Brachial neuralgia.

Dr. Rees remarked that it is principally owing to the very surprising effects which he has observed from the use of lemonjuice-he could not know that 100 g. of lemon contains 50 mg. of ascorbic acid-in the treatment of rheumatic gout that he has been induced to notice this case. He has been in the habit of prescribing this remedy, with marked and rapid benefit. The early relief from pain was such that had anyone unacquainted with the remedy in use watched the progress of the case he would almost inevitably have concluded that sedatives had been employed. Among the out-patients at Guy's Hospital he has met with " several prominent examples of cure " by this method. In his Manual of the Practice of Medicine, London, 1856, Dr. G. H. Barlow, physician to Guy's Hospital, mentions "one of the most ingenious methods " of treating rheumatic inflammation, and says: ' Dr. Rees recommended lemon-juice to be given in doses, which he ultimately increased to two or three ounces, three or four times a day; and in a considerable number of cases the patient has become convalescent in five or six days." The history of medicine is often a tale of discoveries that were soon forgotten, only to be rediscovered years or even centuries later and hailed as new observations.-I am, etc.,