Miscellany. [Volume: 2, Issue: 2, September, 1860, pp. 129-136]

PERISCOPE OF MEDICAL AND GENERAL SCIENCE.

135

Coste suggest another subject, most important in a medical point of view,
whether it may not prove possible to neutralize or even destroy vicious
original impressions. There is in this, M. Coste justly remarks, a fit
subject for reflection and research by physicians."
In a communication to the Louisville Monthly Med. News for July,
DR. GERHARD PAOLI treats of the diseases of the parotid gland, and
maintains the possibility of its entire extirpation. The following are extracts therefrom:-"I shall first, before attempting to prove that many
distinguished surgeons have extirpated the parotid, briefly mention the
diseases to which the organ is subject. To these belong carcinoma, osteoides, enchondroma, induration, hypertrophy, sialisma, hydroma, aneurism,
lymphatic, and many other tumors."
"Sialisma. These tumors, which are also described under the name of
abscesses, or tumores salivales, consist of a collection of thick saliva, contained in a closed sac in the parotid; but instances of these are so rare,
that in the annals of medical science very few are recorded; they are the
same for the parotid as ranula for the sublingual gland. These tumors
sometimes contain sand, or small calculi salivalis; they differ in size from
a nut to a goose egg, and even larger. Felix Plater describes such a one.
Keemer describes a similar tumor.
"Hygroma. Rokitansky. These also appear very seldom, and are
distinguishable from sialisma by their not containing saliva, but a thin,
divers colored fluid, clear as water, which is contained in a sac. Henry
observed such a tumor in a child of four years of age, which had suffered
therefrom from its earliest years. It developed slowly without pain, together with a feeling of fluctuation; at the first attempt to remove it, six
ounces of a clear fluid flowed out. Valker and Wutzer have described a
similar case."
In the course of an interesting paper on the metal cadmium, in the
Journal of the Franklin Institute for August, DR. B. WOOD, of Nashville, makes the following remarks on the properties of some of its alloys:"As to the brittleness which cadmium is said to communicate when combined with any other metal, the facts are, some of its alloys, even with
malleable metals, are 'brittle.' But others are highly tenacious and malleable. Its alloys with gold, platinum, and copper, afford instances of the
former. Its combinations with lead, tin, and to a certain extent with silver and mercury, are examples of the latter. An alloy of two parts silver and one of cadmium is perfectly malleable and very hard and strong;
with equal parts of each it is also malleable, but possesses less tenacity; but
when mixed in the proportions of two parts of cadmium and one part of
silver it is brittle. Equal parts of cadmium and mercury form a tough and
highly malleable composition; in the proportion of two parts of the latter to one of the former, the amalgam is nearly equal in malleability, but
possesses less strength. These mixtures are remarkable in view of the
fact that most amalgams are exceedingly frail and brittle. A mixture of
two or three parts of tin with one part of mercury is so fragile as almost
to drop to pieces in handling; the amalgams with lead, bismuth, etc., are
similar."
In the course of an instructive article on the estimation of silver, in the
Chemical News, (May 19,) MR. FREDERICK FIELD states that: "MR. NA -
PIER, of the Mexican Mint, in two very interesting memoirs upon the
action of heat on gold and its alloys with copper, and upon deposits in