sulphur combined with acid tartrate of potash in chronic bronchitis. Now, it is well known that sulphuretted hydrogen is the principal form in which sulphur is eliminated from the body, and there are not a few, nay, their name may be legion-whose colons and rectums are more or less continually being loaded with and discharging this wonderful curative gas. Why, therefore, introduce more? The manufacture and absorption (?) of this gas can go ahead within the intes tines without the extraneous aid of man.

CAN TUBERCULOUS DISEASE BE SPREAD THROUGH FOWLS. This subject has been agitating the members of one of the medical societies of California. In the Gaz. Med. (Paris) a case of direct infection from a fowl is reported, where it is shown that consumption was produced in a woman by eating chickens reared by a phthisical family. Several doctors thought that phthisis could not be readily

spread by eating infected food, as the gastric juice of a healthy person would be fatal to the bacilli or micro-organism, but that there was a greater possibility of its being inspired, as dried spores existing in the air. The members were reminded by Dr. Davis that the bacilli had only been found in the lungs, liver and intestines of the fowl, and not in the tissues used generally as food. Dr. Perry maintained that thorough cook ing would in all probability destroy the bacilli. Tho' it was interesting to remember that ingluvin is a repsin prepared by scraping the stomach of a fowl and therefore there is an undoubted risk of spreading the disease thro' its use. How can that be if the gastric juice, during the process of digestion, destroys the bacilli or germs? This idea of danger reminds me of one of the expres sions of the late Prof. T. D. Mitchell, of Jefferson Medical college, víz: "It is as farfetched as the moon."

labor. This course, no doubt, counteracts his otherwise bad practice. Well, now, this introducing the hand into the uterus one minute after delivery, is, in my humble judgment, an outrage and most unjustifiable. It declares the opera

tions of nature inefficient--he assumes a work of

super-erogation wholly. Shades of Blundell, Denman, Hunter, Dewees, Ruysch, Hodge, Meigs, et. alii.! Could they hear this advice they would turn uneasy in their coffins. Who does not know, and who does not fear (except Dr. -) the "forcible delivery of the placenta." When the placenta is rudely torn away, some of the consequences are flooding, lacerations, inversions, etc. "An insatiate and gory Molock before whose shrine so many thousands have been sacrificed, etc. No, give the woman rest, some restorative if needs be; if the parts are cold, dry them and warm them externally and even internally with soothing mucilaginous injections and wait. There is no harm in giving (and its often useful to give) a little ergot the moment the head passes thro' the os, which, with a little pressure or gentle keading the abdomen will excite uterine contraction in due time, and thus expel the plaI do not wish the placenta to come away till there is some energy in the uterus.

centa.

[For the Summary.]

THE USE OF A MEDICAL JOURNAL TO A BUSY PRACTITIONER.

BY ELIAS DE L. WILDMAN, M. D, D. D. S., TRENTON, N. J.

In our daily duties we are often unable to recall ideas at once which we can use to advantage in cases which are obstinate, and to our professional standing demands speedy action. When we refer to our works of reference we find many theories and formulas given by our brethren; and even so, we have not the time to spare to peruse many pages for the purpose of gaining a few practical points. How many to-day have their book shelves well filled with valuable works written by our most noted men, and when we observe closely, how many of these practitioners use these works, as they would like to; want of time, prevents. Though we find great benefit from studying over

our old pathway of medical science, still a busy practitioner must form his decision more readily and be ready for the next case in order, so as to do his duty both to himself and patient.

In a medical journal as the SUMMARY we have our ideas condensed, and by glancing over its articles we can soon find in it so many ideas which are well worthy of our attention. We have the practical experience of many others, on subjects. interesting to each of us, and can be guided by careful observations, so as to add our assistance in the progression of our great science.

He who halts in his study must retrograde. How easy is it for a man to allow the practical points, which he could have immediately recalled, to drift away by non attention to that careful and constant training of the great intellectual power given him by his Creator. We alone can realize the great responsibility of our daily duties. It is a labor of toil, and in many instances, one of very little remuneration, considering the care and anxiety which we must naturally possess and endure.

To be thoroughly competent to attend to this duty I find that our journals have been of great aid, in keeping before us constantly those valuable ideas which we can use to such great advantage when an in mediate opinion is called for.

In our journal, the less useful knowledge has been assorted out and cast aside, while the more valuable has taken its place and we reap the benefit so derived. One of your eminent writers, Dr. Livezey, of Yardley, Pa., has aided many of us with his useful writings. He is a man advanced in years, and who has passed these years in hard study and careful observations. He has gained his knowledge from all the scientific sources and added even more than his mite to the great treasure box of medical science; as other writers have done for your journal. Let our medical brethren follow the example, and each aid us in advancing our science.

THE SANITARY CONDITION OF NEW

YORK.

The vital statistics of the last six months suggests a backward movement of the sanitary condition of New York. An increase of nearly 10 per cent. in the number of deaths, as compared

with the number occurring during the first half of last year, is a larger increase than the growth of the population warrants, and the recent prevalence of contagious diseases, like typhoid fever, scarlet fever and diphtheria is eloquent of sanitary neg. lect. In such weather as that with which July was ushered in, the mortality among young children must always be large in any great city. Excessive heat carries off infants like a pestilence wherever people are huddled together, surrounded by brick walls and hemmed in by stone pavements. But at a season like this the necessity becomes all the greater to see that foul gases and pestilential smells do not reinforce the death-dealing heat. There is a strong presumption that much is left undone in the enforcement of sanitary ordinances among the tenement houses of New York, and Mayor Hewitt might find a good text for one of his sharpest letters in a study of the records of city mortality about this time.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF BEER.

The birthplace of beer is Egypt. A papyrus has been discovered on which a father reproaches his son for lounging about in taverns, and drinking too much beer. From the Egyptians the art of brewing beer descended to the Ethiopians. While the Romans despise beer, the Germans of the north of Europe fully appreciated its good qualities. At present the yearly product throughout the world amounts to 140,000,000 heclotres. England taking the lead with 48,000,000.

STAIRS WORRY THE JAPANESE.

In Japan stairways are almost unknown. Hence, when Japanese come to this country and are lodged in boarding houses their apartments are generally in the third or fourth story. To reach their rooms they are compelled at first to go up very cautiously and with the aid of the balustrade. Some do not even hesitate to go up cat-fashion, on all fours, from step to step. The trouble is that they have not learned to balance the body so as to ascend and descend as we do.

Rules

The State Board of Health of Michigan have recently issued a bulletin relative to cholera infantum and summer diarrhoea, written by Dr. Vaughan of the University. He is convinced that the development of tyrotoxicon in milk is a frequent cause of cholera infantum and kindred affections, and argues great care in the use of milk are given for the prevention of the development of the tyrotoxicon poison in milk which should be carefully observed. It is certain that there is a great deal of carelessness in the handling of milk by many, and when we consider how easily little neglect and improper care of milk may put it in a condition dangerous to any who may use it, we see how necessary it is that every precaution should be taken to guard the public in its use. The owners of cows should see that their animals are healthy; that they are not fed upon swill, refuse of breweries, glucose factories, or any other fermented food; that they have clean water to drink; are not heated before being milked; be kept clean and away from noxious weeds; the milk should be thoroughly cooled at once; kept in a clean place free from dust, and at a temperature not exceeding 60° F. Only tin, glass or porcelain vessels should be used, and these should be scalded after being used and exposed to the air. Extreme care and cleanliness in the handling of milk should be insisted upon by the consumer, and in this way thousands of lives may be saved every year.

In constipation occurring in the thin and anæmic, the efficacy of sulphate of magnesium can be much increased by the addition of gr. j-ij of sulphate of iron, taken before breakfast each morning. However, if the patient be of full health, robust and plethoric, you can add to the Epsom salts with much advantage gr. 1-16-1-12 of tartar emetic.- Col. and Clin. Record.

According to the statement of Dr. William Jarvis, rhigolene is a better agent for the production of anesthesia in many operations of the nose, than cocaine.

yuor scalp get wet benefitted. It may

I will tell you something about sea bathing that you may not know. Do not fear to let the salt water soak your scalp. You have been told all your life that it is bad for the hair. Well, I say it is not. Salt, particularly sea salt, is a splendid tonic for the scalp and is the important ingredient in some of the very popular hair renewers and restoratives-preparations that promise a new crop of hair to bald heads. Of course, if you simply let your hair and not your hair will not be even be made harsh. But where you can afford the inconvenience of wetting your scalp every time you take a salt water bath your hair will be invigorated as well as your body. Hair has its rights as well as any other part of your body. Oil cloth and rubber caps are worn during the sea bath to protect the hair from the inconvenience of getting wet, and from undue accumulations of sand, but not because the water is ruinous to the hair, as many suppose.

A bright silk handkerchief or a square of red sateen or turkey red calico wound about the head in a gypsy turban, answers every purpose, and adds picturesqueness to a figure in the water.

Sig. Shake well. Dose--A dessert to a tablespoonful every three or four hours.

Mix the soda, ammonia, water and salc. acid together in a graduated 8 oz. glass measure, stirring well with a spatula until well dissolved, and add the glycerine and elix orange. Mix the cit. of iron and quinine in a half-ounce of water, and when dissolved add it slowly, constantly stirring until all is mixed, then add water to make 8 oz., and finally drop in the citric acid.

This mixture of salicylic acid and iron is free from the properties which produce headache and sick stomach, and can be taken a long time without producing any of the physiological effects of salicylic acid.

It is an admirable general tonic, and when Fowler's solution is added to it in proper doses, it acts finely in eczema, erythema nodosum, and many diseases of the skin, where a tonic plan of treatment is indicated.

I have used this formula in painful menstruation, and in those cases of neuralgic pains about the ovaries and uterus of nervous, delicate and hysterical females, with great satisfaction. In combination with iodide of potassium it has proved, in my hands, an admirable alterative and tonic in secondary syphilis, and with the addition of five or ten drops of tincture of digitalis to each dose of this formula forms a most valuable prescription in chronic disease of the heart of a rheumatic origin. It mixes well with the hypophosphites of sodium and calcium, and with the chlorate of potash.

A drachm of the fluid extract of cimicifuga, and from three to five drops of Fowler's solution added to each dose, I have found to act well in cases of chorea. Twenty-grain doses of

bromide of ammonium nixed with each dose of this formula, forms an excellent mixture in cases where a bromide preparation is indicated. In all cases attended with debility and rheumatic pains about the body, it will be found not to disappoint the expectations of speedy relief, if used in combination with colchicum wine or tincture. It can be made either tonic, alterative or anti rheumatic, and it will be found a most useful prescription in that numerous class of cases, so familiar to physicians, of what may be called chronic or general indisposition, originating so frequently in a vitiated condition of the secretions of the alimentary canal. It is very palatable, and few patients object to its taste.

I have used this mixture with from thirty to sixty drops of the fluid extract of ergot added to each dose, in the treatment of consumption, and the emphysema which accompanies chronic bronchitis and asthma, with more advantage than any other mixture I have ever prescribed.

TREATMENT OF CHOLERA INFANTUM IN THE NEW YORK INFANT ASYLUM.

Dr. L. Emmett Holt holds that as pure air and proper feeding are the most important things in the prophylaxis, so they are the most important in the treatment of this disease. Sick or well, there is no food for a baby that compares with good breast milk. If this is being used, or can be obtained, the quantity only needs to be regulated. Not more than half the child's allowance when well should be given, and if the stomach is very irritable, all food should be withheld for half a day or a day, giving nothing but toast-water or thin whey to allay thirst. If a child has been weaned, or good breast milk can not be obtained, cow's milk had best not be trusted, as it is so easily changed in hot weather, especially in cities and among the poor. In the country, where fresh milk can be obtained twice a day, it may not hold; but in the city, children certainly do better when milkis withheld, and other articles not so prone to fermentation are given. Chicken, beef, and muttor. broths, expressed juice of roast beef or steak, wine-whey, white of egg shaken up with water, rice-water, barley-water, or the malted

foods, koumyss, and in some cases raw scraped beef, are articles which may replace milk.

The first indication in every case, except true choleriform diarrhoea, is to clear out the bowels as completely as possible, by a good dose of castor oil, or by one or two grains of calomel in the form of tablet triturates. This will be sufficient to cure a large number of the milder cases, if taken early, provided the feeding rules laid down are carefully followed. In more severe cases, and in those of longer standing, a simple clearing out produces only temporary improvement; further measures must be taken to restore healthy action of the alimentary tr..ct and stop decomposition Salicylate of sodium, in grains j-ij doses, every two hours, or naphthalian in double the amount, we have found the most useful.

High temperature should be reduced by baths or cold sponging. It should not be forgotten that this may come from septic absorption from the bowels; if the temperature has risen coincidently with a great reduction in the number of discharges, a brisk cathartic will prove the most efficient antipyretic.

Cerebral symptoms may likewise be toxic, and if so, should be treated in the same manner.

The object of treatment is not simply to arrest the discharges, but to restore their healthy character. Hence, opiates are not admissible at the outset, and never during t e course of the disease when the discharges are foul and offensive. The retention in the intestinal canal of such matters, loaded with bacteria, can only result in harm.

Last summer, in this asylum, a trial was made of the method of irrigation of the bowels with simple water or weak astringent solutions, in twenty-one cases. Only eleven were cured by this treatment alone. Although the results were not so gratifying as was anticipated from the accounts published in Germany, still some very bad cases did surprisingly well under it. It is certainly deserving of a more extended trial, as a valuable addition to our therapeutics.

True choleriform diarrhea was treated in a few cases by hypodermatics of morphia and atropia; one or two yielded quite promptly; others, no more severe apparently, were uninfluenced by it. -Med. New.

WORKINGMEN AND DRINK.

In the city of New York alone it is estimated that not less than $250,000 a day are spent for drink; $1,500,000 in one week; $75.00,000 in one year. Who will dispute it when I say that one half of the policemen of New York city are employed to watch the beings who squander $75,000,000 a year? Who will dispute it when I say that the money spent in paying the salaries and expenses of one-half of the police of New York could be saved to the taxpayers if $75,000,ooo were not devoted to making drunkards, thieves, prostitutes, and other subjects for the policemen's nets to gather in? If $250,000 go over the counters of the rumseller in one day in New York city alone, who will dare to assert that working men do not pay one fifth, or $50,000, of that sum ? If workingmen in New York city spend $50,000 a day for drink, they spend $300,000 a week, leaving Sunday out. In four weeks they spend $1,200, ooo-over twice as much money as was paid in the general assembly of the Knights of Labor in nine years. In six weeks they spend $1,800,000 nearly three times as much money as that army of organized workers, the Knights of Labor, have spent from the day the general assembly was first called to order up to the present day; and in one year the workingmen of New York city alone will have spent for beer and rúm $15,600,000, or enough to purchase and equip a first-class telegraph line of their own; $15,600,000-enough to invest in such co-operative enterprises as would forever end the strike and lock-out as a means of settling disputes in labor circles.

SCROFULOUS TUMORS.-Iodoform dissolved in ether appears to be an excellent local application for these painful swellings. One or two local applications with the mixture reduce them to a hard nodule. When due to syphilis the mercurial treatment can be added with advantage.

Boracic acid-solution, twelve grains to one

stye.