NASHVILLE, TENN.

REGENT,

PRINCIPALS,

Rev. R. A. Young, D. D. Miss Hood, Miss Heron.

THE IDEAL COLLEGE HOME OF THE SOUTH.

Exceptionally superior advantages, influences, and environments. Situated on a beautiful height overlooking the city. Steam heat; hot and cold water on every floor; handsome Recreation Hall; large Verandas; magnificent Park, with Conservatories, Pavilions, Statuary, Walks and Drives; Laboratory; Bowling Alley, and Gymnasium.

Electric Cars to College Entrance.

English education thorough, solid, and practical. Every school in charge of a skilled Specialist. French and German in charge of Native Teachers. Music according to principles of famed European Conservatories. Art on plan of best Schools of Design.

SEE BELMONT, OR SEND TO

MISS HERON

FOR ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE.

BEECHCROFT.

A BOARDING AND DAY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. SPRING HILL, TENNESSEE.

MRS. C. W. SPRUILL, PRINCIPAL.

The thirteenth scholastic year begins Thursday, September 6th, 1894. The Corps of teachers for the next year is excellent, the teacher of each department is selected with reference to her personal influence as a lady as well as her capabilities as a teacher.

The work of the school throughout the curriculum is marked with thoroughness. Excellent advantages are offered in both Instrumental and Vocal Music. The French of the school has the sanction of a certificate of Dr. Sauceur, himself, the head of the "Natural Method" in this country. Each pupil receives individual care and attention.

The healthfulness of its surroundings should commend the school to all parts of the South.

The terms are very moderate for the advantages offered.

For Catalogue, address,

MRS. C. W. SPRUILL,

SPRING HILL, TENNESSEE.

Large Grounds (16 acres.) Fully equipped with all modern aids for imparting instruction, including Physical and Chemical apparatus, extensive Museum in Natural History, a large and well arranged Library. All kinds of Musical Instruments. Well arranged Studio, and models. The Boarding Department is a home in every sense of the word, with modern conveniences, and a bountifully supplied table.

Instruction given in all departments including Preparatory, Collegiate, Scientific and Classical; Art and Music in all of the various branches; Elocution, Phonography, Commercial, etc. For illustrated pamphlet giving full description and terms, address,

ROBT. D. SMITH, A. M., President. Columbia, Tenn.

ST. EDWARD'S COLLEGE, AUSTIN, TEXAS.

A Boarding School for Boys and Young Men.

In charge of the Fathers of the Holy Cross Unsurpassed in beauty and healthfulness of location. Classical, Scientific, Commercial Courses. Modern Languages, Music Shorthand, Typewriting. For catalogue and particulars apply to

REV. P. J. HURTH, C. S. C., President, Austin, Texas.

Professor of Pathology and Lecturer on Mental and Nervous Diseases in the Medical Department of the University of Texas, Galveston.

[Read before the Galveston County Medical Society, January 28, 1894, and published by order of the Society.]

HE almost uniform failure by the profession to cure cases of

THE

pulmonary consumption has become nearly proverbial, the stigma of incapacity being accepted with scarcely an attempt to excuse or explain, in no matter what stage the disease may present itself; and the recognition by the physician of positive signs of the affection has almost come to be tantamount to his mental signature of the patient's death-certificate. Not that there have been no efforts, individual and concerted, toward the establishment of a rational meaus of cure of the malady,-there have been numerous endeavors, first and last; but almost without exception, they have proved either absolute failures, or have presented such a modicum of success that they have been regarded as practically worthless. Within the past ten or fourteen years, dating from the time of Koch's demonstration of the microorganismal cause of the disease, the utmost therapeutical activity has been manifested, such earnestness in the pursuit of a remedial measure suitable for the destruction of the tubercle bacilli having perhaps never before been witnessed in the study of the

management of disease; yet of all the microbicidal agents and measures proposed, not one has withstood, save in isolated instances of use, the test of a few months or a few years practical employment by the profession at large. The truth of such a confession is all the more forcibly borne upon one if he has had any close relations with any of the various projects for the alleviation and cure of pulmonary cases-the compressed air method, the rarified air method, Bergeon's rectal injections of sulphurretted gas, or the various biological methods, as that of Koch in Germany, or Dixon in this country.

Very recently (New York Medical Record, December 18, 1893) there has been published an article from the pen of Dr. Hershey, of Denver, the object of which is to call the attention of the profession to this phase of the present status of our dealing with consumption; the author strongly, and very truthfully, if the writer's experience may be offered as corroborative, insisting upon the practical absence of value in any of the measures having the direct purpose of destroying the tubercle bacilli, and even the occasional detrimental influence of such measures.

It may seem gratuitous, yet at that very risk, after such an introduction, the writer must nevertheless indicate his adherence to the belief and hope for the eventual discovery of just such a bacterial destructive agent through which once and for all the cause may be eliminated from the system, and the disease cured. It is even within the scope of this paper to state his belief in the eventual success of efforts directed along the lines suggested by Koch in Europe and Dixon in America, in the discovery of an agent derived from the bacteria themselves, or procured through their direct agency, from some organic source, which will have the power of destroying the bacteria of consumption without seriously modifying the structures within which they may be existing, or the power of inducing an eliminative force in the economy which may in some way separate the diseased structures permanently from the healthy.

For the present, however, the writer is strongly disposed to agree with Dr. Hershey in his assertions that the prevailing modern therapeusis of phthisis pulmonalis is, as a rule, only a menace to continuance of life and a detriment to the fulfillment of cure. There is far too much disposition to rely on the hoped for and often asserted specific germicidal activity of this or that remedial agent, and too little regard for the ordinary environments of life in their relation to the preservation as well as to

the return of health-even more, too little regard for the possible untoward results of the bacteria-destroying agent, lest it also be tissue and function destroying. Within the past few years the indubitable danger of interfering with, if not of destroying the gastric function by such agents as creasote, eucalyptol, oil of cloves, turpentine, alcohol, and a host of similar agencies, has been forced upon the writer's recognition by case after case. It is quite possible that these remedies may, in the bacteriologist's tube, if used in excess, destroy the vitality, or perhaps the specific possibilities of the tubercle bacilli, but in the ordinary case of consumption they have seemed in many instances to the writer to exert as strong a lethal power on the patient's body as upon the bacteria. Their curative power is, it is true, demonstrated in isolated cases where the incipiency of the disease and their proper administration, together with due consideration for hygienic influences, have concurred in offering the most favorable conditions for cure, yet these comparatively few instances of success only serve to more powerfully emphasize their usual failThe one almost universal fault in the use of these remedies is the failure to properly appreciate their irritative influence on the alimentary tissues, and their ability, in large doses, to subvert the alimentary function. A digestion already impaired by the inefficiency of the digestive juices caused by the hæmic alterations of the pretubercular anæmia, cannot by any possible process of reasoning be expected to recover its integrity by the production of a gastritis, often of decided severity, by the administration, up to and beyond the point of tolerance by the patient's body, of badly diluted irritants, such as oil of cloves or creasote; it must, on the contrary, suffer the more, and the economy, whose condition is dependent as much on the preservation of the nutritive functions as upon its freedom from parasitic irritation, must eventually severely decline.

ure.

Realizing these dangers and the almost sure defeat of purpose by adhering to the pharmaceutical means in vogue at present among the greater part of the profession, and keeping well in mind the fact that the principles of hygiene are not altered in disease from those in health, although there may be slight modifications in its practice, the writer has endeavored, in four cases falling to his care within the past year, to lay aside existing methods and to return to a careful observance of the rules of procedure so often suggested by the older practitioners. Dr. Hershey quotes Professor Alonzo Clark to the effect that by ob