Congress In Washington Research Articles

SKIN GRAFTING UPON THE CRANIUM.Presented before the Chicago Medical Society.

The patient I present this evening has been cured for five years. I exhibited her before the American Medical Association in the spring of 1887, when the new scalp covered about three-fourths of the skull. In September, 1887, the case was reported in the International Medical Congress in Washington. At this time there remained an open spot upon the head corresponding to the dimensions of a silver half dollar; a month later this was also covered. The scalp is complete and has been in this condition ever since November, 1887. It may now be appropriately entered upon record as a cure. Since the subject of. skin grafting was first introduced by M. M. Reverdin and Frank Hamilton, innumerable and varied trials have been made to close wounds by this procedure, with variable degrees of success, all over the civilized world, but an extensive search of the medical literature gives very

The International Geological Congress in Washington

The International Geological Congress in Washington

Eight True Ribs in Man

IN the number of NATURE which appeared on November 1, 1888, there is a notice to the effect that “at one of the meetings of the Anatomical Society, during the session of the Medical Congress in Washington, Dr. Lamb, of the United States Army Medical Museum, spoke briefly of a singular phenomenon he had observed in his examination of human breast-bones. It was the occurrence, in a number of specimens, of an eighth rib, the cartilage that is usually found below the seventh rib being fully developed into a rib.” This description is somewhat ambiguous, but I presume it refers to the occasional elongation of the eighth costal cartilage in man, and its direct articulation with the sternum. At the time when I read this notice I was organizing a system of “collective investigation” in my class of practical anatomy, in Trinity College, Dublin, and I asked Mr. O. L. Robinson, one of my assistant demonstrators, to undertake the investigation of this point. During the last two months he has examined thirty subjects, and he has found the eighth costal cartilage united to the sternum in no less than five of these. In four subjects (two males and two females) the eighth cartilage of the right side alone showed this condition; in the remaining case (a male) the eighth cartilage on each side reached the breast-bone and articulated with its fellow in front of the upper part of the ziphi-sternum. The anomaly is therefore one of some frequency, seeing that it has been noted by Mr. Robinson in about 17 per cent, of the subjects which he has examined. I may mention that all the specimens are now in my possession.

The Question of Civil and Astronomical Time

ONE of the points made at the Washington Congress was that if Universal Time (surely Earth-Time or Prime Meridian Time woujd be a better term) were generally accepted, astronomical time might be abolished, astronomers accepting the new day of twenty-four hours commencing at midnight.