The following important items do not appear under their regular alphabetical heading, but are none the less efficacious.
=Blindness.=--_A Simple Remedy That Often Will Prevent This Dreadful Misfortune._--It is distressing to learn that out of the 7,000 persons blind from their birth in this country, who owe their loss of sight to inflammation of the eyes, at least two-thirds might now have been in the enjoyment of their sight but for the ignorance or neglect of their earliest guardians. It seems that the remedies for the infantile inflammation which causes blindness are both many and simple. Thus, says the London _Figaro_, it cannot be too widely made known that the eyes of the newly-born child, if inflamed, should be washed with pure warm water, and that then a single drop of a 2 per cent solution of nitrate of silver should be instilled into each with a drop-tube. In Germany midwives are enjoined to adopt the above remedial treatment, under oath, and since this has been done the decrease in the number of blind children has been most appreciable.
_Increase of Blindness._--Dr. Lucien Howe says blindness has increased in the State of New York during the past five years thirteen times as fast as the population; and the State Charities Commissioners state that the excess in the increase of the insane in the State over the increase in the population for the last nine years has been forty-four per cent. These figures are most startling, especially when it is considered that the modes of treating the eyes and brain are supposed to have been so much improved of late years.--_Ex._
=Hiccough.=--_A Mechanical Cure._--Procure a glass of water and pour a little of it down the patient's throat. While he is drinking the water he should press a finger on the orifice of each ear. By this method you open the glottis, and in five seconds the thing is done. Should you by any chance meet with an obstinate case, you may rest assured that the throat and ears were not closed at one and the same time; either the water was swallowed before the ears were thoroughly stopped, or the water was not sufficient to fill the throat. Another precaution is to keep the chin well up. This cure was obtained by the writer from an old Indian medical officer who had experimented for some years to discover a method of relieving the terrible stage of hiccoughing in yellow fever, and this cure was the outcome.--_Pharmaceutical Journal._