lessly, for many years. Yet, leaving out all these, there have actually been well-authenticated cures of cases of progressive Bright's disease, diagnosed and treated by men whose accuracy and truth cannot be questioned.

Dujardin-Beaumetz has cured many cases with only a strict and absolute milk diet, meeting symptoms as they arise. Semmola, of Italy, places great reliance on his " Anti Brightic liquid "as a drink, containing the iodide, chloride and phosphate of sodium.

Quite a large school of American physicians have been using, with frequent successes, Basham's mixture, the officinal mistura ferri et ammonii acetatis, in gradually increasing doses of one to four drachms, three times daily. Inhalations of oxygen will surely the disappearance of albumen, reappear within a short time after the treatment is suspended.

cause

to

Our friends of the Biochemic system of treatment, with a theory of the chemical affinity of phosphate of calcium for albumen, rely confidently upon this remedy, with phosphate of potassium to strengt en the nervous system.

The disciples of the Dosimetric method of practice put forth the following:

Objects-To awaken interstitial absorption, combat hyperesthesia and augment sanguineous crasis.

Treatment-Friction with camphorated ammonia. Internally, strychnine, digitaline, and arseniate of iron, a granule of each two or three times daily.

Dr. F. Herle, of Rochester, N. Y., writes us privately that he has not made a failure in twenty five years practice by using one daily injection, per rectum, of thirty minims of nitric acid in eight ounces of hot water. He stated that it takes from three to thirty such injections to completely check the disease.

Now let us look over this list, embracing, so far as we believe, about all the therapeutics for which actual success is claimed. Are they not all measures directed toward a struction of the blood? The distinct "kidney remedies" have all totally failed. What, then, must be the true pathology?

recon

Before leaving this most interesting subject, we should like to institute a line of investigation among the observant and thoughtful ones of our readers. We believe that much valuable truth can yet be elicited in regard to the subject.

In about what proportion of the number of patients examined for it do you find albuminuria?

About what proportion of them have no further manifestation of the disease, and what proportion go on to serious Bright's disease? What remedies have you found to exert a favorable influence on the disease? What remedies recommended have useless?

you found

Phthisis and Its Natural Cure. Under this title Dr. J. A. Lanigan, of Hyde Park, Mass., gives his experience, in the Medical Register, in taking advantage of the natural antagonism of the materies morbi of phthisis and rheumatism. His mode of procedure is to transfuse blood of a rheumatic patient, drawn from near the joint or part affected, into the veins of the tuberculous patient. He reports seven cases so treated, with complete cure of phthisis in all of them.

May it not be one of the problems to be solved in the near future, how to so array the different disease germs against each other that their hosts may be thus destroyed and man escape unharmed? We have often heard it asserted, that if a tuberculous patient contract acute syphilis he will be lightly affected by both diseases, and his health will really improve. Our own observation has not been such as to confirm this theory. What have our readers observed in regard to the subject?

"It."

Prof. Carl Seiler, of this city, already wellknown to our readers, has distinguished himself by describing a new disease, which, for want of a more descriptive name, he calls " It." It attacks actors, preachers, public speakers, public singers, etc. The symptoms are many and variable, combining those of dyspepsia, nervous prostration, with swelling of glands

and mucous membranes, most often those of the throat and nose.

The remedy is-benzoate of sodium.

The License to Practice.

We are pleased to see that Prof. Wm. Osler, in a paper read before the Medico-Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, advocated the identical plan first put forth by us in brief editorials in May and August, 1888, that the student be examined by a general examining board in the strictly scientific branches, but that he be left to judges of his own school in the subject of contention therapeutics.

Our welcome friend, Dr. Wm. H. Olsten, of Ephraim, Utah, so much endeared by his wise counsel to all of our members, begins with this number a series of articles on the "Physiology, Pathology and Diseases of the Climacteric Period in Women." This is a timely and extremely useful subject, so little touched upon in text-books, and is treated by Dr. Olsten in his usually masterly manner.

A Philosophy of Therapeutics. Much of what seems unscientific in the treatment of disease depends upon the physician's anxiety for the life of his patient. In fever, for instance, one may think the poison is the all-important obstacle, and devotes his energies to its speedy elimination; another may dread hyperpyrexia, and essays to avert it before it destroys life; another may watch the patient's strength, and do little more than build up and stimulate. In all the result may be good, and an advance may be thus indirectly made in scientific therapeutics; for experience itself is a scientific factor, on the ground that the same phenomena always occurring under similar conditions form a law. The treatment of ague by quinine affords an instance of true scientific therapy, the pyrexia subsiding, the spleen resuming its normal size, and the absent urea returning to the urine. We know little of the pathology of such affections as epilepsy, chorea, spinal irritation, spinal concussion, etc. ; yet, we frequently treat them with success, and such success is indirectly as scientific as it is directly emperical.

The Current Medical Thought

Change of Life.

It is a law of the female economy that for some thirty years of life, more or less, except when interrupted by pregnancy or its consequences, a certain quantity of blood shall be periodically discharged from the system. The arrest of this regularly-recurring phenomenon must of necessity induce constitutional disorder, whenever its proper time for discontinuance arrives; and many of the symptoms plainly indicate a disturbance of the even balance of the circulation. The liver has to do compensatory work, to aid in the depuration of the blood, which is now but imperfectly carried on; and it frequently relieves itself by various hemorrhages, these latter often becoming sources of further trouble and suffering, though they may give temporary relief to congested viscera. Flushes of transient heat and various hysterical phenomena also annoy the patient, Even chorea, essentially a disease of childhood, is liable to affect some women at the change of life. Other unpleasant signs include nervous and congestive headache; pressure and heat at the top of the head; general irritability; despondency; drowsiness and insomnia; palpitation and spasm of the heart; flatulence; constipation, and hot perspirations alternating with cold.

Some Causes of Urticaria.

The occurrence of urticaria or "nettle-rash" in adults is, as a rule, directly traceable to some of its well-known causes, as shell-fish, mush100ms, poisonous plants, the stings or bites of insects, jelly-fish; or the administration of certain drugs, as copaiba, choral, or valerian. It also happens as a complication of eczema and scabies. In children it is more frequent, and its cause is less easily demonstrated.

Ten grains of salicylate of soda administered every half hour are said to cure toothache.

Sir Morell Mackenzie lauds guaiacum in the treatment of simple tonsilitis or inflammation of

sician.

"And didst thou think, O death, to gain

A victory by having slain

One so young, so full of skill?

Ah, no! for he is living still.

He lives enshined in many a heart, Friends, brothers, debtors to his art. Present thus, though absent, he

In dying, death, will conquer thee."

mends gr. iij of the resin every two hours from the outset of the disease, best given in lozenge or tablet form. If the guaiacum occasions diarrhea, a little bismuth and opium or morphia may be given.

Acetic acid is one of the most certain, simple and harmless of antiseptics.

Boric Acid in Diarrhea,

Dr. S. S. Tomashevitch ("St. Louis Med. and Surg. Jour.") reports good results from enemata of a lukewarm two or four per cent. solution of boracic acid, and administered after Hager's method, the dose being from two to four tumblerfuls for adults, and from one half of one to children, once daily. Forty successive cases were treated after this plan, every one of them rapidly making a complete and rapid recovery. In single cases of two or three days' standing, the diarrhea had already ceased after a single enema. In recent cases with bloodstained stools, the latter became bloodless after one enema, but recovery ensued only after a couple of sittings. In neglected or protracted cases of one-half to two months' duration, cure followed after three to four enemata.

An Improved Method of Managing the Third Stage of Labor.

The "improved method" is based on a new view as to the separation of the placenta. The author holds that all separations of placenta or membranes follow one mechanism; that they separate when there is a disproportion at the plane of separation between their area and their site of attachment. This disproportion is only slight, as the trabeculæ are microscopic. The placenta, in short, separates in the third stage after the pains, and is expelled, when separated, by the pains. The important practical point which the writer urges is that manipulation cannot separate the placenta, but can only aid expulsion. He deprecates Crédé's method for separation of the placenta, denouncing it as the most dangerous plan possible. He merely keeps his hand on the uterus, employing manipulation of it if bleeding comes on, and limiting the Crédé method to helping the expulsion. His guide to the period of separation was the marked decrease in the size of the uterus. His reasons for the treatment are Ergotism and manipulation are used to insure good marked retraction and to empty the intervillous spaces well. The fetal circulation is aspirated thoroughly by alle ving the child to cry well, and by draining

These two measures give the necessary disproportion sooner, as the placenta cannot now follow up the increase in placental area during relaxation, and thus sooner the trabeculæ are torn apart.-Edin. Med. Jour., Oct., 1888.

Healthy urine will form a temporary foam on the surface when shaken up, or poured from The foam a height, but it soon subsides.

that forms on urine containing sugar or albumen, similarly treated, remains for quite a long time.

Flattening of the Clavicular Region.

The flattening which is often observed under the clavicle in fibroid or other forms of phthisis, frequently fills up and becomes less noticeable as the case proceeds. This gives a false impression of improvement, and the disease may be steadily advancing nevertheless, and excavation may be in active progress. The amount of bronchial rale, the increased temperature, and the nature of the expectoration will tell a different tale.

Creosote in Phthisis.

A Berlin specialist-Dr. Sommerbrodt-has treated over five thousand tuberculous patients with creosote, to the exclusion of all other medicaments; he reports highly favorable results, especially in early phthisis, and in catarrh of the apex with induration. Expectoration was soon lessened, also the cough. Temperature was reduced, appetite improved, and weight increased. Night-sweats quite rapidly diminished. He gave five centigrammes of creosote, in capsules; one capsule the first day, two the second, three the third, for the first week; four a day the second week, five the third week, six the fourth week; then continued the six for many months. Professor Bouchard, of Paris, has reported similar success, and considers that creosote has an elective action on pulmonary lesions. Dr.Summerbrodt is convinced that it has a real specific ac