depresst heart action; fitful burnings, with hurried and difficult respirations and flusht face. These tell all too plainly the involvement of the medulla, mental derangement and death.

I have not considered this from the standpoint of the bacteriologist, for I cannot consent to regard microorganisms, germs or bacilli as the cause of any disease, but as the result of degenerative processes. Again, the sequels of la grippe fortify this position. I instance painful and dangerous neuroses as meningitis, cerebritis, neuritis, otitis, convulsions, hystero-epilepsy, paralysis, and, not infrequently, insanity.

In the treatment of la grippe, the physician, especially if he has been any length of time in his field, can (and is inexcusable if he does not) instruct his patients in all that will fortify the nerves,-in regard to their habits, food and other hygienic measures. He knows the history, the idiosyncrasies and physical peculiarities of the families in which he practises, and he can thus demonstrate that prevention is better than cure.

La grippe will find the worried business man and the brain-worker, the men and women whose nerves are wasted by disease, exposure, or excesses; and it is the task of the doctor, in a great measure, to prevent its development in many cases.

For the acute catarrhal symptoms, sodium salicylate is a valuable remedy, promptly cutting short this disagreeable condition and rendering the patient more comfortable. I use Abbott's granules that the dose may be better regulated. For the depresst condition of the heart, a good preparation of kola is of signal service, any reliable preparation of the fresh nut, as Parke, Davis and Company's. For the alarming wavering condition of the heart, I have found good results from a granule of atropia sulfate and glonoin (Abbott's). This granule is not advanced by Dr. Abbott for this purpose, but its influence in equalizing the circulation, struck me as fitting it for this condition, and results have proved it. I rely on ferro-phosphorated taraxangium from start to finish, and have had good results in all forms of nervous disease. J. P. KOONSE, ... D.

La Fayette, Ind.

What are your views as to treatment of measles?

Dr. Waugh's book on Treatment and THE WORLD one year for $5.

"Here is a renewal for your valuable journal. I would not be without it for several times its cost."-W. J. STEVENSON, M. D., Lauderdale, Miss.

A Nice Point of Ethics. Editor MEDICAL WORLD: Allow me thru your highly appreciated magazine to seek the advice of the profession. I have made what I consider a very valuable therapeutic discovery, in what seems to me an absolute specific for malaria. This I shall call for the present the "Alter specific," until I can determine the proper course to follow in the matter in regard to my interest and my duty to the profession.

My attention was first called to this agent about 23 years ago, as a cure for intermittent fever. Some years subsequent to this I was led to test its specific value in the treatment of what we southern practitioners call "swamp fever," that is the malaria hematuria of the text-books. In regard to the proper therapeutic measures to adopt in this particular type of malarial diseases, there is a great diversity of opinion. Whatever may be the value of quinin in other forms of malarial manifestations, it is not successful in the type under consideration.

I have frequently observed the hematuria to make its appearance upon the ingestion of a dose or two of quinin. I claim for the "Alter specific" that it will stop the hematuria without causing suppression (which is sometimes caused by the astringent plan of treatment). It will cause the icteroid appearance of the skin to disappear. It will act upon and tone up all the organs involved in the pathologic condition.

I believe that chemistry will be able to obtain an alkaloid from this drug which will supersede quinin in the treatment of all malarial diseases. I am also convinced, reasoning by analogy, that it will be available in the treatment of yellow fever, but I will not discuss this at present.

I shall hope that THE WORLD will not think this unworthy of publication, as I would be glad to know what the profession thinks would be my duty in this matter. I think I ought to have the benefit of my discovery. I shall expect to hear from some of your many readers.

England, Ark. W. M. ALTER, M. D.

[It must be frankly stated that the highest ethical good of the profession and of the race is conserved by the disposition which has always been shown by doctors all over the world, to give without money and without price, their discoveries for the benefit of humanity. In this respect the doctor is more Christlike than is the member of any other of the so-called liberal

professions. It is a very curious thing, but usually when an effort is made by any physician to retain for himself the benefit of any discovery, the result to himself is usually a loss of money and credit, and the enriching of some firm of manufacturers which has undertaken to push the product. It does seem proper that the discoverer of any principle should profit thereby, but it is exceedingly difficult to point out just how this can be done. The policy of the best of the profession and the force of all example is against it. Yet the matter is placed before THE WORLD family, and a free discussion is invited on this nice point of ethics.-ED.]

Lead In Hair Restorers.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-A correspondent from Slatington asks whether anyone knows of actual cases where paralysis occurred as a result of using hair restorers. I knew a physician 30 years ago in Albany, N. Y., who dyed his hair with a lead preparation and blackened his beard with silver nitrate. He was paralyzed so completely as to die outright on short notice. A second case, almost precisely similar, occurred with another physician in the city of New York. He dyed for 10 years He dyed for 10 years or more and then died.

In 1869 I purchased a drug store in New York. In the stock were some bottles of Hair Renovator." The equivocal language of the wrapping led me to surmise that it might arrest the falling of the hair. As I was becoming bald, I bethought me to make an experiment. I applied it by directions, and observed that the color of the hair was darkened. The same night I awoke from sleep with a violent throbbing in the head. It was not neuralgic or painful, but I did not like it. A few days later I made a second application, and with a recurring of the same phenomenon. This made me certain of the matter. It was my first and last experience with a hair preparation.

A hairdresser in New York, named Perry, publisht a little treatise in 1859, on treatment of the hair, in which were several recipes for dyes. I observed that he recommended wild indigo or baptisia. This plant abounds in New England, and an infusion of it will produce a dark purple stain of the "Tittlebat Titmouse" kind. I would suppose this harmless, though I cannot say whether it is durable. If I were to surmise any injury from it at all, it would be from a mechanical cause. The

hair, like the skin, is porous, and subserves an important purpose from that fact. Whether a tincture or infusion so innocent as baptisia might not, nevertheless, do injury by obstructing the pores, is worth an investigation.

I am tempted to repeat a statement that appears in the newspapers. A diet of carrots is said to benefit the hair of the horse. The Chinese, the article says, declare that a diet of rats makes their hair healthy and glossy, and appeal for proof to the fact that their countrymen are seldom bald. Nor did I ever see one gray. Yet I am skeptical on their diet theory, as well as repugnant.

This premature decay of the hair, nevertheless, is a serious matter. Bald and gray youthful heads, and diseased teeth, are suggestive of vital deterioration. The agency of the stiff hat is an unequivocal cause of baldness. The arsenic and other poisonous ingredients employed in preparing the material for hats are also active in destruction. I have questioned likewise whether the frequent cutting of the hair did not overstimulate growth and exhaust the vital energy of the bulbs. "Shingling" the head I consider as an abomination. Certainly the close cutting of the hair in the occipital region is pernicious. The region of the medulla oblongata needs all the protection that nature furnishes; and the denuding of it exposes the most sensitive part of an organism to the action of heat and cold to a degree that is often dangerous. "Heart disease," as the phrase is bandied, is thus induced. Women are seldom bald or prematurely gray, and probably the practice of wearing the hair, and the bonnets which are of no service but show, have much to do with it. Of. course those of us who carry the bald polls love to console ourselves like N. P. Willis by imagining that our thinking is the

cause.

That diet may be a prominent cause of premature fading of the hair is very probable; white hair seems to abound in lime, black hair in iron and brown hair in sulphur. This, if correct, is an argument against an exclusive feeding on cereals. It is certain that the fruits growing here, the apple, pear, peach, blackberry, etc., can be made staples of diet as they now are not, and be promotive of health. They abound in iron, which would recommend them for experimentation. Like reasoning might apply in behalf of the leek, garlic and onion. But I am conjecturing. I

would myself recommend faithful washing and friction of the head as the best application. Water will cure about everything curable. Good hours, good habits generally, and plenty of sunshine, are as trustworthy as any expedient.

In regard to carbuncles, I have had little experience. I had one between my shoulders in 1882, which was all that I desired. I have a mortal antipathy to being cut, and so bore with it. Chancing to remember the prescription of the prophet Isaiah for King Hezekiah's carbuncle, we resorted to his remedy. The pulp of figs was placed on a poultice and applied. The swelling disappeared as by magic, and healing soon followed.

Cranberries have been named as a sure remedy for grippe. Very likely; the rheumatisms, neuralgias, influenzas, pneumonias and exanthemata, so common of winters, and epidemic in winters like this, have their foundation in the uric acid that abound in the body. The vegetable acids like cream of tartar, lemon juice and very likely cranberry juice, have an influence to decompose the urates, to render them innocuous and to eliminate them from the body. ALEXANDER WILDER.

Newark, N. J.

Take it as it Comes.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Away back in the 50's I had taken my first course of lectures, and returned home with a little stock of drugs and a pair of saddlebags, determined to pursue my studies and make enuf to put me thru my second and graduating course. I was at my father's, on the farm, two and one-half miles from the county seat. Well, I began to practise in the neighborhood, branching out further gradually and making some reputation, for I was blessed with success, when I was called to see Miss Mary aged about 20 years, residing a short mile from my father's. I found her very much broken down in health, having had chills for some three years, getting them broken up only to have them return in a short time. She said she had been under the treatment of the best doctors from North Carolina to Georgia, and thence to Arkansas. She looked as if life was a burden, completely woe-begone.

Among other things I gave her pills to be taken three times a day, of aloes, carbonate of iron and quinin.

In about three days her mother came

over to see my mother, with a very important message-said she was in deep trouble. She said that Mary had been discharging "live things" from her bowels, by the handful, she supposed maggots, and wanted her to lay the matter before me, and see what I could do for her. On my return home from my rounds among the sick, my mother told me of it, and how alarmed the family were. Of course I took in the situation, and just smiled and lookt wise, and told mother that was all right, tell them to just keep up the treatment, and I would see her in time to make the necessary change.

The sequel was that Mary got well and stout and rosy and had no more sickness in the time that I kept sight of her-some six years. She had an older brother who ventilated the matter over town and country that Mary had had the benefit of the best medical talent from North Carolina to Georgia and thence to Arkansas, and that Dr. Hinton was the first and only one that had found out what was the matter with her.

Of course they thought I knew those worms were infesting the rectum, and knew how to get them away, when I didn't know or think of anything of the sort, but I kept quiet and let the rest of them do the talking. In the estimation of the family and friends I was the greatest doctor in the world. I did not try to undeceive them, but went ahead with my studies and practice, and had plenty of money to go to college the next fall and graduate.

The moral is that doctors get abuse where it is not due, and get praise where it is not due. Don't worry. Take it as it comes; it will balance up all right, if you go ahead and do your duty.

Prescott, Ark. R. L. HINTON, M. D.

Warts.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-As a safe destroyer of warts, the milky-yellow juice of the celandine (chelidonium majus), a weed painfully common in Europe and naturalized here, has never failed me. As the acrid escharotic principle to which is due its effect, resides more or less in all members of the natural family of papaveraceae, to which celandine belongs, the juice of stylophorum diphyllum Nutt (celandine poppy), or sanguinaria officinales; "bloodroot," may be substituted with the same therapeutic result. Allegheny, Pa.

A. C. ZIEGLER.

Quiz Department.

Questions are solicited for this column. Communications not accompanied by the proper name and address of the writer (not necessarily for publication) will not be noticed.

The great number of requests for private answers, for the information and benefit of the writer, makes it necessary for us to charge a fee for the time required. This fee will be from one to five dollars, according to the amount of research and writing required.

Chronic Pharyngitis.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-On page 449, October WORLD, I reported a case of chronic pharyngitis for advice as to its treatment. No one has seen fit to answer my query. I am deeply interested in this case and report the progress of it, hoping someone who has had experience with similar cases will write an article on the subject.

My patient showed no signs of improvement with the treatment I mentioned in the October WORLD SO I stopt it. He was then instructed to spray his throat and nose with a solution of listerine and a 15 vol. sol. H, O2, and given a general tonic. But his throat continued to get worse and finally got so sensitive that he could not swallow. I gave him lozenges of cocain and gelatin to be dissolved on the back of the tongue just before eating, this enabled him to swallow liquid food but it would return thru the nose during the act of swallowing unless he compresst the alae nasi with one hand. The above plan of treatment we kept up for two or three weeks with no apparent improvement. I then gave him:

Pot. iodid

Syr. sarsap. comp.

M. Sig. Teaspoonful after each meal. He began to improve at once, and in a short time the cocain was no longer needed and withdrawn. I have not examined his throat since this time, but he says it does not trouble him. There was no indication or history of specific trouble. Flat Lick, Ky.

W. R. ARTHUR, M. D. [This seems to be one of the puzzling cases that have their origin in the rheumatic diathesis. Potassium iodid often produces excellent results in such but better effects are claimed for the salicylates internally and locally as a spray, when combined with general tonic and supportive treatment.-ED.]

Diabetes Mellitus.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I have gotten many direct pointers out of your journal n my practice, and if anyone can give me

The

any enlightenment upon the treatment of diabetes mellitus I would be very grateful. In the case referred to the specific gravity of the urine runs from 1035 to 1040, and the per cent. of sugar I cannot give, but it is high, as shown by the test with Fehling's copper and soda solutions. I have two cases under my care. one I relieved about a year ago on Fowler's solution potassium bromid and codein sulfate, not allowing any food containing any amount of sugar or starch and boiling the water he used. The patient did not adhere to his restricted diet and it came back on him. He appears to improve very slowly, if any, on same treatment this time. The other case does not improve any. I have tried rhus arom., lithia carbonate and other medicines as indicated. R. E. HOLMES, M. D.

Spruce Creek, Pa.

[One of the best articles upon the treatment of diabetes that we have seen for years is that by Dr. Benjamin Edson, in the January WORLD. We can do no better than refer you to this.-ED.]

Diabetes Mellitus-Prognosis and Treatment.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-My son, nine years old, has suffered with diabetes mellitus since December 25. Will you please place the subject before your readers for advice as to prognosis, treatment, etc.? It is of a grave form. He is now very low. W. E. FOWLER, M. D.

Brookville, Kans.

[We regret that any prognosis of diabetes, particularly in so young a patient, must be grave. Give tonics-iron, arsenic, strychnin, codliver oil, etc.,-associated with opium and its alkaloids, particularly codeia. Exclude all sugars and starches from the diet. Use lemonade and other acid drinks. Give frequent salt-water baths followed by friction, place wool next the skin and give plenty of rest and sleep. One of the best articles recently publisht on this disease is that by Dr. Benjamin Edson in the January WORLD.-ED.]

A Puzzling Case, Possibly of Inflammation of the Gall-duct.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In this locality Ward's liniment and Chamberlain's cough syrup are used very much. Will you give the formula for them? Here is a case for diagnosis.

A lady 43 years of age has been suffering with a periodic disease for 12 years. She has had a number of doctors and gets

conflicting diagnoses. If from the symptoms which follow, one or more readers take the same view that I do, I would feel my diagnosis was correct.

While in the best of health, a little flatulence will be noticed in abdomen, which is accompanied by light pain. Intense pains always follow in from one to two days, and last from two to six hours, during which morphia or chloroform has always been given. The following one to three days she suffers with a localized pain in the center of the epigastrium.

Difficulties of Practice in China. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-If you can obtain it, will you kindly publish the formula of Harter's "Patent Remedies for Ague, Coughs, and Liver Pills." The here, not a physician, and he is giving firm has presented a case to a man near

them out to the Chinese as wonderful cures, and claims that the "Ague Cure "has cured many cases of Plague. These were probably bad cases of ague that needed a

ever be found.

READER.

Three Cases For Diagnosis. Editor MEDICAL WORLD: May I inquire of your readers the best method of treating hemorrhage from the umbilicus after the cord has come away.

I have a female patient who complains of swimming in her head when she lies on her back. This also comes on when she suddenly gets up or turns over in bed; she is otherwise perfectly healthy. She is 28 years of age and married. What does this indicate?

A man, also 28 years of age, had a very severe attack of grip and pleuro-pneumonia four years ago. Recently he has been bothered with "spells" coming on occasionally in the night just after he goes to sleep. These cause him to suddenly jump up in bed and are accompanied with difficulty in getting breath, followed by pain in the region of the heart.

Wanted-diagnoses and treatment of these cases. J. A. BRADY.

St. Matthews, Ky.

Neuralgia of Mal-Nutrition.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD: My wife, two months pregnant, has almost continually attacks of excruciating neuralgia or cramps or numbness in the right arm and hand. She had been affected thus last year, only during the last month of her pregnancy. She is otherwise in good health. I have been able to give her no permanent relief with antispasmodics or analgesics: bromin, antifebrin, phenace tin, etc. I have also tried electricity (faradic) with no results.

St. Francois, P. Q. L. V. VEZINA, M. D. [The condition you describe generally

stipated. To go four and five days with no movement of the bowels, is common here.

Opium and morphin is being passt off onto the Chinese in all forms imaginable, and we hope that this is not a new form. ELLEN M. LYON, M. D.

Foochow, China.

[We trust some one can give this formula, and can assure Dr. Lyon of our sympathy with her struggles against such obstacles in her heroic work in the Orient. ED.]

Cure For Eczema.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Every number of the MEDICAL WORLD is worth one year's subscription to me. I am encouraged by the example of others to ask help of your readers.

I have several cases of some kind of eczema or what I would call the itch. The itching is very severe, patients scratch themselves nearly all over the body, until nearly the whole skin is covered with scabs. I have failed to cure them. Will some one give me a reliable formula thru the MEDICAL WORLD?

O. H. FRANKS, M. D.

Seabrook, Kansas.

Who Owns The Prescription? Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I answer the above question by having printed on the bottom of my prescription blanks-"NOTE:Under no circumstances is this prescription to be refilled or copied without my written order. order. It is intended only for the present stage of this case."

Can anyone describe the cause of canned fruit causing excessive production of gas in the stomach? I have a patient who suffers