the patient is enabled to enjoy some- | the value of his extraordinary achievething of life in general and to recuper-ments, and the medical society could ate physically, and for these reasons she believes it is desirable to repeat it at intervals of two or three months, if thereby the results mentioned above can be obtained. Dr. Davenport states that she has found no benefit from repeating the treatment oftener than at periods of three months after the bromides have been taken. In every case the seizures became less frequent and the patient less irritable.-N. Y. Med. Record. Virchow on Pasteur. not find in this a reason for declining its old time honor. In order to understand his feelings, we had to remember that he laid the foundations of his knowledge at the New German University of Strassburg, that he there first distinguished himself, that he there first became acquainted with the partner of his life. For them, however, it was the man of science they had to deal with, and he hoped they would hold the name of Pasteur in the same high estimation as they did three years ago when they nominated him an honorary member of the society. The other deceased members whose names were brought to remembrance were HoppeSeyler, Von Bardeleben, and Dr. Curt Schimmelbrusehr.-Berlin Cor. Med. Press and Circular. Alcoholism in France. At the opening meeting of the Medical Society Prof. Virchow welcomed back the members after the summer vacation. Before entering on the work of the session he called to remembrance those distinguished members of the Society who had departed since their last meeting. The first named was Pasteur, who had been an honorary member of Dr. Barthés, in a report read before the society since 1892. He described the L'Association L'Association Francaise pour the distinguished achievements of Pas-l'Avancement des Sciences, at its late teur, who was a chemist and physician at the same time, and especially noted the general consideration he obtained when he proved the unreliability of the assumption of a generatio æquivoca. It was incorrect to say that he was the discover of the silkworm and anthrax bacillus; here Pasteur had only completed earlier investigations; neither was it he who discovered the bacillus of rabies. In the latter case he did not immediately employ himself with the bacilli. He did a distinguished service, however, when enlarging our experiences in regard to Jenner's vaccination he founded the doctrine of immunity. His name became most popular, however, by his attempts to combat rabies by a procedure that lay outside all hitherto known customs, and even scientific experiments, that of using the spinal cord of an animal affected with rabies, for the cure of rabies, and thereby laying the foundation for a new line of therapeutics. Only a chemist could have discovered that, and he had the advantage of being a chemist. Although Pasteur was no friend to the German Empire, that could not lessen meeting in Bordeaux, gives some very discouraging statistics concerning the ravages made by alcohol in France. In some communes, the mortality among the infants of alcoholic drinkers has reached as high a percentage as 62 per cent. of those under the age of two months. According to the doctor, the great abuse or consumption of alcohol began in 1855, when there was an almost total failure of the wine production. From the statistics of two hundred towns, there is noted a great and steady increase of infant mortality, as well as a notable increase in the number of still-born, which have been traced as being directly due to the abuse of alcohol. The effects of this increased use of alcohol upon the physique has also greatly increased the number of exempt from army service. The drain upon the finances of many departments is on a yearly increase, due to the increasing number of the alco holic insane which fall to the public charge. Dr. Barthés considers the use of wine as an antidote or preventive to that of alcohol, basing his opinion upon ten years' observation in the Eastern Pyrenées, where wine is exclusively in | use and where he never encountered a single case of alcoholism.-Pacific Med. Journal. Abscess of the Lung in Influenza. Moist usual bacteriological precautions, and both morphologically and by cultivation the presence of the influenza bacillus in pure culture was established. The diagnosis was further confirmed by a bacteriological examination in Pfeiffer's laboratory. Strepto- and staphylococci were quite absent. After the clinical evidence of the abscess had disappeared, Pfeiffer's bacillus also disappeared from the sputum. Pfeiffer's bacillus is the recognized cause of influenza and influenzal pneumonia. The absence of the usual pyogenic microbes, as well as of Fraenkel's diplococcus, and the presence of the influenza bacillus, as proved morphologically and by culture, show that this bacillus must be looked upon as the cause of pulmonary abscess.British Med. Journal. Anal Fissure or Ulcer. Cripps (British Med. Journal, July 20, 1895) advises asking the following questions in investigating affections of the rectum: 1. How frequently do you go to the closet? 2. Do you pass any discharge from the bowel, and what does it look like? 3. Do you have any pain, and does Th. Hitzig, of Eichhorst's Clinic (Münch. med. Woch., August 27, 1895), observes that occasionally abscess of the lung has been known to complicate influenza, and he refers to recorded cases. He relates a case in which influenza bacilli were found in pure culture in the pus spat up from such an abscess. The bacteriology of pulmonary abscess has been but little investigated. A woman, aged fifty-five, had suffered from two previous attacks of influenza, and after the second she had a right pleurisy and acute laryngitis. The present attack began with pain in the limbs, weakness, fever, and cough. Three months later she became worse, with pain in the right chest, increased cough, and mucopurulent expectoration. On admission there was great prostration, rapid breathing, and a pulse of 150. There was cough with yellowish brown, more or less tenacious, but not rusty sputum. There was impaired percussion behind from the fifth rib downwards. sounds were present. The dulness be- it come on immediately after passing a came more marked and the vocal fremi-motion? tus less distinct. Later a tympanitic note could be made out with amphoric and occasionally metallic breathing. Elastic fibres in alveolar arrangement were found by Eichhorst in the sputum. The latter, amounting to 100-200 c.cm. in the day, was never offensive and never contained tubercle bacilli. The sputum steadily became less as well as the cough, and the tympanitic resonance with the metallic phenomena disap peared. No more elastic fibrils were found in the sputum, and the patient was ultimately discharged perfectly well, having gained ten kilo. in weight. The clinical diagnosis of abscess in the right lower lobe could not be doubted, and the preceding pneumonia had all the characteristics of influenzal pneu monia. A bacteriological examination was made after the first symptoms of abscess and frequently repeated. The sputum was obtained with all the 4. Does any part of the body come down at stool? 5. Do you pass any blood? 6. Is the pan ever sprinkled or splashed with blood as if it had come out in a fine jet? If patients have frequent calls to the closet extending over months, one will almost certainly find either ulceration, cancer or stricture. If constipation is present, or if there is only one stool a day, none of these are likely to be present. If discharge comes from inside the bowel, and it is clear, it may be mucus from internal prolapse or piles. If the quantity is considerable, a villous growth or polypus may be suspected. If purulent or coffee-ground in appearance, there may be internal ulceration, fibrous stricture or cancer. Discharges originating externally and staining the linen generally come from a fistula. Bleeding is common in almost all forms of rectal disorder, but if the pan is sprinkled with blood internal piles are almost certainly present. Any disease situated above an inch from the anus may be free from pain. Treatment. The bowels should be kept open with a teaspoonful of confection of senna, fifteen to thirty drops of fluid extract of cascara, or rhubarb, or colocynth pills. A soothing oint ment of six grains of morphine to the ounce of unguentum petrolii may be applied five minutes previous to stool, and an astringent ointment, as subsulphate of iron, ten grains to the ounce of ointment, or tannic acid, twenty grains to the ounce, after the stool. Another good ointment is ten grains of camphor or fifteen drops of carbolic acid to the ounce. To prepare for operation give two pills of pil. colocynth. com. gr. iv, pil. rhei com. gr. vi, divided into two pills, taken at bedtime two days preceding the operation. An hour before the operation give enema. Sinuses are to be laid open and the ulcer cut longitudinally. The incision should be a third of an inch deep. A strip of gauze smeared with eucalyptus ointment is put in the cut and castor oil given to move the bowels on the fifth day. When the patient gets up he may walk, but should sit as little as possible. - University Med. Magazine. Mental Symptoms in Relation to Exophthalmic Goitre. Maude (British Med. Journal, September 28, 1895) contends that in exophthalmic goitre there is a very definite form of mental change, only lacking in one of his twenty cases, characterized by extreme motor restlessness, extreme insomnia, and occasional sensorial illusions of sight and hearing, but it is doubtful whether some cases of auditory illusions are not dependent upon Eustachian tube catarrh, found common in Grave's disease. He found the more particularly psychical changes were irritability of temper, incapacity for mental application, loss of memory, and untruthfulness, and Sir J. Russell Reynolds has described a condition quite common as "chorea of idea." Another common condition is a morbid sense of duty akin to religious melancholia, but not accompanied by definite melancholia. If definite alienation, which occurred in only one case of the author's twenty, does take place, the commonest form is melancholia; delusions of persecution are also frequently seen. Mania occurring in the course of exophthalmic goitre is of bad augury.-University Med. Magazine. The Comparative Study of the Strength of Muscles in Women and Men. The comparative study of the muscular power in men and women is without doubt an interesting one, and Dr. J. H. Kellogg, in a paper published in the September number of Modern Medicine, draws attention to some most instructive details in connection therewith. He especially points out that the relative strength of the muscles of the thighs and legs in women is greater than that in men. The greater strength of the thigh flexors is, perhaps, due to the fact that the bones of the legs are, in women, shorter than in men, thus enabling the muscles to act at a better leverage. The same reason will hold good for the thigh abductors and adductors, which, it is of interest to note, are relatively the strongest muscles possessed by the average woman. These observations are entirely in harmony with the noteworthy fact pointed out by Quetlet and Sargent, that the thigh is not only proportionally, but actually, larger in women than in men. The thigh is found to be relatively larger even in girls of twelve, and in girls of fifteen it is two inches larger than in boys of the same age. size of the thigh is, in fact, one of the first of all the sexual characteristics of a physical nature which appears as the girl approaches puberty. Hitherto there has been no means of knowing whether the larger thighs of women were the result of a greater proportionate development of the muscles, or simply a greater accumulation of adipose tissue. It is probable that both peculiarities in structure are present, but the dynamometer has clearly shown that the thighs in women are not only larger, but pro Increase in the tionally stronger, as compared with | fluous and useless drug. Dr. Frank other muscles, than in men. There are Tally thought that much valuable time many other facts which Dr. Kellogg's was often lost in treating pelvic disinteresting researches into this subject ease by ichthyol, that no reliance could bring to light.-Med. Press and Cir- be placed on it and that it is a much cular. overrated drug.-American Gynecological and Obstetrical Journal. Why Does the Fetus Present by No Germs in the Cervix. the Cephalic Extremity? Dr. Anstruther Davidson (Glasgow The question as to the presence of Med. Journal, June, 1895) considers microbes in different parts of the female this question and attempts its answer. genital canal, has been given much disHe thinks that Simpson's theory is cussion of late. The latest investigapretty doubtful yet, and believes that tions published are those of Stroganoff, the ovoid shape of the uterus has little of St. Petersburg (Centralblatt f. effect upon the presentation of the fetus; Gynäkologie, September 21, 1895). indeed, that the uterus is compelled by After reviewing the work of other inthe position of the fetus to assume that vestigators and describing his own shape. Both the theories of "gravita- methods of experimenting, he reaches tion" and "adaptive action" are in- the following conclusions: (1) The adequate. Dr. Davidson bases his idea cervical canal of women, whether upon the observations of the larvæ of pregnant or not, is, as a rule, sterile. hymenoptera. These larvæ always turn (2) The external os is the boundary their heads to the natural outlet. In line between the territory invaded by the human subject the mothers whose germs and that free from invasion. (3) fetuses presented otherwise than by the The cervical mucus destroys microhead would, in the savage state, organisms.-Occidental Med. Times. gradually die out. "The cephalic presentation, whether at first an accident or an inheritance from the lower forms of life, as seems the more probable, is in- The most modern treatment of genstinctive in the fetus now." The author eral septicemia is that of hypodermic therefore thinks that the cephalic pre-injections of creasote, recommended by sentation has become the normal one for the higher mammalia by a process of natural selection. University Med. Magazine. The Value of Ichthyol in Gyne cology. Elizabeth M. Clark, in a paper read before the Philadelphia Obstetrical Society, condemns the use of ichthyol in gynecology, after an experience of eighteen months in testing it. She says that in a careful study of fifty cases, with different varieties of pelvic disease, there was not a single case in which she could be absolutely sure that the use of ichthyol alone was productive of marked benefit. In the discussion on Dr. Clark's paper, Dr. J. M. Baldy said the statement made accorded with his own experience in the use of ichthyol-that no matter how applied or administered in gynecological practice, it is a super A New Treatment of Puerperal Sepsis. Frank, of Cologne, Germany,. This method has been employed by Mehr. tens, of Dusseldorf, in a case of puerperal sepsis, with remarkable results, the temperature falling from 104° F. to normal, after the injection of creasote. A rise on the next day to 104° was again brought down by the injection, and subsequent injections, three times a day, prevented its recurrence. Mehrtens used a solution of equal parts of creasote and camphorated oil, of which he injected 20 minims three times a day. None but good effects were observed.— Charlotte Med. Journal. The Spinal Cord. Irritation of the spinal cord increases secretion. Congestion of the lumbar plexus or of the cord will cause diabetes; a little lower down, diarrhea. Congestion of the cervical plexus causes vomiting and palpitation.—Med. Age. |