Dropsy has been treated with the preparations of iodine, under the impression of its power of promoting at the same time secretion and absorption; but, in neither of these respects is it sufficiently energetic to meet the requisitions of that disease; and experience, therefore, has not pronounced in its favour. But dropsy is so often connected with, and dependent on affections which iodine is calculated to relieve, that the remedy sometimes proves secondarily very useful. Thus, when enlarged liver or spleen, or other abdominal tumour, or chronic disease of the valves of the heart dependent on organized fibrinous exudation, is at the foundation of the dropsical effusion, iodine may be looked to with some hope of benefit. Cases have been recorded, in which the disease, when dependent on hepatic engorgement, has yielded to this remedy in various affections of the urinary organs and passages, iodine would seem to be indicated by the facility with which it passes out by the kidneys. impregnating the urine, it is brought into direct contact with the diseased surface, in the chronic affections of which it may operate usefully, as a gentle stimulant at least, if not as an alterative. Thus, it has been used with asserted success in gonorrhoea, and I have no doubt that it would occasionally prove useful in chronic inflammation of the pelvis of the kidney and of the bladder, especially when attended with ulceration. indeed, in the latter condition, unconnected with calculi, it would probably be among the most effective remedies. in leucorrhoea also it has been used with supposed advantage; but, in this affection, its beneficial influence must proceed rather from an alterative impression on the diseased and perhaps ulcerated uterus, than from impregnation of the urine. By Dr. Corrigan, of Dublin, iodide of potassium is esteemed a most valuable remedy in the dropsy attending Bright's disease of the kidneys. (Dub. Hosp. Gaz., Jan. 1855, p. 371.) it has also been recommended in diabetes as an adjuvant to a properly regulated diet.

Amenorrhoea. Strong testimony is borne to the efficiency of iodine in this disease. When connected, as it frequently is, with anaemia, either the iodide of iron should be used, or perhaps preferably a milder chalybeate, such as the powder or protocarbonate of iron, with one of the milder preparations of iodine.