BRAZIL.

Timaru Herald, Volume IV, Issue 107, 1 June 1866, Page 3

BRAZIL.

The Argentine and Paraguayan armies have fought a battle. Heavy loss on both sides. Result indecisive. The Brazilian squadron consists of fifteen vessels.

Important Discovery. — The following extract from a letter has been handed to the Sydney Morning Herald : — "I have a discovery of which you also, m common with every friend of humanity, will be pleased to hear— a discovery second only to chloroform m its importance. Imagine an agent, which m less than thirty seconds has the power to paralyse any part of the body ; that the nerves may be cut, torn, or burnt, and yet refuse to complain. By directing, through an ingeniously-contrived apparatus, a fine stream of jvery pure ether, a local anaesthesia is produced, which converted the skin at the back of my hand m thirty seconds to the colour of the finest white kid leather, and made it as insensible as a stone. By this means teeth may be taken out without pain ; and a multitude of oi>erationß— even some of the capital ones— may be performed, your eyes seeing all the while what was going on. It is, therefore, perfectly free from danger, and I think some day not very far distant it will take the place of chloroform for almost everything but midwifery. The ether must be very pure, bringing down the thermometer to twenty or thirty degrees below zero. I have often performed small operations by congelation, or freezing the part by ice and salt ; but this is a giant stride m the same direction."