[7] I have seen, in the hospitals of Naples, the most decided and unquestionable effects produced by mercury used in this manner, I have since used it frequently in my own practice in the same way; and I believe that the mercurial ointment, thus used, is exempt from much of the inconvenience occasioned by rubbing. I have seen several persons use it in this manner with ease, who could not rub in mercury without much suffering. Scattigna asserts that it is also much more efficacious than when rubbed in by the common method. His way of using it is, to extend a scruple of mercurial ointment over the skin of the axilla before the patient goes to sleep. In the morning, the whole of it will be found to be absorbed, and in this way he calculates that as strong an effect is produced as by a drachm of the ointment. I have used, in a case of hydrothorax, an ointment of squills in the same way, which has caused an increased flow of urine, which I had vainly endeavoured to effect by means of the same medicine given by the mouth. These statements are at variance with the experience of Mr. Pearson, which must be allowed to be of much weight in this matter. Will the difference of climate account for the discrepancy? It is a more important question to determine the proper method of using this medicine internally. From my own experience, I am inclined to give a decided preference to the solution over the tincture. It is prepared by dissolving thirty grains of the hydriodate _of potass_ in an ounce of distilled water. I have generally begun this preparation by a dose of ten drops, and augmented it gradually to twenty, and, very seldom, to twenty-five. This preparation can dissolve an additional dose of iodine; a formulary, however, to which I seldom, if ever, have recourse. I have found that the deleterious action of the medicine on the bowels was more marked, in proportion to the quantity of free iodine it contained. For this reason, also, I now seldom have recourse to the tincture, a form much used, because it is less expensive. Practitioners will, in general, find an advantage in confining themselves to the external use of iodine for the cure of bronchocele, and tumors, which do not arise from any vice in the constitution. In a few cases of bronchocele, however, it is necessary to have recourse to its internal use, especially when the disease exists in a strumous habit. By the use, either of the ointment, or of the solution in the way we have recommended, a soft bronchocele will be discussed in a month or six weeks. Those which are hard, and of old growth, generally take a little longer time, and many of these latter cases cannot be altogether reduced. I have seen two cases, however, in which the tumors gradually disappeared some weeks after the medicine had been altogether discontinued. Dr.