the clavicle, for instance, differed in no respect in appearance from that bone. The same colour, the same hardness, the same direction of the fibres, the periosteum continuous with that of the clavicle, all was alike. There was a hole in it through which passed a vessel of considerable size. It was in this state that the greatest part of the abnormal tissue was found, that of the superior extremities was entirely so; but in the lower extremities some portions, especially those which were developed in the substance of the muscles, the greatest part of which remained unaffected, appeared to be of less dense and less compact texture; their colour was more light, and when plunging the blade of a scalpel, one felt that after having cut through the first dense layer, one could cut deeper with great facility. None of the muscles were entirely ossified, all preserved still a certain number of fleshy fibres, and especially the tendons have not undergone the slightest transformation; this was most remarkable with the biceps of the right side, of which the terminal tendon only, and a few fleshy fibres inferiorly, and the tendon of the long portion superiorly, remained healthy.

The fleshy fibres were inserted into the ossified parts in the same manner as they are to the other bones, by small aponeurotic fibres which were nearly united and confounded with the periosteum; because, as we have already said, there was almost every where a periosteum which seemed to originate from that of the bones with which the new ossifications were found in contact. On each side the head of the humerus, which was swelled, and presented a kind of ramollisement, was internally consolidated with the glenoid cavity; the same was the case with the head of the femur, otherwise not the slightest trace of the old dislocation existed.

Dr. Poggiale, Professor at the Military Hospital of Instruction at Lille, has analysed a portion of this osseous tissue, taken from the substance of the crural biceps.

"This portion was white, less hard and less dense than an ordinary bone, and lighter than water. Examined in substance, it was found that it was composed of an external thin layer, which the knife could easily penetrate; this was perforated by many holes which gave passage to the nutritive vessels. In the species of canal which it formed, there was a spongy tissue composed of hexagonal cells.

"A given weight of this substance, calcined in a crucible, after having been totally deprived of grease by means of boiling water, until it lost no more of its weight, has given the following results:

"In 100 parts, there were forty-two of the inorganic matter, and fifty-eight of the organized, decomposable by heat. Another portion of the same substance, treated with diluted nitric acid, was deprived of its earthy salts, and left a residue presenting the form and the volume of the portion taken for maceration, and composed of

Cartilage, soluble in water, 54.30
Vessels

3.70.

The analysis of the inorganic matter has given the following results:

Phosphate of lime

Carbonate of lime

32.09

"On forty-two parts Phosphate of magnesia 3.25

8.66

"It was impossible to detect soda and muriate of soda of which Berzelius speaks, and traces of alumina and silica, of oxide of iron and of manganese which Foucroy and Vauquelin have obtained. Some persons having expressed their opinion, that probably there was in this individual a transposition of a part of the earthy matters from the bones into the muscles; I have analysed a portion of the osseous cavity of the cranium, and my analysis was found in perfect accordance with that of Berzelius. I will conclude by putting in apposition the analysis of the bones of man, by Berzelius, and that of which I have just stated the result.

After the details into which we have entered, and the analysis of M. Poggiale, it is impossible to doubt the osseous nature of this tissue. Do we not really find in it the essential characters of the bone, the hardness and the organization, an organic parenchyma containing within its texture an inorganic substance, and even the same mode of nutrition, by the aid of a membrane which surrounds it on all sides, and sends vessels to its whole surface.

After this, it is of no consequence that the analysis has not shewn these two substances exactly in the same proportion as in the bones of an adult; no consequence that some traces of substances which are to be found in the latter, and about which the chemists do not entirely agree, have been wanting in the former. Besides the analysis of M. Poggiale had for its object one of the ossifications found in the substance of the fleshy fibres, and the development of which appeared to be less perfect; one thus may believe that he would have arrived to a different result, if he had chosen one of those, the physical properties of which differed in nothing from those of the ordinary bones.

The case which occupies us may be considered, we think, as unique in the annals of science; not because there are no examples of the ossification of muscles; thus many authors admit that the muscular fibres in the neighbourhood of fractures become ossified, beside the formation of callus

There exist, also, several partial ossifications of the heart; such are to be found in Columbus, (De Re Anat., lib. xv.), in Bonet, (Sepulchretum, lib. ii. sect., obs. 32), in Veslingius, (Obs. Anat. et Epist. Medi. xv.), in Boerhaave, (Prædect., lib. v. p. 478). In

the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, of 1716, is a case of a jesuit in whose heart was found an ossification of four inches and a half long, and one inch broad. In Morgagni, (Epist. III. Art. 22). Finally Reneuldin, in a medical journal, of February, 1806, relates that he has found the left ventricle entirely ossified, which appears to us to be rather exaggerated. But the heart is an organ covered both internally and externally by a sero-fibrous tissue, and none of the cases just mentioned contains any thing that would lead us to believe or think, that it was not in this tissue that the abnormal ossification has been developed; besides there is no proof that these were not the same concretions as those found in the bladder, and which Meckel states to have been found in the muscles of the abdomen. Otherwise, we do not deny the possibility of partial ossifications of the heart; the modern authors, whose knowledge of pathological anatomy surpasses much that of the ancients, relate some examples of it; as Corvisart, Bertin, Burns, M. Andral, (Clinique Medicale), and M. Lithi, (Dictionaire de Medecine.) We find in Lieutaud, (Hist. Anat. Med., Obs. 789, t. ii, p. 99), a case of the ossification of the diaphragm: "Diaphragma," says he, "inter pulmonem dextrum, illi continuum, et hepar totam tangebatur cartilaginem vel osseum adeo ut flexum frangeretur cum sonitu." Haller (Dissert. Chirurg., ccvii.), says he has seen an intercostal muscle and a diaphragm ossified in the greatest part of their extent. Collato, author of the Venetian Twins, presented after his death a similar case.

Seveille has found the right half of the diaphragm ossified in an old man.

Here are the same objections as in the cases of the ossification of the heart, that is to say, a want of proper details to enable us to judge if these are true ossifications, and above all, if they occupied the muscular or the sero-fibrous portions of these organs.

Finally, M. Cruveilhier, who in his Precis D'Anatomie Pathologique, has laid down such good rules for distinguishing the true ossifications from the simple calcareous concretions, relates a case seen by him in the clinique of Dupuytren, of a man labouring under elephantiasis, the muscles of whose leg exhibited a fatty degeneration, in the centre of which there were to be found long needles presenting all the characters of the osseous tissue.

M. Bricheteau says that he has found in February, 1816, the iliac muscle of an old woman transformed by half into osseous tissue, and by half into the adipose.

One thus perceives that the positive observations of the transformation of the muscular tissue into osseous tissue, different from those pending on the formation of callus, are limited to two, which in respect of the extent of the lesion cannot be compared with ours. We do not intend, in consequence of this case, to raise the question of the causes of the osseous degeneration in general. Evidently they are the same as those of all the degenerations of tissue; and although this question has already originated numerous and ingenious discussions, we may say of it as of many others, "Grammatici cer

tant et adhuc sub judice lis est."-(Horace.) We do not pretend to decide it; we will limit ourselves by noticing that our patient, after having been exposed to the most powerful causes of rheumatism, which undoubtedly is an inflammation, either specific or not, either of the sero-fibrous tissue of the articulations, or of the muscular tissue, has presented all the symptoms belonging to this affection; that under the continual influence of the same causes, the disease returned several times; that at last it has passed into the chronic state, and did not stop until the tissue, which was the seat of it, had lost its properties.

Now, by what successive transformations has the muscular tissue become an osseous? Bichat thought that the accidental ossifications were formed according to the ordinary laws of osteogony, that is to say, that the altered portion was first transforming in a cartilage, which, like that which succeeds the mucous condition of the foetus, was filling gradually with the earthy phosphates. We have seen nothing to authorize us to believe that it was the same in the case which occupies us. In fact, we have met nowhere with a portion of muscle presenting a cartilaginous aspect. Perhaps, if the cause which we have ascribed to this affection, namely, the muscular rheumatism, was acknowledged as the true one, it could help us to find out the series of the metamorphoses which the muscular tissue has undergone. In fact, one of the frequent effects of this disease is the fibrous degeneration; and every one knows that the fibrous tissue is easily charged with earthy phosphates. The cases of this kind are abundant in the records of science. Otherwise our supposition, in the present case, finds support in the fibrous transformation of only the left sterno-cleido-mastoid muscle. Thus we will not attribute to it more importance than it deserves.

The patient had entered the hospital at the time when the osseous transformation had already begun. Are there, in the present state of science, any therapeutic means capable to cure a similar affection? evidently not. All that could have been done, if the patient had come sooner, would have been to oppose its development by means usually employed against muscular rheumatism. But does it follow, that the result would always have been the same? No; because, if under the influence of agents, which we could not yet sufficiently appreciate, a muscle could evidently be changed into a bone, it is not irrational to suppose, that under the influence of other agents, as yet, it is true, unknown, this tissue might have its form, and its properties preserved.-Gazette Medicale de Paris.

K. K.

Extracts from the Statistical Reports of the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding among the Troops in the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean, and British America; prepared from the Records of the Army Medical Department and War-Office Returns.-We shall select from Captain Tulloch's Report, some of those portions which bear on the question of the effect of climate on pulmonary disease.

The Report itself is one of the most important and valuable collection of documents in medical statistics that has ever been published.

1. Gibraltar.-The Rock of Gibraltar, as it is generally termed, is a lofty promontory, forming, with that of Ceuta on the Barbary coast, the entrance to the Straits from the Mediterranean. It is generally esteemed the most southerly point in Europe, and lies in lat. 36° 9' N.; long. 5° 17′ W. The Rock is of an oblong form, about 4700 yards in length, 1600 in breadth, and rising abruptly to the height of 1439 feet. On its western side it is bounded by an extensive bay, from 30 to 40 miles in circumference; on the east by the wide expanse of the Mediterranean; on the south by the waters of the Straits; and the only connecting link with the mainland of Spain is a sandy isthmus on the north, about a mile in length, half a mile in breadth, and at its highest part not more than 10 feet above the level of the sea. On that side the rock is perfectly perpendicular, except for a small space on the north-west, where a narrow strip of flat ground covered with fortifications joins it to the isthmus. The eastern face is also an abrupt precipice to within a short distance from its base, where a steep bank of sand has been thrown up by the Mediterranean. On the southern side the rock sinks rapidly into a succession of flats or terraces surrounded by precipices, which ultimately terminate in the sea at Europa Point. The western side is also of an abrupt precipitous character, but towards the base breaks into a series of rugged slopes, which, before reaching the bay, terminate in a narrow strip of level ground whereon the principal streets of the town and the seaward fortifications are erected.

To enter into a minute description of the local peculiarities of this station, or to narrate the various precautions which have been adopted to preserve the health of the troops and inhabitants, would lead us far beyond the limits within which this Report must be circumscribed, and, as these topics have already been made the subject of publication by the late Dr. Hennen, in his Medical Topography of the Mediterranean, we shall only advert generally to such points connected with the health concerns of the garrison as are essential to be kept in view in the course of the subsequent investigation.

The Rock of Gibraltar is principally composed of grey limestone. The upper part is almost entirely devoid of soil, except in the gullies and a few spots where it has accumulated by the action of the rains. The level piece of ground on which the principal streets of the town are built is composed of red sand, and towards the south side there is some light fertile mould, but it is exceedingly scanty; every spot available for the purpose is laid out in garden grounds, and wherever an adequate supply of soil and moisture can be obtained the produce is most abundant. About 200 acres of that portion of the isthmus, termed the Neutral Ground, have also been brought under cultivation, and furnish an ample supply of vegetables for the garrison.

The whole surface of the Rock, particularly on the western side above the town, is much intersected by deep gullies, in which, during winter, water occasionally lodges; they are, however, always dry VOL. XV. NO. 44. 2 U