instead of producing that astringent effect which, by diminishing the capillary congestion, breaks through the chain of morbid vascular action. If nitrate of silver be chosen as a local application, a solution of from twenty to forty grains to the ounce would, I believe, answer every purpose. Bretonneau, and practitioners of his date, put much faith in the application of hydrochloric acid, and the same has met with the support of several recent writers in the weekly medical journals. The tincture of the sesquichloride of iron has also been extensively used, either undiluted and applied with a camel's-hair brush, or in the form of gargle. Those who have tried it speak most highly of its effects, and several have trusted to it exclusively as a local application. In the milder cases, together with its internal exhibition, it certainly appears to offer the most satisfactory results.
Another local application in the form of gargle, of great utility, and having, moreover, the advantage of correcting the foetor of the breath, is Beaufoy's solution of the chloride of soda, in the proportions of two or three drachms to eight ounces of water. Even when other local applications are resorted to, it is well to conjoin the use of this, if only for the purpose alluded to. Could we feel assured that the vegetable parasite described by Dr. Laycock stood in the relation of a cause of diphtheria, instead of a consequence, those substances which are known to be destructive of these low forms of vegetable life might be resorted to. Such are the sulphurous acid and the hyposulphate of soda in the form of a saturated solution. Of the power of the latter to destroy the vegetable growth upon which favus depends, as well as in the case of the "oidium" of the vine, I have had
