CELEBRATED ILLEGITIMATES

To the long list of eminent illegitimates which we published a year or so ago we add the following four:

Beaufort, Henry (?-1447) English prelate and statesman, natural son of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford, cardinal and chancellor. He was president of the court that sentenced Joan of Arc to the stake.

Dunois, Jean, Comte de Dunois (1402-1468) surnamed "The Bastard of Orleans," natural son of Louis, Duke of Orleans, and Mariette d' Enghien, celebrated for his military prowess and gallantries, conquered Normandy and Guienne, and aided Joan of Arc to win her victories over the English.

Fitzjames, James, Duke of Berwick (1670-1734) natural son of James II. and Arabella Churchill, sister of Duke of Marlborough, a brilliant 18th century military commander who became a marshal of France.

Monmouth, Duke of, (1649-1685) reputed illegitimate son of Charles II. of England and Lucy Walters, headed an unsuccessful insurrection against James II., and executed in London.

MEDICAL BOOBS AND GERMAN

MEDICAL LITERATURE

In the June issue of THE CRITIC AND GUIDE I had a little editorial with the humorous title, "Treason on the Part of the J. A. M. A." Here are the first two paragraphs of it:

"Take the Journal of the American Medical Association for May 10th and open it on page 1399. Do you know what you will find there? You will find there several abstracts from the Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, a German medical weekly published in the German language and printed in the capital of Germany!

"Is the J. A. M. A. actually going to abstract in the future the various German medical journals? I am sure that many of its readers will protest against this act of treason."

The centainty that I expressed was of course of an academic or what we call rhetorical character. I knew that there were people sufficiently asinine to protest against anything printed in German even if it were of the most valuable character, but I did not think that the asses were sufficiently bold to proclaim their asininity in press. But in this I was mistaken. No sooner was our June issue sent out than protests did begin to appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the Journal for June 7th there is a most indignant article by one Ross G. Loop, M. D. of Elmira, New York.

That liberal and cultured gentleman begins his letter as follows:

"I note with surprise, not to say indignation, that in recent issues of the Journal abstracts from the Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, Berlin, have appeared."

Yes, just so! And he concludes his letter as follows: "Drop their science from our literature. Alas, that it was ever taken up again! If we cannot live without it, let us die patriotically."

And woud you believe it, a large number of letters reached the Journal of the American Medical Association fully approv ing of Dr. Loop's indignant protest. In the J. A. M. A. for June 28th four such letters are printed. The Journal, in a comment to these letters, tries to excuse itself for its "treasonable" act with the fact that the Medical Research Committee of Great Britain has been printing extracts of German and Austrian medical literature for over a year. But nevertheless the editor got cold feet and the abstracts from German medical publications at once became conspicuous by their absence and none appeared for the balance of the year.

I wrote to the Journal asking them whether they really were not going to extract German medical publications any more, and what I got in reply was the following:

"Dear Dr. Robinson:-Replying to your letter of the 8th instant, German and Austrian publications have not been received for some weeks."

I may be mistaken, but I fear that this was just an empty excuse. The Journal simply did not want to offend its asinine readers, of which it has a large proportion; and preferred to omit the German medical journals, replacing them with abstracts from measly insignificant publications from other countries. It is a shame and disgrace that our foremost medical journal should have had to yield to pressure from ignorant and narrow-minded hoodlums. But "Them's the facts."

I am glad to see, however, that beginning with the first issue of the New Year, the Journal has resumed abstracting from the Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, Zeitschrift für Geburtshulfe und Gynäkologie, etc. Now I wonder whether there will be further protests and if there be such protests if the J. A. M. A. will be influenced by them.

In conclusion I should like to ask those undoubtedly wellmeaning but ignorant boobs who object to abstracting from German medical publications, if they have really given up the use in medicine of everything of German origin? Have they given up the use of the Wassermann reaction? Have they given up looking for the gonococcus of Neisser? Have they given up the use of diphtheria antitoxin (which is of FrenchGerman origin)? Have they given up the use of salvarsan and of neosalvarsan? Do they really never, never, use in

their practice, novocain, protargol, atophan, veronal, aspirin, phenacetin, etc., etc.? It would just be interesting to know.

To one who believes in the eventual universal brotherhood of all nations, how pitiably picayune, how miserably small and perniciously anti-social our narrow chauvinists appear! Science is and should remain international.

DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE?

Incredible as it may seem, there are still some good people in this world who deny that germs play any role in the causation of disease. And strange to say, those people are what is ordinarily called sane, intelligent and even educated. And what is stranger still, some of these deniers of the obvious have the legal right of attaching the letters M. D. to their names. One such a doctor recently came out in Physical Culture with an article denying that germs ever caused disease (there was a time when even the existence of germs was denied by the ignorant and amateur quasi-scientists). He is very emphatic about it. The Editor of Physical Culture, a much more enlightened and liberal publication now than it was in former years, very rightly has invited contributions on the subject, pro and con. My contribution to the symposium appeared in the November issue of that journal, and thinking it might be of interest to my readers, I am reproducing it, with the kind permission of Physical Culture, in this issue. I wish it wasn't so, but it is: the pesky things do cause disease and are responsible for millions and millions of deaths. Why they were created, you must ask the all-merciful Ged or all-merciful Nature to tell you.

THE UNKNOWN AND MYSTERIOUS PROSTATE

Those who have had considerable experience in dealing with pathologic prostates have long felt and known that the prostate gland is a much more important organ, plays a much more important role than it has been given credit for. Those who have had opportunity to note what a profound change a diseased prostate could make, not only in a man's physical condition, but in his mental and emotional domain, have been convinced that the prostate contains an important secretion of paramount importance to the human organism. That the prostatic external secretion was absolutely necessary to the vitality of the spermatozoa and that no fertilization could take place without a normal prostatic secretion, has been known for some time. That the removal of the prostate would cause atrophy of the testes, has also been known for several decades. But that the prostate is an endocrine gland and has an important internal secretion of its own, has not been known or has been disputed. But for a long time I have felt that

this must be the case and have said so a number of times. An experiment recently performed by that excellent research worker, Dr. David I. Macht of the Pharmacological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, seems to leave no doubt on the subject. It seems to settle definitely that the prostate contains an internal secretion.

In a paper read before the American Urological Society at Atlantic City, June 1919, and published in the Journal of Urology for October 1919, he describe the experiments performed on tadpoles by feeding them with prostate. Frogs' larvae were placed in convenient receptacles and some of them were fed with dessicated prostate of the ram, bull, and other animals, while others were kept as controls or given other glandular extracts or tissues. In every experiment tadpoles of exactly the same age and size were selected. These were kept in the same kind of vessel, in equal parts of water, and in exactly the same conditions of light and temperature. The effect of feeding prostate gland to the larvae was very striking and interesting. It was found that the metabolism of the tadpoles was stimulated by the prostate feeding and that their metamorphosis was hastened. In other words, the tadpoles developed legs earlier than normally and were soon tronsformed into frogs.

Thyroid also hastens the metamorphosis of frogs' larvae, but while thyroid produces a marked atrophy of the organisms, the prostate does not produce any shrinkage or dwarfing of the size of tadpoles, but on the contrary usually stimulates their growth.

Control experiments made with all kinds of dessicated glands, ovary, corpus luteum, liver, testes, etc., failed to produce the remarkable stimulating effect on metabolism shown by the prostate. Experiments produced on the larvae of salamander were also just as striking.

The author asserts that he has collected a sufficient number of experiments to be able to state definitely that the peculiar effect of the prostate gland is not accidental but is a distinct and definite physiological phenomenon. Such a phenomenon speaks strongly in favor of an internal secretion of the prostate gland.

A REMARKABLE EXPERIMENT ON THE

PREVENTION OF SYPHILIS

On March 21, 1918 (Ann. de Mal Vénér., Jan. 1920) in the presence of twenty physicians, Dr. Magian inoculated his left forearm with serum derived from a syphilitic chancre which contained microscopically a large number of spirochetae pallidae. In less than an hour he took an intravenous injection into the right arm of 60 centigrams of arsenozenzol (salvarsan, arsphenamine). He took no further treatment.

This inoculation was followed by no lesion, either local or anywhere else. The Wassermann reaction performed every month during eleven consecutive months remained constantly negative. As far as the carrier of the chancre is concerned who furnished the virus, he had various eruptions, sore throat, and his Wassermann reaction, taken twice with a month's interval, was positive.

This experiment tends to prove, in the opinion of its author, that a very early, almost immediate injection of salvarsan is capable of rendering innocuous an inoculation of virulent syphilis. There is nothing surprising in this, when one takes into consideration the powerful and rapidly destructive action of salvarsan on the spirochetae. But this is only a single experiment. Nothing proved that the author was not refactory to syphills. This is possible, tho such cases are very rare. Then a single inoculation may fail which is a fact well known to vaccinators.

This experiment does not justify the general use of arsenobenzol injections after suspicious intercourse. Such a general practice would not be devoid of serious dangers; but such an injection could be used in cases where a physician or nurse became infected in the exercise of their professional work, provided the injection could be given without delay.

ABORTIONISTS AND ABORTIONISTS

Dr. X. is a well known abortionist. We of the medical profession know that about 95 per cent. of his income is derived from abortions. The Chairman of the Committee on Admission of the Society asked me if I would be in favor of admitting Dr. X. into the society. I said no. "Because he is an abortionist ?"-"No. Because he is a moral skunk." "But you were in favor of admitting Dr. Z. who, it is also known, performs abortions now and then." "Yes, but there is all the difference in the world between Dr. X. and Dr. Z." "How do you draw the line of demarkation?" You might have great difficulty in drawing the line of demarkation; to me it is a very simple matter. All the talk about it being impossible to draw a line of demarkation between certain movements or certain ideas or certain people is nonsense.

It is true there are certain minutes in twilight when it is difficult to differentiate between day and night and yet there is no difficulty in differentiating between midday and midnight. There are certain organisms so much on the border line between the animal and vegetable kingdom that it is not only difficult but impossible to classify them properly as either animal or vegetable, but there is no difficulty in differentiating between a calf and a carrot; between an elephant and an elm tree. And so I find no difficulty in drawing a line of demarkation between Dr. X. and Dr. Z.