45THE POISON OF THE ORNITHORHYNCHUS.

Be this as it may, if we turn to the table showing the occu-pations of those admitted, readmitted, and under care during1894 we are struck by a rather curious fact. Addingtogether the numbers of those includEd in the professionaland commercial classes the total comes to 344; whereas thenumbers of those included under miners, labourers, seamen,and shepherds come to 1475. Of course, the percentage ofthese various classes to the total amount of the popu-lation ought to be taken into consideration, but it seems

curious that sailors and shepherds should be included inthe list. Perhaps loneliness may have somewhat to do iwith it in the case of the shepherd. A life in thewilderness is apt to engender mental trouble. I I Verte-bantur ad melancholiam " was said of the old hermits in the

Egyptian desert ; and there is a woeful story on record of ahaggard man who crawled to an Indian station crying,"There is no God, but I have walked with the devil," andwas recognised as one who had been sent to take charge of alonely district by himself. "Man is a social animal," asAristotle said, and perhaps the cares of town life, wearyingas they are, are more than counterpoised by the daily com-munication between a man and his fellows.

THE POISON OF THE ORNITHORHYNCHUS.

WE have received a pamphlet from the Physiological b

Laboratory of the University of Sydney containing observa-tions by Dr. C. J. Martin and Dr. F. C. Tidswell on thefemoral gland of the Ornithorhynchus and its secretion, withan experimental inquiry concerning its supposed toxic action. nIt will be remembered that we noticed at some length in tTHE LANCET of March 16th the conclusions arrived at by 0

Dr. Anderson Stuart on this subject. The essay before us ilcontains a good historical fJ’éS1tmé of our information in regard yto the spur of the ornithorhynchus and the gland attached to a

it, from the first notice of it by Horne in 1802, who thought a

the spur was a copulative organ, to Jamieson, who in 1817 ëdiscovered the gland connected with the spur, the duct ofwhich traversed the spur, and the secretion of which he had 1observed to produce a poiwnous effect on a man who had 1been endeavouring to capture a specimen after it had been twounded. Bennett and Owen were disinclined to admit that (

it was an organ of offence, whilst Dr. Anderson Stuart thas no doubt that it is, and adduces cases of dogs whichsuffered severely from the action of the poison, and his <<opinion coincides with those of Dr. Martin and Dr. Tidswell.These observers have carefully examined the anatomy of theorgan in question, with the following results. The glands are Iwhitish, uniform, situated on each side of the spine over theacetabulum and the femur, and just outside the gluteusmaximus, and rest on the rectus, iliacus, and gluteimedius and minimus muecles. The duct emerges from the

posterior half of the outer border of the gland, runs downthe back of the leg to the tarsus, where it dilates into a sacand is then continued along the spur. The spur is about halfan inch long and is attached to a supernumerary tarsal ossicle.The gland is invested by a layer of smooth muscle and isof a compound racemose type; the alveoli are butied by asingle layer, or in one case by four layers, of epithelial cells, thecontents of which are granular. The duct, though apparentlysingle, contains two or three channels embedded in whitefibrous tissue, without any admixture of smooth, musculartissue. Neither in the living nor in the dead animal can thesecretion be made to exude by pressure. Chemical examina-tion of the secretion showed that it contains proteids, andthat these consist chiefly of some form of albumin, with alittle proteose, but no nucleo-albumin. The results of

experiments on various animals showed that there was ananalogy between the venom of Australian snakes and the

poison of the platypus, since both owe their toxic propertiesto proteid constituents ; that they both retard or prevent the

coagulation of the blood when slowly introduced into thesystem in small doses ; that they both cause intravascularclotting when injected into the veins in sufficient doses ; thatthey both cause an almost instantaneous drop in the pressureof the blood; and that they both cause capillary hoemor-rhages and cedema when locally applied. There is reasonto believe that the secretion of the platypus is chieflyvenomous at some particular season of the year, especiallyabout the month of June.

SIR HENRY DUNCAN LITTLEJOHN.

GENERAL satisfaction will be caused throughout the pro-fession, especially in Scotland, by the announcement thatDr. H. D. Littlejohn of Edinburgh is to receive the honourof knighthood. Dr. Littlejohn’s ample claims to distinctionare connected mainly with his labours in the cause of sanita-tion and public health, in the manifold departments of which

, he has long been a recognised authority. His medical careerI commenced more than fifty years ago, and he graduated as: M.D. of Edinburgh University in 1847. To the general.

public he is chiefly known as the medical officer of health ofEdinburgh. He has also filled the office of President of the-

Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and has for manyyears been Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at the Edin-

1 burgh School of Medicine. -

CREDULITY AND FANATICISM.

THE remarkable ignorance and credulity of the laymind with regard to any medical matter concerned withthe process of generation is well shown by a case whichoccurred at Ballymacarrett, Belfast, and which is recordedin another column by one of our Irish correspondents. A

young married woman gave birth to a child on May 4th,and went on satisfactorily for two days. She was then.attacked with pain and vomiting, and a tumour was

detected in the abdomen. A diagnosis of ovarian tumour-was made and an operation advised. She was taken to the’

hospital, but no operation was permitted, and she died en.

May llth. No post-mortem examination was allowed, andthe common talk in the neighbourhood was that a secondschild existed and had not been delivered. Finally, the authori-ties determined to exhume the body and hold a post-mortemexamination. On this being done on June 25th, a rupturedovarian cyst with a twisted pedicle was found. The

jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medicalevidence and exonerated the medical msn from blame.

The case is only one more instance of what mischief and!! annoyance ignorant tongues can work.

CASTRATION FOR OVERGROWTH OF PROSTATE.

THE New York Medical Record of June lst and June 8th

reports the proceedings of the annual meeting of the American;Surgical Association, the president being Dr. Fied. S. Dennis.Inter alia, an interesting discussion is given on the’

above subject. It was opened in a paper by Dr. J. WilliamWhite of Philadelphia, Pa. Dr. White inclined to the viewthat the cause of prostatic enlargement was the survival ofthat function of the testicle which imparts masculinityto the individual and perpetuates the secretion of spermatic;fluid long after it ceases to contain spermatozoa. He hadcollected 111 cases of double castration by competent sur-geons for enlarged prostate in extreme and exaggerated forme-which he said "had resulted in cures." All the same, hewent on to show that twenty of these had died. In 87 2 percent. rapid atrophy of the prostate follows, and in 52 percent. great lessening of long-standing cystitis. In gaugingthe mortality, he thinks that twelve of the twenty fatal

cases should in fairness be excluded, leaving 7 per cent. in-stead of 18 as the mortality. Even in the fatal cases