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In most cases, part of the bisulphuret of carbon formed in thisprocess transposes with the elements of the water of the men-struum, or, what comes in fact to the same thing, its constituentelements share in the elements of the water, so that sulphurettedhydrogen is formed, on the one hand, whilst on the other, all thecarbon is obtained in the form of carbonic acid.

If you mix sulphocyanide of potassium, or any other of thesoluble sulphocyanides, with from six to eight times its volume ofstrong hydrochloric acid, and allow the mixture to stand at rest,the fluid becomes troubled after the lapse of a very short time,and solidifies into a crystalline paste, which is but scantilysoluble in cold water, and may therefore be easily obtained in astate of perfect purity by washing with the same fluid. Duringthis operation, the liberation and evolution of hydrocyanic acidis perceptible by the smell. The hydrosulphocyanic acid,upon being separated from the potassium by the hydrochloricacid, decomposes, and is resolved into a new acid, containingmore sulphur than the original acid, and into hydrocyanic acid.We obtain as products of this decomposition, moreover, bisul-phuret of carbon, ammonia, carbonic acid, and, under certaincircumstances, also formic acid. (owing to the decomposition ofthe hydrocyanic acid.) The chief products of the decomposition,however, are this new acid, to which we will assign the name ofhypersulphohydrocyanic acid, or hydro-persulphocyanic acid,and hydrocyanic acid. Three atoms of hydrosulphocyanic acidcontain CYs S6 Hs; supposing one atom of hydrocyanic acidremoved from this, there will remain Cy2 S6 H2 = hydropersul-phocyanic acid. This is the yellow crystalline substance whichseparates likewise upon allowing a mixture of hydrosulphocyanicacid with a strong acid, to stand at rest at a low temperature.This new acid contains one-half more of sulphur than the

hydrosulphocyanic acid. We know of no oxygen compound ofcyanogen corresponding to this hydropersulphocyanic acid.Woskresenzki was the first to prepare and analyze hydropersul-phocyanic acid, and the results of his analysis were subsequentlyconfirmed by Volkel. It combines with bases forming salts, inwhich the hydrogen is replaced by an equivalent amount ofmetal.

If dry hydropersulphocyanic acid is heated, all its sulphur isliberated and expelled, and there remains a compound, whichhas not yet been submitted to investigation. I must mentionhere another remarkable circumstance connected with this matter.If ammonia is poured over hydropersulphocyanic acid, the aciddissolves instantly, forming a perfectly clear fluid; this fluid,however, after standing for a few minutes, becomes troubled andmilky, and sulphur subsides to the bottom of the vessel. The

supernatant fluid is clear, and may be filtered off from the sul-phur : this fluid does not manifest with salts of iron, the usualre-action of hydrosulphocyanic acid. One would be led to believehere, that upon the separation of sulphur there should remainthe common hydrocyanic acid; however, this is not the case, onlya slight portion of the sulphur separates, and there remains in thefluid the following compound,-

That is, a compound containing one atom of sulphur more thanis contained in two atoms of hydrosulphocyanic acid, and oneatom of sulphur less than is present in hydropersulphocyanicacid. Now, if to this ammoniacal solution of Cy2 85 + 2 H,decanted from the subsided sulphur, you add an acid, hydro-persulphocyanic acid separates in the finest crystalline needles,whilst you have in the solution the common hydrosulphocyanicacid.

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The further consideration of this subject we will defer till thenext lecture.

FOREIGN DEPARTMENT.

ITALY.SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS AT MILAN.

PART II. - SURGERY AND MIDWIFERY.

IN the surgical and obstetrical departments a few interestingfacts and statements were brought forward, but nothing of para-mount importance. The Italian physicians and surgeons appearrather to follow in the wake of their English and French bre-thren than attempt to take the lead. It is evident, however,that they are fully alive to the present state of science, and that

their researches follow the same direction as those of the leadingpractitioners of the above countries.

LITHOTOMY AND LITHOTRITY.

The relative importance of lithotomy and lithotrity-a questionwhich occupied so much of the time and attention of scientificbodies in England and in France a few years ago-appears tohave been the subject of a very warm and lengthened debate.The surgeons present at the meeting do not seem, however, tohave arrived at any decided result, if we are to credit the fol-lowing resolution, which was adopted unanimously, as express-ing the opinion of Italian surgeons :-

That Italian surgeons resort to lithotrity whenever it appearsto them indicated, but refrain from pronouncing on the com-parative merits of this operation and lithotomy until they shallhave made fresh researches, and collected a greater number offacts."

Most of those who spoke adhered to the views of M. Turchetti,the originator of the discussion.M. TURCHETTI stated that he looked upon lithotomy as the

general rule, and lithotrity as an operation indicated only in cer-tain cases. Lithotrity was not, however, without its supporters.M. DESTEFANIS and M. PERTUSIO endeavoured to prove that

its utility was much more extended, and the latter surgeonshewed, by cases drawn from his own practice, that it is perfectlyapplicable to children, although generally considered to be con-traindicated with them.

DIAGNOSIS OF URINARY CALCULI.

M. SECONDI presented an instrument which he had invented,with a view to assist in the diagnosis of urinary caletili, which,he says, are occasionally confounded with fibrous and fungousvegetations of the bladder. The instrument in question is ahollow sound, without lateral eyes, open at its extremity. It isintroduced into the bladder whilst the latter is full of urine, andpressed against the body, the nature of which is to be ascertained.If that body is a fibrous or fungous substance it will project, onpressure, into the open extremity of the sound, and stop the flowof urine. If, on the contrary, the body is a calculus, the openextremity of the sound will never correspond so exactly to itssurface as to arrest the flow of urine. It was judiciously enoughobserved by some present, that pressure against the parietes ofthe bladder would arrest the flow of urine as well as pressureagainst a vesical vegetation, and that even were a polypus pre-sent it might prove difficult to so direct the extremity of thesound on the polypus as to insure the occlusion of its open extre-mity.During the course of the discussion two errors of diagnosis

were narrated, to prove the inadequacy of the present means ofinvestigation.M. CoTTA was consulted about a young man who presented

all the rational symptoms of calculus, and he several timesthought that he touched the calculus with the catheter. Thepatient was cut, no stone was found, and the parietes of the blad-der were soft and smooth: he recovered.M. BORELLI stated that the celebrated Vacca had once made

the same mistake; his patient also recovered, and got rid of thesymptoms which had led his medical attendants to believe that hewas affected with calculus.

AUTOPLASTY OF THE FACE.

M. CORSINI related the details of an operation by which hehad repaired the loss occasioned by the ablation of a fungushaematodes, which extended from the right inferior eyelid to thethyroid bone, comprising the entire thickness of the upper lip.From the right portion of the inferior lip he took enough torestore the superior lip, making the free edge of the former serveas the free edge of the latter. In order to restore the cheek, andto give support to the new upper lip, he made two horizontalincisions, from the right angle of the mouth to the temporal re-gion, comprising a flap from the temporal region, the temporal ex-tremity of which also remained adherent. The inferior surface ofthe flap thus circumscribed, adherent at its two extremities, wasthen detached from the deeper tissues, and pushed upwards andinwards, to form the cheek. The under eyelid was formed froma small flap taken from the temporal region, and twisted on itsadherent peduncle. The operation was performed two years ago,and the disease has not returned.

In another case, he happily modified the usual operation.Having extirpated a cancerous mass, which occupied the noseand the middle region of the upper lip, in making his flap fromthe forehead, he gave a greater length and size to the prolonga-tion destined to become the sub-septum of the nose, than wasotherwise necessary. The cancerous tumour of the lip nothaving attacked its entire thickness, he had previously dissectedit out, so as to leave a portion of the thickness of the lip. The

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prolongation of the sub-septum flap was then made to take theplace of the excised part of the lip, the operation of hare lip beingthus avoided..M. PETRALi related the manner in which he has modified the

Indian operation for rhinoplasty, in order to improve the ap-pearance of the apex of the nose, and the nostrils. The frontal

flap having been cut and brought down, he pinches the extremitydestined to form the sub-septum, so as to approximate its bleedingsurfaces. He then turns it inwards, and fixes the terminal ex-tremity in an incision made in the superior lip. Through thismeans, the sub-septum is formed by a fold of the skin, as also theopenings of the nares, which no longer present a bleedingsurface.

BLACK CATARACT.

M. TRINCHINETTI shewed two crystalline lenses, which he hadextracted from an old man, whose eyes, viewed externally, pre-sented nothing abnormal. The right lens was smaller thannatural, indurated, of a brownish-black colour. The anteriorcapsule was transparent in the centre, rather opaque at the cir-cumference. The left lens was of an amber-yellow colour,smaller and harder than in the normal state, but a fifth largerthan the right. In both cases, the vitreous humour was normal;the yellow spot of the retina had nearly disappeared, and theblack pigmentum of the choroid was diminished in quantity.M. Trinchetti stated that, in his opinion, black cataract was onlya very advanced stage of the amber-yellow colouration of thecrystalline lens met with in nearly all the aged, and that, conse-quently, in the present case, the right crystalline lens merelyrepresented an advanced stage of the change that was also ap-parent in the left.M. FARio did not agree with M. Trinchinetti. He believed

that black cataract was the result of chronic uveo-choroiditis. Intwo cases of black cataract which he had examined after death,he had found the anterior capsule of the lens thickened, andcoloured in black by the pigmentum of the uvea. If the anteriorcapsule is thus loaded with pigmentum, it is because, participat- Iing in the state of the choroid membrane, and being swollen byinflammation, it is in more intimate contact with the uvea. Thedifference in the size of the lens in this form of cataract dependson the hypertrophy which occurs in the first stages of inflam-mation, being subsequently followed by atrophy.

CYSTS IN THE VICINITY OF ARTICULATIONS.

M. GnERiNi had a patient who presented a cyst in the im-mediate neighbourhood of the humero-cu.bital articulation.’Flexion was difficult. He incised it, and extracted about fiftysmall cartilaginous bodies. No bad symptom supervened, and themotion of the joint was completely restored. Taking into consi-deration the proximity of this kyst to the articulation, M.Gherini thinks it not improbable that some of the bodies describedas "foreign bodies of the articulation," are not in the articulation,but only near it. This would explain the variable result of theoperation, which would be dangerous in the one case, and in-nocuous in the other.

ORTHOPŒDIC OPERATIONS.

There are, says M. PETRALI, two indications to fulfil in allorthopedic operations; the bones, which have deviated from theirnormal position, must be reduced, and the obstacles to their re-duction must be overcome. This must be accomplished, firstly,by dividing the obstacle represented by the cord of the arc offlexion, and secondly, by acting with the hands or with theassistance of machines, in the same direction as flexion, or in anopposite direction.URETROTOMY IN CONFIRMED STRICTURES OF THE URETHRA.

M. PETREQUIN, a French surgeon, presented an improved in-strument for the division of confirmed urethral strictures. Thesestrictures, he stated, are sometimes such as to render it absolutelynecessary to resort to this means of treatment, dilatation andcauterization being powerless. This he considered to be thecase when the mucous membrane on the level of the stricture isadherent to a perfectly fibrous or even aponeurotic tilsue, formedat the expense of the sub-cellular tissue, a state of the parts whichhe has repeatedly met with.

ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN LABOUR.

In France and in Italy, indeed on the Continent generally,women are not delivered on their side, as in England, but on theback. M. ANGELONI, who originated the discussion, is a partisanof the lateral position, but nearly all the accoucheurs presentdeclared against his views. Singularly enough, both partiesbrought forward the example of English ladies who had beenplaced both ways, and preferred, some the lateral, some thedorsal, position.

CESARIAN OPERATION.

M. BORSA—BRESCIANI related a case of Cesarian operation suc-cessfully performed by him on a young woman, twenty yearsof age. The sacro-vertebral angle was abnormally prominent,and the antero-posterior diameter only two inches. The obliquityof the uterus was such, that it lay, as it were, in the right iliacfossa. Although metro-peritonitis followed, the wound was cica-trized on the twenty-first day, and the woman quite well on thefortieth.ON THE PROPRIETY OF DETERMINING PREMATURE LABOUR IN

SERIOUS DISEASE OF THE MOTHER.

M. FERRARIO, after discussing at length this knotty question,decided in favour of premature labour being induced in the lastmonths of labour, when the state of the mother is such as to en-

danger the life of the child. Consequently, if the fcetus is of anage to live, he advises this course to be adopted in epilepsy, apo-plexy, eclampsy, dropsy, pneumonia, and abundant haemorrhage.In the course of the discussion, M. TURCHETTI stated that he hadtwice produced premature labour under these circumstances. Inone instance, the mother, twenty-two years of age, was seized withcodema of the legs, general anasarca, cerebral congestion, andpuerperal convulsions. The uterine orifice was dilated with pre-pared sponge. Labour came on, and the child was extractedwith the forceps, dead; the mother recovered. In the secondinstance, in addition to the above symptoms, there was floodingfrom insertion of the placenta in the uterine mouth. The admi-nistration of the secale cornutum brought on labour, and bothmother and child were saved.

AN EXPERIMENTAL INQUIRYINTO THE

FUNCTIONS OF THE LACTEALS AND LYMPHATICS.

By THOMAS FENWICK, Esq. Surgeon, North Shields.No subject in physiology has given rise to more dispute than thefunctions of the lymphatics. Since their discovery, more thantwo centuries ago, the opinions of anatomists concerning themhave been undergoing an incessant change. At one time theyhave been considered as but trifling accessories to the blood-vessels ; at another, they have been magnified into the most im-portant organs of the body; by one party they have been toomuch neglected, and by another, their value has been un-

naturally increased, and their number misstated. An appeal tofacts has been equally resorted to by either side, and the mostconflicting testimony, from men of the highest character, hasbeen given on the same subject. Experiments on animals havebeen performed by both, but the results are as varying as thetheories of the observers. Even the same operations have fur-nished arguments, and are brought forward as facts by both par-ties ; and, as if still more to unsettle the mind of the student con-cerning them, different physiologists have been so confident ofthe truth of their assertions as to dispute upon their claims tothe originality of the opinions before they had fully proved theircorrectness. Even in the present day, with the advantage of allthose means of investigating the subject which modern sciencehas afforded us, the opinions of anatomists on lymphatic absorp-tion are as various and contradictory as ever; and from the

writings of the most eminent authors, it would appear that theirfunctions are as much involved in obscurity as they were a cen-tury ago.

11 I confess," says one of the most distinguishedwriters of the present day, " that the act of absorption in otherparts, as well as in the intestine, is quite an enigma." * Whilstanother, anxious to found his opinion upon facts, and, if possible,to reconcile the conflicting statements of physiologists, thus sumsup the evidence on the subject:-" The conclusion which we aredisposed to regard as the fair inference from the facts and argu-ments which have been adduced on the subject of absorption, if,that although there are strong analogies and various pathologicalconsiderations, which would induce us to confine the function ofabsorption to the lacteals and lymphatics, yet that the results ofthe experiments, although not uniform, are, upon the whole, infavour of venous absorption."t f

’I This state of uncerta:nty regarding the functions of any por-tion of the body, would be sufficient excuse for the introductionof a fresh theory upon that subject to the notice of the public;’but when, in addition to this consideration, we remember theinterest with which the functions of the lymphatics are viewedby the physiologist, and their importance to the practitioner, itmust be confessed that the results of any investigations tendingto reconcile the conflicting statements of other inquirers, must pes-sess a considerable degree of value. Since the time at which I

* Müller’s Physiology, by Dr. Baly,† Cyclopædia of Anatomy : art. Absorption.