[For the Summary.] MEDICAL CHIPS OF PRACTICAL VALUE.

GATHERED UP FROM VARIOUS SOURCES BY A. LIVEZEY, A. M., M. D., YARDLEY, PA.

ACUTE GONORRHOEA.-At the end of four weeks' unsuccessful treatment, was promptly cured by an injection of "normal liquid ergot," prt. to 6 prts. water; only 3 fl. drs. of the ergot, diluted, was used.

SORDES IN TYPHOID FEVER.-In these severe cases where the mouth is hot, lips dry and cracked and glued to the sordes-covered teeth, tongue dry, glazed, brown or black and coated with a fetid fur boric acid is an excellent topical remedy; still better combined thus: Boric acid, 30 grs.; chlorate potassium, 20 grs.; lemon juice, f. 5 drs.; glycerine, f. 3 drs.; mix-rub the teeth. well and the sordes quickly becomes detached. The boric acid destroys the bacilli and bacteria; the chlorate coois and soothes the mucous membranes; the glycerine and lemon juice moisten the parts and aid the salivary secretion.

SYRUP OF SQUILLS.-Several fatal cases of pois oning by squills are reported by Dr. Truman. The writer was always prejudiced against the use of squills, or squills and paregoric as well as Coxe's Hive Syrup, which contains both squills and tar tar emetic, as household remedies, on account of the nauseant squills and antimony. I believe many children are injured by their use and the foundation is laid for innumerable cases of dyspepsia.

SCROFULOUS TUMORS.-Those of the neck, when soft, are happily treated by a solution of iodoform 1⁄2 dr. to 2 oz. ether. The first effect is smart pain, then swelling, but soon after the tumors diminish and finally disappear, leaving but a small hard nodule.

DIPHTHERIA. In mild cases, lime juice freely partaken of in form of lemonade, or the lime cut in slices, sugared and sucked freely and often with good nursing is all that is required, say those who have tried it. It is a Chinese remedy, and most highly valued by them.

SORE NIPPLES.-Sore nipples are the most frequent cause of mammary abscess, and prospective mothers should be taught to harde!: the nipples before the birth of the child, by a wash of oak bark, red raspberry leaf tea, sol. tannin or the spiritous ext. hamamelis-Pond's extract-&c. After birth it is important to keep the parts clean and day. When the fissures are deep very sensitive and nursing exceedingly painful, the babe should be taken away and the nipples allowed to rest. Then touch the very bottom of the cracks carefully with the smallest camel's hair pencil dipped in a sol. nitrate silver 10 grs. to the ounce of

A NOVEL WAY OF TREATING ULCERS.

Dr. Botts, of Etoile, Ky., writes to the S. W. Med. Gazette as follows: I was called to see the wife of one of our most intelligent citizens, Mr. George C. Young. While there Mr. Young related to me the history of a sore (varicose ulcer), which had troubled him since 1848. Among other applications he had used slippery elm bark, at intervals, for a long time. He used it in every way, and found this, which is original with him, to be far the best method.

It is his method of preparing the bark which I wish to call particular attention to. Select a large tree, wi h a thick bark, and with a common drawing knife remove all the outer portion for a space, say of one by two feet; then with a pocket knife make three or four parallel incisions from above downwards through the remaining thickness of bark, thus dividing it into strips of four or six inches width. Peel these strips from the tree, and, while fresh, pound them with a hammer until they are almost converted into a pulp; yet, being careful not to beat them to pieces. They must be thoroughly bruised, but must retain their original shape. Then carefully dry them. When wanted for use cut off a piece the size required, and put for a short time in water, when it will be found greatly thickened, very soft and smooth, and to have taken up much more water than bark, not treated in this way. My informant says he could make as smooth a poultice with the powdered bark, but if he wanted to use pressure with a bandage, it would not retain its shape, but would press out through the spaces of the dressings. When prepared in this way, it was more like a sponge, and not open to the above objection.

It does not stick at all to any sore; the sore is easily cleaned, may be disinfected, and the poulthe tedious and tice reapplied without often painful washings necessary with some other dressings.

Now, when we want to use an emollient appli. cation, would it not be a capital thing to have this prepared bark, dip it into a solution of the bichloride, or other disinfectant, and use it as my friend did. I suppose almost any medication necessary might be used with it.

forms of uterine hemorrhage, especially in disordered menstruation, metrorrhagia, hemorrhage following abortion, and that occurring at the change of life. The best results were obtained where no organic disease existed, and in the climacteric hemorrhages. Less satisfactory results metritis, and no effect at all was produced on were observed in the menorrhagia of chronic hemorrhage due to erosion of the os uteri, or on the secondary hemorrhages following abortions. The dose of the fluid extract used was twenty drops, and this amount was given several times a day. Med. and Surg Reporter.

HYDRASTIS IN UTERINE HEMORRHAGE.

Dr. L. Goth has employed the tincture and fluid extract of hydrastis canadensis in various

TREATMENT OF PRURITUS.-A solution of menthole, 2 to 10 grains in the ounce, is said to be a very effectual remedy in the treatment of the troublesome itching which accompanies uticaria, eczema and pruritus.

[For the Summary.]

HOW I TREATED MYSELF WHEN I WAS SICK.

BY M. P. GREENSWORD, M. D., POUGHKeepsie, n. y.

I have lately had a vivid illustration of the truth of a remark by an old physician that "it was not the getting the cold inside of a man that injured him but the getting it out of him." I was exposed very much to the cold this past Russian winter-for such it might truly be calledand I knew that as soon as the frost began to come out of the ground I would begin to get the cold out of my system and then my trouble would

commence.

It began in the shape of a severe influenza. I had hardly recovered from this affection before I was attacked with catarrh of the lower portion of the left lung, and catarrh of the stomach and bowels. These diseases produced peculiar sensations-a dryness and a crepitus. I imagined that the lower portion of my left lung, my stomach, and my bowels were made of dry strong paper and that somebody was con inually wrapping up goods with it, and that I could hear the rattling of the paper as it was being folded and made to assume the desired shape.

I had a splendid physician to treat me, Dr. E. H. Parker. He knew that I was like a powder magazine, and, although I had much fever of a typhoid nature, he dared not give me even the 40th part of a grain of quinine. It was, however, absolutely necessary to use morphine in of a grain doses, but it made me terribly wild and had to be discontinued after four or five days' use. An infusion of the blackberry root acted like a charm on the catarrh of the bowels.

Soon after this my head became perfectly clear and then I took charge of my own case. I now made up my mind that I required no more medicine, and that acids would do the rest of the work for me effectually. I changed my diet daily. One day--the first one of convalesence-I had a small portion of smoked beef and toast, another day broiled beefsteak, another day cold mutton, another day stewed oysters, and, strange to say, some boiled lima beans seemed to agree with me and did me a great deal of good, thus illustrating the truth of a remark of an old nurse that while it was unsafe to gratify the desires of the stomach

for different kinds of food when the patient was coming down with a disease, it was always safe to gratify the desires of that organ during conva lesence, the only danger to be guarded against being the using too much food of any kind. Coffee for breakfast, I must not forget to state, seemed now to me the most delicious beverage I ever used.

The first acid I used was furnished by the orange. I took two of them and squeezed out the juice, making what we call in Jamaica, W. I., orange wine, without a drop of alcohol, this was retained by the stomach and did me a great deal of good. After this I ate a good orange every day. A few days after commencing the use of oranges I bought some Jamaica lime juice and used a little of it every day, after adding it to water and sugar. This acted like a charm, removing, as by magic, all remaining fever, and all the bad taste from my mouth. At the end of one week my system was thoroughly cleansed by its

use.

TREATMENT OF BENIGN AND MALIG-
NANT TUMORS BY PARENCHYMA-
TOUS INJECTIONS OF SOLUTIONS
OF JENSEN'S CRYSTAL
PEPSIN.

BY WILLARD H. MORSE, M. D., WESTFIELD, N. J.

Twenty-two years ago Thiersch published his method of injecting into the substance of morbid growths a slightly acidulated solution of pepsin, testifying to the profession that this practice was useful in cases of benign growths and in the retardation of malignant tumors. It was a fascinating idea to me when a student, and early in my practice I laid in wait for a fine, large, fatty tumor to be cured in this beautiful way. It came ; I saw; 1 punctured and injected; no success. Another case, three, five. Disgusted, I looked into the literature of the matter. Nussbaum knew the idea and had elaborated it; but though I put my confidence in that eminent Teuton, and followed him blindly, success did not perch on my hypodermic syringe. I did not give it up until I had provided myself with all of the most vaunted pepsins-Boudault's, Scheffer's, Procter's and Beale's. Then I contented myself with quoting the Psalmist's aphorism concerning a uni

versal lying propensity, and stopped experimentation.

People would have dyspepsia, and I found out that if I were to cure them I must needs have a pepsin that would do the thing I wanted it to do every time, Therapy demanded a peptone pepsin, without any adulterant or earthy or saline matter, with keeping qualities, and with unvarying digestive powers. This I found in the well-known Jensen's crystal pepsin, which it is unnecessary to say has never disappointed me either in dyspeptic and apeptic disorders or in infantile diarrhoea. This, however, I do not need to mention. day my whilom fancy for pepsinzing tumors recurred to me, and the more I thought of it the more I itched to try it again, and with my favorite pepsin. There soon offered an opportunity, and, armed with my Dieulafoy, I set out to solve and remove a benign tumor from a child's neck.

One

The tu

The solution then and since was one part of pepsin to three parts of distilled water. mor had been treated by injections of iron without satisfactory results. Five injections and the solution of the fatty accumulation was achieved. This was the way of the beginning. Since then -and that must have been as late as 1881, or possibly 1882-the operation has been repeated time and again, and almost always with complete success, all other things tending to the effort being equal. Not that it is my practice to the exclusion of the work of surgery, but, in those cases where from any cause extirpation may not be practicable, it well fills the requirement. I say that my results have "almost always" been uniform, and in referring to the exceptional cases do not understand me as having occasion to find fault with the pepsin. The sole reasons for failure have been due to extraneous causes, or when the neighboring lymphatics were involved. Thus in the mean, my results have tallied with those of Thiersch, Nussbaum and Broadbent, and this both as regards benign and malignant tumors, some of them unmistakably cancerous.

Reports of cases are the best dull reading, and moreover are more dull to write, therefore I will not burden the busy reader with the details of my note-books. Yet, as to the matter of proof, I will submit something in the way of items.

1. Recurrent carcinoma, as large as a hen's egg, seated in the right side of the inferior maxilla; suppuration excited by injection, and the tumor diminished to size of a hazelnut.

CONSTIPATION AS A CAUSE OF FEMALE DISEASE.

(From a paper by Dr. Harriman, of Massachusetts.) In the case of failure to empty the lower bowel with normal frequency, we find the pernicious influences of such a state exerted through the general system, through a reflex nervous influence, and mechanically. When the excrement is retained for days and it may be for weeks, the functions of the colon are so perverted as to give rise to pathological processes. The effect of such a state can be seen in the slow toxæmia which exerts a benumbing influence on the nervous system, and depresses every function in the body. This state of the general health opens wide the door to all local troubles in the active organs of generation; ovulation and menstruation, which nature intended should be painless processes, become sources of anxiety and distress. Nearly all writers on diseases of women agree that flexions and versions of the uterus may be due, in part at least, to habitual constipation. Fæcal impaction may cause, or at least aggravate, menorrhagia and metorrhagia, by interfering with the portal circulation, and gestion of the pelvic viscera. be produced by the same cause. turbances are very frequent. neuralgia, together with various hysterical mani

producing conLeucorrhoea may Vaso motor disGastralgia, ovarian

and are cured by its relief. These constitute but a part of the evils which flow from a condition too often caused by false modesty, indolence, or procrastination, to point out the dangers of which should engage the attention of the physician, the teacher and the mother.-N. Y. Med. Times.

ABDOMINAL TUMORS.

AN ABSTRACT OF A CLINICAL LECTURE, BY PROF. GOODELL.

ADONIS VERNALIS IN HEART DISEASE.

of three of this he He refers

Dr. J. G. Herrmann, of St. Louis, writes us that he has recently had considerable experience with the use of adonis vernalis in cardiac affections. He believes that his experience, which has extended over ten months, warrants his statement that, while free from the evil effects of digitalis, infusions of adonis vernalis are quite as efficacious as that drug. He prescribes it in the form of an infusion, of the str ngth drachms of the herb to six ounces; gives a tablespoonful every two hours. to several cases in which this drug proved successful even after digitalis had failed. One was a case in which the feet were highly edematous, and there was general anasarca from heart-lesion. In two weeks of treatment with the infusion of adonis vernalis every two hours, in tablespoonful doses, almost perfect relief was secured. So also he states that he has caused great relief to a case of ascites, produced through heart disease. He noticed that it increased the fulness of the pulse and strengthened the cardiac pulsation. In asthma also he has combined it with quebracho with very satisfactory results.

The following are some of the prescriptions whtch he has employed:

B Fl. ext. adonis vernalis

Sig. From two to six drops, as necessary. B Fl. ext. adon. vernal............f 3 ss; Syr. menth. pip......................................................3 vi. Combined as desired sometimes with brom. sodium and tr. opii camph.

Sig.-zi to zi every two hours daily.

I wish now to make a few remarks on abdominai tumors. From 42 to 45 years of age women usually cease to menstruate, and this cessation may be abrupt or "dodging." By dodging I mean that the menses, after being regular for two or three periods, will miss one or two, then recommence and intermit again, and so on. This "dodging" is the most usual course. But it is generally abrupt in those women who grow fat at this tine, so that a woman who has had several children will be very apt to think that she is again pregnant. Women do not like to admit the "change of life," for it is an admission of coming age, and oftentimes, at this period, from unconscious sympathy, unconscious ce ebration they will suffer from nausea, and a quivering of the abdominal muscles will be mistaken for fetal "quickening." There will be many of the symptoms of pregnancy; her abdomen will grow rapidly (from the deposition of fat and accumulation of gases) and, as she was never mistaken before, she will be sure that she is pregnant. Nine months will go by, and when no baby appears, she will think she has a tumor. The old family physician, who has attended the woman in her numerous confinements, will be very apt to be de ceived by these cases. Careful examination would elicit resonance at every part of the enlarged abdomen (save in enormously fat women) which would be impossible if pregnancy existed. Let the woman draw up her knees and you grasp the abdominal wall and you can see how much fat you can exclude from the supposed tumor. Some women cannot get the idea out of their heads that they are pregnant. I once had a woman who came to the hospital off and on for four years, insisting that she was pregnant; she declared that she felt the movements of the fetus. On one occasion I told the following story to the class in her presence, and this seemed to do the work, for she never came back: A certain French woman for years made the tour of the Paris physicians, declaring that she was pregnant. Finally she Visited Nelaton and told him that she had been pregnant for twenty one years and that she was