In advocating the local Indian origin of the disease he said: That the virus can be reproduced and multiplied outside the body is apparent, since the bacillus can be cultivated artificially, and its growth is not affected by comparatively low temperatures. Probably it does not grow in streams and rivers, where, owing to the current, a sufficient concentration of nutrient substance does not occur; but in stagnant water and at the mouths of drains, etc., vegetable and animal refuse may accumulate and afford the necessary nutriment. Thus is explained the propagation of cholera by the subsoil water, and the increase of epidemics with the sinking of its level, which lessens the flow and diminishes the amount of surface water. Admitting the dependence of cholera upon this micro-organism it is impossible to conceive the disease having an autochthonous origin in any particular place; for a bacillus must obey the laws of vegetable life, and have an antecedent; and since the comma bacillus does not belong to the widely diffused micro-organisms, it must have a limited habitat. Therefore, the occurrence of cholera on the delta of the Nile does not depend on its resemblance to the delta of the Ganges; but the disease must have been imported there as it is into Europe. It was once thought that an outbreak in Poland had a local origin until it was discovered to have been introduced from Russia. Again, about ten years ago, there was a sudden outbreak at Hamar (Syria), thought to be an instance of local origin, but erroneously, as shown by a statement of Lortet, who told Koch, when at Lyons, that the epidemic had been introduced into Hamar, where he was at the time, by Turkish soldiers from Djeddah. All great epidemics of cholera began in South Bengal, where the conditions for the development and growth of the bacillus are most perfect.--_Med. Record._ LOCAL ANÆSTHESIA BY THE HYDROCHLORATE OF COCAINE. By R. J. LEVIS, M.D., Surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital and to the Jefferson Medical College Hospital. The notes of a few cases of the use of the hydrochlorate of cocaine will illustrate its perfect efficiency in some and its apparent inertness in others, and may help toward its proper application and general appreciation. In a double extraction of hard cataract there was no pain produced by the graspings of the conjunctiva in the fixation of the eyes, in the corneal incisions, and in the iridectomies. A 4 per centum solution was freely brushed over the entire conjunctival surface three times, at intervals of ten minutes, and the operations were commenced in forty minutes after the first application. No irritation was produced, and the only sensation described was that of "numbness and hardness." The entire conjunctival surface seemed insensible to repeated pinching with the fixation forceps.