against him as the stout champion of Error? What wonder is it that physicians as a class are accused of materialism and irreligion? What wonder is it that the tendency of the age is to consider faith as but another name for credulity and superstition? What wonder is it, that the Church, like the ass of Issachar, grows faint beneath her burdens? Pittsburg Medical Review.

PROGRESS IN MORALS.-It is a question of much interest and importance whether the great material progress of the present century has been accompanied by any corresponding moral advance. That we have made immense strides in wealth and luxury, in scientific and industrial development, in all the arts and inventions that contribute to ease and comfort, is a commonplace and unquestionable statement. It is more open to debate whether the tone of public morality has risen, and whether vice and crime have undergone any notable diminution. There are not wanting those who regard the growth of great cities—that striking and essential feature of modern civilization as conducive to moral degeneracy, and preach a reversion to simple modes of life as a necessary condition of the preservation of a high tone of national character. Much of the argument on this subject is conducted by those who prefer vague declamation to scientific induction, and hence the question has been obscured by rhetorical exaggeration, and often argued with a notable disregard of fact. Let us briefly consider the subject, and, shunning hypotheses, however attractive, look strictly to evidence that is incontrovertible.

In proof that the material progress of the country has had a correlative moral advance, we can point to a diminished and steadily declining consumption of intoxicants, and to a notable improvement in the views generally held upon the liquor question. In the last century drunkenness was not regarded as a degrading vice, and hardly constituted a detraction from the character of the fine gentleman. Now the drunkard is held to be scarcely fit for decent society, and even the tippler is rightly viewed as one to be sedulously shunned. Not less encouraging is the altered tone of public opinion regarding such cruel and demoralizing pastimes as pugilism and cock-fighting. These are still, no doubt, practised, but scarcely a voice is now raised in their defense.

A welcome addition to the statistics of public morals is afforded by Sir Emund Du Cane in an article upon Crime and Criminals published some time ago in Murray's Magazine. Taking the year of the Queen's accession and that of her Jubilee as a basis for comparison, he is able to

point to a highly satisfactory, and, indeed, surprising, diminution in crime. In spite of the fact that the population has almost doubled during this period, we find that the convicts of all classes in the year 1887 were only about one-fifth of their number in 1837. If we compare the sentences to transportation in 1837 with these to penal servitude in 1887, the contrast is only a little less encouraging, the figures being for the former year 3,785, and for the latter 910. The number of executions in 1837 (including those carried out in the colonies) Sir E. Du Cane puts at 46, while for the five years ending 1886 the average was only 14. In addition to these statistical facts, he points out that highway robbery, once very common, is now practically unknown, and that smuggling, from being one of the most frequent, has become one of the rarest of offenses. Surely the most confirmed pessimist or the most persistent laudator temporis acti can hardly study such facts and continue to deny to this age the credit of growth in morals,

While facts such as the above are beyond dispute, their explanation is more open to casuistry. Sir Edmund assigns the chief credit to the efforts made by benevolent societies to aid discharged prisoners in obtaining honest work, to the beneficial influence of reformatories and industrial schools, and to the gradual spread of education. We have no doubt all these causes, and others, have been in operation. In spite of occasional discouraging signs, we believe that this age has been one of great moral and religious progress all along the line, and that a great advance is constantly being made towards those

Sweeter manners, purer laws,

of which the Laureate sings. How far the work of the churches and of benevolent societies has co-operated with wise legislation and private philanthropic efforts is not our province to seek to determine, but the general conclusion remains certain.

As regards the most efficient means of dealing with crime per se, two points require to be kept in view, namely, that the natural tendency of blind social forces, unless wisely counteracted, is to keep criminal the man who has once fallen into crime, and to cause the offspring of criminals themselves to drift into a criminal life. Of the two problems, the preservation of the young from their threatened evil destiny is undoubtedly much the easier of solution. Hence, the great importance of reformatories and industrial schools, which tend to divert the current of crime at its very source. Heredity is, doubtless, strong, and the children of thieves and vagabonds come into the world heavily handicapped; but there is no

reason to doubt that due restraint timely employed, proper education, and the opening up of honorable careers, have been, and are, most efficient means for cutting off the supplies from the criminal market.

The reform of the hardened criminal is a more difficult matter, but without going into other matters, it is certainly essential that we should not regard the man who has once fallen into crime as hopelessly depraved, and that we should afford him the chance of reformation. Such is the aim of the various charitable organizations, which recognize that society has not done its duty to the criminal when it has merely punished him, however deservedly, and that after punishment comes the not less imperative duty of opening up the way to a return to honesty and purity of life. -British Medical Journal.

THE DOMESTIC USE OF SACCHARINE.-A correspondent writing in the Scientific American, relates his experience in using saccharine as follows:

Sugar being a prohibited article to me, I naturally became interested in Fahlberg's "saccharine," and obtaining a supply as soon as possible, began experimenting with it. Using it alone to sweeten lemon juice or stewed cranberries, I found it very difficult to mix, and tried various dodges to remedy it, all of which had some drawback or other until I thought of dissolving it in glycerine.

I found that for general purposes the formula of glycerine one pound, saccharine one drachm, heated to solution, was the best. Two teaspoonfuls of the above to the juice of one lemon made up to eight fluidounces make a lemonade sweet enough for almost any one, and three teaspoonfuls to four ounces of stewed cranberries make a dish "fit for a king."

I gave a sample of the above to a gentleman to whom sugar was tabooed, and who was then using saccharine alone, and asked him to try it with cranberries and report. When next seen he said very enthusiastically, "That's splendid. I've bought a barrel of cranberries, and would back to sugar if I could."

not go

The advantages of the mixture over pure saccharine are: That the glycerine gives it a body, and the mixture very closely resembles in taste and appearance the best white honey; that it dissolves readily in water, milk, tea and coffee, wines and liquors, and that it can be very readily measured.

THE PROPRIETARY MEDICINE PROBLEM.--Can a physician use in his daily practice a "proprietary" medicine, without lowering the dignity of his profession?

The gist of the whole matter depends upon what is meant by the

470

term "proprietary medicine." In its limited and best sense we understand by the term a remedy of which the ingredients and their proportions are made known to the profession, and the trade or proprietary name of which is alone protected by law. When such preparations are made exclusively for the use of the medical profession, and are adver. tised exclusively in medical journals, we cannot see any possible lowering of professional dignity on the part of the physician who uses them or recommends them.

The name, in this class of proprietary medicines, is to be regarded simply as the guinea's stamp-a guarantee of the purity and genuineness of the product, and the registration of it-patenting it, if you please, is as much for the protection of the physicians who use it as for the parties who manufacture the remedy. It in no sense makes the drug a “* patent medicine any more than does the writing of "Merck" after an aka loid, or Squibb" after chloroform, transfer these chemicals into that category. These men-Merck, Squibb, and a few others, have devoted their lives and spent enormous sums of money in making their produs the purest and best that can be attained by human honesty and ingenuity; and as a reward their names attached in copyrighted late t their chemicals stand as a perpetual guarantee to the physician and patient against the fraud and greed of less honest manufactures måt would be a great injustice to them as well as to the profession and pic to deprive them of this guarantee.

The question may be, and frequently is asked by the puris vİŞ should a physician resort to these ready-made prescriptions at al does he not draw upon his own knowledge of applied therape write out his own formula in every case?"

Why, indeed? Simply because he knows that these artic made in vast quantities by improved apparatus and appliances lated by highly trained and educated employes, and directed chemists, can be made better, more accurately and far cheaper could be compounded by the most skillful prescriptionist. for the same reason that he buys a watch ready made from th of a buggy ready made from the carriage maker.

ོ་ཀེང་ཚོ

The most serious charge that is brought against the makers of the best known, most valuable and most frequently used p medicines is that the formula given by the manufacturers a true ones, of, as Dr. Craighill puts it, "a patented proprieta professes to publish its formulary but does not.” If this charge

82 artic Mances

heaper

it would indeed be a grave one and a just cause for the banishment of such medicines from the list of those which the physician may use. But when we examine into the matter, we find the sole ground for the charge to be that when the ingredients as named are put together by the physician himself, or by the prescriptionist, off hand, though it may be secundum artem, the result frequently differs very widely from the preparation which it is intended to imitate. This fact would go far to prove the charge did we not remember that in all chemical processes manipulation has a great deal to do with results, and that the element of time has a value that nothing else can supply. A mixture in which no amount of shaking will produce a solution off-hand, or no amount of filtration will clarify, will frequently become perfectly limpid when given the requisite length of time. We are informed by Mr. Lambert that Listerine requires eleven days in its preparation, and Messrs. Battle & Co. tell us that Bromidia, for instance, requires six days for the thorough combination of its ingredients. We have no doubt that many other such remedies require even more time for their perfection, and no amount of skill on the part of the pharmacist can possibly make up for this element in their preparation. These facts are fully recognized in France and Germany, and we find the highest class of the medical journals of these countries full of advertisements and notices of preparations exactly analogous to our proprietary remedies. From Editorial in St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal.

TOBACCO HEART.-Of the cases of heart disease recently treated in the writer's room, at the dispensary, nine were diagnosticated as functional disorders due to the excessive use of tobacco. All the nine cases occurred in young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-seven years.

The tobacco was used in all the cases in the form of chewing, the amount ranging from a half pound to one pound a week. The habit of chewing was begun early in life in all the cases; in one case at the age of five years; the oldest age noted at which chewing was begun was twelve years; the average was seven years.

The symptoms complained of were palpitation, pain and dyspnea. Palpitation was present in all the nine cases, and was greatest upon making any exertion. Irregular action of the heart at the time of the make examination was noted in only one case. Pain was complained of in sec P seven cases, and always had its seat immediately over the heart or under era the sternum. Dyspnea was complained of in only three cases, and was rietal not excessive. Hypertrophy of the heart, as evidenced by increased