Current Medical Thought.

Chloroform or Ether.

DR. W. S. BROWN, of Stoneham, Mass., after a tour among the surgeons of Europe, thus sums up the ether and chloroform case:

“After careful reflection I have come to the conclusion that chloroform is more immediately dangerous, a more treacherous agent, so to speak; but that ether kills nearly as many patients at a later stage, days or weeks afterwards, more especially when the kidneys are in a crippled state at the time of the operation."

Jaborandi for Urticaria and Gonorrheal Rheumatism.

DR HEATON, of Aurora, Ind., in the Lancet Clinic, recommends this remedy in halfteaspoonful doses of the fluid extract every half hour until four doses have been taken or free perspiration or salivation is induced. Repeat in twenty-four hours, if necessary. Best taken in the evening and care should be taken for thirty-six hours thereafter against taking cold. For gonorrheal rheumatism it should be taken in the beginning of the attack.

Saw Palmetto.

Dr. MÜLLINS, after relating many cases of prostatitis, enlarged prostate, sexual weakness and undeveloped mammaries, in Amer. Homeopathist, with improvement and cures by this remedy, thus generalizes the indications:

"Now, one must certainly conclude that in the Sabal serrulata we have a grand and precious remedy, specifically affecting the organs of generation in male and female.

Its indications, gathered from a clinical standpoint, are, in the male, enlarged prostate with throbbing, aching, dull pains; discharge of prostatic juice; at times, discharge of mucus; also a yellowish, watery fluid, weakened sexual power, loss of thrill, orchialgia, and epididymitis and orchitis, when associated with an enlarged prostate.

In women, weakened sexual activity, ovarian enlargement with tenderness and dull, aching pains; small, undeveloped mammary glands.

Also indicated in chronic bronchitis, with a wheezing, hard cough, worse on lying down. and until 6 a. m.; worse in damp, cool, cloudy weather."

Phosphorus for Diabetes. ACCORDING to the N. Y. Medical Times, the symptoms of diabetes gradually and surely disappear under the use of phosphorus, administered in doses of one-thirtieth of a grain.

Chloride of Calcium in Tuberculosis.

IN the American Practitioner and News, Dr. Robert Durrett, of Winoma, Kentucky, revives this neglected but most excellent treatment. The doctor gives forty grains of the pure chloride of calcium in a glass of milk after each meal, the doses for children being proportionately smaller. The drug acts by affecting calcification of tuberculous tissues.

Hot Vaginal Douches.

IN commenting upon the too frequent failure to obtain satisfactory results from this treatment, on account of unskillful administration, the editor of the Indiana Medical Journal, gives the following rules:

1. The patient should be instructed to procure a fountain syringe, the capacity of which is at least one gallon.

2. She is instructed to use the water as hot as can be borne.

3. In taking the injections she should lie on a flat surface in Sims' position.

4. The height of the syringe should be such as to give the water only a moderate force.

5. The injection should be continued for at least ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes for a much longer time, depending upon the degree of comfort experienced by the patient.

Unilateral Temperatures.

The following facts are interesting in regard to the theory of specific thermic centres in the brain.

Mrs. C, primipara, aged twenty-six, married, was confined on Sunday, Oct. 4th. The patient is remarkable for her cool, unexcitable temperament. Labor was normal, and the case progressed without one bad symptom till the following Saturday, even the infant exhibiting a disposition to take things easily, so unlike new-born cherubs. On the Saturday, however, there was a temperature of 102 degrees in the right axilla; pulse 80; skin cool: respiration easy; lochia and milk normal; no constitutional disturbance whatever. The temperature was then taken in the left axilla, and it was normal. The following day the thermometer registered 104 degrees in the right axilla; normal in the left. On Monday it fell again to 102 degrees, and on Tuesday it was normal on both sides. From beginning to end the patient was singularly free from bad symptoms, and made an uninterrupted

Union of Cut-Off Fingers.

Herr Gluck related among other things which he brought up before the Berliner Medizinische Gesellschaft (Deut. Med. Zeit.), the case of a butcher, who cut off the distal phalanges of his middle and ring fingers with a cleaver. The reporter, forty minutes after the accident occurred, picked up the several pieces from the floor, disinfected them, resected the bones and sutured carefully. A complete union took place. Sensation, however, only returned in six months. A difference in the length of the fingers which were injured and those of the other hand could not be perceived. However, a certain amount of atrophy was observable in the ends which had been severed. -Weekly Med. Review.

Hydrochloric Acid in Diphtheria and Croup.

WE find the following translation by Dr. A. E. Roussel in the Times and Register Is it hydrochloric acid alone that is especially valuable, or may we not go a step further and say that acids generally are antagonistic to these diseases, as suggested by us in the October 1891, WORLD?

"The experiments of Roux and Versin have

established that the virulence of diphtheritic toxines may be greatly diminished by adding to the products of the secretions of the bacteria a small quantity of acid. Starting with this idea, Dr. Krazenski has employed hydrochloric acid in the treatment of 6 cases of croup in children from 6 months to 3 years of age, and in 5 cases of diphthertic angina, 2 cases occurring in children and 3 in adults.

isms, with a solution of boric acid (4 per cent.), and in case of croup a solution of sulphate of copper (1.5 per cent.), taken internal y as an emetic when the necessity arises. In 11 cases the duration of the treatment varied from two to five days. All the patients recovered. Of the 5 cases of diphtheritic angina, in 4 cases the false membranes definitely disappeared at the end of from twentyfour to forty eight hours. In the fifth case one week elapsed before the cure. The cases of croup were cured in from three to five days."

Duboisin as a Sedative and Hypnotic. OSTERMAYER regards the sulphate of duboisin as superior to hyoscine in not having the inconveniences of the latter drug. It is chiefly a hypnotic, producing sleep in from twenty to thirty minutes, and is to be given in doses varying from 1 to 3 milligrammes, according to the character of the case. It is said to produce no dangerous or disagreeable symptoms, and, although continuous use produces tolerance, by leaving it off for a short time, the full effect can be again obtained.-Times and Register.

Salicylate of Soda in Phlegmasia Alba Dolens.

DR. J. MCWILLIAMS, of Thamesford, Ont., Canada, read an interesting article on the subject before the Ontario Medical Associa tion, afterwards published in the Canada Lancet. After detailing five cases favorably treated with this remedy, recovery occurring in about three weeks, the doctor concluded as follows:

From the foregoing cases I woula infer:

First-That we have in salicylate of soda a remedy that does modify the disease to a very great extent. I think I may fairly claim that it obviates almo t entirely the tendency of the disease to become chronic.

Second-That to obtain this result, the drug has to be pushed to get its full physiological action, and persevered in for at least six or eight days.

Third-That the reason the drug does not seem to act with such promptitude as it does in rheumatism is :

(a) That the subjects of phlegmasia dolens were very anæmic and weak, and consequently bad subjects for the exhibition of such a drug as soda salicylate.

(b) That in phlegmasia dolens we have an inflamed condition of veins to overcome as well as a morbid condition of the blood.

Fourth-That the treatment of phlegmasia dolens by soda salicylate rests on as reasonable grounds as that of acute rheumatism. As, if we grant that rheumatism is due to the blood sepsis, arising from the presence of a special

germ in the organism, and that soda salicylate is a potent remedy. and more or less effectual antidote for that condition, it is not unreasonable to suppose that it would be quite as effectual in the treatment of phlegmasia dolens. For without claiming any necessary relation between the two diseases, they seem to have some points iu common, as for example, the condition of anæmia, and the excess of fibrin in the blood that exists in the majority of cases, the proneness of each to become chronic, and, lastly, should the result of my experience be borne out by further clinical observations, we will have another striking similarity, in that both diseases are beneficially affected by the action of the same drug, soda salicylate.

Camphor-Menthol in Catarrhal Disease. IN the Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., October 24, 1891, DR. SETH S. BISHOP gives his very favorable experience with this compound, the liquid resulting from rubbing together equal parts of camphor and menthol and diluting with a mineral oil. It gave excellent results in relieving the swelling and irritability of acute nasal catarrhs, improving the character of the discharge, and by a few repetitions securing the relief of the stenosis and obviating the operative measures which had seemed

unavoidable.

Its effect in laryngitis has appeared as happy, and its injection through the catheter into the Eustachian tube and tympanum has been attended by only good results. For the latter purpose a solution of three to five per cent. is as strong as is safe; most noses and larynges will bear ten per cent., while in marked hypertrophic rhinitis, with copious discharge, even twenty five per cent. is well borne. "Finally, camphor menthol contracts the capillary blood vessels of the mucous membrane, reduces swelling, relieves pain and fullness of the head or stenosis, arrests sneezing, checks excessive discharge, and corrects perverted secretion." Therapeutic Gazetie.

Camphor and Carbolic Acid.

THE infectious nature of tonsillitis and other simple forms of throat and bronchial disease or inflammation seems likely, and once this is suspected, if not proved, it should lead to trying antiseptic methods instead of the old astringents. The following is a formula much used in France:

To Remove Superfluous Hair.

DR. FRANK VAN ALLEN, of Madura, India, writes: "By means of the following method I have cured two fairly severe cases of hirsuties of the upper lip:

R Powdered air-slaked lime.............. .....dramsj Orpiment (arsenic trisulphide; As 2 S 3,) grains ij Add water to form a paste, and mix. Apply to the hairy surface about a quarter of an inch thick. Allow the paste to remain for fifteen or twenty minutes, when it will be dry. Remove; and the surface which before was hairy will be as smooth as the palm of one's hand, the hair coming off with the paste. The skin may or may not be slightly reddened, but this redness will pass away within an hour or so. After a few days the eaten off ends of the hairs will be seen on careful examination, but a second aphair. These applications will have to be made plication of the paste will as before destroy the about twice a week at first, then once a week, then once a month, etc. The hair grows out at first very much as if it had been merely shaved off; later, on careful examination, each individual' hair is found to be thinner than before, growing less strongly, the hair, if black, losing its color, and, in a word, yielding to the continual irritation of the paste. This treatment requires about a year or a year and a half to effect an entire cure, but it possesses the advantage that immediately after the first application the patient is, as far as all outward looks go, completely relieved of her deformity. The most practicable way to direct the patient in the preparation of the paste is to tell her first to provide herself with a small mortar and pestle. Put into the mortar the end of a spatula or table-knife. Add a few as much of the lime powder as can be held on drops of water, and mix to a paste. with the moistened end of the pestle dip lightly into the powdered orpiment, so that about as much orpiment as would altogether equal a pea in amount, clings to the pestle. Mix this with the lime. Do not use too much orpiment. Apply at once. All samples of orpiment do not work well, and on becoming acquainted with this method, some three years ago, I tried five or six samples before I finally procured one that gave good results." -New York Med. Record.

Then

A Safe Depilatory. It cannot be said that any depilatory is absolutely safe. Possibly the best combination is the following, which is a type of nearly all articles of this character: Equal quantities of powdered quicklime, sulphide of barium, and starch are made into a paste with a little water, and this being applied removes the hair within a short time. Sometimes this removal is followed by a more or less important scar in the flesh, because of the clumsiness of the operator or the caustic nature of the application. A patented depilatory, recently come into some favor in Germany, is antikrinin, which has been found to consist almost entirely of sulphide of strontium, and which is said to possess the advantages of being harmless, of keeping well, and not evolving hydrogen sulphide when used. Another method of removing superfluous hair which is used by specialists in this line is to apply to the gland

at the base of the hair a needle connected with a battery. Thus, by destroying the life root of the hair a radical remoual of it is effected. -Pharmaceutical Era.

The Influence of Diet on the Growth of Hair. SEVERAL cases of shedding of hair after influenza have confirmed my opinion that diet has much to do with the production and cure of symptomatic alopecia. Hair contains 5 per cent. of sulphur, and its ash 20 per cent. of silicon and 10 per cent. of iron and manganese. Solutions of beef, or rather of part of it, starchy mixtures, and even milk, which constitute the diet of patients with influenza and other fevers, cannot supply these elements, and atrophy at the root and falling of hair result. The color

and strength of hair in young mammals is not attained so long as milk is their sole food. As to drugs, iron has prompt influence. The foods which most abundantly contain the above-named elements are the various albumin

oids, and the oat, the ash of that grain yielding 22 per cent. of silicon. Wlth care these foods are admissible in the course of febrile diseases, when albumen is the constituent suffering most by the increased metabolism. I have often found a dietary largely composed of oatmeal and brown bread greatly promotes the growth of hair, especially when baldness is preceded by constipation and sluggish capillary circulation.

Those races of men who consume most meat are the most hirsute. Again, it is well known in the Zoological Gardens that carnivorous mammals, birds, and serpents, keep the hair, feathers, or cuticle, in bad condition unless fed with whole animals, and the egesta contain the cuticular appendages of their prey in a

digested or partly digested state. It is also an old well proved fact that a closely restricted diet-cheese, for example-soon produces in dogs a loss of hair.

In treating fevers a long course of nonnitrogenous diet may promote seborrhea, which is so often a concomitant of the alopecia. When the special nutritive supply is secure, the depressed condition of the vasomotor and trophic nerves proceeding from the cervical ganglia to the scalp may be stimulated by blisters and liniments at the back of the neck. I have always found that friction of the scalp with pomades and lotions, dislodges many hairs which might otherwise remain, and that cold or tepid baths with salt added, and rough rubbing of the rest of the body, will flush the capillaries of the affected parts more effectually. Besides, when pomades are used, frequent washing becomes necessary, and this is conducive to baldness.-Dr. Mapother, in British Medical Journal.-Medical Age.

Hydrochlorate of Apocodeine as an Expec torant.

THIS drug, a yellow brown powder, is soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform, but nearly insoluble in water. Treated with hydrochloric acid it furnishes a salt which is soluble in water and alcohol. Dr. Murrel (Lo Sperimentale, No. 19, 1891) has tried it in several cases of chronic bronchitis, and found it a powerful expectorant, given both subcutaneously and by the mouth. It may be given for weeks without inconvenience. The dose is ten, twenty or thirty drops of a 1 per cent. solution, in pill form, eighteen to twentyfour centigrammes per day.-Lancet Clinic.

Angina Pectoris.

A WRITER in the Revue de Medecine recommends cocaine, in the dose of 1 to 2 grain, three or four times daily.-Medical Bulletin.

THE following are some of the hospitals, the forof American Hospitals": mula of which are given in "The Offeial Formula

University Hospital (Philadelphia.)
Episcopal Hospital (Philadelphia.)
Philadelphia Hospital.

Children's Hospital (Philadelphia.)
Pennsylvania Hospital (Philadelphia.)
Jefferson College Hospital.
New York Hospital.
Roosevelt Hospital (N. Y.)

Bellevue Hospital (N. Y.)

Charity Hospital (N. Y.)

Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn.)
City Hospital of Boston.

Mass. General Hospital (Boston.)

Chicago Marine Hospital, and many others.

The book is a neat, cloth-bound volume of 272 pages, and the price is only $1.00. It is worth many times the price, and should be in every physician's library. Published by THE MEDICAL WORLD. Order when you send your subscription for '93.

THERE appears to be some excitement in Illinois at present over the gold cure for drunkenness. Chloride of gold is said to be the remedy, and the Western Druggist says there is little new about that, for a Dr. Gray, of La Port, Indiana, practices the following method of cure regularly. When he receives a patient he sets in his room a bottle containing a pint of good whiskey, instructing the patient that he can take all he wishes. The doctor immediately commences and gives him four hypodermic injections each day, each containing one-tenth of a grain of the chloride of gold and sodium, and one-fortieth of a grain of nitrate of strychnine, and gives a mixture to be taken by the mouth containing the same with some atropine. The formula for the mixture is:

Mix. and take a teaspoonful every two hours when awake.

He sees the patients four times a day and rapidly increases the gold and strychnine until the symptoms show that they are getting all they will bear. The first day the patient drinks pretty heavily of the whisky in his room. The second day he begins to lose his desire for it. By the evening of the third day or the morning of the fourth he is totally sick of it, and will not take any more. The treatment is carried on from three to six weeks. It seems to be a great success. We are frequently asked what Haines' golden specific is. A formula for producing a powder said to resemble this preparation, was contributed to the Druggists' Circular some time ago, and is as follows:

Hydrastis Canadensis in Obstetric Practice. Bossi, in a paper read before the Medical Academy of Genoa, July 1, 1891, reaches the following conclusions as the result of numerous trials in the obstetric clinic :

1. Fluid extract of hydrastis canadensis, in doses of 100 or 200 drops a day, exercises no injurious influence upon ei her the mother or the child at any period of pregnancy. The same is true during the puerperium.

2. When used during pregnancy, labor, or the puerperium, hydrastis shows a constant hemostatic and prophylactic effect upon the uterus, without in any way exerting an ecbolic or disquieting influence upon the uterus.

3. It acts more powerfully than ergot, and is free from the after-effects of the latter, so that it can be used without fear as a curative

and prophylactic remedy in metrorrhagias occurrying at any period of pregnancy, labor, or the puerperium. It may, therefore, be intrusted to midwives in the country in preference to ergot,

Hydrastis is indicated (1) in losses of blood occurring in pregnancy and in the puerperium, the general dose being from 100 to 150 drops a day; (2) as a remedy administered after the child is born, in doses of 150 to 200 drops daily, 50 to 60 drops being given at a dose; (3) and in the preliminary stage of labor in cases of placenta prævia; (4) it is also indicated in the pericd of dilatation; and (5) as a prophylactic remedy against post-partum hemorrhages, uterine weakness, great development of the foetus and of the adnexa, ancemia of children, and in those cases in which there is disposition to hemorrhages.-Zeitschrift fur Therapie, October 1, 1891.-Therapeutic, Gazette.