The mode of proceeding is usually to inject from ten to fifty drops of a 4 per cent. solution around the part to be operated upon, using an ordinary hypodermic syringe. From three to five drops of this solution are injected at short intervals in a zone surrounding the part to be operated; or a larger quantity is injected near the body of the nerve supplying the part. If this is reached the anæsthesis is complete. In two or three minutes the knife can be freely used, and the patient feels no pain, although they look at the knife as it divides the tissues. In the throat clinic a solution of cocaine is used with an atomizer to allay the irritability of sensitive parts, that a more thorough examination may be made. At the eye clinic cocaine is used as a mydriatic, atropia being seldom used for the purpose of examinations. Patients usually dread the action of an anæsthetic; the nausea, headache, and lassitude following its administration are things not pleasant to contemplate, but with this new drug none of these are encountered. The conclusions are, then, from our present experience, that cocaine is a pleasant, safe and efficient local anæsthetic. O. T. Maynard. ---------- BALTIMORE LETTER. At the last meeting of one of the city medical societies one of the members reported a case of typhoid fever in which the pulse had remained quite low for over a week. Several questions were asked concerning the _normal_ pulse of the man. The doctor insisted that he knew the normal pulse was higher, as he had examined it many times in health. This was strange and so many members plied the doctor with questions that he finally confessed that the young man was a member of the family when he (the doctor) was courting his (the doctor's, not the patient's) wife. Of course the entire society understood at once that the doctor felt the pulse of the entire family during this love-sickness. There are many ways of courting--Josh Billings had a very good way. Some fellows buy the old gentleman a cane (very appropriate and often _useful_); the small brother a box of candy, so that he will vacate the parlor--and for the baby sister a wax doll with long flaxen hair--which she invariably informs the neighborhood was given to her "by Sallie's beau." We once knew a nice young man who had been told that the best plan was to court the mother for a while. He heeded the advice and was getting along very finely, when one day he received an invitation to attend the marriage of his girl to the fellow who had been courting _her_ and not her _mother_. This little occurrence turned our minds to the humorous things of our experiences, and after adjournment of the society a number of "funny" things were related as we walked homeward. The following is interesting to the gynæcologists: