EXTRACTS FROM LATE EUROPEAN PAPERS.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 127, 18 August 1847, Page 3

EXTRACTS FROM LATE EUROPEAN PAPERS.

Operations under the influence op Ether.— Three very successful operations were performed at St. Geoige's Hospital on Thursday week, one by Mr. Cesar Huu kins, who removed a long piece of dead bone from the interior of the new bone formed around it, in the leg of a little boy. The little palienl inhaled for about three minutes, and awoke as out of a sleep just as the operation was concluded, having passed through it without the slightest sign of sullering. This operation is always extremely painful, and in the present case would have been iiiuiethan usually so, in consequence of the inflamed and tender state of the bone. Afterwards Mr. Cutlei amputated a thigh (the ether being previously administered), with the same success. The third patient was a negro, from whose shoulder a large tumour was removed by Mr. Taturn. Having inhaled the ether, he felt nothing of the operation, and on recovering his conciousness, was with difficulty convinced that he had lost his load. His surprise and pleasure on seeing the tumour were very ludicrous. The painful operation of removing a cancerous breast was performed at the Cheltenham Hospital, when the ether was tried (for the first time in that town). A few minutes after the operation was completed, the poor woman recovered her conciousness, and, being asked if she had felt au> pain, said," None, what«ver j you have not done the operation, you are only deceiving me ;" nor would she believe to the contrary till the removed breast v\ as shown her, and then she doubted that it had been cut out by a knile. Mr. Lansdown, of the Bristol Hospital, also reports a list of successful instances, and remarks in conclusion, M 1 have now administered the ether thirty times and in no instance has there been anything like a tendency to aploplexy, neither have. 1 seen any injurious effects resulting from it." A man was admitted on Tuesday into the Royal Free Hospital, and on the arrival of Mr. T. Wakley, jun , one of the surgeons, it was found necessary to perform an operation, to which at once the man consented, expressing a wish that it might be " done with ether." He was then removed to the operating theatre, and Fergusons apparatus being chaiged, the patient commenced inhaling which he did most vigorously for half an hour, without any efi'ecls being observed. Mr. Wakley, jun., thinking the case a failure as regarded the ether, was anxious to commence the operation, but the man persisted in inhaling* and in thiiteen minutes from that time he became quite insensi ble,and remained so for 4 minutes, during which time Mr. Wakley jun., performed a very serious operation ,without the man betraying the slightest consciousness. Thus he inhaled for nearly three quarters of an hour, inspiring the vapour of thiee ounces of pure sulphuric ether. The man, however, explained the extraordinary fact by admitting that he was a " wager dram drinker." The patient it doing well, and has experienced no inconvenience from the large dose. — Several medical gentlemen were present, and declared the case unpi ccedented.

There is iron enough in the blood of forty-two men to make a plough share weighing about twenty -four pounds. There are 1,300,000 {horses in England, each of which consumes Ihe produce of us much laud as would feed eight men.

Experiments have lecently been made at llie Excise Office, under orders issued by the government, lo lest the fitness of iiigar as a substitute for mall in the manufacture of beer and bpirils. The experiments are described to be perfectly successful. In an article on " Military Glory," Chambers' Journal shows on the authority of Count St. Marie, that Fiance sacrificed in Algciia a hundred men per day and upwards of 27,000 francs per day for the last 15 jears. It is a remarkable fact in the history of France that, since tlie time of Louis. XIV., who succeeded Louis XIII,, theie lias not been a single instance of the Crown descending directly from lather to son. The annual crop of hay raised in the United States is 1f1.000,000 tons, of an average value of jC25,000,000. La Presse states that the adoption of free trade principles by France would deprive 3,000 French ships of employment, and make the Knglish and Aineiicans univeisal cuniots for the woild. The Builder thinks that the day has arrived when the public lamps should be lighted sitnultaneousl), by the aid of galvanism. The Hereford Jout nal bdvs that ( he Bishop of the diocese lias sanctioned the erection of a baptUtry in Tievethin Church, Monmouthshire, so that those who prefer baptism by immersion may have their conscientious desires complied with. The first electric telegraph in Canada commenced working on the 19th December ; it exlends from Toronto to Hamilton. It is stated that the Bey of Tunis has offered to Louis Pliillippe the celebrated Cleopatras's needle ; the gift has been accepted, and will be conveyed to Paris, and placed in the centre of the Carousel . It is estimated that thirty steamboats on the Western rivers of America are lighted with gas, uutde by apparatus in each vessel from the grease of the kitchen. An American merchant has invented a brick making machine, which presses bricks by a cylinder like a printing machine, and can turn out 40,000 bricks of the first quality in a day. In England, the number of miles wotked by the principal railway companies is 1970, producing £ 113,99 1 weekly }in France 581 miles,producing £26,599 'I he Waterford Chronicle states that tlireeIburtlu of the killed and wounded on the side of the Americans in their actions with the Mexicans were Irishmen. Wilberforce believed that SirS. llomilly and Lord Castlereagh became deranged from over exertion, in consequence of continuing to labour on the Sundays as on other days. The number of bibles issued hy the American Bible Society in November was 77,011.

Duelling. — A salutary blow has been struck at duelling in Mississippi by u ease of enforcement of a law of the btate, which requues that the survivor should be responsible for the debts of the man he kills in a duel.

Ireland.— ln Mayo there are 470,000 acre 8 of reclaiinable waste j in Galway, 410,000 ; in Donegal, 403,000 ; Kerry, 400,000 } Clare, 100, 000 jSligo, 90,000 j and Tipperary, 90,000 acres. In Great Britain, the lioman Catholici possess 622 churches and chapels, 14 colleges, 34 convents, 8 monasteries. TneLoidsof the Admiralty have presented gold chronometets to two French captains, as a token of honour for the humanity which they had shown to some shipwrecked English seamen. The throne of Edward the Confessor, which is made of oak, is 800 years old ; and one of the oaken coronation chairs in Westminister Abbey has been the occupant of its present position 540 years.

A Hark Lunar Occurrence.— ln the present year there will be thiiteen full moons— two in each of the months of January and Apiil, not one in February, and one in each of the oilier months : h phenomena of this kind will not occur again for many years.— lB47.

Reak-Aduirai, Elucott. — This veteran flagofficer entered the navy in 1781, at a very early age, and saw considerable service during the war under Admirals J. Muchbridge, Sir Richard Strachaii, Or. P«dmer, F. Cole, Lord Bridport, and the immortal Nelson. When Lieutenant on board the « Itevolutionare, 1 he gallantly distinguished himself in the capture of 'L' Unite,' and in the following year, under the command of Lord Bridport, he assisted at the famous victory off Cape St. Vincent. At the critical period of the mutiny on board the fleet in the same year, the intrepidity of his conduct was so much appreciated, that he received the thanks of his commanding officer, as well as the Admiralty. While on board the ' Perseus,' he was severely wounded in an engagement with the enemy. He served under Nelson in 1801, in that gallant hero's unsuccessful attempts on the flotilla at Boulogne. In 1806, he was wrecked oft' the coast of Heligoland, and was immediately afterwards appointed to the command of the ' Hebe,' and while in the command of that vessel assisted in the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. For his eminent services in the Baltic, the King of Sweden decorated him with the Order of the Knight of the Sword of Sweden. He expired on Sunday, 24th January, at Alcombe, near Minehead, Somerset, in the 79th year of his age.

Admiral Darcy Preston.— Admiral Preston en tcred the naval service at a very early age. He was made Hear Admiral in 1819, Vice Admiral in 1810, and Admiral of the Blue in 181-1. By the flag promotion of the 9th November last, the gallant officer was advanced from the Blue to the White. His services were chiefly rendered by coasting, cruising, and watching the enemy in their strongholds, &c. He commanded the seamen of Boyne at the reduction of Martinique, and at tho storming of Forts ltoyal and St. Lucia, in 1794. He was captain of the Blanche man-of-war in company with the Minerva, in the action with the Spanish squadron in 1794. Admiral DArcy died at Askar, in Yorkshire, his native county, on the 21st January, aged eighty-two.

The late William ConnnTT on Ireland, and Potato die* 1 . — A Roman Catholic priest, from Connemara, related the following conversation he had with that extraordinary man, Cobbett, in 1826. Speaking of Ireland, Cobbett said, that the dirty weed, alluding to the potato, would be the curse of Ireland. " How so ?" replied Dr. Smith, " what must the people do without it; they live upon it, they have had it in cultivation 180 years." Cobbett answered, "they must go back to the same food they were accustomed to live upon previously to the general cultivation of the diity weed ; and that is to grain, as wheat, oats, &c. You have eight millions of souls in Ireland, and four mil-

lions of acres of uncultivated ground. This ground must be drained, and brought into cultivation, and you must again grow wheat, oats, rye, &c. The potato will not last more than 20 years, when it will work itself out, and then you will see to what a state Ireland will be reduced. You must return to gr.un crops j and Ireland, instead of being the most degraded, will become one of the finest countries in the world. You may live to see my words prove true, but I never shall." Dr. Smith made a noto of the above in 1820, and the same opinion and prophecy concerning the potato, occurs in one of Cobbctt's hooks. An acre of beet will .yield ns much due food as five acres of oats, or I luce and a-lialf of wheat. Sugar beet makes excellent bread ; nearly us good, (hat is to say as nutritive as wlicatuu bread} and therefore it is clear that n man wlki lius an acre of that kind of root is in the position of that man who has three and a-half acres of wheat i oudy for the sickle. If an acio ot wheat will produce one thousand loaves, an acre of sugar beet will produce three thousand five hundred,

Davy and Dalion, — Wlio was Sir IJuinphri'y Davy, the discoverer of the compound nature of the alkalis and cailhs, the acute discoverer oi chlorine, tlie inventor of the safety lamp, and for thirty year* the great luminary of chemical science?- lie was the son of poor Cornish patents, apprenticed to an apothecary, his lafoatory a garret, his apparatus a few glass phials, hladdurs, and tobacco pipes. Who was Dalton, who has jnst descended to the tomb full of years aud honours, the mnn who stamped precision on ehemihtry, and who first gave it the claim to an exact science, hy his happy discovery and development of the laws of combination ? tie was usher in a psivate school, and was subsequently, for many years, compelled to earn a scanty subsistence by taking pupils in mathematics.

A very Remarkable Ciumc tor Trial.— The Wellington Statue has now been on Us trial for the lust month. The verdict that has been passed upun it by all judges ofurt has been— "Guilty of Mini's laughter."— Punch.

The Progress of Ether.— We understand that the inhalation of etlier has been resorted to professionally, by various pork-butchers with great success. The chief difficulty they have experienced has consisted in the opposition of the patient ; but when the natural obstinacy oj the pig has been overcome, and he has been persuaded to inhale the ether, he has been killed with comfoit to himielf,and without disturbance to the neighbourhood.— Punch