bodies from the skin. A physician in my neighborhood used this punch to remove shot from the skin, and another tapped an abscess with it. Dr. Keyes' designed and intended it for acne and gunpowder discolorations, but the two physicians applied it in this original way, and excellent results were the consequence.

It is told of the late M. Paul Bert, as an instance of his scientific enthusiasm and fearlessness, that at one time, when he was impressed with the prevalence of small-pox, from which those vaccinated in youth and not revaccinated had suffered largely, he decided to test for himself the value of revaccination; and he did. so in a manner which might possibly have cost him his life, had his doubts been justified. He was vaccinated, and afterwards had himself inoculated at Havre with virus from a man who was dying of small-pox. He escaped the disease.

Quite a number of deaths, due to spider bites, are reported in the newspapers.

There is a prevailing idea in the community that a physician is compelled to visit a sick person. Medical men have themselves to blame in this matter: they make themselves too cheap. The idea is unjust. You may as well hold that a grocer or other tradesman is compelled to deliver goods to any one free, that the proprietor is compelled to give you his journal free, a lawyer to give advice free. The physician's knowledge has to be paid for -his time, if not used in sick work, can be turned into money in some other calling.

The physician's education costs money ($1,500 at least), and any one taking this education, called advice, and not paying for it, is too small potatoes to care much about. If you go to a lawyer about a knotty question of the law, he exacts his fee. He sells you so much advice. If you go to a minister to get married he expects his fee, and if you want him to preach a sermon you must pay him the usual rates. He sells his services, so does

a lawyer, so ought to a doctor. The doctors are to blame, and can regulate such matters. Will they do so?

Dr. Henry Flood, of Elmira, New York, has invented a new artificial leech. It is three quarters of an inch long, and can be attached to an aspirator. The doctor's new tube has a belly at its distal end. It takes from one to one and a half drachms of blood. It can be easily cleaned, and is a perfect substitute for the natural leech. Let Dr. Flood now invent a leech which can be used with a hypodermic syringe, or with a Davidson's No. 1. All physicians have not the means to buy expensive aspirators. The idea seems practical enough, and requires only some inventive genius like Dr. Flood to carry it out. The syringe can be made a little larger and stronger if necessary.

Dr. Keernan, of Chicago, describes four cases of opium poisoning, in which the patients had reached the comatose state, but recovered

rapidly after the administration of an enema

of 3 or 4 drachms of tinc. capsicum. He also remarked that incipient delirium tremens may be prevented, and a pronounced attack aborted by 1⁄2 dr. doses of the tincture every hour, or of 20 to 40 gr. doses of the powder. It is also most valuable in asthenic types of scarlet fever, diphtheria, small-pox, and other zymotic dis

eases.

Dr. Wyman of Detroit is publishing in The Age a series of articles upon Abdominal Surgery, based upon his own personal experiments. Wyman is a born investigator, and his results as derived from experiments worthy of interest. They will be published when completed in pamphlet form. Article I. includes an account of Intussusception, Enterotomy, and excision of the Mesentery. Wyman has settled one of the mooted questions of Surgery, that is, the safety of cutting into the gut or peritoneum.

Magraw of Detroit records a case of death due to Meningeal Artery.

One Dollar Per Annum, in Advance.

VOL. IX.

Single Copies, Ten Cents.

No. 8.

[For the Summary.]

A FEW SUGGESTIONS ABOUT INSANITY AND DELIRIUM TREMENS.

BY M. P. GREENSWORD, M. D., POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y.

When we have insane patients to deal with who have rich relatives, it is well for us, I think, to recommend isolation, as far as possible.

If it be true that persons who are really sane, but confined in lunatic asylums by relatives in order to seize their property, eventually become assimilated to their surroundings, and infected by insanity, and that nurses in such institutions, for fear of insanity, are not allowed to stay there more than two or three years, it must be a self-evident fact that isolation of the insane ought to be practiced wherever it is possible.

A process of assimilation is going on, in this world, during every moment of our existence. Foreigners who are brought into this country in infancy, grow up so as to look so much like native Americans that it is hard to tell the two races apart. The truth of this doctrine is illustrated by changes in the colored race.

When I lived on the island of Jamaica, I

saw negroes that could not have been better described than the Sandwich Islanders were, of whom a missionary among them said, "That they appeared to be like a company of devils, let loose on a vacation from hell." And yet, by their association with the whites, although some of their descendants remained as black as ebony, and certainly had no white blood in them, their faces and forms, as well as their intellectual and moral faculties, became so much assimilated to those of the white race, by which they were surrounded, that if a painter had sketched some of them, and painted them white instead of black, no person would suspect, when looking at such. a picture, that he was viewing the face and form of a negro.

Whenever practicable, it would be well to keep lunatics apart from each other, and employ them on farm work so that they would be much in the open air, and where they would have to be nearly every day in the company of sane persons.

Another way of causing some isolation of this class of patients, I am happy to say, is now being frequently adopted, namely, giving musical and other entertainments in lunatic asylums, to which all lunatics that are not really dangerous are admitted.

I have lately read of a professor giving lec

tures to medical students on heart and other diseases, and he was astonished to find out that a large number of his hearers really believed that they were afflicted with the same diseases that he very vividly described, although on close examination they were found to be very healthy men.

Alexander Dumas, the great novelist, was astonished one day when told by a visitor that his daughter, who was then reading one of his serial stories, imagined that she, like the heroine of the tale, was fast failing.

Said the visitor to Dumas, "How do you intend to end the story? Does the heroine die?"

"Yes," replied the novelist.

"Please do not end it in that way," said the visitor, "because if you do, my daughter will die."

Dumas was kind enough to change the plot of the story, and ended it by describing the remarkable recovery of his heroine; and the visitor's daughter, whose disease, though very severe, was only imaginary, got well too. In our association with others, who can estimate the value of a thought?

I read of a drunkard who was lying in a stupor in a saloon at a late hour of the night, when the wife of the saloon-keeper entered the room and said to her husband, "Why don't you put out drunken Henry, and shut up the saloon ?"

"Don't talk so loud," replied the dealer in the soul-destroying fluid, "he will soon rouse up and call for more liquor, because he has two dollars left out of the five he brought here, and I want to get that. You know I am determined to get the kernel out of all his earnings, and only leave him and his family the husk."

The drunkard heard him and soon rose up, stung to the quick by his words, and then and there solemnly promised God that by His help, he would never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor-and he never did.

That association, even with a scoundrel who could not control his appetite for ardent spirits, reacted upon the drunkard, and was overruled by God so as to produce a radical change

for the better, and really made a new man of him.

Who can estimate the power of assimilation? Who could believe that Peter ever would have denied his Lord and Master if he had always kept out of bad company?

I am happy in stating that out of four cases of insanity that I treated, I cured three of them. They were all ladies, and all of them were more or less very much debilitated, and had to be built up. The hypophosphites of lime and soda, with pepsin and the tincture of veratrum viride, did the work-and did it well.

Strange to say, two of them slept well, and stranger still, they were the worst cases.

I believe the reason I failed in curing one of the cases of insanity, was because I lived next door to the patient, and she imagined I was one of her family, and that I was continually associated with her mother, brother and sisters, and plotting against her; and I know from the very moment she said to me, "I believe you are one of the family," I never could get her to take any more medicine; and soon after she discontinued the use of my remedies, her friends felt compelled to take her back to a lunatic asylum, and soon after she was transferred to another asylum for incurables.

While using my remedies, she remained perfectly sane.

While writing on this subject, it may not be amiss to state, that while hospitals of all kinds have done a great deal of good, they have also done a great deal of harm in this way:

A nervous patient lies in a bed next to another, who is afflicted with a disease similar to his own, but in a severer form. He imagines that his case is just as critical a one as that of his neighbor, and in a short time his symptoms too become severe, and when his neighbor dies, he too dies from sympathy.

There is much truth in the remark of the patient who gave as a reason for leaving a hospital, although he seemed to be in a dying condition, that the reason he left was because for five days in succession one dead patient was taken daily from the seven in the hospital,

until on the fifth day but two were left; and he was afraid that his imagination would act upon his system so depressingly if he remained in the hospital, that he might be the next person that would need the undertaker's services.

In treating delirium tremens, I have had a hard battle to fight because of frequent relapses, that were brought about by the constant access that my patients had to alcoholic liquors.

While I have found opium, hydrate of chloral, bromide of potash, and bromidia, useful in this affection, I have also found that a tincture made by soaking quassia chips in vinegar, was an elegant remedy to tone up the system, and take away the appetite for intoxicating liquors. Raw clams sprinkled with powdered capsicum, and Carl Jensen's pepsin dissolved in muriatic acid and largely diluted with water, and Hayden's viburnum compound, I also found very useful.

[For the Summary.] GONORRHEA.

BY G. O. SMITH, ODESSA, N. Y.

Definition: A contagious, purulent inflammation, affecting in men the urethal membrane, and in some instances that of the bladder. In women the same with the vaginal mucous membranes. The cause is a specific contagion, probably always or nearly so obtained by sexual intercourse with an infected person. The writer is aware of a great deal of assumed innocence on the part of patients affected with this disease, with which he is expected to coincide by the patient or his friends. One case of this kind I will mention. A man of wealth, but prone to wander, gave to his wife the clap. It must be explained away or a fuss in the family would occur. An M. D. a few miles away was called (not an unusual occurrence, for distance lends enchantment in selecting a physician to treat this malady). The M. D. arrived and was ushered into the presence of the patient and sympathetic hus

band. A diagnosis was quickly made out. The innocent husband asked the M. D. if his wife may not have contracted this difficulty by using the same privy that had been occupied by one affected with gonorrhea, and further informed the Dr. that they had a hired girl they suspected was not all right. The accommodating Dr. allowed that it was very common to contract the disease in that way, and that cleansing of privies and the seats should be practiced frequently. A new light dawned upon the patient, and she begged the pardon of her innocent husband for having accused him of infidelity. The ignoring of this disease and substitution of gravel, ulceration, catarrh vesicus, etc., are not infrequently resorted to by the obliging physician, to make peace in the family. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Another "innocent abroad," of which the writer was cognizant, was a man who had accidentally dropped a window sash upon his penis, while urinating out of a window. Treatment for gonorrhea promptly restored the diseased member to its wonted usefulness. Treatment: Formerly the abortive plan of treatment was in vogue. This consisted usually of a urethral injection of argent nit. gr. xx to the ounce.

This plan of treatment, however, has justly, in the opinion of the writer, fallen into "innocuous desuetude," and has been replaced by a more rational mode of treatment. A successful treatment the writer learned of an old practitioner, was to inject the urethra three times a day with argent nit. I gr. to the ounce until a reddish discharge took place, and then finish up with sulphate of copper 11⁄2 gr. to the ounce with the following internal medication: R balsam, copaiba, f. 3i., spirits of nitre, f. 3ii. mix: dose a teaspoonful ter die. The writer's favorite prescription, original with himself as far as he knows of, is hydrarg. chlo. mite, 3ss, syrup simplex, f. 3 iv., mix: shake up well before using, and inject the urethra well, post urinating, three times a day. With the male, the penis should be held tightly so the injection will not run out for 5 minutes. The object is to allow the calomel to precipitate and

line the urethra. It stops the specific inflammation, and cures the disease without further medication. The writer cured a case of one year's standing, that baffled several able practioners, with only two injections. Caution: The writer by forgetting to have the patient urinate thoroughly before using an injection, drove some of the purulent fluid into the bladder, and produced cystitis; but it soon yielded to treatment. Since that occurred, the writer never forgets to repeatedly charge the patient to hold his urine before using an injection of anything in the urethra for gonorrhea, and then pass it off, so as to wash out the urethra well before an injection is used.

[For the Summary.]

ELECTRICITY AS A THERAPEUTIC AGENT-A RIGHT AND A WRONG WAY.

BY MORRIS HALE, M. D., ALMA, MICH.

After 23 years (or over 150,000 personal seances) with galvanic, faradic, or static electricity in the treatment of acute, chronic, and constitutional blood diseases, I make the following statement of facts:

Ist. Disease from an electrical standpoint is a departure from a normal physiological state or action of the organism, caused by electro-vital disturbing influences.

2d. The chief function of the sympathetic nervous system consists in regulating the diameter of the blood vessels, the circulation and formation of all other fluids in the organism.

3d. The brain and spinal cord are excitants to the sympathetic nerve centres, also are in direct communication with them, and all are sustained and maintained by the chemico-vital processes of the entire organism'; hence the power given to the circulating fluids of the body, which are simple conveyors of good and bad into and out of the system in health and disease, which are fully under the bidding of the electro-vital force of the sympathetic nerve centres, the derangements of which give rise to our varied types and complication of diseases.

4th. Diseases are classified under the head of sthenic, asthenic, and constitutional blood. troubles.

5th. Sthenic diseases are a morbid condition of a part or the whole of the organism above the normal standard of health, even to death, as maintained by Parkes, Ringer and Aitkin, etc.

6th. Asthenic diseases are a morbid condition of a part or the whole organism below the normal standard of health, even to death, as maintained by Brown, Todd and Chambers.

7th. Constitutional blood diseases are generally asthenic, and are treated as such—cancer, syphilis, etc.

8th. Sthenic and asthenic diseases primarily result from and are controlled by the disturbed electro-vital force deranging circulation of the blood, heart's action, and may disturb all the vital processes throughout the whole body, which in health is fully obedient to this majestic power, and when lost by it death is the result.

9th. The sthenic or cathode electro-vital condition of the brain, spinal cord or the sympathetic nerve centers gives rise to fevers in general, inflammation in the viscera, tissues and extremities, to wit: Stomach, liver, lungs, throat, tonsils, bowels, spleen, kidney, uterus, bladder, pelvic viscera, ureters, urethra, rectum, vagina, etc., diabetes, diarrhœa, dysentery, paralysis, enteritis, peritonitis, headache, spasmodic contractions, prolapsus uteri and rectum, relaxed parts, malignant cholera, alkaline affection, asthma, hay fever, hemorrhage of the lungs and bowels, hemiplegia, paraplegia, hemorrhoids, syncope, night sweats, metritis, hyperæsthesia, synovitis, post partum hemorrhages, aches and pains along spine and base of brain, dysmenorrhoea, menopause, prolapsus uteri, bronchitis, cystitis, puerperal fever, etc., etc., and all diseases with an acceleration of the heart's action, causing an electro-vital anæmic condition of the sympathetic nerve centers; this class of complaints are successfully corrected by the proper cathode application of the galvanic, faradic or static electrical current to the part or parts affected in the brain, spinal cord, or the sympathetic