transaction, as the softer and weaker sex, he shaved off the full growth from the throat and rendered it as smooth as the nature of the case would admit. This act of tonsure was performed on Saturday, and the reader may judge of its effect and of his disquietude and mortification, when he is told, as was the fact, that on Sunday he was unable to speak in consequence of a sore throat and severe hoarseness.

He has tried this experiment so many times, and the result has proved so similar, that he fully agrees with the writer above quoted, and has deliberately settled the question in favor of wearing beard on the throat, how strongly soever the tide may set in favor of men's transforming themselves into women (so far as appearance is concerned), or depriving themselves of that natural criterion by which the Creator has marked the distinction between the sexes in legible characters upon the countenance. Every one knows it is of no avail to be out of fashion, and, therefore, he can expect no quarter when talking on this subject.

We should have full confidence in being able to defend this position against shaving off the beard, from scripture and from profane history, from the example of prophets and patriarchs, Christ and his Apostles, from Greeks and Romans, Turks, Persians, and almost all others, formerly; but, against an unnatural and inhuman custom, sanctioned by the Tyrant Fashion, first introduced by a beardless boy on a throne to make him look as manly as his courtiers, and them as effeminate as himself-we cannot expect to prevail, and shall therefore, probably, have to let as many of the men as please to do so, make themselves look as much like the softer sex as they can.

SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS.

ROOT.

COMMON BLOOD

THIS plant is indigenous to this country, grows in low grounds, in meadows and woods. The root is fleshy and throws out a few fibres. The outside is red, and when fresh and newly broken, emits a bright red ju'ce. The leaves are large and shaped somewhat like a heart. They are few and only one on a stalk. Very early in the spring, before the leaves are grown, it puts forth wh'te flowers.

This root possesses various medical properties. It is used as an emetic, sudorific, emmenagogue, expectorant, detergent, &c.'

It is possessed of alterative properties. It is employed in bleeding from the lungs, scarlet fever, croup, and various other diseases. The powdered root is a good caustic or escharotic. It is often very serviceable in pneumonia or inflammation of the lungs. Two drachms of the root put into half a pint of boiling water, and taken, a tea-spoonful at a time, once in two or three hours during the day, have been of signal benefit. From ten to fifteen grains of the powdered root is a good emetic. A patient recovered from the most troublesome sore eyes I have ever met with, while using Blood Root in small doses. Perhaps its efficacy is nowhere more decided than in that dangerous and alarming disease, the croup. Some excellent remarks on its use in this disease were published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of December 17, 1845, communicated by J. A. Allen, M. D., of Middlebury, Vt. We give them in the Dr.'s own language.

"The root of the common bloodroot, Sanguinaria Canadensis, has long been known to possess a powerful influence over the secernent system. Its alterative and deobstruent property has been experienced in gastric affections, and in chronic diseases of the chylopoietic viscera. It is an efficient and powerful emetic, and this quality, in combination with its alterative character, the influence it exerts over the vascular system, and its peculiar influence on the mucous surface of the fauces and larynx, appear naturally to show its suitableness for the removal of the several varieties of tracheitis. Waiving, however, all pathological and pharmacological considerations, experience has fully confirmed my most sanguinary expectations of its value. In the early stage of the disease, the finely powdered bloodroot, administered in quantity sufficiently large to promote full vomiting, generally arrests its progress. If, however, after the emetic operation, the complaint be not entirely removed, it will be well to use, in as full doses as the stomach will tolerate without being rejected, a solution of the acetate of sanguinarine, and repeated every two, three or four hours. This solution is very speedily prepared by moderately boiling two or three drachms of the powdered root in about a gill of common vinegar, which may be sweetened with sugar or honey to render it more palatable. If the vinegar be very acid, it may be diluted with water to render it more agreeable, without essentially impairing its property. In the intermediate time, if there remain any febrile action or inflammation of the larynx or trachea, an alterative diaphoretic powder ought to be used.

"Caution is required lest a hyper-catharsis be produced. It is a principle founded on experience, and it is as old as Hippo

crates, that diseases of the respiratory organs do not bear well powerful cathartics. And, indeed, one of the greatest evils attendant on the ordinary treatment of the croup, is the liability of the required and frequently repeated antimonial emetics to run off by the bowels and produce fatal prostration. More than one instance of this kind has fallen under my own observation. By the bloodroot treatment, this inconvenience is avoided. I have never known it occur, and I have relied on this treatment for the last fifteen years, and during this period I have not lost a patient with this complaint. The number of cases subjected to this treatment I cannot at this moment determine, but at least forty cases have during this time fallen under my care.

"The tepid bath will be found a valuable adjuvant in each of the varieties, and in the first, second and even third stages of this affection."

"The use of sanguinaria in tracheitis is not presented to the medical public as novel or unprecedented. Dr. Tully has informed us, in his prize essay on Sanguinaria, published in the American Medical Recorder for January, 1828, that it was successfully used in the croup by Dr. Jehiel Hoadley, of Middletown, Conn., as early as in 1775; that it was subsequently used by Jared Potter, M. D., one of the first physicians in his day in that part of the country; and in 1817, Dr. Ives, of New Haven, stated that the bloodroot given in large doses, sufficient to produce full vomiting, often removes the croup, if administered in the first stages. It has been given,' he remarks, for many years in the country, some physicians relying wholly on this remedy for the cure of the croup.' (Vide Bigelow's Medical Botany.)

6

"Dr. Tully, in the essay mentioned, remarks, 'the croup has lost most of its peculiar terrors, and may be as often cured as any one of the severer phlogotica.' 'In the earliest stages of bronchlemmitis membranifica v. tracheitis,' he says, 'free vomiting with the sanguinaria may be considered as very nearly a specific, at least for all ordinary cases.

"It is a subject of regret and not a little surprise, that notwithstanding the utility of the sanguinaria in the treatment of croup has been before the profession for such a length of time, it has not been introduced among other medical agents into our standard works. In Tweedie's Library of Practical Medicine, with notes and additions' by W. W. Gerhard, M. D.; in the foreign Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, edited by Robley Dunglison, M. D.; and in the most excellent Dictionary of

Practical Medicine by I. Copland, edited by the indefatigable C. A. Lee, M. D., no mention is made of the use of sanguinaria in croup. This fact is the more remarkable, since among the American editors may be reckoned some of the best bibliographical physicians of the present age."

"It should be borne in mind that in all cases of any considerable severity, full vomiting with the sanguinaria at the commencement of the disease is of vast importance; and this process should be repeated as often as the symptoms may require, and in the intervals the free employment of the article, as it has already been mentioned, should be pursued.

"But by advocating the pursuance of the plan of treatment I have alluded to in this paper, it is not designed to present the sanguinaria as an unfailing specific in all cases. This is more than should be expected from the use of any remedial agent. Even the quinine or the bark, which has so long sustained the character of a specific in intermittent fever, sometimes fails. All that can reasonably be anticipated from the judicious and appropriate use of any medicinal article, is that it shall generally prove successful. With this reservation, no fears are entertained but what the proper use of the sanguinaria, in each of the varieties of tracheitis, will satisfy all reasonable expectation."

We believe the Blood Root will be found nearly, if not quite as efficacious in the Scarlet Fever, as in the Croup.

66

TREATMENT OF WARTS AND CORNS.

AN Agent engaged in circulating our Journal writes us, that one gentleman says, he will take it, if we will tell how to cure a sore throat;" another, how to cure 66 warts ;" and a third, "corns." We can assure these gentlemen that we will attend to all these matters in due time. We shall give the opinion of a Medical Journal on "sore throat," in another place. We would just say here, that, whether those persons, or any others, please to take the Journal for the purpose of learning how to cure those two troublesome excrescences, corns and warts, or not, we will give them the opinion of one of the best and most eminent Surgeons on cutaneous diseases, Dr. Erasmus Wilson, on the treatment of "Warts and Corns."

"The treatment of warts is to pare the hard and dry skin from their tops, and then touch them with the smallest drop of strong acetic acid, taking care that the acid does not run off the wart upon the neighboring skin, for if it do, it will occasion inflammation and much pain. If this practice be continued once or twice daily, with regularity, paring the surface of the wart occasionally, when it gets hard and dry, the wart may be soon effectually cured.

pres

"The same treatment will keep corns under, in spite of sure; but there is a knack in paring them which I will now explain. The end to be gained in cutting a corn is to take off the pressure of the shoe from the tender papillæ of the sensitive skin; and to effect this object, the summit of the corn must be cut in such a manner as to excavate it, the edges being left to act as a bolster and still further protect the central part, where the longest, and consequently the most sensitive papillæ are found. The professional chiropodist effects this object very adroitly; he generally works round the centre, and takes out the fibrous portion in a single piece. He digs, as he says, for the root. There is another way of disposing of a corn which I have been in the habit of recommending to my friends; it is effectual, and obviates the necessity for the use of the knife. Have some common sticking-plaster spread on buff-leather; cut a piece sufficiently large to cover the corn and skin around, and have a hole punched in the middle of exactly the size of the summit of the corn. Now take some common soda of the oil-shops. and make it into a paste, with about half its bulk of soap; fill the hole in the plaster with this paste, and cover it up with a piece of sticking-plaster. Let this be done at bed time, and in the morning remove the plaster, and wash the corn with warm water. If this operation be repeated every second, third, or fourth day for a short time, the corn will be removed. The only precaution requiring to be used is to avoid causing pain; and so long as any tenderness occasioned by the remedy lasts, it must be repeated. When the corn is reduced within reasonable bounds by either of the above modes, or when it is only threatening, and has not yet risen to the height of being a sore annoyance, the best of all remedies is a piece of soft buff leather, spread with soap-plaster, and pierced in the centre with a hole of exactly the size of the summit of the corn. If it can be procured, a better substance still for spreading the plaster upon is amadou,' or German tinder,' commonly used for lighting cigars, and kept by the tobacconists. This substance is softer than leather, and does not become hard and ruck up, as the latter does, after it has been on for a short time. The