THE City Board of Health is very rigid in its regulations, and during the past month a few physicians were arraigned before the Police Court for neglecting to give proper notification of cases of diphtheria which they were treating. THE celebrated gynecologist, Professor Schoeder, recently died in Berlin, aged fifty years. THE appropriation for the International Medical Congress has been reduced by Congress from $50,000, the sum asked for, to $10,000. It is provided that the amount appropriated is to be expended under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe, that no part of the appropriation shall go toward paying the personal expenses of any delegate, and that no money shall be expended except upon vouchers to be approved by the Secretary of the Interior. ABSORBENT WOOL.-Among the late surgical specialties which have been placed upon the market, is absorbent wool. It is a by-product in the manufacture of lanolin or wool-fat. As all the fatty matters are extracted from the wool we have remaining a substance which is quite markedly hygroscopic. It bids fair to become popular in surgical practice from the fact that it also possesses another advantage, not possessed by absorbent cotton, that it is highly elastic and will not pack. On this account it is much better adapted to apply over points where pressure is to be relieved. It also has the power of absorbing a greater quantity of liquid. DR. H. C. WOOD, of Philadelphia, has been tendered the chair of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. DIED.-Suddenly, at his home in Kansas City, January 11, 1887, A. G. Miner, M. D., Class of '81, C. M. C., age 30 years. DR. J. W. RUSSELL, of Mt. Vernon, one of the most widely known and ablest of Ohio surgeons, died March 22, aged 83 years. DR. J. B. POTTER, of Canal Winchester, Ohio, died March 27. Dr. Joseph HELMICK, of Harrisburg, O., died suddenly March 30. REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. Oxygen in Therapeutics. A treatise explaining the Apparatus, the Material and the Processes used in the Preparation of Oxygen and other Gases with which it may be Combined; also, its Administration and Effects. Illustrated by Clinical Experience of the Author and Others. By C. E. Ehinger, M. D. 12 mo., pp. 158. $1.00. Chicago, W. A. Chatterton & Co., 1887. This is the somewhat verbose title of the first work of any pretensions on the subject of therapeutic oxygen, which has yet been issued by an American publisher. The literature of the subject is very meager, American authorities thus far having confined themselves to a few paper reprints from the current medical journals. Dr. Ehinger disclaims any attempt at originality, but proceeds to give a very fair and creditable, though by no means complete, resume of what has been done and is being done in medicine with oxygen, nitrogen monoxide and various modifications of these gases. We have read the volume with considerable interest, since the subject has all along been associated with a good deal of popular quackery, which has doubtless prevented a majority of practitioners from attempting its use. The author does not assume to have had any experience with the remedy, hence the work is largely made up of quotations from text-books and fugitive writers in the medical press of Europe and America. Some scientific inaccuracies are noticeable. In giving directions for the preparation of nitrogen monoxide, the author says "ammonium nitrate fuses at about 226° F. and decomposes into nitrogen monoxide and water. at 329° F.," whereas the salt fuses only at the latter degree of heat, and decomposition occurs at 365° F. Some further assertions concerning the technique of treatment are quite as inaccurate as the above, but on the whole the work is practical and candid. To those who desire to know more of these interesting agents, it will serve as a suggestive guide and at the same time as an active stimulus to more thorough and methodic investigation. Diseases of the Blood and Nutrition, and Infectious Diseases; being Vol. IV. of "A Handbook of Practical Medicine," by Dr. Hermann This is the last volume of Dr. Eichhorst's excellent work on Practice. It consists of three sections; Diseases of the Blood and Blood Producing Organs; Diseases of Nutrition; and Infectious Diseases. Under the latter head he discusses Tuberculosis and Syphilis. Concerning the former he says: "Tuberculosis includes all the changes ascribable to the presence of the tubercle bacillus discovered by Koch." He thinks it a contagious disease. Although Syphilis is not usually treated of in works on practice, the author gives a very concise resume of that subject. A Text-Book on Surgery: General, Operative and Mechanical. By John A. Wyeth, M. D., Professor of Surgery in the New York Polyclinic; Surgeon to Mount Sinai Hospital, etc. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1887. Cloth $7, leather $8, half-morocco $8.50. This work consists of seven hundred and sixty-nine pages, and contains seven hundred and seventy-one illustrations, of which about fifty are colored. It is printed in clear type on a superior quality of paper, and the book though large is in a shape to be easily handled. The illustrations are prepared with especial reference to accurate anatomy. The relations of bones, muscles, nerves and vessels to adjacent structures are clearly shown, as well as the lines of incision in operations about the joints. The colored illustrations are introduced to depict the more important operations, especially with reference to the large arteries, and they constitute a novel and very important feature of the work: in each of them the vessels and nerves are displayed as in a dissection of the part to be operated on, while by a unique process of shading in the drawing the continuations of the vessels beyond the field of the operation are clearly and beautifully shown. The author believes in antiseptics, and as a preliminary to the consideration of the various operations he thoroughly discusses the methods of preparing the different antiseptic surgical dressings, ligatures, sutures, solutions and drains. Amputations, with full and minute details for performing them, and the different methods, constitute an important chapter in the book, all the principal operations being illustrated by engravings (colored) of frozen sections of the cadaver. Surgical diseases and surgery of the bones and articulations, regional surgery (including the eye and ear), laryngotomy, tracheotomy and esophagotomy, nephrotomy and nephrectomy, laryngeal intubation, the surgery of the thorax and abdomen, and operations on the rectum and anus are presented from the standpoint of advanced surgical knowledge. This work, written by an accomplished surgeon of wide experience and high attainments in surgical science, is not only beautiful and unique in design and execution, but is also one of the most complete which we have ever seen. LARYNGEAL STENOSIS-TRACHEOTOMY-SUDDEN RECOVERY OF THE VOICE. BY C. R. VANDERBURG, M. D., COLUMBUS, O. Read before the Central Ohio Medical Society, April 7, 1887. Mr. M., aged twenty-one, a painter, consulted me October 13, 1886. His parents had always been healthy. He himself had always been what would be termed an unhealthy child. The father expressed it rather tersely by saying that he "had spent enough money on his boy for doctor's fees to buy him a farm." He had had chorea. He has no brothers or sisters living; one brother died young, of diphtheria. An opacity of the cornea exists in the left eye. No specific history could be gained. When he came to me he had ulceration of the soft palate and roof of mouth. He had been treated by several physicians for perhaps a month previous, without, he claims, much benefit. Upon examination I found large ulcers of the palate, which had already eaten away the uvula and extended well into the soft palate. Ulceration of the tonsils was also in progress. In the roof of the mouth there was a large and angry point of ulceration, from which necrosed portions of bone afterward came away. A laryngoscopic examination, which was made with great difficulty owing to the irritable condition of the parts and nervous condition of the pa tone. tient, revealed nothing of importance, although the voice was husky in The lungs seemed normal; nasal catarrh was present in an aggravated form. The diagnosis made was that the trouble was of a specific nature, and he was placed at once on the mixed treatment, iodide of potassium internally, in doses of about twenty-five grains daily, and mercuric inunctions. The ulcers were cauterized with the solid nitrate of silver, two applications being given a week. In the course of a month the ulcers had entirely healed, and I lost sight of him; he stopped taking medicine and went to work at his trade. I saw no more of him until the 2d of January, when he came to me complaining of sore throat and pain in the right side of chest. Thinking it was probably the result of an ordinary cold I prescribed accordingly, with the result that the pain in the chest ceased, but that the throat trouble grew worse. Dyspnea set in, and the voice was greatly impaired. Endeavoring to get a laryngoscopic examination I again failed, owing to the thick tongue and nervous condition of the patient. I applied a swab with a solution of sulphate of copper to larynx. I saw no more of him for several days, but on the 9th of January saw him again with the throat trouble in a worse form than ever. He was suffering from pain in region of larynx. Thinking it was the old trouble farther down, although there was no sign of it in the old sites of ulceration, I again placed him on the mixed treatment, giving about twenty grains of the iodide of potash daily, with inunctions of mercury, and gave a gargle of hydrastis canadensis. Under this treatment, although he felt quite well otherwise, the throat trouble was gradually growing worse. An extensive expectoration had already set in of glassy mucus; at times it was thick and white, and streaked abundantly with blood; lungs seemed to be normal; cough, that of a laryngeal or pharyngeal trouble; was still unable to get an examinaation. The pharynx was healthy in appearance, and there was no return of the former ulcerations. Thinking that perhaps edema of the glottis might be the cause of the dyspnea, I felt for it with the index finger, but could detect nothing. I then had him perform deglutition, which took place without difficulty or any great amount of pain. The absence of edema of the glottis, the presence of pain which was seated in the region of larynx, difficulty in phonation, sputa streaked with blood, dyspnea, and the former condition of the patient, led me to the diagnosis of ulceration of the larynx attended with more or less edema. The spray of nitrate of silver, xx grains to the ounce, was used twice daily for a week |