lief of pain only. The patient was at once plied with the tincture of digitalis to the limit of supposed safety. Repeated examinations showing no change, about 1 o'clock a. m. Dr. Seymour asked that the physician first casually consulted be called. Just before his arrival, half an hour later, the patient said, "It's all right now," and auscultation showed no trace of irregularity, nor any of the abnormities of five minutes previously. Soon afterward he fell asleep and rested well until daybreak. Under the doctor's restrictions he remained in bed the next day, altho he felt fully able to attend to business.

At the time of the next visit 8 a. m. the following day, examination found no indication of the six hours' storm of the night before. The condition had evidently been a rotary twist, but whether from right to left, or the reverse, defied most solicitous diagnostic effort.

Being intimate friends, as well as maintaining the relation of physician and patient, the doctor met him often for several years afterward, but never knew him to have any cardiac difficulty. Both removing from that locality to different cities, the doctor and his patient maintained correspondence until two years ago, when one morning, after rising at his usual early hour, the latter went into his parlor. Not responding to the breakfast call, he was found dead on a lounge, as if he had quietly fallen asleep. It was stated that he had died of "heart disease."

It would have been a mournful satisfaction, says Dr. Seymour, to know what relation, if any, existed between the accident of twenty-three years before and the finale.

The Common Nettle in Anemia. Dr. Hjalman Agnér (American Medical and Surgical Bulletin), was cured of anemia, when he was seventeen, by taking nettle soup. One of his patients, a girl of twenty, had tried all remedies recommended in anemia, including the preparations of iron, but without apparent benefit; he ordered her then nettle soup, first every second day; then, when she improved, twice a week. The patient was completely cured. The author treated many other cases with nettle, but as they received other treatment besides, he does not care to speak of them in detail. The common or stinging nettle and the dwarf nettle possess the same virtues, but the first is used almost exclusively. The best

time for collection is the spring; the best parts to use are the roots and stalks with only half-developed leaves. It may be used as an infusion-a handful to two quarts of water, two or three glasses thereof to be taken during the day; but it is much pleasanter to use in the form of a freshly-prepared soup from the fresh herb.

Class-Room Notes.

[From DUNGLISON'S COLLEGE AND CLINICAL RECORD.] -Dr. Hearn strenuously urges prompt attention to Slight Abrasions. They are frequently allowed to go on to troublesome and often dangerous cellulitis.

-Inflammation of the Iris and Choroid, in the earlier stages, should be treated with atropin, provided there is no rise in tension. If there is increast tension, eserin and cocain may be used. Internally, give the bichlorid of mercury with iron, or the iodid of potassium.-De Schweinitz.

-The sluggish type of Eczema often yields to the following, tho it is somewhat heroic, and should be carefully applied : B. Saponis viridis, Picis liquidæ, Alcohol.

Sig. Rub in.

āā 3iij. -Stelwagon.

M.

Sig. Apply as a lotion. Stelwagon. -Immediately after labor, all Lacerations of the Genital Tract should be carefully repaired. Especially should the cervix be examined, and, if the tear be very large, suture it, with a view to favoring involution. It is not enuf merely to look at the vulva and skin perineum, but the vaginal wall should be everted by inserting a finger into the rectum and turning it

Many lacerations will in this way be discovered which would doubtless pass unnoticed in a less systematic examination.-Davis.

Brucker has made a study (These de Bordeaux) of a fact observed by himnamely, the influence of the reaction of the blood in the healing of certain conditions. Bearing in mind that the normal alkilinity of the blood shows important variations according to sex, age, and as to whether the blood is arterial or venous in origin, and the diet to which the patient has been addicted, so in certain pathological conditions these variations are very markt, and a reduction in the normal alkalinity is observed in certain cases of febrile reaction due to bacterial intoxication. It has been found that certain artificial intoxications can be combated by raising the alkalinity of the blood by the injection of alkaline serum. Going on these grounds, Brucker has principally investigated the influence of alkaline dressings in the treatment of local inflammatory affections, and, according to his observations, such a dressing, whether moist or dry, very rapidly reduces the imflammation suppurative or otherwise, and causes rapid healing of wounds. This seems independent of any antiseptic property in the proper sense of the word. The method employed by him is to apply the dressing of absorbent wool on ordinary principles, using merely a two-per-cent. solution of bicarbonate of soda, or in some cases vaseline and bicarbonate (1 in 25), or the soda may be applied directly in the form of a powder. He finds that strong solutions do not act more quickly than a two-per-cent., showing that the chief agent is the alkali and not any antiseptic principle. The same method may be applied for purulent otitis, etc.-Gaillard's Med. Jour.

What Is Obscenity?

Nothing that is in accordance with the normal habits of man can be of essence either improper or impure. It is the attendant circumstances, the manner, and above all the motive of the consideration, which alone can be impure and improper, or otherwise.

And so we may ask, What is obscenity? Conventionality in this as in most other things is the rottenest of rotten reeds to lean on. It substitutes shadow for substance and form for matter. It judges of things and acts, instead of motives. There is no subject that exists, the consideration or investigation of which constitutes in itself obscenity. It is not the thing done or

the subject treated of that constitutes obscenity, but it is in the circumstances under which, the manner in which, and the purpose for which the thing is done or the subject treated that obscenity lies, or does not lie, as the case may be. A really pure system of morals would treat not of acts but of the motives which prompt them. If this truth were more fully realized society would be less full of viciousuess luxuriating broadcast and unmolested under the cloak of virtue, by complying with the letter of conventional law, and of virtue driven into byways, from which it would gladly escape, to be howled down as vicious by the whited sepulcher of a hypocritical conventionality.-N. Y. Med. Journal.

The Alcohol Neurosis.

Dr. J. Strachan (British Medical Journal), says that it must be borne in upon the mind of everyone who has any lengthened experience in medical practice that there is a disease of alcoholic intemperance

that there are men and women who have no more power to resist "drinking to excess," if they "drink" at all, than they have to prevent the symptoms and the course of any other disease, the poison of which has entered and is working in the blood.

This neurotic intemperance possesses several features which serve to distinguish it from the common vice of occasional and deliberate drunkenness, and it is of great importance that the distinction should be fully recognized.

1. Whereas the vice, once so prevalent and even fashionable among the men of all classes, is now all but confined to what are called the lower orders, and is being driven ever lower in the social scale, the disease is confined to no class and to neither sex, and instead of diminishing seems decidedly on the increase, as is shown not only by the number of cases to be seen in every community, but also by the increasing number of "retreats" and homes for inebriates, and the more and more pressing calls for legislative restraint for those so afflicted.

2. While the vice of drunkenness is very much a matter of occasion and opportunity, and is perfectly under control when a sufficiently strong motive is operative, the disease is to a great extent periodic in its onset, and quite unaccountable in its course. The occasional drunkard is, as a rule, a habitual drinker, and indulges to excess only on occasions of

isually

conviviality; the neuro-inebriate may have long intervals when he has no desire for and does not take stimulants, but has periods of resistless craving which run a more or less definite course. As the disease progresses, however, such intervals tend to become shorter, and the intoxication more or less continuous, culminating at times in delirium tremens or convulsions.

3. The occasional drunkard seeks companionship in his cups, and is generally more or less noisy and uproarious in his intoxication, but the victim of this disease inclines rather to shrink from observation, and is generally quiet and morose under the influence of alcohol.

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The Country Doctor.

The choice of the location in which he is to settle down for his life-work is not infrequently predetermined for the young graduate in medicine by circumstances over which he has no control. The family influence in his old home, an opportunity to succeed in practice a father or uncle or some such consideration may practically determine the question of location long before graduation, and may even have been the chief factor in causing the selection of medicine as a vocation. Where no such conditions exist, however, where the newly-fledged physician has no ties which bind him to any particular locality and has the world to choose from, he is frequently led to take up his residence in the city largely on account of college associations and without sufficiently careful consideration of the task before him. While the great prizes are won in the city, great obstacles must be overcome to win them, and many of the leaders in metropolitan practice laid the foundations of their success while country doctors. It is true that the young physician who is attached to a city hospital sees a larger number and variety of cases than he would see during the first years of practice in the country, and for that reason a year of post-graduate study or a hospital appointment for the first year after graduation is a most desirable thing. After this year of hospital work, the young graduate of only moderate means will find his best opening in a country town. Judgment is of course required in selecting a town where the profession is not particularly crowded with young and well-informed physicians.

The craving is for relief from suffering. Persons presenting the alcohol neurosis are very susceptible to the alcoholic stimulus; a comparatively small amount produces exhilaration. This is followed by reaction amounting to an extreme degree of nervous depression. A repetition of the stimulus gives immediate relief, but at the expense of further reaction and still greater depression and more urgent craving for relief. More and more is required to keep off, as it has been expressed by a sufferer, "the horror of getting sober." Here it is the first glass of whisky, which does not carry with it any moral delinquency, and according to the usual drinking customs of the country, is very difficult to avoid, which does the mischief. The attack usually culminates in severe gastric irritation and complete nervous prostration, perhaps delirium tremens, on recovery from which the craving is found to have passt off, and the patient is full of good resolutions. For a longer or shorter time all goes well, and there is not even any desire for stimulants. Then the patient-he still is a patient, although he does not know it-feeling himself stronger, or feeling dull and low-spirited, for such neurotics are subject to fits of depression quite apart from the use of stimulants, and are easily upset by business worries, etc., thinks that a glass will set him up and let him get on with his work. An attack follows and runs its course as certainly as an attack of fever when the poison enters the system.

Dr. F. P. Blake, of Canon City, Colo., uses sweet spirits of niter with success in insect bites, and has also lately used it with satisfaction in senile pruritus.

Having made a judicious selection, the young physician will, if he be gifted with a fair degree of tact, be surprised to find how rapidly his practice grows. To the young man of limited means this feature is one of almost paramount importance, and he will find himself at the end of five years of country practice very much better off financially than he could have hoped to be had he remained in the city. His character will also have developed more, and he will have become much more selfreliant than he would have been had he remained in the city. He will probably have seen as wide a variety of, if not as many, cases as he would have seen had he remained in the city, save under unusually favorable conditions.

The young physician entering upon

country practice is launched into a field where he may be called upon any moment to administer to every form of disease. As stated by Dr. Ellis: "It is in the precipitate and constant exercise of his faculties in the contemplation of these problems and their various solutions, unaided, and with great paucity of literature, that his training proceeds, and his success or failure depends not only on his educational equipment, which is too often inadequate, but quite as much upon his mental and moral fibre. If he is honest with himself, conscientious and diligent, his development is rapid and mainly thru the cultivation of habits of self-reliance which his surroundings do so much to engender and encourage. And it is this habit of selfreliance that goes so far to mould, to mar his character. A capable man grows in strength and adaptability. In a less

capable man, if he is not confessedly and conspicuously beaten, there is frequently the growth of a provincial egotism and a self-sufficiency that is as discouraging to further growth as it is deforming to his personality."

Yellow Palms as a Sign of Typhoid Fever.

Filopowicz (American Journal of the Med. ical Sciences) calls attention [for the second time] to a symptom of typhoid fever not generally lookt for. The palms and soles acquire a yellow color, which is more markt in proportion as the skin is thickened by toil, but present even when the skin is thin. This change comes on in the early days of the disease, and lasts until the end, disappearing in convalescence. The author thinks the sign due to the changes in the circulation, especially the anemia of the skin, as the result of which the subcutaneous fat shows thru.

Should Prescriptions be Written in Latin or English?

We think it time that Latin should not be used any longer in writing prescriptions. There is not one in a hundred physicians who can write Latin correctly, and a prescription that is one-half or one-fourth in Latin and the rest in English is bastardly ridiculous. We all hide our philologic ignorance under contractions that lead to ambiguity and even danger, and when we can no longer hold out with our wretched sham we are compelled to plunge into English for the directions. All arguments for this medieval nonsense do not amount

to a pinch of snuff. As for hiding the knowledge of the drug from the patient, and the advantage to patients traveling abroad, the facts need only to be lookt squarely in the face, and the argument for Latin becomes a bad boomerang. The practice is a pompous bit of humbug, which should be left to medievalists and not scientists. So soon as we get our therapeutics out into the daylight of common sense and genuine science we shall surely dispense with the sorry jumble of bad Latin and poor English illustrated by nine-tenths of the actual prescriptions on file to-day at the drug-stores.-Phila. Med. Jour.

"Diplomas" While You Wait.

St. Luke's Hospital, Niles, Michigan, is getting itself in disrepute with the State board of health by the manner in which it is disposing of certificates or diplomas. The institution was incorporated last November by Dr. A. C. Probert of St. Paul, Minn., and Dr. C. W. H. B. Granville of South Bend, Ind., who are its president and secretary. The concern has done some advertising in papers of general circulation and from all reports has done a lucrative business. A number of stenographers are employed and an enormous orrespondence is done, principally with physicians who are offered a certificate or diploma entitling them to membership on the visiting staff of the hospital.

The cost of these blue-ribbon gold-sealbedecked certificates, diplomas or membership cards is from three to five dollars, and are claimed by the institution to be a great attraction to any physician's office.

The holders of the diplomas or certificates are entitled to bring their patients to the hospital for treatment, they receiving 50 per cent. of the fee for treatment or operation. As the certificates are issued all over the United States this privilege seems to be one that will not be taken advantage of by those located in towns far distant from Niles.

Dr. Nicholas Senn of Chicago, and other physicians of note are named as being on the staff of the hospital, which statement is refuted, they claiming that they have been imposed upon, and have demanded that their names shall not be used.

Secretary Baker of the State board of health of Michigan, has asked the attorney general to annul the articles of association of the hospital.

Charles W. H. B. Granville, M. D., presi

dent of St. Luke's Hospital, at Niles, says he challenges impartial investigation of the methods of that institution, and dares Secretary Baker to come out openly over his signature and accuse him of running a bogus M. D. factory.-Commercial Union.

Physician's Blessings.

Two things are essential for the good of the family life of the physician-patients for the husband and patience for the wife. -Pa. Med. Jour.

Headache Powders.

An inquest was held recently on the body of a young man who died from the effects of taking two "headache powders." From the analysis of the contents of the stomach it appears that the powders in question were composed of antifebrin, but the exact quantity administered was not ascertained. Antifebrin, like most anilin derivatives, is a drug which should be employed with especial caution. It is official under the name of acetanilid, and its potency is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the maximum dose assigned to it is only 3 grains. There have been many cases of poisoning from the injudicious administration of this remedy, the symptoms produced by it being of the anilin type, The patient usually complains of giddiness, noises in the ears, throbbing in the templės, and a dull, heavy pain in the head. The face becomes livid, the lips are blue and the pupils are contracted. This is followed by symptoms of collapse, the face and extremities are cyanosed, the skin is covered with cold, clammy perspiration, the pulse is feeble and respiration becomes shallow and frequent. There is no specific antidote, and after the administration of a brisk emetic the sufferer should be kept in a strictly recumbent position, and plied vigorously with stimulants. The effects are usually of considerable duration, and in one case the patient was not out of danger for fourteen hours. We are informed that there is a considerable demand for powders of this description, the purchasers being chiefly young women of the seamstress class. Whether the sale of these drugs should be in some way restricted may be an open question, but it is quite clear that some intimation should be given that they are not free from danger, and that they cannot be taken in unlimited quantities with impunity. Many people acquire an unfortunate habit of dosing

themselves with remedies of unknown composition, and this death under such sad circumstances, may be taken as an indication that the custom is not one which can be indulged in with safety.-British Medical Journal.

Digitalis impairs the general nutrition of the aged, in consequence of its action. on the arterioles, and hence should not be prescribed for old people.-Med. Brief.

Buttercup Poisoning.-A short time ago an English boy died within a few hours from eating a number of thes common flowers.

The Maryland Medical Journal asserts that turpentine in usual doses, according to age, is a specific against mumps.

For eczema of the hands Duhring recommends a continuous dressing with a tar and compound tincture of benzoin or collodion.

Our Monthly Talk

To know their

I well remember when we used to stand up in a long row every day at school and spell all sorts of words-long, short, easy and hard, but we had not the faintest idea of the meaning of the majority of them. meaning seemed to be of no value. The one object of our school life seemed to be able to spell correctly, and without hesitation, every word in the dictionary. This seemed to constitute the chief part of an education, according to the ideals then prevalent. One school would challenge another, and long winter evenings would be spent in the parrot-like pronouncing and spelling of column after column of words, but never a thought nor suggestion of their "spelling bees" the "brilliant "pupils (parrots) meaning. At these numerous (and delightful) were pitted against one another until all were "spelled down" but the last remaining one, who was the champion.

I know whereof I speak, for I can turn back the pages of memory and find many of these occasions-enjoyable, but mistaken; enjoyable as an amusement, but mistaken as to educational value. I will readily grant that, as an amusement, these affairs were as good, and perhaps better, than the progressive euchres and other amusements of the present time; but no one claims that euchre playing is educational. Educators finally realized that the actual use of spelling was in writing; and they also found that the most brilliant of these oral spellers made frequent errors in written spelling, so they concluded that the best way to teach spelling was to require the pupil to write the words, then correct them if errors were made, rather than give oral exercises.

In many other ways the process of educating