=A German Criticism of Lister’s Treatment of Abscesses.=—Dr. W. Rosco publishes a very sharp critique on this plan of treatment, which has lately become so fashionable. He analyses minutely the sixteen cases which were published in the _Archiv f. Heilkunde_ (and reported in the _Practitioner_ for July 1868), and maintains that the results obtained were not more favourable, if so favourable, as those which are often obtained without any use of carbolic acid. Rosco maintains that there are two weighty objections to the too free and indiscriminating use of this treatment for abscesses. In the first place, there is a danger that surgeons, trusting blindly to the antiseptic action of the carbolic acid dressing, will open cold abscesses either unnecessarily early, or even in cases where incision is altogether improper. Secondly, the caustic or irritant action of the acid will occasionally produce mischievous effects. But the main point of his argument is directed to the demonstration, that even the most brilliant results which have been obtained in England, and published by Lister and others in the columns of the _Lancet_, are by no means conclusive in showing that the carbolic acid was really the curative agent. He observes, moreover, that although in England the treatment has been most extensively tried everywhere, the majority of hospital surgeons appear very sceptical about it. Undoubtedly Lister’s method deserves every attention, and should be tried in appropriate cases, but the inquiry should not be made with too much credulity, but with prudent doubt. (_Archiv f. Heilkunde_, 2, 1869.) =Electricity in the Diseases of Children.=—Dr. Ullersperger gives a good summary of existing knowledge as to the uses of electricity in the paralyses of common and special sensation, and of motion, in children. The paper is a useful one, but does not contain any original matter on which it is necessary to comment here. (_Journ. of Kinderkrankheiten_, and Jan. Feb. 1869.)