The plant has also been cultivated in England. It grows to the height of three or four feet or more, in smooth, straight stems, that are at first three forked, then two forked. The leaves are dark green, smooth, the edges entire, oval, pointed on short petioles, or the upper sessile.

The flowers are at the ends of the branches, not conspicuously large, dark blue color, bell-shaped and solitary on short peduncles. They appear in June or July, and the oval flattened berry that succeeds, is about as large as a small cherry, of a glossy, dark purple black, and is ripened in September. It sits flat in the open calix, and is a rather tempting looking fruit, which fact has often led to the eating of it by persons ignorant of its poisonous qualities, and especially by children.

Capsicum Annum, or Capsicum; Solanum dulcamara, or Dulcamara. Datura stramonium, or Stramonium; Hyoscyamus niger, or Hyoscyamus; Nicotiana tabacum, or Tobacco, and the latest allopathic craze, "Pichi," or Fabiana imbricata, the cure-all for vesical calculus. This last, "Pichi," becomes a small tree on the arid bluffs of the torrid zone of South America. The leaves look like small fish scales glued to the fine, slender branches by a gummy exudate.

Most of the plants of the Solanum order are more or less poisonous, either in foliage, root or fruit, or altogether, though some are edible and extremely useful to man. Solanum tuberosum is a genuine night-shade, the thick, starchy roots improved by cultivation are the indispensable potato.

Solanum melongena, through a similar modification, has become the egg plant, the fruit of which contains still in some cases traces of its former poisonous qualities.

Physalis viscosa, is the wild cherry tomato, while another Physalis is the cultivated cherry tomato or ground cherry.

Lycopersicum is another genius in the Solanum order, and Lycopersicum esculentum is the common tomato.

There are many more genera in this order that have not been mentioned, some of which contain very numerous species. The whole order belongs more to the tropical than the temperate regions.

In the case of Belladonna, the leaves, the fruit and the root, all seem to possess like toxic properties, and our provings contain experiments with all three. Atropa or Atropinum is obtained from the root. The pressed out juice of the fresh plant mixed with its own bulk of alcohol is the officinal mother tincture. Triturations of the root are also used by some pharmacists and practitioners.

DISCUSSION.

DR. HENRY C. HOUGHTON: I wish to say a word to the Society growing out of the experience to which I have been forced by my friend Dr. Van Denburg, and I tender him my thanks to-day. I have in my possession here a book, Dr. Dunham's "Science and Art of Therapeutics," that I wish the members of this Society, and indeed of this country and the world, would study, and would take as the foundation for their investigations on this subject. I believe that as a scientific body, the homoeopathic branch of the profession in the United States, and in the world, is drifting away from the methods of the masters, and this work which I have done, and done so imperfectly, the imperfections of which I realize to-day, has forced this idea on my mind. I believe that our interest in the study of diagnosis, pathology and other branches, the study of which I would not disparage, has caused a tendency on the part of our school to drift away from the methods which have made us what we are. This has been forced upon me by my studying as I never did before, since my attention was called to homœopathy by Dr. Carroll Dunham. This method he impressed upon me in my early student days. I have departed from it more and more, as I have become interested in the physical signs. This is our tendency, and what we need to do is to link our knowledge of pathology with what has been called by some our diagnosis of the drug, and thus link our homoeopathic literature to the knowledge of pathology which we have to-day. By these going hand in hand, we shall accomplish greater things than in the past. If the members of this Society will devote themselves to something like the present scheme, in every department of medical science, linking together their knowledge of diagnosis, pathology and physical signs, with our homœopathic materia medica, we will do a work which is properly set for us.

DR. J. L. MOFFAT: Such a clinical report as this is of no value. Empirically it would lead me to think of the remedy mentioned when I had a case with the same name, but it does not advance homœopathy. He has not told us what symptoms he verified. If he had done so in each case, the reiteration would have served to impress the symptoms

on our memory, and we should have been better able to verify his diagnosis.

DR. M. W. VAN DENBURG: It is of some value to me to have my attention called to a remedy, and then study it afterwards. There was no time at this session to present in each case the symptoms in full. Do certain forms of medicine have any effect? is a question to-day, and these reports may help us in that direction. We did not expect to give the indications in particular cases, but only the successful use in removing certain manifest forms or conditions.

DR. A. B. NORTON referred to the good results obtained by the alternation of Belladonna and Ferrum phos. in acute catarrhal inflammation of the middle ear.

DR. L. A. BULL referred to the differential symptoms of Bellad. and Hyoscy. in convulsions: if the head is hot, give the former; if cool, the latter drug.

USE OF THE ASPIRATOR IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES OF THE EAR.

BY HENRY C. HOUGHTON, M. D.,

NEW YORK CITY.

At the session of the American Homœopathic Ophthalmological and Otological Society, held at Deer Park, Maryland, in 1884, W. H. Winslow, M. D., gave an account of a case treated by him in a unique manner. It was a case of acute disease of the middle ear in which the exudation was not set free by incision alone, and the alarming symptoms were not relieved, as is usually the case, after the drum head is incised. The employment of an aspirator then suggested itself and the tympanum was emptied of a large amount of sero-sanguineous fluid, with complete relief of the alarming symptoms and perfect resolution, as the final result of the case.

This report was very suggestive to me and I find the practice is capable of wide employment in acute and chronic diseases of the middle ear. Similar methods have been used in chronic non

*Annual Meeting..

suppurative disease, for the purpose of breaking adhesions in the tympanum, but inflation has been the method usually adopted for expelling accumulations from the tympanic cavity.

Any ordinary apparatus can be used for this purpose, by attaching the exhaust pipe to a Siegel's otoscope, or to any tip which will fit the auditory canal so closely as to exclude the air. The otoscope gives the operator an opportunity to watch the effect of the exhaustion of the air upon the tissues of the canal and drum head, also to notice the escape of pus, mucus, etc., from perforations or sinuses; all these being suggestive as to the degree of force applied.

Cases of chronic suppuration present the conditions best calculated to illustrate the good results following aspiration. Those who have tried to effectually cleanse the tissues involved in this class of cases, know very well the difficulties experienced. Since the Peroxide of hydrogen was introduced I have used it extensively with the aspirator, forcing it into the perforations or sinuses, allowing it to act on the inspissated pus, then reversing the pressure, exhausting the air from the tissues, the morbid material is readily removed.

One effect of this treatment is to quicken the circulation, thus hastening the repair; another effect observed is to restore the retracted drum head more nearly to its normal plane, to overcome the rigidity of the articulations and thus restore to a large degree the mobility of the entire auditory mechanism.

In chronic suppuration, the Eustachian tube being open, we may use this method to force any solution to the naso-pharynx and thus cleanse the entire mucous tract involved, a very necessary element in the treatment; as the naso-pharynx is the avenue by which the disease approaches the middle ear, and it should be more fully considered in the local measures directed to cleansing the tympanum. In mastoid disease, when the antrum has been reached by operation, the Peroxide of hydrogen or Glycozone can be forced through the tympanum and antrum, either from the auditory canal, or through the incision in the mastoid.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

Michael Madigan; age 45. Admitted to New York Ophthalmic Hospital, by advice of family physician in the country. Had suffered for eight weeks with acute otitis media suppuration, right ear, which broke twice with only temporary relief. At the time of admission the drum-head was undefined in outline, the canal swollen, the mastoid swollen, red and tender; the infiltration extended downward and