changes in the blood as constitute the most serious and fatal features of the disease, to wit, multiple furunculus, carbuncle, Kussmaul's coma, and fatty embolism of the pulmonary capillaries.

From this discussion Dr. Purdy draws the following conclusions:

"First. That in this product we possess a flavoring agent for food and drink, the palatability of which is quite equal to that of the finer grades of sugar, and which may be used by diabetic patients with the greatest impunity.

"Second. That through its antiseptic properties it retards the abnormal fermentative changes in the stomach so common in diabetic patients, thus promoting digestion and relieving flatulence.

66

Third. That while as yet we are without sufficient practical data to judge of its blood

throat of a thirsty dog whose esophagus has been ligated and provided with a tube for the escape of the fluid in a bucket beneath him. It is the giving of a stone for bread, and the therapeutist will find in time that the patient will turn from the false sweet with loathing.

As a sweet antiseptic, and therefore an agreeable substitute for salicylic acid, saccharin may meet some important indications in the treatment of diabetes and other affections, while as a disguisant of the bitter alkaloids it promises to do yeoman's service in the exhibition of medicines to children; but its chief use in our present gastronomic economy will be to lengthen out the linked sweetness of the various sugars, treacles, and confections, of which glucose is and will ever be the essential constituent.

Now, while the manifesto of Dr. Purdy fairly sets forth the therapeutic plea for saccharin, and while upon theoretical grounds it is scientific in some particulars, the reader of average attainment in physiology will fail to see how saccharin can prove to the diabetic a substitute for sugar in any essential particular. The demand of the system in diabetes is not for a pabulum competent only to arouse a sense of sweetness in the gustatory nerves, but for food, essential force-producing food, carbohydrates, which a crippled liver permits to pass unchanged from the portal into the systemic circulation, to be removed as a foreign substance by the emunctories, and which only sugar or its isomer, starch, can supply. The experience of every physician will attest that the majority of diabetic patients deny themselves of sugar without complaint or inconvenience, but fight for bread and other forms of amylaceous food to the bitter end. To give the weak, half-starved victim of this dread disease a substance destitute of the force-producing qualities of sugar is in perfect analogy with the familiar experiment of pouring water down the

We are happy to inform our readers that I. N. Bloom, A. B., M. D., of Louisville, has consented to take charge of our Department of Translations. Dr. Bloom is a gentleman of rare linguistic attainments, a scholar in medicine, and a writer of grace and vigor.

Under his direction the AMERICAN PRACTITIONER AND NEWS will continue to present its readers with what is newest and best in European continental medical literature.

Notes and Queries.

The St.

THE SCARLET-FEVER GERM. James Gazette (London) has recently published an interesting account of the experiments of Dr. Klein and Mr. W. H. Power, of the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, in regard to the relation between a disease found on the udders of some cows at Hendon and scarlatina. The cow disease was not itself scarlatina, but by cultivation of the organisms obtained from cows the specific micrococcus of scarlatina was produced. Moreover, this cultivation was made in milk, and it was the milk of the affected cow that caused the scarlatina epidemic which gave rise to the

inquiry. Then it was proved that the virus. of the cow disease, if conveyed into the human body by the medium of milk, developed there into the germ of scarlatina, although between the cow disease itself and scarlatina there is almost every possible difference. This disThis discovery suggested to Dr. Klein a further question. He had shown that the cow disease could set up scarlatina in the human subject; he would now find out whether the scarlatina germ was capable of producing the cow dis

ease.

From a number of patients in the Fulham Fever Hospital Dr. Klein took minute quantities of blood. These were placed in tiny tubes, and transferred to the surface of nutritive gelatine. In the result he obtained clear evidence that in some of his experiments the blood contained organisms. In other cases no positive results whatever were obtained. But in four cases out of nine the specific organism was detected, and the organism so recovered from the blood of scarlatina patients was found to be exactly the same as has been cultivated from the virus taken from the teats of the Hendon cows. Dr. Klein does not hesitate to name this organism the micrococcus scarlatinæ, as having a special character and a definite mode of existence. The next question was whether, itself capable of being cultivated from the cow disease, it was capable of being transformed back into the virus of that dis

ease.

With a subculture of micrococcus scarlatinæ, derived from scarlet fever in a human being, Dr. Klein inoculated two calves. The first was killed after ten days, and from blood taken from it a growth was derived identical with the micrococcus scarlatina. The second calf was killed after twenty days, with the same results. In both animals an identical disease had been produced. Subsequently two calves were fed with milk mixed with the growth from several tubes of the same date and the same source as used for the other calves, and again the identical disease was produced, this disease bearing a great resemblance to that observed in the Hendon cows, except that there was no affection of the skin. But three out of four other calves-two of

which were inoculated and two fed-were differently affected. Sore patches appeared and the skin became scurfy, and on each nostril of one of them there was a patch of eruption which decided the matter. From these skin eruptions were obtained "beautiful chains of cocci" coinciding with those developed from the virus of the cows. The circle was thus complete. A cow disease which is not scarlatina, nor any thing like scarlatina, causes the animal to have sore teats. The exudations find their way into the milk-pail, and there develop into something which infects human beings with scarlatina. From the scarlet fever patient a few drops of blood are taken, and, after the disease gern has been cultivated, it is passed into the system of a calf, which forthwith becomes attacked by the identical disease observed in the original cow.

But this is not all. A case of suspected condensed milk was brought under Dr. Klein's notice. Scarlatina had broken out, and could be traced to no other source. Sure enough, the micrococcus scarlatina was found in the milk, and experiments with it on animals yielded exactly the same results as before. Again, last January a monkey died at Wimbledon of scarlatina contracted by drinking the milk of cows among which there prevailed a disease similar to that at the Hendon farm. Microscopic examination of the internal organs of the monkey revealed the same changes as occur in these organs in human scarlatina, and in the blood the scarlatina micrococcus was found. By means of this micrococcus the Hendon disease was again induced in animals. Dr. Klein may therefore claim to have discovered a hitherto unsuspected cause of scarlatina in the form of a little-noticed and less-understood cow disease, quite distinct from the dreaded malady, which, after certain developments of its germ, it produces in man.- Medical and Surgical Reporter.

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. - The thirty-ninth annual session will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, May 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, commencing on Tuesday at 11 A. M. The delegates shall receive their appoint

ment from permanently organized State Medical Societies, and such County and District Medical Societies as are recognized by representation in their respective State Societies, and from the Medical Department of the Army and Navy, and the Marine Hospital Service of the United States.

Each State, County, and District Medical Society entitled to representation shall have the privilege of sending to the Asseciation one delegate for every ten of its regular resident members, and one for every additional fraction of more than half that number; provided, however, that the number of delegates for any particular State, territory, county, city, or town shall not exceed the ratio of one in ten of the resident physicians who may have signed the Code of Ethics of the Association.

Secretaries of medical societies, as above designated, are earnestly requested to forward at once lists of their delegates.

Also, that the permanent Secretary may be enabled to erase from the roll the names of those who have forfeited their membership, the secretaries are, by special resolution, requested to send him, annually, a corrected list of the membership of their respective societies.

The officers of Sections are as follows: Practice of Medicine, Materia Medica, and Physiology Chairmanship vacant. Secretary-Dr. N. S. Davis, jr., 65 Randolph Street, Chicago, Ill.

Obstetetrics and Diseases of Women and Children Chairman-Dr. Eli Van De Warker, 45 Montgomery Street, Syracuse, N. Y.; Secretary-Dr. E. W. Cushing, 1 Hotel Pelham, Boston, Mass.

Surgery and Anatomy: Chairman-Dr. Donald McLean, 72 Lafayette Avenue, Detroit, Mich.; Secretary-Dr. B. A. Watson, 124 York Street, Jersey City, N. J.

State Medicine: Chairman- Dr. H. B. Baker, Lansing, Mich.; Secretary-Dr. S. T. Armstrong, U. S. M. Hospital Service.

Ophthalmology, Otology, and Laryngology: Chairman-Dr. F. C. Hotz, 181 Clark Street, Chicago, Ill.; Secretary-Dr. Edward Jackson, 215 South 17th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Diseases of Children: Chairman-Dr. F. E. Waxham, 3448 Indiana Avenue, Chicago,

Ill.; Secretary-Dr. W. B., Lawrence, Batesville, Ark.

Oral and Dental Surgery: Chairman-Dr. J. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio; Secretary-Dr. E. S. Talbot, 125 State Street, Chicago, Ill.

Medical Jurisprudence: Chairman-Dr. E. M. Reid, 243 North Fremont Street, Balti more, Md.; Secretary-Dr. C. B. Bell, Suffolk, Mass.

Dermatology and Syphilography: Chairman-Dr. E. D. Bulkley, 4 East 37th Street, N. Y.; Secretary-Dr. S. F. Dunlap, Danville, Ky.

A member desiring to read a paper before a Section should forward the paper, or its title and length (not to exceed twenty minutes in reading) to the Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements at least one month before the meeting.

Committee of Arrangements-W. W. Dawson, Cincinnati, Ohio, Chairman.

Permanent Secretary-Wm. B. Atkinson, M. D., Philadelphia.

THE HUMAN BREATH A POISON. -The Paris correspondent of the Medical Press and Circular reports that, at the last meeting of the Académie des Sciences, Professor Brown Sequard referred to some experiments he had conducted with a view to determine what, if any, were the toxic effects of the human breath. In condensing the watery vapor coming from the human lungs he obtained a poisonous liquid capable of producing almost immediate death. This poison is an alkaloid (organic), and not a microbe or series of microbes, as might have been imagined. He injected this liquid under the skin of a rabbit, and the effect was speedily mortal. The animal died without convulsions; the heart and large vessels were engorged with reddish blood, contrary to what is observed after ordinary death, when the quality of blood is moderate and of dark color. In conclusion, this eminent physiologist said that it was fully proved that respired air contained a volatile toxic principle far more dangerous than the carbonic acid, which was also one of its constituents, and that the human breath, as well as that of animals, contained a highly poisonous agent.-Boston Med. and Sur. Jour.

A NEW REMEDY FOR HEMATURIA.-Dr. J. A. Gage, of Lowell, Mass. (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal), is responsible for the following: "A man fifty years old came to me on account of finding blood in his urine. He had the same trouble two years previous, and had been treated with ergot, tannic acid, etc., by our best practitioners, without benefit. The first attack ended after a month's duration. The attack began four days before I saw him. The last examination of the urine showed nothing abnormal except blood and slight trace of albumen; physical examination of patient negative. I concluded that the hematuria was functional, analogous to certain cases of nose-bleed, and decided to give him a general tonic and a renal stimulant. On the evening previous to his appointment with me he attended a Masonic supper, and took, contrary to custom, some rum pudding, which cured his hematuria completely, and prevented me from prescribing. He has remained well since."

CIGAR MANUFACTURE AS RELATED TO INSANITY.-A letter of Dr. A. E. MacDonald, Superintendent of the New York City Insane Asylums, written in response to a request from the Mayor for information upon the subject of the causes of insanity among certain artisans, having been referred to the President of the Board of Health, the latter has prepared a statement, in the course of which he says: "The question of cigar-making in tenements is so intimately connected with certain commercial and social problems that the statement is hardly credited as an honest one that there are absolutely no trustworthy facts of any kind, other than assertions, to show whether cigar-making in tenements is more injurious to the health of the workman than cigarmaking in large shops, or the contrary; and yet this is the truth. . . . . As regards the statistics of insanity furnished by Dr. MacDonald, it is to be noted that the socalled contemplative trades,' in which the workmen lead a sedentary life, and are engaged in some mechanical operation which leaves their minds free to muse on other subjects while they are at work, have always furnished a large proportion of cases of insanity.

This was noticed among shoemakers and tailors a hundred years ago, and with the immense recent growth of cigar manufacture the cigarmakers may fairly be classed with those trades, it being far more probable that the monotony of these occupations brings about insanity than the sleeping, cooking, and working in the same room, which many an artist or literary worker also does. . . . I feel justified in saying that all the information now before the Board leads us to believe that there is nothing in the business of cigar-making which renders it especially objectionable in tenement houses. Personally I am inclined to the opinion that if any trade should be excluded from the tenement houses it is that of tailoring, owing to the greater liability of textile fabrics to carry contagion than exists in the case of any other articles of manufacture."-Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

HYSTERIA.-That the use of the word "hysteria" has been too indiscriminate, and has led to errors of practice, has been the contention of many practitioners, but especially of Mr. D. de Bert Hovell, whose paper before the Hunterian Society last week revives the subject. Mr. Hovell does not deny that there are cases of ovarian and uterine irritation to which the old word is not inapplicable, but he maintains that the old habit of attributing all sorts of neuroses in females to hysteria is fraught with cruelty and mischief. In a large proportion of these cases he holds that there is a veritable neurasthenia, with a history of shock, or of exhaustion, or of injury, which must be recognized in the treatment. He also defends the bona fides of hysterical patients, or would at least attribute their mala fides to morbid physical conditions not disentitling them to pity. There is much humanity in Mr. Hovell's view of this large class of cases, and much sound sense. It can not, of course, be denied that women have nerves strung to finer issues and more multiplied sensations than are those of men, and that pain, quà pain, is not necessarily such a serious or significant thing in women as in men. It is also true that a little gentle sternness in the medical treatment often does the patient good, and not

harm. But Mr. Hovell does good service in reminding us that neurasthenia has deeper roots than we are apt to think, that it has closer relations with graver neuroses, and that it may be well to be more chary in the use of a term which may narrow our conception of disease, and may tend to mislead.-London Lancet.

YEARS ago the Seneca Falls Courier published an amusing sketch about Horace Greeley called a "A Story for Children," in the course of which it remarked, "The New York Tribune had a great many subscribers. A subscriber is a person who takes a paper, and he tells every body else that he ought to subscribe. After he has subscribed about seven years the editor writes to him and asks him to let him have $2.50 (two dollars and fifty cents), and the subscriber writes back to the editor and tells him not to send his old paper any more, for there is nothing in it. And the poor editor and starves some more."Med. goes and Surg. Reporter.

SELECTION OF A MEDICAL ATTENDANT. Dr. Billings says: "It is not every or any sort of knowledge that enables one to judge wisely in the selection of a medical attendant. One reason for this is the general ignorance of the history of the evolution of medicine into its best form of the present day-an evolution in the course of which nearly every possible mode of blundering and straying from the true path has been tried over and over again. It is not only by theories, but by long and patient observation and experience that we come to know of the practice of medicine, and it is only the man or woman who has by long study, based on careful preliminary education, mastered the results of all this work, who is to be trusted as your physician."-Maryland Medical Journal.

CREOLIN IN CYSTITIS.-The Lancet, January 14, 1888, reports a very persistent case of cystitis occurring in a middle-aged woman, in which the pain was so constant that the patient was generally obliged to keep her bed, and in which the urine was very offensive, brownish and thick, depositing a third of its volume of

pus, blood, and phosphates. After a number of different kinds of treatment had been employed by various medical men without much result, Dr. Jefsner, of Stolp, washed out the bladder with a half-per-cent solution of creolin. This caused a burning sensation for a few minutes, after which it passed off. The next day the patient felt and looked quite a different woman, the pain in the bladder was less, and the urine much less offensive. The washing out of the bladder was repeated daily, and by this means the improvement was maintained.--Medical and Surgical Reporter.

THE Turin Academy of Sciences has awarded the Pressa prize of 12,000 francs to .M. Pasteur.

SPECIAL NOTICES.

13, RUE GUENEGAUD, PARIS, Dec. 8, 1887. To the Editor of the New York Medical Journal:

SIR: Will you kindly have it announced in your Journal, in justice to myself before the medical profession, that the various notices appearing in journals and circulars quoting my name in connection with coca are entirely false and in every respect a prevarication. The only preparation of coca employed by me with undoubted and uniform success has been the so wellknown vin Mariani, which, since 1865, I have had occasion to prescribe daily in my clinigue, as well as in private practice. My opinion of this valuable medicament, together with those of many of my confreres, has, during many years, been frequently made known for the benefit of the profession in various writings, and it is but just to this worthy preparation that it receive all honor due. I thank you for compliance with my request. CH. FAUVEL.