dark hue. A furred appearance of the tongue is apt to be present in scrofulous children; it is often present in grave acute maladies, also sometimes in chronic diseases of the abdominal viscera. A thick yellowish sheathing of one side may be produced by decayed teeth or affections of the fauces. A pale flabby tongue "with large papilla" is indicative of gastric debility; also present in chlorosis. A sharp and pointed tongue is often observed in inflammation or irritation of the brain. The tongue will be found swollen in inflammation of its own substance It will be swollen, broad and flabby in low fevers, in in some affections of the brain, as a consequence upon the disturbed circulation which accompanies diseases of the heart, and sometimes in chronic ailments of the digestive organs. A relaxed, dilated, and tremulous tongue indicates nervous or congestive fevers. A dry, dark colored, glazed, furred or fissured tongue, especially in acute diseases, is always to be dreaded, because it is proof, not only that the secretions are arrested, but also of depraved blood and ebbing life force. A dry tongue is never a favorable sign. A fissured tongue is congenital in some persons; it may occur in chronic inflammation of the intestines or in chronic affections of the liver. In diabetes, coma, or persistent breathing through the mouth, the tongue will be dry. Impeded and tremulous movements of the tongue are attendant in delibitated conditions of the system. In hemiplegia one side is crippled, and the tongue turns away from the affected side of the organ. A serious cerebral lesion is to be thought of when the patient has imperfect articulation associated with difficulty in moving the tongue.

The following manifestations or symptoms of the tongue. indicate a serious condition; a livid color, a very red, shining or raw aspect, a heavy coating of a dark or black hue, dryness, or tremulous action.

A few remedies that may be pointed to by the tongue are as follows:

Antimonium Crudum:-Thick, milky-white coating on the tongue, from slow digestion.

Antimonium Tartaricum,-Tongue coated thinly, white with reddened papillae; red edges; tongue very red, dry in the middle, with bitter taste.

Arsenicum Album:-Gangrene of tongue; spots on tongue burn like fire.

Arum Triphyllum;-Tongue red like a beet, with prominent papillae, excessive salivation.

Aurum Metallicum:-Tongue stiff and hard as leather; taste entirely lost, craves nothing but acids.

Acidum Muriaticum:-Aphthae and ulcerationp of tongue, which is heavy and paralyzed; taste acrid and putrid, like rotten eggs, with ptyalism.

Belladonna:-Papillae deep red, inflamed and enlarged; tongue fissured; trembling when protruded.

Borax:-Aphthous stomatitis.

Bryonia Alb:--Grayish or thick yellow coating; dry, brown tongue; everything tastes bitter.

Gelsemium Sempervirens:-Can hardly protrude the tongue it trembles so; speech thick, from congestion of the base of the brain.

Hydrastis Canadensis:-Tongue large, flabby and slimy looking; coating yellow, slimy, sticky, furred, Stomattiis materna.

Hyoscyamus Niger:-Tongue dry, red, brown, cracked and

tremulous.

Iodium:-Tongue heavily coated, continuous taste of salt in the mouth; ravenous hunger, cannot be satisfied.

Ipecacuanha:-Constant nausea with a clean tongue.

Iris Versicolor:-Gums and tongue feel as though covered with a greasy substance.

Kali Bichromicum:--Tongue thick, broad and mapped or coated with thick, yellow felt.

Lachesis:-Tongue dry, red, black, stiff, cracked, much trembling of tongue when protruding; tongue catches on the teeth when protruding.

Leptandra Virginica:-Tongue coated yellow or black down the middle.

Mercurius: Very heavy, thick, moist, yellow coated tongue, which takes the imprint of the teeth; fetid breath but sweet taste in the mouth.

Mezercum:-Burning in the tongue extending to stomach.
Natrum Muriaticum:-Great complaints about the dryness

of the tongue, which is not very dry.

Nux Moschata:--Tongue so dry it sticks to the palate, especially after sleeping, without thirst; the saliva seems like cotton.

Nux Vomica:-The first half of the tongue is clean or comparatively clean; sometimes it is red and shining, but the posterior half is coated with a deep fur.

Opium:--Paralysis of the tongue; tongue white, mouth dry with unquenchable thirst from arrest of mucous secretions. Ostrya Virginica:--Yellow coated tongue, slimy, coppery, bitter taste.

Phytolacca De-Tongue feels rough with blisters on the sides, and a very red tip; great pain in the root of the tongue when swallowing.

Podophyllum Peltatum:--Tongue full and broad with pasty coat in the center and shows imprints of teeth, from portal congestion.

Pulsatilla Nigricans:--Tongue coated whitish yellow, with tenacious mucus.

Rhus Toxicodendron:-Tongue has a triangular red tip, white often on one side; takes imprint of teeth.

Sepia:-Large, pale, flabby and indentated tongue.

Silicea:--Sensation as if a hair were lying on fore-part of tongue; tastes of blood in the morning.

Spigelia:--Fine stitches in the tongue, is full of cracks. Stramonium:--Tongue yellowish-brown and dry on the center or swelled and dry, showing the imprint of the teeth, no desire for water, all kinds of food tastes like straw.

Sulphur:-Whitish or yellow coating; red tip and borders: burning and dryness of the tongue.

Terebinthina:--Tongue red, smooth and glossy, as if deprived of papillae in typhoid fevers.

Taraxacum:--White coated tongue, which peels off, giving "mapped" appearance.

Thuja Occidentalis:-Ranula on both sides of the tongue, transparent, of a bluish-red-gray and jelly-like appearance.. Slow speech. Tip of the tongue sore to the touch.

Ustilago Madis:-Prickling sensation in the tongue, with

a feeling as if something was under the roots of the tongue pressing upward. Slimy, coppery taste.

Valeriana: Tongue thickly coated, with taste as of rancid

tallow.

Veratrum Album:--Tongue cold; unquenchable desire for cold drinks; dry, blackish, cracked tongue, or coated yellow, with red tip and edges.

Veratrum Viride:-Tongue yellow at the sides, with a red streak along the center and inclined to be dry.

Yucca:-Sallow yellow face and tongue, tongue takes imprints of teeth.

Zincum:--Taste of blood in the mouth; sweetish rising from the stomach, with a clean, red tongue; tongue dry and feels heavy.

ANTISEPTICS VERSUS SOAP AND WATER.

Comparative Results in Abdominal Surgery Favorable
to the Latter.

Prof. Lawson Tait, of Birmingham, England, sharply criticises the work of T. Gaillard Thomas, of New York, in the following characteristic letter recently published in the American Journal of Surgery and Gynecology.

I have just had sent to me a copy of the forty-first annual report of the Hospital for Women in New York, containing an address by Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, the greater part of which purports to answer some animadversions which are alleged to have been made concerning the results of the work in that institution. At the conclusion he puts to the critics Shylock's question, "Are you answered?"

I have not been one of the critics, and only because the facts never came under my notice; but on their behalf, and on behalf of suffering humanity, I say to Dr. Thomas that they are not answered, but that, on the contrary, he makes out a deplorable state of matters.

He puts forward a group of figures which show that in seven large selected hospitals in America the results of abdominal section run from 25 per cent in Boston City Hospital down to 15.03 per cent in his own institution. Of this collection of statistics I have only two things to say, that the whole thing is deplorable, and must be remedied; and that the mortality in the New York Women's Hospital is "murderous," as Mathews Duncan used to put it.

He certainly does not make the matter any better by pointing out that during a period of 13 years the mortality of his hospital has been 22.43 per cent, and that this triumphant result has been due to the introduction of "antisepsis, the sheet anchor of the surgeon." This makes me more than ever thankful that I discovered the fallacy of this so-called antiseptic craze early in my career.

I enclose with this letter a copy of the twenty-third annual report of the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women, for 1893; and I select this year for three reasons. The first is that it was the first year in which no work was done by myself, and the bulk of it was done by two of my former assistants, and because it was an exceptionally bad year.

As to the statistics themselves, let me say that, like those of the New York Hospital for Women, in Dr. Thomas' own words, "the surgical staff of this hospital has absolutely nothing to do with the making of its statistics." Each case is entered by an officer responsible to the lay committee, and each fatal case is investigated by a special pathologist altogether independent of the operating staff. At the end of each year each operator has to defend his facts before his colleagues on a committee upon which also sits the chairman and secretary of the Managing Committee, and a perfect audit is made and signed. This document is published with a table upon which every case is entered under the distinguishing initial of its own surgeon, and with such details that any case can be easily identified. Any cooking of the statistics is an absolute impossibility, and only the most trivial errors have ever been detected.

In 1893 the abdominal sections numbered 176 (against 153 in the New York Hospital of 1894), with a mortality of 6.2 against 15.03 in the New York Women's Hospital.