“The Problems of Life,” by Dr. R. C. Flower, Spectator Publishing Co., Boston, 52 pages, 50 cents. This handsome brochure discusses many prevalent evils in a pungent and rhetorical style and gives a great amount of good advice in a sprightly and practical way.
“The Mediumistic experiences of John Brown, the medium of the Rockies, with an introduction by Prof. J. S. Loveland.” A book of 167 pages. Price, $1.00.
This is quite a remarkable and interesting volume. The introduction, by Prof. Loveland, is very well written, and presents the merits of Mr. Brown as one of the pioneer mediums. “A distinct centre in the history of modern Spiritualism.” “Before Davis grasped the Magic Staff,” before the Fox girls had heard the “mystic rap,” John Brown had wandered from “the rock-bound shores” of “old New England” to the wild fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, and amid a company of adventurous trappers and traders, was manifesting the strange facts connected with the spirit side of our complex life. A few copies left at this office will be sent by mail for $1.
A Volapük Grammar, for the study of the Volapük language, by Prof. Kerchkoffs, translated into English by Karl Dorubush, has lately been published. Volapük has gained a foothold in nearly every European nation, and bids fair to become universal.
PSYCHOMETRIC PRACTICE.
Mrs. C. H. Buchanan continues to apply her skill in the description of character and disease, with general impressions as to past and future. Her numerous correspondents express much gratification and surprise at the correctness of her delineations. The fee for a personal interview is $2; for a written description $3; for a more comprehensive review and statement of life periods, with directions for the cultivation of Psychometry, $5.
MAYO’S ANÆSTHETIC.
The suspension of pain, under dangerous surgical operations, is the greatest triumph of Therapeutic Science in the present century. It came first by mesmeric hypnotism, which was applicable only to a few, and was restricted by the jealous hostility of the old medical profession. Then came the nitrous oxide, introduced by Dr. Wells, of Hartford, and promptly discountenanced by the enlightened (?) medical profession of Boston, and set aside for the next candidate, ether, discovered in the United States also, but far interior to the nitrous oxide as a safe and pleasant agent. This was largely superseded by chloroform, discovered much earlier by Liebig and others, but introduced as an anæsthetic in 1847, by Prof. Simpson. This proved to be the most powerful and dangerous of all. Thus the whole policy of the medical profession was to discourage the safe, and encourage the more dangerous agents. The magnetic sleep, the most perfect of all anæsthetic agents, was expelled from the realm of college authority; ether was substituted for nitrous oxide, and chloroform preferred to ether, until frequent deaths gave warning.
Nitrous oxide, much the safest of the three, has not been the favorite, but has held its ground, especially with dentists. But even nitrous oxide is not perfect. It is not equal to the magnetic sleep, when the latter is practicable, but fortunately it is applicable to all. To perfect the nitrous oxide, making it universally safe and pleasant, Dr. U. K. Mayo, of Boston, has combined it with certain harmless vegetable nervines, which appear to control the fatal tendency which belongs to all anæsthetics when carried too far. The success of Dr. Mayo, in perfecting our best anæsthetic, is amply attested by those who have used it. Dr. Thorndike, than whom, Boston had no better surgeon, pronounced it “the safest the world has yet seen.” It has been administered to children and to patients in extreme debility. Drs. Frizzell and Williams, say they have given it “repeatedly in heart disease, severe lung diseases, Bright’s disease, etc., where the patients were so feeble as to require assistance in walking, many of them under medical treatment, and the results have been all that we could ask—no irritation, suffocation, nor depression. We heartily commend it to all as the anæsthetic of the age.” Dr. Morrill, of Boston, administered Mayo’s anæsthetic to his wife with delightful results when “her lungs were so badly disorganized, that the administration of ether or gas would be entirely unsafe.” The reputation of this anæsthetic is now well established; in fact, it is not only safe and harmless, but has great medical virtue for daily use in many diseases, and is coming into use for such purposes. In a paper before the Georgia State Dental Society, Dr. E. Parsons testified strongly to its superiority. “The nitrous oxide, (says Dr. P.) causes the patient when fully under its influence to have very like the appearance of a corpse,” but under this new anæsthetic “the patient appears like one in a natural sleep.” The language of the press, generally has been highly commendatory, and if Dr. Mayo had occupied so conspicuous a rank as Prof. Simpson, of Edinburgh, his new anæsthetic would have been adopted at once in every college of America and Europe.
Mayo’s Vegetable Anæsthetic.