other and remote organs suffer because of a depressed condition of the nervous system.

This over-action of the ciliary muscle is the source of eyestrain from refractive errors.

Associated with this we frequently find that the visual axes of the two eyes do not tend in parallelism; that, while the one looks directly at an object, the other tends to one or the other side, above or below it.

To this tendency, in some direction other than the normal, the term heterophoria, from the Greek heteros, "other," and phoros, "bearing," is applied.

As binocular vision requires that the images be formed on corresponding parts of the retina in the two eyes, an extra effort is required to direct the visual axes to the same point, hence our second source of eye-strain, or nerve-force waste.

Either source may be sufficient to depress the general nervous system, but the two are frequently combined. Either force alone, or the two combined, are without doubt the causative factors in the production of any disease which has its origin in a lessened resistance on the part of the nervors system. The improvement in the general health, increase in weight, the disappearance of symptoms in parts remote from the eye, etc., often observed after the removal of eye-strain, furnish abundant evidence of the truth of the above premise.

With this explanation, we trust it will be less difficult to understand what follows.

Eye-strain as a cause of headaches of various types, is moderately well known to the average American physician, yet we meet almost daily with cases of persistent and long-lasting headaches, due undoubtedly to eye-strain, in which the family physician has seemed to wholly forget the eye as the probable

cause.

It may be well to call your attention, as forcibly as may be, to the established fact that from 70 per cent to 80 per cent of all headaches are due to eye-strain. That the wise physician will first eliminate eye-strain as the cause, before he spends much time in looking for other causes. It is not necessary that the

patient experience any discomfort in the eyes to make it a case of eye-strain, though close questioning will usually show some difficulty not before noted by the patient.

The point I would make is that the physician must not wait for the patient to refer to the eyes as the probable cause. One of the most aggravated cases of headache it has been my lot to treat, was in a man who was sure his eyes had nothing to do with his headache; that they were due wholly to attacks of indigestion, and that he never had one that he could not trace directly to some one thing that he ate which disagreed with him, the headache ceasing when the offending article was expelled by emesis. He declared that his eyes were as good as anybody's, and could not be the cause. The case did not come to consult me, but incidentally told of his headaches. He was lothe to have an examination of the eyes, but consented, and was found to be astigmatic. Lenses were prescribed, and now worn with entire relief of headaches for a period of five years, since which time I have not seen nor heard from him.

The headaches resulting from eye-strain are not limited to time nor place. They may occur at any time of the day, but more often after close use for reading, writing, seeing, etc. They may occur in any part of the head, but most frequently frontal, temporal or occipital, less frequently at the vertex, and rarely confined to the latter.

Among other diseases resulting from eye-strain is migraine. Here the attacks of pain are usually preceded by scintillating scotoma, and occasionally, though rarely, by visual hallucinations. The scintillations and visual hallucinations are not usually present in every attack, and, on the other hand, they may constitute the attack at times. In the great majority of cases they are entirely removed by relieving the eye-strain.

Epilepsy-Undoubted cases of epilepsy have been entirely relieved by removing eye-strain, and many other cases have been greatly benefited by the same treatment, showing the causative relationship of eye-strain. These cases are exceptional, though their existence cannot be doubted.

Chorea-The choreic movements in children are frequently

removed by relieving eye-strain. It has been my good fortune to verify this a number of times.

Neurasthenia is not an infrequent result of eye-strain, and when present from any other cause, is markedly aggravated by eye-strain. In the neurasthenic, eye-strain should always be looked for and relieved.

Insanity, if not a direct result, is not infrequently greatly aggravated by eye-strain. Drs. Stevens and Ramey lay especial stress upon heterophoria as a cause of insanity, and report many brilliant results from operations upon the muscles. They are enthusiasts and pioneers along this line, and undoubtedly claim too much, but cases of great relief and cure of insanity are occasionally reported by competent and conservative men. Anything which offers any hope in this class of unfortunates is worthy our consideration.

Hysteria has many eye synıptoms. In turn, eye-strain many times acts as a contributory, or exciting cause, of hysteria.

Other instances of nervous disorders might be cited, but these should suffice to give an idea of the class of cases caused or aggravated by eye-strain, and to emphasize the fact that eyestrain acts mainly by depressing the tone of the whole nervous system.

A NEW METHOD OF TREATING BONY ANKYLOSIS.-Chlumsky (Centralblatt fur Chirurgie, No. 37, 1900,) states that he has seen in the last ten years fourteen cases of ankylosis of the knee joint and contracture treated in the Breslau clinic without any improvement in a single instance; nor has he been able to find in literature the promise of better results. He therefore conducted an experimental research on the joints of dogs, resecting the articular cartilages and preventing bony union by inserting into the joints plates ot celluloid, silver, gum, and other materials. He notes that healing took place, excepting in the few cases which died of sepsis, with a movable joint. He suggests that these plates should be made of magnesium, which is readily absorbed, and believes his results justify a trial of this method

on man.

SAMUEL S. SMYTHE, M. D., Editor.

J. WYLIE ANDERSON, M. D., Business Manager.

All books for review, magazines, exchanges, correspondence and articles for publication in THE CRITIQUE should be sent to Dr. S. S. Smythe, Editor, 403 California Building, Denver, Colorado.

Published monthly by the Denver Journal Publishing Company.

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Entered at the Denver Postoffice as Second-class Matter.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

Lest We Forget.

The time is near at hand when the medical politicians of the old school will invade the various legislatures with proposed acts to regulate the practice of medicine.

Homeopaths will be asked to aid them in securing the passage of laws, ostensibly to protect the public health; really to strike at some rival system. And this is the whole secret.

Before accepting any overtures from these people we should review our own history and be reminded that we have had to fight our way against the opposition and machinations of the Allopathic school ever since Hahnemann was driven out of Germany and obliged to spend the rest of his days in a foreign land.

We should remember that at no time since the advent of Homeopathy in our own country have they ceased to make war upon us to the very limit of their ability.

For many years they tried to secure legislation against us in many of the older states, but such was the genius of our institutions that American legislators could not be brought to the commission of so great a wrong.

Though they failed in this direction, we should not forget that they have persistently resorted to all other means in their power to traduce, stigmatize and misrepresent Homeopathy for the purpose of prejudicing the minds of the people against our system of practice.

We should not forget that, at this time, the Allopathic school is as actively our enemy as at any time during the past; that they lose no opportunity to secretly or openly malign us before their constituents; and that they endeavor in every way to influence public opinion against Homeopathy.

Let us not forget that within the past year one of their most prominent journalists took occasion in an editorial to liken the Homeopaths to "tramp dogs, prairie wolves, forest cats, etc., etc." and put us down as a set of "scoundrels and nostrum traders."

Let us remember that still more recently Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen in a public address before the Philadelphia County Medical Society, spoke of Hahnemann and Homeopathy as follows:

"In the domain of therapeutics the unscientific character of dogmatism cannot be better shown than by reference to that comparatively modern school of dogmatists founded by Hahnemann."

After much more in the same vein concerning Homeopathy, he speaks, in part, as follows of the patrons of Homeopathy: "There is always a class of educated-or half educatedpersons, whose training has been literary and artistic rather than scientific, to whom such mysticism in medicine will strongly appeal *. The system of Mrs. Eddy and the system of Hahnemann have these things in common: that both assume to be revelations from God, that both deny the materiality of the alterations produced in the human body in disease; and that both assert the necessity of immaterial curative agents."

* *

It would be difficult to imagine anything more devoid of truth than the above statements, but let us remember, that they clearly reflect the animus of the old school toward us at the present time, and let us not forget that our ancient enemies are as implacable, as unscrupulous and as determined as at any time in our history.

The foregoing is but a prelude to a question of much greater importance to which we would call attention.

Homeopathy, in spite of all opposition, having grown to vast proportions, with its schools and colleges, hospitals and sanitariums, with its thousands of highly educated and successful phy