glycerin jelly, well rubbed in, will cure and certainly prevent most cases of chapped hands, but sometimes a little zinc and lanolin ointment may prove more soothing. The chronic fissures met with occasionally around the margins of the lips may be lightly touched with a weak solution of silver nitrate, after which some boric-acid ointment may be applied. Cold or very hot water should not be used for washing the face or hands, and oatmeal powder may be substituted for soap. It need hardly be stated that warm gloves are essential in the treatment and prevention of skin affections of the hands in winter. Only in very severe or neglected cases do "chaps" upon the hands become secondarily infected.

If you use the bromides in the treatment of epilepsy, remove sodium chloride from the dietary and let the patients use the bromides in its place. Shanahan, of the Craig Colony, says that, employed in this way, less bromide is required to control the frequency of the epileptic seizures.

Don't forget that cases of chronic infantile palsy have been mistaken for, and treated as, morbus coxæ. Where there is general weakness of a lower limb in a child, don't jump to the conclusion that you are necessarily dealing with a case of hip-joint disease. One condition demands stimulation and exercise, the other physiologic rest.

Dr. Andrew Fullerton reports in the British Medical Journal (May 22, 1909) the case of a patient of 73 in whom he removed the prostate, which weighed 17 ounces, by the suprapubic route. The largest prostate ever removed by. Freyer weighed 141⁄2 ounces.

A physician writing in the British Medical Journal recommends lactic acid bacilli in the treatment of melancholia. As melancholia is by some considered to be due to a toxemic state, the recommendation seems to possess some plausibility.

Dr. Motais discusses the treatment of ophthalmia neonatorum (Bull. de l'Acad. de Méd., May 4, 1909) with nitrate of silver and the organic silver compounds and comes to the conclusion that protargol is the most valuable of all. He uses two drops of a 20 per cent. solution of protargol every six hours and in very severe cases with abundant secretion, every three hours.

Yvert cautions strongly against prescribing an ointment of yellow oxide of mercury or of calomel to be applied to the eyes of patients who are taking iodides in any form. He claims that the iodide acts upon the mercury compound producing mercurous iodide which in the presence of an excess of iodine decomposes into free mercury and the extremely caustic mercuric iodide.

LETTERS

Vesiculitis Seminalis.

While Professor of Anatomy and
Clinical Surgery in Toledo Medical
College in 1889 and 1890 I became
interested in the dissection of the
seminal vesicles. In 1891 I was a
pupil of the great genius-Lawson
Tait and while at Birmingham be-
came acquainted with the celebrated
surgeon, Mr. Jordan Lloyd whom I
found working at the same subject,
seminal vesicles. In 1891 I returned
to Chicago where I studied on the
semen sacs for some five years in
the morgue of Cook County. It was
in 1893 I found that the semen sacs
were the seat of the gonococcus
which we definitively demonstrated
microscopically. In 1895 I pursued
this subject to the effect that the
rectal strictures in woman were of

gonorrheal origin. For 15 years I
have pursued the study of the effects
of gonorrhea on the semen sacs. It
is evident as I demonstrated a de-
cade and a half ago that the effect
of gonorrhea on the semen sac is
precisely analagous to the effect of
gonorrhea on the oviduct:

The gonococcus produces salpin-
gitis (suppurative and nonsuppura-
tive).

The gonococcus produces vesiculitis seminalis (suppurative and nonsuppurative). Subjects of vesiculitis seminalis suffer intensely, frequently becoming neurotic wrecks. I have had cases where for several consecutive months these subjects would produce a panic with both nurses and family. The pain in vesiculitis seminalis is excruciating, It radiates on the side of the inflamed sac along the thigh, abdomen and back. Terrible, sleepless nights, loss of appetite, extreme neurosis occur. Palpation per rectum discovers the sensitiveness, form, consistence, location and dimension of the inflamed semen sac. In nonsuppurative cases complete anatomic and physiologic rest, limited diet, active visceral drainage, ample fluids (3 quarts

daily) should be instituted. Vesiculitis seminalis is generally bilateral, however, seldom are both sacs attacked with equal violence at the same time. The inflamed sacs may appear a year subsequent to the gonorrheal attacks. Suppurative vesiculitis seminalis requires incision and drainage. The gravity of vesiculitis seminalis is that the gonococcus prepares the road for all other pathogenic bacteria.

Byron Robinson.

Letter from Dr. Jacobi, concerning the advertising schemes of the new Editor of "Pediatrics.'

19 East 47th Street, New York, Nov. 21st, 1909. Editor of CRITIC AND GUIDE:

I request you to insert in your very next issue, if possible, this protest of mine against an attempt on the part of William Edward Fitch, M.D., the new Editor of "Pediatrics" to use my name as that of a renegade from decent professional behavior. In the first number controlled by him, he places, without my permission or consent, my name at the head of his "Editorial Council," whatever that may mean. His introductory chapter on "advertising in pediatrics" sneers at those who look upon "all advertising as venal muck" that would soil their "pharisaical fingers," and whom he calls "pharisaical pariahs," etc., and invites the "liberal patronage of legitimate advertisers." The editor might have known that I approve of purity and ethics in the medical profession, as represented in such of its magazines as are not mercenary or meretricious, and of its aversion to the advertising of nos

trums.

I shall thank you for publishing the following copy of a letter I sent to Dr. Fitch on November 19th:

"Dear Sir: I never read your first number until my attention was called to it by a Western correspondent. In using my name as a member of

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