ance, it will doubtless prepare the way for something more successful.

I am delighted to award to the distinguished Dieffenbach, to whom I owe many personal obligations of gratitude for his courteous reception of me during my stay at Berlin, the brilliant honour of being the first to propose and perform the novel and singularly felicitous operation of dividing the contracted muscles of the eye for squinting, which, from its simplicity, and the almost instantaneous, as well as radical and perfect cure that it accomplishes, and comparatively without pain, in restoring the eye to its true direction, has caused it to be universally adopted, both in this country and abroad, as one of the most popular fascinations and charms of orthopœdic surgery.

For the performance of this beautiful operation there appears to be no uniform plan except to carry out the orthopaedic aphorism of the division of the contracted muscles. The methods adopted are of every possible diversity, though all based upon the same unchanging principle as proposed by Dieffenbach. In truth, we never saw either in Europe or our own country two surgeons operate in the same way: some holding the eye with hooks on the sclerotica, others the conjunctiva with forceps, and others, again, without either; some dividing the muscle with scissors, and some with the bistory, and others with another form of cutting instrument. Guerin makes a puncture through the conjunctiva; and, therefore, in correspondence with his phrase of the subcutaneous section, as applied by him to orthopody in general, denominates his method for curing strabismus the sous-conjunctival operation.

In reflecting upon this operation and the frequent failures that are reported, we would venture an opinion,

founded on our own experience, that, if the vaginal aponeurosis, which is formed conjointly by all the muscles on the anterior part of the sclerotica, be divided also freely along with the muscle, there ought not and cannot be any failure. We would therefore strongly urge this practice, which we deem important and essential to secure the success of the operation.

A no less important contribution in operative surgery has been made by Dieffenbach in his proposition to heal congenital urethral deficiencies by making an artificial opening posterior to them, and then introducing the catheter when required, by which means we are enabled to carry on successfully the processes necessary to the cure.

Our estimable friend is more generally known and distinguished throughout Europe for his Rhinoplastic Operations.

We have no hesitation in saying, without recurring to what has been done in the East by the Hindu inventors of this ancient operation, there called the Taliacotian, that he has made more new noses out of old material than all the other surgeons of Europe put together. We were utterly astonished, in one of our visits with him to his hospital, at the number and variety of his new noses, which were all neatly trimmed and fashioned according to the most approved patterns, presenting altogether a most ludicrous but most ingenious and successful spectacle of surgical tailoring, and one of lasting importance and satisfaction to the feelings of the patient. Some were made to derive the stuff from the arm and others from the forehead, the usual furnishing shops. We recollect to have once seen at Paris an amusing extension of this principle to heal a breach, in which the patch was taken from a very remote part of the body connected by a neck of not much less than a

foot in length, and the result of which proved that there was more neck than head in the experiment.*

The University of Berlin, with its extensive hospitals, forms a great practical school of medicine and surgery. The Anatomical Museum was founded by the WALTHERS. It is of great extent and variety; and now, since my visit, from having had added to it, by the munificence of the late king, the princely Meckel collection from Hallé, must be rich indeed. It contains the original wet preparations of the adult subject in excellent preservation, from which were taken the plates in the great work of the Walthers on the Nervous System. Among the many objects of interest and beauty contained in this admirable collection, was one exhibiting the arteries of the head, which struck me as the most exquisitely and elaborately injected and dissected preparation I have ever seen in any country. It was in spirits, as a wet preparation, and was exhibited as a bijou, as it really is, of anatomical skill. The young man who was successful in his preparation at Berlin received a royal premium, and was farther compensated for it by some post of honour in his profession.

* Within a few centuries past, while chirurgical science was in its rude infancy, surgeons were denominated barbers; or, rather, barbers performed most of the few coarse and simple processes in surgery then known, while surgeons, on the other hand, did the duty of barbers as an appendage to their profession. Within our own time, even military surgeons of the Hessian regiments quartered here during the American Revolution shaved and dressed the chief officers of the staff; and some old inventories on our records indicate that the utensils of shaving constituted a much more costly item with the " chirurgeons" of those days than their surgical implements. How mighty, then, has been the progress of surgical science, to have been thus in a few years literally redeemed from barber-ism, and placed in the rank of one of the noblest of arts. Metaphorically, surgery has been called the carpentry of medicine. The extension of rhinoplastic surgery may perhaps lead some to give it another epithet, and to declare that it has invaded the dominions of tailoring.

DRESDEN.

FROM Berlin I proceeded to Dresden, the capital of Saxony. In this ancient city, the favourite resort of all travellers for its models in the fine arts, and for its wonderful collection of paintings by the ancient masters, the only object of professional interest that I met with in the hospitals, was the extraordinary variety of the minor operations of the Anaplastic order; which general term Anaplastic, adopted for the whole class, has been now subdivided into the following species, named according to the part to which the principle is applied, thus: Rhinoplastic, of the nose. Cheiloplastic, of the lips. Blepharoplastic, of the eyelids.

Otoplastic, of the ear.

Bronchoplastic, of the larynx and trachea.
Staphyloplastic, of the velum and uvula.

Keratoplastic, of the cornea.

Genoplastic, of the cheeks and lips.
Palatoplastic, of the vault of the palate.
Uretroplastic, of the urethra.

Elytroplastic, of the vaginal septa.

And all branching from the original rhinoplastic principle, as the extended applications of orthopaedic science sprang from the section for Torticollis,or the various forms of Talipes. Truly, indeed, may it be said of this lastmentioned and now comprehensive department of surgery, "Ex pede Herculem." In the city of Dresden, Dr. Von Ammon holds the same distinguished rank in Anaplastic Surgery-as the general science of patchK

ing the skin may, for want of a better term, perhaps be denominated-that Dieffenbach occupies in Berlin in the Rhinoplastic department.

AUSTRIA.

AFTER leaving Dresden I proceeded to Prague, where meeting with nothing of special interest in a professional point of view, we continued our route to VIENNA, the famous capital of Austria.

In this great and beautiful city, one of the most charming in Europe, and one to which the admiring world have been for ages attracted by its renown as the seat of all the refinements of civilization and the elegant arts of life; that capital where music has held its undisputed throne, and where the greatest composers have lived and flourished under imperial patronage, the graver sciences, also, and that of our own profession, have risen to commensurate importance.

The most distinguished man in Ophthalmic Surgery in Europe, Mr. YAEGER, resides here, and also his colleague, Mr. Rosas; and in no part of Europe is this branch of surgery cultivated and practised with more success than in Vienna. Yaeger has given an elevated character to it which it nowhere else enjoys, and his celebrity as an operator upon all affections of the eye is without any parallel. Such, in truth, is the just renown of the ophthalmic school which he has founded, that students of medicine from all countries now properly resort thither to complete their education.