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been greatly surprised at the course pursued by certain prac-titioners at Bedford, and think they would have acted more inaccordance with brotherly feeling, if they had communicatedwith me and asked for some explanation, before they attemptedto excite a prejudice against me, and invited you to publishan ex parte statement. I cannot myself perceive anything inthe circumstances connected with my summons to Bedford, norin the position or antecedents of the two gentlemen I metthere (as far as they were known to me), nor in the treatmentof the case which they had pursued, nor in the remedies whichI prescribed, and which I believe were faithfully administered,which in the slightest degree savoured of homoeopathy.

In the course of thirty years’ practice, I have never to myknowledge met a homœopathic practitioner; I have severaltimes declined to do so, and upon more than one occasion havebeen summoned into the houses of the aristocracy of this metropolis, and finding a homoeopathic practitioner in attendance,have been under the painful necessity of intimating to thefamily that either he or I must relinquish the case. I may

finally add, that unless my convictions as to the nature of

disease and my principles of treatment should be completelychanged, I never would consent to meet a homoeopath in con-sultation.

I remain. Sir, yours faithfully.GEO. BURROWS, M.D.Cavendish-square, Jan. 14, 1863.

THE COMMITTEE ()N CHLOROFORM.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-I am requested by the Committee on Chloroform toask of you the favour to insert the accompanying statement insome prominent part of THE LANCET; by so doing you willafford them valuable assistance.

I am, Sir, yours ohediently,GEO. W. CALLENDRE,

Reporter to the Committee.Queen Anne-street, Jan. 1863.

The Committee of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Societyappointed to investigate the effects produced by the adminis-tration of chloroform consider that the co operation of the pro-fession is necessary to enable the Committee to pursue theirinvestigations in a satisfactory manner, and they are thereforedesirous it should be generally known that their primaryobject is to inquire into the use of chloroform by inhalation,and its results: (a) in the treatment of internal diseases, suchas tetanus, delirium tremens, asthma, epilepsy, and infantile

convulsions; (b) in surgical operations; (c) in obstetric prac-tice.The points on which the Committee at present especially

desire and ask for information are the following:-1. Reports of any unpublished cases of death during the

administration of chloroform, or of any other anaesthetic.2. More complete reports of fatal cases already published.3. Notes of any accidents with chloroform in which death

has been threatened but averted.4. Facts as to the effects of chloroform employed by inhala-

tion as a remedial agent in disease; the mode of its adminis-tration, the quantity used, and the results both immediate andsubsequent.

5. Notes as to the comparative results of operations beforeand since the introduction of anæsthetics.

Gentlemen who may be disposed to oblige the Committee byfurnishing information on these subjects are requested to ad-dress their communications to Mr. Callender, Reporter to theCommittee, Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, 53, Berners-street, W.

GALVANISM IN GUNSHOT WOUNDS. -Professor Favre,ef Marseilles, has successfully employed the galvanic currentin discovering the existence of a bullet in a wound.

Correspondence.

OXYURIS VERMICULARIS IN THE HUMANBODY.

" Audi alteram partem."

(NOTE FROM DR. BRINTON.)To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-In your number of to-day, Dr. Cobnold quotes theDublin Medical Press to the effect that Dr. Brinton and Dr.Beale had continued Dr. Kidd’s researches on the Oxyuris ver-nzicularis; and, having microscopically examined the worms,found that Dr. Kidd’s opinion (that they were the larvce ofcommon house-flies) was correct.

I regret that Dr. Cobbold did not allow me, before publishing his remarks, an opportunity of making the same denial ofthis statement which he was " happy" to elicit from Dr. Beale.But being thus pointedly left by Dr. Cobbold to share thehonours of Dr. Kidd’s discovery, I am obliged to say (what Ishould otherwise have thought quite unnecessary) that, so faras it affects myself, the whole of the statement quoted is untrue.

I am. Sir. vour verv obedient servant.WILLIAM BRINTON, M.D.,

Lecturer on Physiology in St. Thomas’s Hospital;late Examiner in Physiology at the College of Physicians.

Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, Jan. 10th, 1863.

MR. JOSEPH BOND AND THE LONDONHOSPITALS.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-The munificent donations of Mr. Joseph Bond to thehospitals of London have forcibly directed the attention of the

public to the value and importance of the proposition whichhe has (at present) unsuccessfully laid before the managers ofthe Jockey Club. These noble gifts have also, in a most dis-tinctive manner, proved the sincerity of his own convictionswith regard to the excellence of the object he would attain.What may be expected to follow ? Surely, the most thorough

examination, on the part of those in authority, as to the feasi-bility, the reasonableness, the desirability, and the probableresults of a proposal, to show his estimate of which one public-spirited gentleman has made so costly an inroad on his privatemeans.

"Example is," at all times, "better than precept." Howmuch better when a man, by his example, goes far beyond hisprecept! How stands the case? Mr. Joseph Bond, to vindi-cate the sincerity of his views, deliberately decides to give to,

public charities more than one thousand guineas in money, be-sides many valuable works of art, representing, in addition, alarge pecuniary sacrifice. He is thus a donor of that whichwas his own, and which, taken from the bulk of his property,he may be said, in the ordinary sense of the term, to be de-prived of, and consequently to miss.The winner of a racing stake, on the other hand, h:1s no legal

right to what he is about to win ; so far as he knows, fiftyothers may have an equal chance with himself. To him, thestake, when gained, is a pure gift; and he is not likely to"look the gift horse in the mouth," and withdraw from therace because the object of his ambition may be £4750 insteadof a round sum of £5000. What he desires is to get the stakes;and whether they be five per cent. more or less to him signifiesnothing. He makes no sacrifice. He gives, by the proposedmethod of anterior deduction, that which he has never handled;in other words. he gives what he never misses.Now, with the Jockey Club it rests to decide whether the

vast amount of good to arise from a course of action which caninjure no one (or legitimately ought not to be capable of doingso) shall, or shall nmt, be brought about. I would earnestlyentreat those gentlemen not to be content till they have re-lieved themselves from the responsibility of neglected personalinquiry-not to rest till they have found an opportunity ofjudging for themselves, by personal examination, what is theamount of good or evil they may inflict on the sick aud perish-ing poor, according as they-the positive arbiters of the fate of