the accidental occurrence of a phlegmon upon it, there were heat, swelling, and redness produced in the part, but no pain, even when it was pressed. During his work, the subject of this case happened to break the bones of his fore-arm, at about a third of their length from the wrist. As he only felt a crash (craquement) he thought he had broken the shovel which he held in his hand; but it was sound, and he could only discover his accident by being unable to continue his work. The following day, the arm, at the fractured part, was puffed up; the temperature of the fore-arm and hand was increased, but the patient experienced no degree of pain, even during the extension necessary to reduce the fracture.* In this case, it is clear, that the muscles of the affected arm were equally insensible with those of I. S. And it is probable that this was also the case with the person mentioned by Dr. Brown, though the evidence is not so decisive; as the injury done to the thumb might only have affected the integuments.

The existence of muscular power, and the faculty of directing its exercise by the will, where the nerves have entirely lost that sensibility which is always regarded as necessary to the conveyance of volition from the sensorium, are circum

* Philosophie Zoologique, par J. B. P. A. Lamark, Tom. 2. p. 262.—I have not been able to find the original case.

stances apparently irreconcileable with any knowledge which we at present possess, of the mechanism by which the will acts in the production of voluntary motion.

A Specific against Gout.

[From the London Monthly Magazine, for July 1814.]

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR, &c.

Two years ago I discovered the composition of a medicine which possesses the power of removing the paroxysm of gout in a degree fully equal to the Eau Medicinale. Since that period, having satisfied myself by various experiments of the identity of the two medicines, I shall now avail myself of your widely-circulating Magazine to communicate to the public an account of this very important preparation.

The value of this information will be sufficiently obvious, when it is recollected that many persons, particularly of the labouring classes of the community, are suffering from that species of gout to which the Eau Medicinale is applicable, who from its high price are unable to obtain it. Independent of this circumstance, its introduction into general practice has been materially impeded by the unwillingness of the profession to countenance a remedy whose preparation remains a

secret.

It is foreign to the objects of this paper to investigate the merits or demerits of this principle; but I cannot avoid observing that, as we know nothing of the properties of a remedy, except so far as it produces certain sensible effects on the human body, we are in reality, for all useful purposes, as fully acquainted with the nature and properties of the empirical medicine as with those of the most recognized article in the Materia Medica. I do not assume too much when I say that, if the Eau Medicinale had been imported into this country as the juice of a foreign plant, without the usual appen

dages of quackery, it would have obtained more universal confidence than it has had the fortune to meet with. The profession, who alone are competent to the task, would then have taken more pains than they have hitherto manifested in investigating its real qualities, with a view to ascertain the precise limits of its application.

I shall not, however, dwell upon this part of the subject, as it is my intention less to recommend the medicine, than to point out to those who have experienced its beneficial effects, a cheap and easy way of preparing it. However highly I may appreciate its efficacy, when properly administered, I am desirous of avoiding, in a communication not strictly medical, any detail respecting its application, because it is too potent to be trusted generally in the hands of the public. I am acquainted with no substance more unmanageable or more deleterious. I can affirm, from much experience, that, if given in too large a dose, or without attention to the circumstances of the case, its employment may be attended with consequences to the patient of a dangerous nature.*

The first hint which I obtained on this subject was derived from the writings of Alexander of Tralles, a Greek physician of the sixth century, whose book on Gout is one of the most valuable clinical records of antiquity. In his chapter on anodynes, he remarks, that some persons take a medicine called Dia Hermodactylum, which produces an evacuation of watery matter from the bowels, attended with such relief from pain that patients are immediately able to walk. But, says he, it has this bad property, that it disposes them who take it to be more frequently attacked with the disease. He speaks also of its producing nausea and loathing of food, and proceeds to describe the manner of counteracting its bad properties. The effects here described are so similar to those resulting from the exhibition of the Eau Medicinale, that I was led to hope

* In one instance it produced a most alarming transfer of gout from the extremities to the stomach, head, and bowels, which continued a fortnight, and nearly cost the patient his life.