tally across the uterus, and its head could be distinctly felt through the walls of the abdomen, on the left side. I prescribed gr. morphine every two hours until the pain should be entirely quieted.

On the 30th, found the patient had slept well through the night, and was then free from pain, and July 1st she was about her household duties.

July 8th was called in again, pains having returned. Finding the same state of things existing as on my first visit, I prescribed morphine as before, and with the same effect.

In the evening of July 14, was sent for again, but being ill, could not go. The next morning, was summoned again, and found that a Homeopathist had been there, and finding "something wrong," declined to take the case. At this time, (8 o'clock A. M.,) the os uteri was fully dilated, but no presenting part could be reached, the fœtus remaining in the same position as at first. The pains, which had been vigorous, had nearly ceased, and the patient seemed much exhausted. I administered gr. morphia, in the hope of giving the patient a little rest before resorting to version, which seemed to me inevitable. Spontaneous evolution occurred to me as a remote possibility, and perhaps unconsciously influenced me to temporize a little longer. I left word to be notified the moment the pains returned, and was in attendance again at 2 P. M. The patient had slept about three hours, and was then having vigorous expulsive pains. Much to my surprise and gratification, I found the head presenting, and could distinctly feel the posterior fontinelle. The labor, though tedious, progressed favorably, and at 11 o'clock P. M, the patient was delivered of a healthy female child, weighing 8 pounds. This case is interesting, chiefly from its unfrequency, and I submit it without comment, as one of those anomalies of nature about which it is useless to speculate.

CASE OF LIGHTNING STROKE, BY THEO. T. PRICE, M. D.

Mrs. A. P., of West Creek, Ocean County, of fine physical organization, robust and healthy, was struck by lightning on the morning of the 6th of July, 1868, about 3 o'clock, while lying in bed with her husband and child.

The line of scars indicated that the stroke must have passed first over the face, downwards over the breast and abdomen, down which was a streak of burn, singeing the mons veneris to a crisp, and passing between the thighs about half way down, burning and lacerating both, one of them very severely. She lay at the time on her side, with the thighs resting together, one upon the other, semi-flexed upon the abdomen. A ghastly, irregularly shaped wound was torn on the inner side of the right thigh, at a point mid-way between the groin and knee, between two and three inches in diameter, and at least two inches deep, as if blown out, and a similarly shaped one, less severe and extensive, on the opposite thigh at the same point. The larger wound had bled freely. I saw her about an hour after the accident occurred. The stroke seemed to have affected her but little otherwise than the lesion. No great depression from shock seemed to exist, and the stunning effects of the lightning had passed off before I arrived. She was within a month of confinement, and I had grave apprehensions of injury to the child, but no untoward symptoms transpired, and at the natural time she was delivered of a fine healthy babe.

The wounds were both lacerated and burnt, the burn surrounding them some two or three inches. The appearance resembled much such as I suppose would have been exhibited had a gun muzzle been placed between the thighs as they lay together, and discharged with a small explosive bullet, to burst just as it emerged from the gun. The treatment was

restorative to the system, emollient to the wounds, but they did not heal readily nor easily. Considerable discharge and sloughing took place, and abscess formed in the limb most injured after the wound had closed externally. Her final cure was not effected till after her confinement, but finally she got well, and is now as sound and healthy as ever.

The features of this case, which seem singular to me, are the facts that lightning should pass so completely over the front of the patient, leaving a burnt path on face, breast and abdomen, and should so lacerate and burn her thighs and yet the shock should not only prove not fatal but affect the patient so slightly as it seemed to; also that no apparent injury was done to the child in utero. The house was shivered almost to pieces, the chimney knocked down, and the whole building made so much of a wreck that the family were obliged to remove from it the next day. It is also strange, that of four other persons in the house-two being in the same bed with the patient-no other one was injured by the stroke; also surprisingly strange that the spark or "bolt" which struck Mrs. P., passed through the bed just behind her thighs, through ticking, feathers, straw bed and all to the floor, resembling the passage of a large bullet through these various articles, setting the bedding on fire, and her night clothes also, which, however, were speedily extinguished by her husband. The original discharge, which must have been very powerful and large in quantity, must have been broken into hundreds of smaller sparks upon striking the house, from the innumerable evidences of different streaks on all parts of the house, and the several diverging paths all around it, which the lightning ploughed up in the ground, some of the tracks of singed grass extending thirty feet from the house. Probably only a small portion of the discharge struck Mrs. P.

JANUARY, 1868, TO JANUARY,

1869.

CAMDEN COUNTY.

Chairman of Standing Committee, &c.:

During the past year the health of Camden County has been above the average of the past few years. No epidemics have prevailed in any part of the County, and the diseases that have been met with have, for the most part, been mild and easily amenable to the appropriate treatment. The only exception to this has been in the vicinity of Waterford and Winslow, in the eastern part of the County, where Dr. J. W. Snowden reports that there has been an unusual amount of sickness during the whole year, without, however, any particular epidemic with the exception of Pneumonia, which prevailed during the winter to an unusual extent, almost invariably of a typhoid tendency, requiring a stimulant and supporting plan of treatment.

The summer of 1868 was remarkable for the intense heat of many days in July and August, the heated term continuing until the middle of September, without however any of the thunder and rain storms which were so very frequent in the summer of 1867. There was one exception to this on the 21st of July, when a thunder storm of unusual severity and suddenness, accompanied with a fall of rain of an unusual amount, occurred in the vicinity of Haddonfield. A large extent of country was suddenly deluged with water, overflowing fields, and causing such a sudden rise in the streams and water courses as to carry away almost every mill-dam in the district, and in some cases sweeping away bridges that had been erected for more than half a century, causing great damage to the growing crops.

During the period of extreme heat alluded to, quite a number of cases of sun-stroke were seen, especially in the city of Camden, some of them terminating fatally in a few hours, but