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ORANGE BLOSSOM.

Claimed by its proprietors to be a positive cure for all female diseases. The article is in the form of a vaginal suppository. Our analysis shows it to be about as follows: An oblong body, about one inch long, by one-half inch wide and one-half inch thick, weighing full two grams (31 grains). A single fold of heavy tin foil surrounds and encloses a light, grayish-yellow, unguentous mass, of a rancid, fatty odor, and astringent, metallic taste. The reaction very acid. The constituents are:

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Conclusions of the Yellow Fever Commission.

The report of the Commission appointed by the President in 1897 from the Marine Hospital Service staff to investigate the nature of yellow fever was made public by Surgeon General Wyman, August 18. The Commission was composed of Surgeon Eugene Wasdin and Past Assistant Surgeon Geddings, both yellow fever experts. The conclusions of the Commission are summarized as follows:

First. That the micro-organism discovered by Professor Giuseppe Sanarelli, of the University of Bologna, Italy, and by him named "bacillus icteroides," is the cause of yellow fever.

Second. That yellow fever is naturally infectious to certain animals, the degree varying with the species; that in some rodents local infection is very quickly followed by blood infection, and that, while in dogs and rabbits there is no evidence of this subsequent invasion of the blood, monkeys react to the infection the same

as man.

Third. That infection takes place by way of the respiratory tract, the primary colonization in this tract giving rise to the earlier manifestations of the disease.

Fourth. That in many cases of the disease, probably a majority, the primary infection of colonization in the lungs is followed by a "secondary infection" or a secondary colonization of this organism in the blood of the patient. This secondary infection may be complicated by the coinstantaneous passage of other organisms into the blood, or this complication may arise during the last hours of life.

Fifth. That there is no evidence to support the theory advanced by Professor Sanarelli that this disease is primarily a septicemia, inasmuch as cases do occur

in which the bactillus icteroides cannot be found in the blood or organs, in which it might be deposited, therefrom.

Sixth. That there exists no causal relationship between the bacillus "X" of Sternberg and this highly infectious disease, and that the bacillus "X" is frequently found in the intestinal content of normal animals and of man, as well as in the urine and the bronchial secretion.

Seventh That, so far as your Commission is aware, the bacillus icteroides has never been found in anybody other than one infected with yellow fever, and that whatever may be the cultural similarities between this and other micro-organisms it is characterized by a specificity which is distinctive.

Eighth. That the bacillus icteroides is very susceptible to the influences injurious to bacterial life, and that its ready control by the processes of disinfection, chemical and mechanical, is assured.

Ninth. That the bacillus icteroides produces in vitro, as well as in vita, a toxin of the most marked potency, and that, from our present knowledge, there exists a reasonable possibility of the ultimate production of an anti-serum more potent than that of Professor Sanarelli.

Cocaine Addiction.

Another case in this city is reported thru the daily press of a young man who became a veritable cocaine fiend simply from the use of one of the numerous "catarrh snuffs" on the market.

What can be said of him who knowingly, yes, maliciously, compounds a remedy and places it on the market containing such proportions of cocaine? knowing, as he must, that the drug has no real curative effect, and that the relief obtained can be only temporary, and as well that the after results, aside from the formation of a habit, cannot be otherwise than injurious to the membranes, and directly antagonistic to a possible cure subsequently by any legitimate and professionally honorable means.

We are not relieving ourselves, at this time, of a screed directed against patent remedies. Such is not the inspiration of these words. But that this particular type of remedy is a most dangerous one, and does deserve our most eloquent and most persistent denunciation, there can be no doubt.

We have more respect for the proprietor of the lowest "grog shop" than for the

manufacturers of these so-called "catarrh cures." The former has at least the credit of telling the world, by the brazen inscription at his door, that they can obtain destruction within; while the latter, with serpent surreptitiousness, secures its victim by the flattery of hopt-for relief. Can anything more despicable be imagined than that a human being, endowed with a certain business capacity, should allow his sordid desire for gain to so far blunt or completely obtund all his sense of right, justice, happiness, honor, sympathy and propriety, that he would suborn all his energies and efforts to the advancement and sale of an article so certainly terrible in its results ?

Nor can we entirely excuse from all culpability the druggist who retails the article in question. He is not ignorant of its nature or composition, tho doubtless they ease their consciences by the claim that they do not know the exact formula.

We must, as physicians, lend our efforts to creating a healthier sentiment, even among the druggists. This is an old, old song, I know, and I imagine some of our readers will wish for something fresher. But I do assure you no subject can be more important, or imperative, because, while fraught with dreadful, fearful, awful possibilities, it is yet in its infancy, and can therefore be more easily and effectually throttled. It is a question how much the good exceeds the evil opium and morphine have done. We hope it may never come to be a question in the case of cocaine.-The Chicago Clinic.

"Immaculate Conception."

The Quarterly Medical Journal for July, quoting from the Review of Reviews, says that Mr. J. G. Frazer contributes the first part of an article on "The Origin of Totemism" to the Fortnightly Review for April. It is based chiefly upon the book by Mr. Spencer and Mr. Gillen on "The Native Tribes of Central Australia," which has just been publisht by Messrs. Macmillan. Mr. Frazer says that the book contains a full description of the most extraordinary set of customs and beliefs ever put on record. The natives, whose customs are described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, are so devoid of what may be called ordinary common sense that, altho they suffer severely from frost at night, they have never yet learned to use the furs of the animals which they kill, as clothing. They huddle naked around

little fires, into which they frequently roll when sleeping, and burn themselves. Even this, however, is a less extraordinary illustration of their difference from the rest of mankind than is to be found in their theory as to the propagation of the species. Mr. Frazer says: "They have no notion that mankind is propagated by the union of sexes-indeed, when the idea is suggested to them they steadfastly reject it. Their own theory to account for the continuation of the species is sufficiently remarkable. They suppose that in certain far-off times, to which they give the name of 'Alcheringa,' their ancestors roamed about in bands, each band consisting of members of the same totem group. When they died their spirits went into the ground, and formed, as it were, spiritual store-houses, the external mark of which is some natural feature, generally a stone or tree. Such spots are scattered all over the country, and the ancestral spirits who haunt them are ever waiting for a favorable opportunity to be born again into the world. When one of them sees his chance he pounces out on a passing girl or woman and enters into her. Then she conceives and in due time gives birth to a child, who is firmly believed to be a reincarnation of the spirit that darted into the mother from the rock or tree. matters not whether a woman be young or old, a matron or a maid, all are alike liable to be thus impregnated by the spirit

It

-altho it has been shrewdly observed by the natives that the spirits on the whole exhibit a preference for such women as are young and fat. Accordingly when a plump damsel, who shrinks from the burden of maternity, is obliged to pass one of the spots where the disembodied spirits are supposed to lurk, she disguises herself as a withered old hag and hobbles past, bent up double, leaning on a stick, wrinkling her smooth young face, and mumbling in a crackt, wheezy voice, 'Don't come to me, I am an old woman.' Thus, in the opinion of these savages, every conception is what we are wont to call an immaculate conception, being brought about by the entrance into the mother of a spirit apart from any contact with the other sex. Students of folklore have long been familiar with notions of this sort occurring in the stories of the birth of miraculous personages; but this is the first case on record of a tribe who believe in immaculate conception as the sole cause of the birth of every human being who comes

into the world. A people so ignorant of the most elementary of natural processes may well rank at the very bottom of the savage scale.-N. Y Med. Jour.

In August issue we publisht Mr. Markham's famous poem, "The Man with the Hoe." The medical reason for presenting it in these pages was explained. Of the many parodies on this poem, perhaps the following is the best. Heredity sometimes plays as prominent a part in this as in the other; and also, doctors know that the alcohol habit becomes a disease, and when that stage is reacht, it should be regarded and treated as a disease instead of a moral obliquity:

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THE MAN WITH THE LOAD.
Bowed by a weight of fiery stuff, he leans
Against the hitching-post and gazes 'round!
Besotted emptiness is in his face,

He bears a load that still may get him down.
Who made him dull to shame and dead to pride,
A thing that cares not and that never thinks,
Filthy, profane, a consort for the pig?
Who loosened and let down that stubbly jaw?
Whence came the scum adhering to those lips?
What was it clogged and burned away his brain?
Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land?
To love and to be loved; to propagate
And feel the passion of Eternity?

Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the

suns

And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more hideous than this-
More tongued with proof that Darwin didn't
know-

For where in all the world of brutish beasts
Is one from which this monster might have
come?

His blood flows in the frail, disfigured babe
O'er which the pale, heart-broken mother bends.
But what to him are those hot tears she sheds,
What cares he for the taunts his children bear,

The hungry cries they raise; their twisted limbs? Thru this dread shape the devil boldly looks, And in that reeling presence mocks the world! Thru this dread shape humanity is shamed, Profaned, outraged, dragged down and brought

to scorn

Made to inhale fumes from the slime he spews
And hear him jest at Virtue and at God.

O masters, lords, and rulers in our land,
Must this foul solecism still

Be tolerated in an age when men

Grap power from the circumambient air

And speak thru space across the roaring gulfs?
Must this vile thing be left to wed at will
And propagate his idiotic spawn,

A shame upon the age in which we live,
A curse on generations to be born?

O masters, lords, and rulers in our land,
How may ye hope to reckon with this "man"?
How get along without the vote he casts
When there are public offices to fill?
How will it be with candidates when he
No longer hangs upon the reeking bar
Prepared to fight, to stab, to murder, and
To vote for him who furnishes his drinks?

S. E. KISER, in The Chicago Times-Herald.

The Thirteenth International Medical
Congress.

The programme of the Thirteenth Medical Congress, which will be undoubtedly the largest and most important of the hundred or more Congresses officially recognized during the Exposition of 1900, has now been issued. The date of the Congress (from the 2d to the 9th of August, 1900) has been chosen so as to allow its members to attend, before or after, other allied Congresses of Practitioners, (on Medical Ethics and on Hygiene). The object of the Medical Congress is, moreover, exclusively scientific.

All doctors of medicine may become members of the Congress on payment of the subscription fee-25 francs.

French Committee and the other National Committees may also present for membership scholars of known reputation. The card of membership is necessary for sharing in the privileges of the Congress. Each member will have a right to the summary of the proceedings of the Congress and to the printed reports of the section to which he belongs.

The Congress has been divided into 25 sections arranged under five principal groups:

1. Biological Sciences-descriptive and comparative anatomy; histology, with embryology and teratology; physiology, with biological physics and chemistry.

2. Medical Sciences-general and experimental pathology, bacteriology and

parasites; pat hological anatomy; internal pathology; hygiene and medical pathology of children; therapeutics and Materia Medica; neurology; mental diseases; dermatology and syphiligraphy (which two also furnish the matter of a special Congress held separately).

3. Surgical Sciences-general; surgery children; urinary surgery; opthalmology; laryngology; rhinology; otology; stomatology.

4. Obstetrics; gynecology.

5. Public Medicine-medical jurisprudence; military medicine and surgery; naval medicine; colonial medicine.

All propositions relating to the work of the Congress should be submitted to the Executive Committee before the 1st of May, 1900. Each section Committee is charged with the organization of its own programme-hearing of reports, discussions of questions, various communications. The discourses pronounced at the two general assemblies and the section reports are to be published in the proceedings of the Congress. French is the official language of the Congress for all international relations; but, in the general assemblies as well as in the different sections, German and English may also be used.

The following members from the United States have so far been designated for reports; Jacobi, of New York, on artificial lactation and the use of sterilized milk; D. Bulkley, New York, syphilis and associate infections; Taylor, New York, causes of generalized infection in blenhorragia; Ashurst, Philadelphia, radiography in the study of fractures and dislocations; Bradford, Boston, treatment of Pott's disease (beginning phase and formation of gibbosity); Christian Fenger, Chicago, conservative in renal retentions; J. W. White, Philadelphia, remote results of operative treatment of prostatic hypertrophy; De Schweinitz, Philadelphia (opthalmology) comparative value of enucleation and operations proposed as substitutes; Bosworth, New York, pathogeny and treatment of suppurated ethmoiditis; Montgomery and Baldy, Philadelphia, surgical treatment of cancer of uterus; Lagarde, lesions from rifle balls of minimum caliber.

The president of American committee is Prof. Osler, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

If you will send $1 now for WORLD for 1900, we will send it to you for the remainder of 1899 free.

First International Congress on Medical

Ethics.

An important congress on Medical Ethics is to be held for the first time during the Paris Exposition of 1900 under the patronage of the French Government. This congress should be carefully distinguisht from the long establisht International Medical Congress or Congress of Medicine. The two associations neither conflict with each other nor do double work. For this reason, and for the convenience of members who may wish to take part in both congresses, the dates of meeting have been so arranged that one immediately follows the other. The congress on medical ethics will open its sessions on Monday, July 23d, and close the following Saturday. The Congress of Medicine opens on Thursday of the next week and lasts until August 9, 1900.

The French title of the new congress aptly describes its scope-" Professional Medicine and Medical Ethics (Deontologie)." It is essentially a congress of practitioners and appeals especially to national, state and county medical associations. It will also concern directly professors of medical jurisprudence and all who are interested in the economic and ethical details of the profession. Besides the general and section sessions, important lectures will be provided. Only physicians and the legal counsel of medical associations are admitted to take part in the discussions as active members; their subscription fee is fifteen francs. The wives of active members and medical students will be admitted to the sessions of the congress on payment of a subscription of ten francs. Representatives of the Press may ask for special admission cards. The meetings will not be open to the general public, and the section sessions will be held in the halls of the Medical Faculty.

The subjects of discussion will be divided up among the four sections: 1. Relations of the physician with the state and organization depending on it, and the laws regulating medical practice; relations with organizations not depending directly on the state; medical service in respect to public assistance and charities, poor-law, public and private hospitals and medical charities; the position from the economic point of view of medical officers of health and other sanitary functionaries; relations of medical practitioners with the judicial authorities; and finally, the utilization in time of war of the service of medical men

who are no longer liable to military service.

2. Relations of the physician with individuals with his patients, dispensing chemists, trained nurses, midwives, manufacturers of surgical appliances, etc., questions concerning medical practice by unqualified persons.

3. Relations of the practitioner with his medical colleagues (medical deontology), consultation, clinics and medical institutions, locum tenens, the sale of practices; relations between medical practitioners of different nationalities; professional medical societies and the formation of medical uuions to defend the economic interests of the profession; other societies of medical

men.

4. Questions relating to mutual aid and assistance among members of the profession, such as insurance in case of illness, a fund for old-age pensions, and help for the widows and children of medical men.

The papers to be submitted to the congress are of two kinds: Reports which will be printed and distributed before the opening of the congress (the manuscripts of these reports must be handed into the committee of organization before the 1st of January, 1900.)

Communications (in French, German, or English) which should be presented to the committee in summary form before the 1st of July, 1900. The words of the London Lancet of May 6, 1899, may be applied to the United States; "This is a unique opportunity of placing on record an account of what has been accomplisht in England, which would stand side by side. with the descriptions of what has been achieved on the Continent and appear in the official report of the congress, thus constituting a lasting and important page in the history of the medical profession." In Germany the ministry, which has medical affairs under its supervision, has brought the congress officially to the notice of the various medical unions, which are to choose representatives authorized to speak in their name. The Brussels and Vienna faculties contribute important papers. The Secretary General of the Committee of Organization is Dr. Jules Glover, 37 rue do Faubourg Poissonniere, Paris.

I admire the conduct of THE WORLD. Its spicy originality, unique and practical plan of presentation of its subject matter, and especially the length and breadth of its basis, which latter constitutes a vis a tergo, so to speak, that propels it far and near, and ensuring a stability that means success unqualified in the vast medical field you cover.-C. H. HEFFEN GER, M.D., Sykesville, Md.

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