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pound; be sure to get the best and unadulterated quality; red is said to be the best; dissolve this in one and one-half pints of 95 per cent. alcohol; one or two drams of borax should be added to the alcohol; and one of the formulas directs

that two drams of castor oil also be added. One of the contributors says, "hold in a hot-water bath and it will dissolve in a few minutes." This makes a thick solution. This should be

painted on cloth, and dried and painted again. If the cloth is not thick enuf, two layers may be placed together and presst with a hot iron, when they become as one piece. "The cloth of a pair of old pants made of some soft Scotch goods is the best to use, as it takes up more of the solution." For dressing the limb, immerse the splint in hot water, or hold before hot fire until soft, then apply to the limb until it takes shape. Then remove and line with some soft material, reapply and bandage. This material can also be used successfully for a spinal curvature jacket. One writer says, be sure and dry out all of the alcohol, as otherwise it will not get hard. These splints can be used over and over again if care is taken to not allow them to get too much soiled. They can be remolded to suit different shaped limbs at different times.

Our readers will find themselves greatly benefited by carefully looking up questions in which they are specially interested, in their back numbers of THE MEDICAL WORLD. Such informa

tion as the above never grows old. By consulting your bound volumes of THE MEDICAL WORLD you will be helpt in many an emergency. This is better than writing to us, for you can do it in a half an hour, while writing to us takes more time than can usually be spared-particularly concerning a case on hand at the time.

A subscriber writes: "Five Drops" is simply oil of turpentine, colored with blood root. That is very simple, but I know positively that it is right.

Formula Wanted.

"Vril," handled by S. G. Armstrong, M. D., of Berrien Springs, Mich., a "cure-all and invigorator."

Current Medical Thought.

Vivisection that Arouses no Protest.

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Since 1890, of course, the number of animals has greatly increased, and there is no estimate of the number of castrations of such other animals as dogs, cats, etc. We would not be far wrong therefore if we should in round numbers place the number of castrations of domestic animals in the 100,000,000 a year. entire country at present at little less than When one considers that no anesthetic is ever used in these 100,0000,000 cases; that the operator is usually without any knowledge of anatomy or antisepsis ; that the operation, a 'major "one when carried out upon man, is here brutally done and with much unnecessary attendant and consequent suffering; and, lastly, when one compares the tremendous sum total of this suffering with the infinitesimal amount in laboratoriesthen indeed must one recognize that, as we have before said, it is not suffering but antiscience that stimulates the antivivisectionist. If the "societies for the

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prevention of cruelty to animals" were genuinely working for the cause implied in their title, every physician in America would be a member and a helper. Curiously enuf, while the S. P. C. A. has done nothing to prevent or alleviate the annual 100,000,000 vivisections to which we refer, the medical profession, by establishing veterinary colleges (hated by the antis) and by educating veterinary surgeons in scientific methods, is vastly lessening the evil callously ignored by the official sentimentalist.-Phila. Med. Jour.

Other Emotions.

It has often been noted that the antivivisectionists are not troubled by the frightful Sexual Desire as Influenced by Religious and sufferings and deaths of animals caused by hunters, pigeon-shooters, fishermen, dealers, etc., by poor stables, by cold and exposure and by filth, in shipment and slaughtering, and in many similar ways. We wish to add another great class of vivisection-practices which seems to have escaped mention and against which, so far as we know, no protest has been raised by the self-appointed friends of animals. In the following table the numbers given of animals of each kind in the United States

Was the religious sentiment the normal one, or was it not in intimate correlation with a refinement of sensuality? The divine Raphael gave to the religious world its Madonna, and Titian produced one of the sublimest masterpiece of art, the Dresden noblest conceptions of Christ; the mis

* The estimate in the cases of swine are necessarily very indefinite. The larger number of operations are upon females, and the seemingly high figures given, on account of this fact, together with the shortness of their life, and their prolificity, are probably too low rather than too high.

tresses of both these masters are familiar thru portraits. Kaulbach illustrated the sweetest, chastest of German poems, yet he prostituted his genius by one of the most lecherous fancies that ever polluted canvas. In a Cleopatra, a Messalina, we perceive the depths of degradation to which lust can descend; yet Pericles, the young Augustus of his age, who brought the highest glory to the Athenian world of art and letters, took for a paramour the enchanting Aspasia. The Egyptian courtesan has been glowingly celebrated by an essentially chaste mind-that of Shakespeare-while the Athenian lovers received their apotheosis thru the genius of Walter Savage Landor, one of the rarest spirits of the century. Every poet, every artist, every sculptor, every composer-all who are gifted with power of most truly expressing the loftiest emotions and feelings of mankind-have found their inspiration in the inexhaustible theme of love.

"In our idealization of love it soars beyond the bounds of earthly limitations, and we hesitate not to ascribe to it a divine character, and to embrace it in the highest and most sacred sphere of man's intellectual domain-religion. Nay, do we not raise it to the loftiest point capable of attainment when we reverently exclaim, 'God is love'—when we bow down and worship it as the divine essence, the supreme power." In I John, iv. 7, we read: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is Love."

"All

Krafft-Ebing calls attention to the relationship between religious and sexual feeling in psycho-pathologic states. thru the history of insanity the student has occasion to observe this close alliance of sexual and religious ideas; an alliance which may be partly accounted for because of the prominence which sexual themes have in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the Phallus worship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of Friga Cultus of the Saxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the Koran and several other books of the kind, and which is further illustrated in the performances, which, to come down to a modern period, characterize the religious revival and camp-meeting." Not only is this alliance shown in diseased states, but it is also in evidence in normal healthy conditions. Weir says, in his monograph

on "Religion and Lust," that "at the dawn of sexual life the youth's mind, filled as it is with indefinite longings and desires, eagerly seizes upon religion to satisfy its yearnings."

What is the organic relation in the individual between sex and religion? "At puberty and immediately following it is the time of crisis in the moral nature. The great bulk of those who are to become criminals become so during the later adolescent period. For every person who becomes a Christian before twelve, or during all the years after twenty, three and one-half become Christians between twelve and twenty." More people fall in love at this period. A great burst of life and great pulse of growth comes to an individual at puberty; and why? Because at this time the sexual nature is opening and ripening.

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Weir says that "men, owing to their greater freedom, soon learn the difference of the sexes, and the delights of sexual congress; women, hedged in by conventionalities and deterred by their innate passivity, remain, for the most part, in ignorance of sexual knowledge until their marriage. For this reason, it happens that very many more women than men experience religious emotion. Ungratified, or, rather, unsatisfied sensuality very frequently gives rise to great religio-sexual enthusiasm. Voltaire cynically, thoughtfully, observes that "when woman is no longer pleasing to man, she then turns to God." Francis Parkham, in "The Jesuits of North America," speaks of a nun who went to prayer "agitated and tremulous, as if to a meeting with an earthly lover." "Oh, my love," she exclaimed, "when shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments that I suffer? Alas! alas! My Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain, you take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you, and die in your sacred arms."

Sex is the root of passion. Out of passion true love grows; that love which in its wider and wider extent eventually embraces the whole race-the love of God. Love is both the foundation and the pinnacle of religion, the law of life, the harmony of heaven, the breath of which the universe was born, the divine essence increate of the ever-living God.

It is the glory of the Christian faith that it is a religion founded upon Love. Other beliefs have held captive the intelleet, but it was reserved for Christianity to

ers.

touch the heart of man. Even the refining influences of Greek thought as revealed in the marvelous literature in which it found expression, seems to the cultivated Athenian quite compatible with a system of polytheism in which gods and goddesses were engaged in perpetual amours, to the glory of high Jove himself, and apparently to the entire satisfaction of his worshipEven the noble teachings of Socrates and Plato failed to reprove these royal sinners. Later, in Italy, as shown by the mural paintings at Pompeii, the offspring of Greek sensuousness degenerated into the most unbridled sensuality. Coeval, with the sublime philosophy of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, existed a condition of debauchery which was hastening the subversion of the proud Roman empire.

With the advent of Christianity a nobler faith and purer morals were gradually diffused among the minds of men, until today the world has reacht its fairest ideal of pure, stainless love. How shall we compare, for instance, Sappho's erotic "Hymn to Venus," Ovid's Metamorphoses, of the pages of Boccaccio's "Decameron," with the impassioned feeling expresst in this single modern lyric, from Barry Cornwall's posthumous poems:

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Gleanings.

Absolute dryness prevents the development of germ life.

It is difficult to freeze a germ to death, but boiling quickly destroys all microorganisms.

Apocynum cannabinum is considered

valuable in valvular lesions of the heart and the resulting dropsy.

It is stated that a single application of the oil of sassafras will destroy all varieties of pediculi and their ova.

It is asserted that a fiery red nose can be "bleacht" by being painted with a five per cent. solution of boric acid.

Don't fail to use turpentine in hemorrhage. Must be given in large doses-one to two drams without dilution in emergencies.

For a hard, dull steady pain across the abdomen, with or without diarrhea, give from five to eight drops of spirits of turpentine every two hours.

In exophthalmic goiter three drops of the tincture of veratrum twice a day, gradually increast to the limit of tolerance, will cure many cases.

Schrieber says that torpid ulcers, even when painful and due to varicose veins, may be made to cicatrize comfortably if dusted daily with antipyrin.

Strychnin sulfat, 1-20 grain thrice daily for six or eight weeks before parturition, is a serviceable prophylactic against uterine inertia during labor.

As a tropical application in diphtheria, Waxham proposes the use of one grain of bichlorid of mercury in four ounces of the peroxid of hydrogen,

Hysteria and epilepsy are generally ameliorated by the pregnant state; epileptics, however, are more subject to puerperal eclampsia than others.

Phosphorus in small doses is indicated in the depression following prostrating fevers, where there has been much involvement of the nervous system.

Bichlorid of mercury should never be used for dressing extensive raw surfaces, and sublimate solution should always be avoided for the irrigation of deep wounds and cavities.

Inhalations of nitrat of amyl in 30 drop doses, succeeds best and quickest in opium poisoning; next comes hypodermic injec tions of strychnin and the hypodermics of theine.

An anti-diabetic diet and from three to five drops of liquor brom-arsen., Clemen's solution, three times a day, has been a successful treatment in many cases of dia. betes mellitus.

Dr. M. G. Price says: "Who of us has not been besieged by weary mothers for something for her crying infant that is suffering with three months' colic. Hyoscyamin is the drug."

Whooping cough, when not complicated with bronchitis or bronchial catarrh, generally yields to ergot in from one to three weeks. Dose, four to fifteen drops every three to four hours.

Five drops of tincture lobelia in two ounces of water, and a half-teaspoonful every few minutes, given warm, it is stated will cure many cases of infantile colic from whatever cause.

Dr. Ernest F. Clowes, house physician of the Royal County Hospital, Winchester, reports the successful treatment of diabetes insipidus with amyl nitrite. There was a gain of ten pounds in weight.

A feverish patient is always thirsty. A drinking tumbler of pure, cold water, in which a teaspoonful of sweet spirits of niter has been poured, is a refreshing drink, a few swallows of which may be given at frequent intervals.

To reduce high temperature caused by diseased conditions, give ice-water enemas. They do not disturb the patient like a bath, are harmless, easily administered and grateful to the patient. This is particularly advantageous in climatic heat cases.-Medical Summary.

The Influence of the Bicycle upon the Female Genital Organs.

We learn from a French medical journal that at the close of 1899 the Medical Society of Paris will award the Duparcque prize of 600 francs for the best paper (in French) upon "The Influence of the Bicycle upon the Female Genital Organs." There has been much discussion of this subject in Europe, the French and German authorities maintaining, as a rule, that with a proper saddle, bicycle-riding is far from injurious, is positively beneficial to women. In England opinion is dividedas it is in America-many physicians of high standing claiming that this form of exercise affects the female genitalia quite seriously, while others claim that it is decidedly less harmful than horse-back

riding, because of the natural position of the rider. The question is of great importance, and should command most careful attention on the part of the medical profession, whose opinions are of paramount weight, indeed final. It would be interesting to know how many daughters of physicians, in good health, adopt the wheel, tho the census might not be a conclusive argument either for or against the practice.-Medical Standard.

[This is the proper season for THE WORLD readers to discuss this subject.ED.]

The Duration of Acute Gonorrhea and the Importance of Treatment.

Gentlemen, I do not propose to try to offer anything new on the subject of my paper to this body; but I do want to impress upon our mind the importance of paying due attention to this disease, and correcting an impression which seems to me to be somewhat general among the laity, and it is also in the profession-that gonorrhea is an insignificant disease and is no worse than a bad cold, as the expression is. The subject of this paper was suggested to my mind by a remark made by a patient in my office, that a friend of his advised him that the clap was not anything, and that Dr. So-and-So guaranteed to cure it within ten days. I told him he had better go, that it would take me longer than that. Then I began to look up the subject and found that all good authors and writers on the subject put the duration under the best and persistent treatment on an average of six to eight weeks, and I also found the impression prevalent among the general practitioners to be about three weeks. As the best authors do not claim such good results in their cases, it is very evident to me that many, if not all, of those rapid cures, must be of rather doubtful character to say the least. I would not be understood as questioning the honesty and good faith of those claiming to cure gonorrhea in three weeks. There can be no doubt that these gentlemen and their patients are sincere in their belief that their cases are cured, because the pain of urinating is gone, or nearly gone, and they have no discharge, or nothing more than a thin, watery discharge, or a morning drop before or after urinating. Now, as a matter of fact, the great majority of these cases are not cured, altho the physician and patient are both delighted over the presumed success of the "sure and quick

remedy, and are perfectly honest in assuring such to be the case.

It seems to me that the greatest trouble and the cause of much misunderstanding lies in the fact that the average general physician does not take the trouble to use the means of determining when a case of gonorrhea is really cured. Absence of discharge at the meatus too often means to him a cure of the disease. No examination of the urine for clap-shreds is made and very little attention seems to be generally given to the importance of such examinations. I follow the examination taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Polyclinic in the Genitory Urinary Department. I ask my patient not to urinate for some time before he comes to me. Take two clean glasses and let him urinate part of his urine in one glass, and then part in the other, and if clap-shreds appear in the first glass, I know my patient has anterior urethral trouble, and if they appear in the last glass, he has posterior trouble and often it will take some effort for the posterior constrictor muscles to force the clap-shreds out, and if not satisfied with the appearance of the shreds, I strain them with methyl blue and put them under the microscope and there the tell-tale germs will often be seen. Often the constrictor muscles will force the germs into the bladder. We, as general practitioners, often see the result of a neglected and badly treated case of clap in the shape of strictures of the urethra that often make the individual miserable for life, and a source of annoyance to the physician.

If what our gynecologic brethren claim in regard to the longevity and the depradations of the gonococus be true, it would seem to me to be a matter of the utmost importance that we, as general practitioners, should do all in our power to correct this widespread notion that gonorrhea is a simple disease, easily cured in from ten days to three weeks, provided Dr. A. or Dr. B. is consulted. For my part, I believe with Taylor, Christian, White, Martain, and others that I have consulted, that gonorrhea may be, and very often is, one of the most formidable diseases that can attack man.

What, then, is the duration of acute, uncomplicated gonorrhea? Finger states that cases of acute general urethritis with no unusual symptoms last from five to six weeks. He allows two weeks for the increasing stage, one for the stationary, and

two or three weeks for the mucous terminal period. He also states that cases with short incubation and rapid onset do not last as long, all things being equal, as those with a long period of incubation. Prof. R. W. Taylor says a patient should consider himself very lucky to be cured in from six to eight weeks. Keys places the average duration at four to six weeks. Brewer makes a striking statement regarding this matter (in Morrow's system of Genito-Urinary surgery.) Referring to an article written by himself upon the rapid cures made in a series of cases by the use of bichlorid of mercury, he states as follows: "Experience in the treatment of urethral diseases has taught me that the simple cessation of a discharge by no means indicates a cure of the disease; and I am prepared to say without the slightest hesitation, that it is my belief that had a careful and thoro examination been made in each instance at the time when I reported the cessation of all discharge, not one case of my three series of cases would have failed to show unmistakable evidence of an uncured urethritis." White and Martain give the duration at from six to eight weeks.

Prof. H. H. Christian, of the Philadelphia Polyclinic, read a paper before the American Genito-Urinary Association, at Atlantic City, in which he gave the statistics of 187 cases, which he divided into two classes-those that had a clap for the first time, 117 cases, and 70 cases that had the disease for the second time or oftener. Of the 117 cases 90 had general urethritis, and the discharge persisted for over four weeks in 79 of the 117 cases and 47 of these 79 were under treatment from seven to ten weeks. In his second series of 70 cases with a history of having had gonorrhea one or more times before, by their own statement they were under treatment during their former attack, fourteen for four weeks, twenty for eight weeks, and twenty for eight to ten weeks. I only take that part of the statistics that was under treatment for four weeks or over; they constitute the greater number of the cases. All of these were under treatment at the dispensary of the University of Pennsylvania, where the statistics were compiled, and during their second or third attack, as the case may be, ten were under treatment for four weeks. He considers the second series of 70 cases of importance, because 40 of them were under treatment by their own

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