strong tea, and this drank often and freely, rather than with any alcoholic compound, as alcohol is not admissible in any bowel trouble when there is ulceration. I think, if dispensed by our pharmacists, better ground dry and in packages as the Quaker herbs, and used as needed. Hoping my further promulgation of this simple drug may be the means of much good to all afflicted thus, as I feel it has already been to many, myself as well, I take pleasure in further arguing this matter. I am yours truly, R. T. KNOX, M. D. Society Notes. Richmond, Va., Academy of Medicine Meeting, April 23, 1895. The president, Wm. S. Gordon, in the chair. Dr. J. Allison Hodges, leader on the subject selected for the evening's discussion, read a paper on Some of the Diagnostic Nervous Manifestations of Syphilis. The nervous symptoms are more manifest in proportion to the absence of cutaneous symptoms. All the nervous symptoms are not always dependent on syphilis; a number of nervous diseases have their origin in this malady. In diagnosing the'disease, the medication method is unreliable, some other affections being improved by it. The nervous symptoms may be developed in each stage of the disease, but it is in the tertiary stage principally that the gravest lesions of the nervous system appear, and, since it is especially in those cases where the ordinary secondary manifestations were wanting that we are to expect these complications, it is important for the physician, in making such a diagnosis, to be prepared to recognize the first danger signals that may be manifested. The primary stage has no prominent nervous symptoms, those present being referable rather to the concomitant anæmia than to the action of the specific poison. The secondary stage presents more marked evidences of implication of the nervous system-various neuralgias, dyspepsia of nervous origin, cardiac palpitations and meningitis, cerebral or spinal, being characteristically present. The tertiary stage gives evidence of numberless shades and varieties of nervous affections, and in this period of the disease, the nervous symptoms manifested are due solely to the influence of the specific virus circulating in the blood and irritating the delicate nervous structures. The symptoms produced may be those due to an inflammation or degeneration of the nerve centres themselves, or to the effects produced by pressure upon the nerve centres or trunks by product of this same form of inflammation located in contiguous structures the symptoms all showing lesions either of the intracranial organs or of the spinal cord, less frequently of the spinal nerves. The diagnostic symptoms detailed, are also diagnostic of other diseases. It is by association that we determine the disease, as locality, etc. There are periodic occipital headaches in nearly every case, absent in the forenoon, returning most frequently at night and becoming worse. I have never found any tenderness on pressure. The diagnostic nervous manifestations of syphilis are: 1. Headache, which disappears if paralysis occur. 2. Insomnia, nearly always associated with headache, and disappearing with the appearance of convulsions or paralysis. It differs from the insomnia of neuræsthenia and melancholia in that it occurs in the early night, the victim arising in the morning ready for his daily labor. 3. Vertigo, occurring usually with the headache. It may be transient, but becomes worse as the disease progresses. 4. Convulsions. In the adult they are not preceded by convulsions in youth. 5. Tremor, present in one-half of cases. It occurs most often, in the order named, in the hands, tongue and over the whole body, and is accompanied by headache. If it occur in a limb, it is the precursor of paralysis of the limb. 6. Hemiplegia. 7. Erratic distribution of paralysis, as aphasia with or without hemiplegia; ptosis; insanity or epilepsy with paralysis of one arm or leg. It is suggested that ptosis occurring suddenly points nearly always to syphilis. 8. The use of electricity to determine central or peripheral lesion. 9. The presence of great physical weakness and mental dullness. This is one of the most valuable of the nervous manifestations, being out of proportion to the seeming condition of the patient. 10. History of the case. In women the history of many abortions in suuccession would point to syphilis. In the treatment of syphilis, the iodide should be given in sufficiently potential doses in Carlsbad or other waters. The cases I report show how easy it is to overlook the disease in the tertiary stage, when the first and second were not noticeable. In conclusion let me say we could often abort syphilis by studying the nervous system and giving treatment in time. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. F. E. DANIEL, M. D., Editor. S. E. HUDSON, M. D., Managing Editor. EDITORIAL STAFF: PROF. J. E. THOMPSON, M. D., Texas Medical College, Galveston; Surgery. PROF. DAVID CERNA, M. D., Texas Medical College, Galveston; Therapeutics. DR. R. H. L. BIBB, Saltillo, Mexico; Foreign Correspondent. Official organ of the West Texas Medical Association, the Houston District Medical Association, the Austin District Medical Society, the Galveston County Medical Society, and several others THE JOURNAL-CLOSE OF VOLUME X. In rounding up at the close of the tenth year, and taking stock in a general way, the JOURNAL has much to congratulate itself on, and little to regret. That the JOURNAL has prospered, is evident; it has fattened up, and looks sleek; that's the way with individuals. Its business end has been held up, and it pays (incidentally that's what most journals are conducted for). In the main, its object has been accomplished. It has done much towards the organization of the profession, and in inciting to a higher plane of professional life; the line has been sharply drawn between the regular and the irregular, and the quack has been made to know his place. There is yet much to be done, and encouraged by the generous support, moral and financial, that the JOURNAL has received from the better element of the profession, it addresses itself anew to the task. We must have a better medical law and a higher standard of medical education, and better organization of the State Association. In one sense the JOURNAL is a departure from the beaten track. It is not merely a medical journal, filled with dry details of medicine; but it is a PHYSICIANS' MAGAZINE; it is to the doctor what the daily paper is to the business man. It gives the news of interest to doctors; and discusses such topics as doctors like to talk about. Its contents are varied; and really, a fair estimate of its character and value can not well be made from reading one number. In the course of a year there is great variety. Many subjects germane to medicine, but still, not the dry details of practice, have been discussed, embracing such topics as physicians most like to discuss in their leisure hours. We call on old friends of the energetic and go ahead little "Red-back," to make its merits known to those of their doctor friends who are not subscribers; to canvas for us; spread its influence-help it to throw its benign light into new places. It is doing a missionary work; it is doing good,-shove it along! We can not close this brief blast of our bazoo without an acknowledgement and a bow to all those who have assisted us. We know our friends and love them, and we are always glad to hear from them (especially when there is a postal order in the letter). The Texas star is in the ascendant; the decks have been cleared for action, and we will now go in to win, on the ELEV ENTH ROUND. No journal in the United States is more quoted from, or oftener referred to by its contemporaries than the Texas Red-back; no journal exerts a better or a wider influence; no doctor should be without it. The traveling men-drummers for drug houses-tell us they see it everywhere they go, and it is like meeting an old acquaintance. Now is the time to subscribe; you can pay in the fall-when you sell your potatoes. DO THE PEOPLE NEED PROTECTION FROM QUACKS? In an editorial on the subject of the Legislature and the Doctors, in our March issue, we stated, among other things, that it should be explained to the members of the legislature that the reason why the physicians of Texas are asking for the passage of a law that will protect the people from the dangers of the ignorant practitioners of medicine, and from frauds who pretend to heal without medicine is, that the people themselves are really not aware of the danger; they have not the slightest conception of it; they do not know that they are being deceived; that they are in the hands of a quack-in one case, and a fraud in anotherfor these worthies are shrewd enough to make the majority of their dupes believe that all others are quacks. The medical practitioners on the other hand, have a very extensive knowledge of these practices, and the evils resulting from them. They know, better than any other class, the extent and nature of the danger incurred by a family who trust an uneducated man, in ignorance of his deficiency, and it is a feeling of humanity which prompts them to ask the strong arm of the law to interpose for their protection. The credulous, the confiding can never be made to see and understand this danger. A medical man can not go to a family who are employing a quack or a faith healer and point out the danger. The reason why, ought to readily suggest itself to even the most thoughtless. Nor is the danger confined to the ignorant. In every community there are families of prominence, socially, men of liberal education and good intelligence who are afflicted with a hankering after the pretenders, as we know them to be; struck with the Christian Science fad, or who have faith in the magnetic rubbers; and in some communities homeopathy is affected, as a kind of fashion. These deluded persons can all cite you to "cases which have been cured by these means after all the doctors had failed," and nothing can shake their faith; not even the loss of one of their own children. This latter assertion has been recently very forcibly illustrated by an occurrence at Dayton, Ohio. The child of "Colonel Meade" (Lancet-Clinic) whom we take, from the account given, to be a man of intelligence and, from his title, to be above the herd of no-bodies-in-particular, died of tubercular meningitis; died after suffering days and nights of great agony. The family placed the child in the hands of "the Hattons"-professional Christian Science healers-man and wife, and not a physician saw her, nor was a drug, or medicine, or a palliative of any kind administered. Prayer, constant and solely, was the dependence. The death of the child was a crime of omission, and the parents and the healers are the criminals. At the autopsy the child's father testified his faith in the treatment. He said: "Hatton is not a physician, but is a Christian Scientist. He does not heal and cure by any method. I sent for him as a Christian Science healer, and because I knew that through his ministrations others had been healed. He gave my daughter what is known as the treatment, using his knowledge of God's law to bring the child in subjection of those laws. Christian Science treatment is reduced to prayer and prayer only. I did not send for a physician because I'd just as soon think of giving my little child poison as the morphine that would have been pre |