Correspondence. to the Dog If It Had Been Introduced Into the Stomach

852 than if it were injected into the veins of one of the 10weI ham, found it convenient to be present), in order to consider animals to illustrate its effects upon a human being. the letter from Dr. Pitman, to which we have referred in in admitted that Witness, cross-examination, great our article on the Conjoint Scheme. We are happy to benefits were to be derived from with the experimenting announce that the Council decided to accept the offer con- lower animals, and of the lower animals the was one of dog tained in that and to forward its 11 the best animals to experiment upon. The dog had a letter, press Enabling stomach very much like the human stomach, and therefore Act of Parliament," and we have also the satisfaction of it was a desirable animal to experiment upon. Witness had knowing that Sir James Paget gave notice of a motion to seen experiments made with live frogs, so as to illustrate the effect that the Council would take into consideration contraction the circulation of the blood and the of the the of the examiners the muscles. These did not involve pain to the appointment required by proposed experiments scheme. frogs, because the frogs were decapitated first. Experiments were made repeatedly and frequently with frogs, for the benefit of students. The introduction of alcohol into the stomach of a dog by a stomach-pump would not have been painful, and the fluid would have caused less inconvenience Correspondence. to the dog if it had been introduced into the stomach. Witness knew from experience he acquired in 1854 with 4’Audi alteram partem." French officers with Omar Pasha on the Danube that the excessive use of absinthe produced "troublesome drunken- ELEPHANTIASIS IN NEW BRUNSWICK. ness: ’ He did not know before the experiment of Dr. To the Editor of THE LANCET. Magnan that it would produce fits in a epileptic dog. THE LANCET of 14th Witness did not know that in consequence of the discoveries SIR,-In November reference is made of M. Magnan it had been found that cases which had been to a notice in a Toronto paper concerning the existence of treated as apoplexy, were, in fact, cases of epilepsy occa- Greek leprosy in a certain district of New Brunswick. sioned the excessive use of absinthe. had by Experiments During a late sojourn in this province of Canada, I was been made at for the of Edinburgh upon dogs purpose enabled to obtain several interesting facts in connexion illustrating the effects of mercury upon the liver of man. the Tracadie as are called. The of In these Edinburgh experiments one side of a dog was cut with lepers, they history open. He was not aware that one side of the gall-bladder these poor outcasts is as follows :-About a century ago a was cut open, and fastened to its side, so that the bile might number of emigrants from Normandy settled on the N.E. did flowout. Witness not know that the Edinburgh experi- coast of New Brunswick, in what is now known as Gloucester ment had that had no action on the proved mercury direct Here their descendants have continued to reside, liver. He had read in Taylor’s "Medical county. Jurisprudence" the mother and a strict ex- of a case of a chemist’s assistant who had taken a large speaking tongue, maintaining quantity of absinthe, and who had shown epileptic symptoms. clusiveness as regards their neighbours, so that it is very If Sir James Paget went to witness M. Magnan’s experiment rare for any member to marry out of the community. In for the purpose of being instructed by it, he was not an consequence they are all more or less allied by blood re- eminent physiologist; Sir James was an eminent surgeon. lationship ; indeed so closely that few families can marry Sir James Paget allowed the experiment to proceed without without a dispensation, in accordance with the requirements a full discussion of the subject taking place. of the Roman Catholic Church. This constant breeding in Sir W. Fergusson deposed that if absinthe were admi- and in has told on the general physique, and produced nistered to a dog in the femoral vein he should consider it characters of degeneracy, by which these French colonists would cause suffering to the animal. He could not say are distinguished from the other settlers in their neighbour- that the suffering would be acute ; if an incision were made hood. They subsist moreover to a great extent, especially in the thigh of a dog, it would undoubtedly cause pain. during the long winter months, on salted fish, which has He could not see that such an experiment as the opening of been said to have been one of the causes of the leprosy. a vein in the thigh of a dog and injecting absinthe into it The origin of the disease is very obscure. There is a would be useful in the interests of science. The effects of tradition of shipwrecked French sailors having brought it absinthe upon the human system were very well known in from the Levant many years since, whilst its prevalence in France, although they were less well known in England. families created a belief in the disease being contagious. He considered an experiment like that indicated with a dog About thirty-five years ago, in consequence of the in- would be an act of cruelty. creasing ravages of the disease, a hospital was erected on In cross-examination witness said he did not know that an island, and stringent laws were passed by the local Professor Ferrier approved of experiments with dogs. Wit- government for .the seclusion in this lazaretto of every ness had performed experiments himself, but principally for person affected with leprosy. The establishment has since his own information. Witness had never seen alcohol in- been removed to the mainland, where some thirty or forty jected into the vein of an animal, or absinthe either. He inmates, including both sexes and of various ages, from did not know that absinthe administered to an animal children to old people, are immured for life in a dismal would produce epilepsy; he did not know it now. Ordinary hospital with an enclosed boundary of a few acres of forest drunkenness would produce epilepsy. Persons in an epi- clearing. leptic condition appeared to be suffering great pain, but The late Drs. Bayard and Wilson, of St. John, were de- they were totally unconscious. He considered the experi- puted by the Government to draw up a report on the Tra- ment of M. Magnan unnecessary in the interests of science cadie lepers, which report is published in the Journal of the and for the benefit of mankind. House of Assembly for 1847. After entering fully into the Further evidence was offered by the prosecution, but at symptomatology of the cases, and establishing their specific the close of the case the Bench intimated that they did not characters with the true elephantiasis Groacoruni, they give consider that it had been sufficiently established that Mr. tables of the consanguinity of the inmates of the hospital, Pitt or Mr. White were present at the experiments or as- showing the hereditary nature of the disease, whereby the sisted at them. The case against those gentlemen accord- latter is clearly traced ; whilst all their researches failed to ingly fell through. Proceedings against the two remaining confirm the current belief that the malady was contagious. defendants, Mr. Robinson and Mr. Turner, were adjourned This is the only published medical account of the Tracadie until Thursday. lepers known to me. My friend, Dr. Benson, of Chatham, New Brunswick, is familiar with the district, and would no doubt willingly furnish valuable data to persons interested THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. in the subject. There is a description of the hospital and its management by the late Governor, the Hon. Arthur Gordon, in " Vacation Tourists" for 1863, from which I ON Thursday, the 10th inst., a most important and some- have a with other in what of the Council of the of Sur- given quotation, along details, my stormy meeting College work on °Field and Forest Rambles in Eastern Canada." was held which we understand that neither Mr. geons (at As far as I could discover, no instance of leprosy has oc- Southam of Manchester, nor Mr. Alfred Baker of Birming- curred in the Tracadie district that was not inherited in 853 some way or other ; and no doubt the rigorous climate and real or true if they negatived each other. It is half per- unhygienic modes of living to which settlers in remote dis- ceptions and hasty inferences that lead to " contradictions" tricts, and especially these French ones, are subjected, (i. e., inconsistent propositions); but here, I fear, the haste must tend to develop predispositions and aggravate the has been with our profession, and not with the teetotalers. disease. They of course were glad to follow science as we propounded I am, Sir, yours &c., it, for their authority was little and ours was much. I do London. A. LEITH ADAMS. not know that the French experimenters-whose book is before me-anywhere say that all the alcohol taken is elimi- nated, and that none is decomposed ; but it is plain that KOUMISS. some, and occasionally a good deal, ia cast out of the body- To the Editor of THE LANCET. a fact known long before their time. My father (Dr. Lees), many years ago, maintained (in controversy with Dr. Henry SIR,-In answer to your question bearing upon Koumiss Browne, of Manchester) that alcohol was probably decom- I can state that I have it a fair trial in the given following posed in the body in moderate quantity, as alleged by Baron instances :- Liebig ; and he founded an argument for abstin,ence upon In a case of marasmus in the adult, when every kind of that very fact-viz., that in that case it " robbed the blood ,food and drink had been turned from with disgust, and, if of oxygen"; left matters more valuable, and necessary to be usefully rid of, unburnt; defiling as well as irritating in, rejected; after enemata of beef-tea and I got persevered the living temple; and lowering temperature, as shown by champagne had been abandoned as mischievous, I ordered a the thermometer.

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