what the doctor called an affection of the nerves in the ear, and suffered extremely for two or three days and nights, until venesection relieved at once. He never had any further trouble until a few years past, when this ringing commenced. He has no catarrhal affection, took but little quinine, used considerable alcoholic stimulants, sometimes to excess, reads a great deal at night, strong nervous temperament. If there is any other disease about him I can't find it, nor he doesn't know it, and to be honest, I don't know what this is, nor what caused it. Brethren, tell me what it is and what will cure it, for I am deeply interested in the case, as he is very fearful it will terminate in deafness. Speak out, doctor. Let me hear from any one who knows anything of such a case. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: - A number of years ago I was in attendance on a case very like the old harness buckle (Dr. Hunt, in February BRIEF, page 77), and as such cases seem to be rare, I will mention it. A sailor on board a fishing schooner, in a playful mood, placed upon his penis an iron ring such as sail-makers and riggers use to form a strong loop for a running rope, and also pushed one testicle through it. The ring was one and a quarter inches in diameter, five eights wide and one-eight in thickness and was almost buried out of sight by the swelling which it caused. The man, not being able to remove it, was obliged to inform the skipper who at once returned with him to port, and after wearing this ornament about forty-eight hours, by the exertions of doctor and blacksmith, and free use of ether, file, pencers, and sheet zinc, the poor mutilated member was relieved of its bracelet and restored to its legitimate usefulness, not much the worse for wear. ANDREW GEYER. Cambridge, Mass. [For the Brief.] Reproduction. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: - I would like to ask Dr.Clarke (February BRIEF, page 60) what the woman emits and where does it come from? My idea is explained in the December BRIEF, how the female furnishes the ovule, but I don't understand that word "emit." I believe it is several weeks before the vivified ovule enters the womb. The male frog embraces the female around the waist, and deposits the sperm upon the eggs after they have been laid. The little fish make their nests in the sand and deposit their eggs, and after the female leaves, the male goes there and spreads the semen upon them and they are fructified. D. B. GUNN, M. D. Brandon, Miss. [For the Brief.] Pronunciation of Cocaine. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: Dr. Briggs, of Robinson Springs, Ala., wishes to know the proper pronunciation of "cocaine." In answer to which I wish to say that it should be pronounced "ko-ka-in," the middle syllable having the sound of ca in America. P. J. HENDRICKSON, M. D. Trenton, Mo. [For the Brief.] Duty of the Physician-Gelsemium and Hydrastis Canadensis in Pulmonary Diseases. BY L. G. DOANE, M. D. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: -Is it the duty of a physician to tell all he knows about the patient, upon the witness stand? The laws of New York strictly prohibit any disclosures pertaining to sick-room confidences. They imply that the lawyer, physician, and priest act in a confidential capacity and that all communications made to them are confidential in nature. The law holds that each and every one should, at the bedside, and is in duty bound to prevent litigation and in order to do so, must observe silence if called upon to testify. Is Missouri as just to her many able conscientious physicians? If not, why has not the profession taken action to have a like statute passed? Many a happy household has been dismembered by the testimony given by the physician in court, in those States where they are not protected by law. The fluid extract of gelsemium is a drug which has been much neglected of late, owing to the improper manufacture, but there is no drug which affords more prompt relief and is more certain in its action than it; especially is it useful in lung disease, or in coughs and colds accompanied with fever. Try other drugs with it and still better results are obtained. For diseases in which there is mucous and sibilant rales and fever, no drugs are better, more certain and satisfactory. I use the following, and hope my opinions will be listened to. R. Ext. Gelsemium fil....... ..1 ounce. I prefer Wm. S. Merrell's preparation, as it seems to afford more solid residue in evaporation. Should the fever persist I add a few drops of aconite to the foregoing. In bronchitis, whooping cough and asthma, it gives me excellent results. In gonorrhea, leucorrhea and nasal catarrh, I add the two drugs to other solutions indicated and I can not speak too highly of them. New York. [For the Brief.] Comical. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF:-Dr. P. S. Clarke (see BRIEF, February, 1886, page 60) is entitled to the thanks of your thousands of readers for having given them a subject for a hearty laugh. He says the woman "emits the same as the man.' Emits what, and where from? And then the statement, that conception takes place only when both actors emit at the same time, is as false in fact as his other statement is in anatomy and physiology. Does he not know that hundreds of conceptions have taken place when the woman was drugged, chloroformed and totally unconscious? And does he not know that thousands of women conceive and yet never know what men and some women call pleasure or excitement during coition? C. H. MERRICK, M. D. Seattle, Wash. Ter. [For the Brief.] Tape Worm. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF:-In reply to Dr. Long, Bloomington, Ind., I will state my treatment of tape worm: I give two doses of sulph. magnesia, remedy. Then I give extract pomeone each morning before giving the granate root, four ounces, and follow in six hours with a dose of castor oil, and the worm will come away whole. Crawford, Mo. J. T. INMAN, M. D. Do not use the metric system. Write only on one side of the paper. See how short and plain you can write. Only one article desired from any one writer in same issue. The MEDICAL BRIEF will not be sent ANY LONGER THAN PAID FOR Write articles intended for publication and mat. ter for editor on separate pieces of paper. Use as few technical terms as possible; the best educated writers use the simplest and plainest language. Articles sent for publication in the MEDICAL BRIEF must not contain more than seven hundred words. Short, practical, brief items always wanted. The MEDICAL BRIEF is mailed on the first of each month. If a number fails to reach you we will supply it; provided, we are notified within a month. MEDICAL BOOKS. We will supply any MEDICAL BOOK, no matter by whom published, post-paid, on receipt of publisher's price. Address MEDICAL BRIEF, St. Louis. To Our Patrons. Physicians who have sent us $2.00 for subscription to the BRIEF, for 1886, will be credited with two years subscription. We have adopted this rule knowing that you will not object to receive the BRIEF for two years when you had only expected to get it for one. [For the Brief.] An Improved Pepsin. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: - Pepsin is playing, and destined to play, so important a part in the practice of medicine, that I am glad to note any improvement in this article. Indeed, the importance of pepsin as a means of aiding digestion and dissolving foods has lately increased to such a degree that its manufacture has become the object of an extensive branch of industry. American and foreign preparations of excellent quality are contending for the superiority. I am not able to give a correct judgment regarding the different products of this kind, as a decision would be worthless without exact researches. But it would appear, as far as I am able to arrive at an opinion in the matter, from seeing specimens of a preparation, and from the testimony of several competent chemists, that there is soon to appear upon the market, after some years of experimentation claimed to be under a new process, a preparation of pure pepsin, free from sugar of milk, salt, acid, and from peptones; one part of which is sufficient to dissolve from 1,200 to 1,500 parts of coagulated egg albumen, which is said to be considerably above, if not double, the digestive power of the commercial articles. Perhaps the most important result claimed to have been accomplished in this new preparation of pepsin is, that it is not hygroscopic, and may be kept. in any climate without decomposition. This new preparation will appear in the markets under the name of "Kidder's Crust Pepsin," in the forms of pure pepsin, of bright brown scales; of pure powdered pepsin; and of saccharated pepsin U. S. P., 1880, in the proportion of one part of powdered crust pepsin to nineteen parts of sugar of milk. Dr. Endemann, chemist of New York City, has examined the dissolving power of this new preparation with dried blood albumen or beef fibre. His figures show it to possess a digestive power about double that of any pepsin in the market. Another competent chemist of New York, who has experimented largely with pepsins of this and other countries, says, concerning this pepsin: "In my hands it has proved the most active ferment I have ever tested. One grain easily dissolving one thousand grains of coagulated egg albumen. It moreover shows a uniformity in strength not found in the commercial articles." These statements will suffice to show this pepsin to be a superior preparation. M. H. [For the Brief.] Womb Disease. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: - In 1878 I was asked to examine and prescribe for a negress, with "womb disease." I found the patient greatly emaciated, mopish and very weak, with indurated cervix and a want of mobility of the whole organ, discovering a state of things aggregately that I could not differentiate from the hard stage of malignant disease. Prognosis unfavorable, and the more so, as I knew she had been for some time under the treatment of a good physician. I suggested a trial of Iodia (Battle & Co.) and after eight bottles had been taken patient came to see me, a distance of forty miles. She had become active, sprightly, presented good embonpoint, with a womb easily moved, a soft and flexible cervix, and in short, everything necessary to satisfy me that the work of normalization was complete. Some trials of the remedy in cases of suspected syphilitic taint and in other hæmatomatic troubles, have convinced me that it is a valuable blood catalytic. Many years ago Sir Benjamin Brodie advised me virtually in some of his writings, to admit and accept the truth whenever and however discovered, and this advice coming as it does from a favorite author, has helped me much to overcome an educated opposition to any and everything not officinal. I am satisfied the profession is not fully aroused to the importance of even extensive combinations. From them, I am quite sure we may obtain results that can not be had otherwise. In them and in some way-well, we'll say by a sort of therapeutic catalysis— there seems to be a re-arranging and an intensifying of forces. Camilla, Ga. WM. W. TWITTY, M. D. [For the Brief.] Monstrosity-Query-Lightning. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF: There was born it Pittsylvania Co., Va., on the 25th of January, 1886, a pair of twins, children of a woman living near Swansonville. They were born dead, with four natural legs, three arms, two heads and one breast. They were joined together from the hips up to the collar bone. One arm on each side and one arm coming out at the back with eight fingers and one thumb. The bodies were perfectly formed and weighed sixteen pounds. Will some one of the many correspondents of the BRIEF please tell me why it is that a mare mule can not bear a colt, or why a stud mule can not impregnate a female? Please do not give me the old adage, that a mule is a hybred. reason. I want the anatomical In reply to Dr. Sale, would say that I know positively of one negro woman who was killed by lightning. The lightning struck a tree near the house, also struck the house, ran down a rafter and killed her instantly. W. S. ROBERTSON, JR., M. D. Danville, Va. EDITOR [For the Brief.] Reproduction. MEDICAL BRIEF: - We should like to ask Dr. P. S. Clarke, of Hempstead, Tex., through your columns, where he gets his authority, on page 60, of February BRIEF, "that woman emits the same as man, and when both emit at one and the same instant, conception takes place, and only then, etc., etc." We are very anxious to procure such authority. With the exception of his assertion, we never have heard such a statement made by a professional man, yet we are aware that it is a very common belief among the laity. If Dr. Clarke's theory of conception be correct, the great physiologists of Heidleberg and Paris have been laboring under a vain delusion, which we are unwilling to admit, since their theory of fecundation has the support of the physiologists of America and the rest of the world. Our teachings have been that the male only, ejects the seminal fluid which contains the . spermatozoa, and that they are endowed with the power of migration, and that they are capable of impregnating an ovule as long as the eighth or tenth day after being deposited in the female organs. That the time required for the ovum to pass to the uterus is about ten days, which is longer than the extra ovarian life when not impregnated. That the female has no emission whatever, except that the glands of Bartholim at the entrance of the vagina secrete a lubricating fluid somewhat more freely during coition and parturition. We are very anxious to hear from the doctor and to have him explain by what glands the semen is secreted in the female, and where they are situated. In all our dissections we were never taught to look for testicles or ejaculatory ducts in the female. We would like to know if the doctor has had many cases of nocturnal emissions or spermatorrhoea in the female, if not, why? DRS. VAN BLADT & DE GAUSSIEU. Tacoma, Wash. Ter. [For the Brief.] Cracked Tongue. EDITOR MEDICAL BRIEF :-Dr. Henning, in last number of the BRIEF, says that cracked tongue indicates kidney disease. Dr. Rutherford, in January BRIEF, says he can produce it at will by imprudent eating. I have seen it |