MURIATE OF AMMONIA AS A REMEDY.—Dr. Cholmeley has kindly sent us a note, the manuscript of which, by an unfortunate accident, has been mislaid. The substance of his remarks is as follows:—He confirms the observations of Dr. Anstie, in a paper in the December number of the _Practitioner_, as to the great efficacy of the muriate of ammonia as a remedy for neuralgic and myalgic pain. But Dr. Cholmeley goes on to say, that with regard to a matter on which Dr. Anstie spoke more doubtfully,—the efficacy, namely, which certain authors have ascribed to this drug as an emmenagogue,—he has formed from a large experience a decided opinion in favour of the utility of this medicine. He is convinced that in a very large number of cases of absent or suppressed menstruation, muriate of ammonia acts in a very direct and powerful manner in establishing or restoring the flux. Dr. Cholmeley has now experimented with the muriate, in doses of 10 to 20 grains, in so large a number of hospital and dispensary patients, that he cannot suppose there is any room for fallacy in this conclusion. [Since the date at which the paper referred to by Dr. Cholmeley was written, we have had occasion to employ the muriate of ammonia in two cases of amenorrhœa, with apparently very striking and direct results of a curative kind. As yet, however, we must confess ourselves unable to lay down any definite rule as to the class of cases to which it is applicable with the best chance of success, beyond a general idea that it acts best in persons not anæmic, but possessing a weak and mobile nervous system.—EDS. PRACT.] ETHER SPRAY IN OPERATIONS ABOUT THE ANUS.—Dr. John Barclay, of Banff, writes to us as follows:—“I write to corroborate what was written by Mr. Alexander Bruce, in the _Practitioner_ for last month, concerning the employment of ether spray in operations about the verge of the anus. I have experience of it in two cases. The first was the slitting up of a hæmorrhoid containing a clot, and when the ether spray was directed on the part the patient screamed in intense agony, comparing it to nothing else than the introduction of a red-hot iron. The pile was opened without it, and the patient said the cutting was as nothing compared with the spray. The second case was very similar to this, and the result here was the same. So that I never dream now of recommending the freezing by ether in operations in that region. I may remark that it is a curious thing ice never seems to give pain when so employed.”