The results of the census of 1890 will be looked forward to with much interest as regards the showing it may make of the numerical progress of the colored race in the United States. Many have apprehended the ultimate Africanization of the Southern States by reason of the rapid birth rate among the negroes, as apparently shown by the census of 1880. It can hardly be expected, however, that the next census will show a like increase, nor is it probable that any succeeding census will make so favorable a showing as that of 1880.

Influences are at work in nearly all parts of the country calculated to have an unfavorable effect on the increase of the colored population.

The negroes are every where gathering into the cities, and life in cities, it is well known, is unfavorable to rapid increase even in the white race under the most favorable conditions. City life must be doubly unfavorable to the blacks. Few of them are skilled laborers, or have either the opportunities or disposition to be come so. They must, therefore, when they labor at all, perform labor that commands the lowest wages, and as a consequence their liv

ing must be of the poorest character, and they must content themselves with the most inferior lodgings. Education will not and does not help them, it simply causes them to despise and neglect such employment as they can now get, while no avenu eis open to them for better. This is notably the case with the females. It unfits them for the position of servants, and creates wants that can not be satisfied by the earnings of the manual labor of any husbands they can command. As a consequence a very large proportion of them chose to earn what they can by lives of prostitution.

The opinion is general among impartial observers that the race is deteriorating throughout the country. The death-rate among the negro population in all the cities is very far above that of the white race, in some almost double, while the seeds of consumption and other constitutional diseases are being sown that are certain to produce an increasing mortality. Under any surroundings, if the negro should be thrown on his own resources, this is what might be expected to occur.

The conditions of life in Africa did not subject the race to such a trial as to weed out the improvident by natural selection. There the most indolent might fare as well perhaps as the most industrious, for nature supplied the same food for all. In slavery the indolent and improvident were preserved and permitted to multiply because the interests of their masters secured for them the necessary care. With chances otherwise equal the greater part of this class must perish in the struggle for existence where all the conditions are different from those to which they had previously been accustomed. A certain proportion of the negro race have the stamina, the staying qualities and the ambition to enable them to sustain themselves even alongside the average Anglo-Saxon, and as the centuries pass on and the worthless classes that do so much to degrade the race are weeded out by disease they will continue to come into a better position as useful and respected citizens.

But we do not read the signs aright if the coming decades do not show a marked falling off in the rate of increase of the African race in the United States, and indications for a gloomy future.

THE TREATMENT OF STRICTURE.

On November 2,.1887, Dr. F. P. Watson read, before the Surgical Section of the Suffolk District Medical Society, a paper on the relative merits of treating internal urethral stricture by gradual dilatation, divulsion, internal and external urethrotomy. The author, as well as most of the eminent surgeons of Boston who took part in the discussion, accorded internal urethrotomy, in cases where the stricture was not deeper than five inches, incontestably the first place. For deeper strictures opinions were divided between gradual dilatation, revulsion, and external urethrotomy. Extrolysis, as far as tried or observed by the various speakers, was unfavorably considered.

From Dr. Watson's paper it appears that a large proportion of English and French surgeons have adopted Otis' method of internal urethrotomy in the treatment of stricture. While none were so sanguine as Otis in regard to the entire absorption of the cicatricial tissue of stricture after operation, all agreed that recurrence after such operations was far less likely, that results are very much better, while the danger in properly selected cases is by no means great.

VACCINATION FOR SCARLATINA.

At the meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, on December 1st, Dr. J. W. Stickler, of Orange, New Jersey, read a paper on foot and mouth disease as it affects men and animals, and its relations to human scarlatina as a prophylactic.

The aim of the paper was to prove that foot and mouth disease in animals and scarlatina in the human are the same disease, and that inoculation with the virus of the foot and mouth disease may prove a means of conferring immunity against scarlatina.

It was developed, however, in the course of the discussion that followed, that foot and mouth disease is regarded as an epizootic aph. tha; that one attack confers upon the animal no immunity from a subsequent attack.

Dr. Stickler, as he thought, produced mild cases of scarlet fever by the inoculations of

the virus of the epizootic aphtha, and out of thirteen children, who had been inoculated and then exposed to the contagium of scarlet fever, five escaped and eight had the disease in a light form.

Altogether, there seems to be nothing in the experiments of Dr. Stickler that gives promise of adding another disease to the list of those against which we may secure immunity by means of vaccination.

Notes and Queries.

REVOLT IN A HOSPITAL.-Progrès Médicale, November 12, 1887, states that a terrible revolt has broken out in the Hospital of Santa Maria, at Naples, which is occupied by several hundred women who have venereal diseases.

They commenced by driving the nuns from the convent and forcing them to take refuge with the police. They then sacked the hospital, breaking in pieces and throwing every thing out of the windows. Armed with table-knives, they attacked the police, who had to force the gate. A platoon of soldiers and some riflemen were called upon, but hesitated to employ brute force against the women, and were repulsed. But as they were assailed by chairs, plates, bottles, bars of iron, and broken bedsteads, they marched against them with fixed bayonets and drawn swords. The revolt lasted eight hours, and twenty-two sisters, as well as several of the soldiery, were more or less seriously hurt. Twenty-eight of the most desperate women were arrested. The principal cause of the revolt was the prohibition of visits to the hospital, as it was found that lovers were received in place of parents.-Med. and Surg. Rep.

fingers in the fetal mouth are useless for good, but there is danger of breaking the jaw. The forceps is the only proper aid in the expulsion of the after-coming head. One objection often made to their use is the loss of time involved in their application, but this does not hold. The accoucheur should be acquainted with the form of the patient's pelvis. The body of the child should be held away so that the forceps can be applied to the sides of the head, the handles being on the anterior aspect of the child's body. Another point to bear in mind in a flattened pelvis is the problem of bringing the head safely around the promontory of the sacrum. The hand should grasp the neck of the child, the thumb being on one side and the fingers on the other, and traction should be made so as to ease the head around the promontory before securing rotation of the face into the hollow of the sacrum. After this it would be easy to make the chin engage or to apply the forceps.-Journal American Medical Association.

STRANGE INCIDENT AT CORDOVA.-Last week Dr. Middleton, of Scarborough, who was on his way to Tangier, halted with his companions at Cordova. Leaving his fellow-travelers at the hotel, Dr. Middleton, accompanied as a guide by a gipsy, visited the cathedral, than which there are few more attractive buildings in the world, for when Cordova was the capital of the Moorish realm in Spain it was the great mosque of the city. He had begun to descend the narrow winding staircase of the tower, followed by the gipsy, when suddenly the latter attacked him from behind, nearly strangling him with one arm, while with the other hand he took two dollars from his intended victim's pocket and wrenched his walking stick away. Dr. Middleton then drew his revolver and fired two shots over his shoulder, one of which entered the gipsy's mouth, the other taking a downward course through his body. The shots were fatal, and, covered with blood, Dr. Middleton descended and gave notice of the occurrence to the police, who, on their arrival at the scene of the tragedy, found the dead thief still holding in his hand the stick and the dollars. Dr. Middleton was arrested, but has since

been released on bail. The gipsy had, it appears, the worst of reputations, and a most significant fact is that he was companion, two years ago, to an Englishman visiting the cathedral tower, who was found dead at its foot. The case was then supposed to be one of suicide, but, looked at in the light of Dr. Middleton's experience, it is now viewed differently.The Lancet.

COMMUNICATION OF SYPHILIS THROUGH THE SALIVA. In his recent work on the diseases of the nervous system, Von Ziemssen says syphilis has been repeatedly communicated by the saliva in the act of tattooing, by reason of its being employed by the operator in moistening the pigment employed. Reports of infection in this way have recently come up from various

sources.

It has been commonly believed that syphilis can not be communicated through the saliva, milk, or other physiological secretions. It may be in the cases referred to that there are mucous patches in the mouth whose secretion furnishes the infectious element; at the same time the scientific course is to await the settlement of the question by careful experiment.

THE POSITION AS MEDICINE MAN to a band of Indians at Bay Center, on Shoalwater Bay, in Oregon, is about being vacated, and a competitive examination was at last accounts being held for a successor. The examination was unique and in accordance with the laws of the tribe, which provide that the candidate who dances for one week, night and day, without giving out, and succeeds in the mean time in finding some object which has been previously hidden, is chosen. He is forthwith declared the medicine man, and the "healing business" is turned over to him. When last heard from, the candidates had been tripping for four days, and several were almost exhausted. Phila. Ledger.

DR. ASA GRAY, the eminent botanist, lies ill at his home in Cambridge, suffering from a stroke of apoplexy, from which it is feared he will not recover. Dr. Gray is seventy-seven years old.

them. The hands should be afterward washed in soap and water. In the same manner spoons and any utensil may be freed from the smell of iodoform.

SPECIAL NOTICES.

AN ANTI-SYPHILITIC AND ANTI-RHEUMATIC. Some years ago a considerable ripple was created in medical circles by the announcement, by Dr. J. Marion Sims, of the remarkable results attained in the treatment of syphilis by a combination of vegetable remedies first used by Dr. McDade at the South. This preparation, known as Succus Alterans (McDade), is a purely vegetable compound of the preserved juices of stillingia sylvatica, lappa minor, phytolacca decandra, smilax sarsaparilla, and xanthoxylum Caroliniarum, and has largely displaced mercury and the iodides as anti-syphilitics and as an alterative tonic in the myriad forms of scrofulous disease. Under its use patients develop an

appetite and frequently put on flesh rapidly; in these all-important respects differing widely from the effects of mercurialization and iodism, which all too frequently follow the use of the more heroic but less effective alteratives. Succus Alterans is also becoming a very popular remedy with the profession, and is being very extensively prescribed in the treatment of rheumatism, of chronic character especially. As no great claims have ever been made for it in this respect. but it has simply been placed upon its own merit, we think therefore it could possess no higher commendation.— Massachusetts Medical Journal.

ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT OF INTESTINAL AFFECTIONS.-In an article on Intestinal Antiseptics, by D. N. Kinsman M. D., appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, July 3, 1886, the author points out that the natural processes of fermentation and putrefaction going on in normal digestion are so changed in dyspepsia and other forms of intestinal diseases as to produce poisonous alkaloids which are the cause of the symptoms developed in such disorders.

The researches of Prof. Vaughn, of the University of Michigan, in which tyro-toxicon has been shown to be the cause of ice-cream poisoning, which are still fresh in the minds of medical readers, have thrown still more light on the etiology of intestinal affections, a d made apparent the importance of intestinal antisepsis as a method of treatment.

To facilitate such treatment, we learn that Parke, Davis & Co. have recently added to their list an Intestinal Antiseptic Pill, the formula of which is as follows: Mercury protiodide, 1-8 gr.; Podophyllin, 1-16 gr.; Aloin, 1-16 gr.; Ext. Nux Vomica, 1-16 gr.; Ext. Henbane, 1-16 gr.

THE "HEALTH AND HOME," of Chicago, is, one of the most progressive of all the popular health journals published in the United States. It offers to old subscribers renewing, or to new subscribers, their choice of three really valuable premiums, each of which is worth much more than the subscription price of the journal, which is only $1.00 per year.

VOL. V.

[NEW SERIES.]

Certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than any thing else.-RUSKIN.

Original Articles.

ANTIFEBRIN AS AN ANALGESIC.*

BY DOUGLAS MORTON, M. D.

The paper on Antifebrin, read by our friend Dr. Brandeis at our last meeting but one, refreshed my interest in this drug to the extent of leading me to make a fuller trial of its analgesic powers, and the observations I have crudely brought together in this report have been made since that time.

In all the cases in which the drug was used, except the last two given, ten-grain doses were given, and repeated when necessary after intervals of one and two hours. Generally one dose gave relief. Sometimes two were taken, and once or twice three doses. Relief to pain was generally obtained and more or less somnolency produced. The drug was not given in any case in which fever was present. The only after effects complained of were a sense of languor felt on the next day, and in one or two cases some nausea. The patients did not, however, charge these symptoms to the medicine. Since treating the cases recorded in this paper, I have read accounts of the drug that lead me to think I have given it in too large a dose, and that its use is not as free from danger as I had supposed. The longest series of cases I know of are those of Dr. Demieville, published in the Revue Medicale de la Suisse Romande, an abstract of which is given in the Medical Record for January 14th. He has tried it in eighty cases, and claims that anti

*Read before the Louisville Clinical Society, Jan. 17, 1888.

No. 2.

febrin often succeeds when other nervines fail, and warmly advocates its use in most painful affections, whether accompanied by fever or not.

CASE 1. A delicate young man, about twenty years of age, came to me suffering from malarial cachexia. For a week or more past he had been much troubled with sick-headache, which was almost constant during the day and at times severe. After trying several remedies, I put him on antifebrin in ten-grain doses, to be taken every two hours, till relieved, or until three doses had been taken. He reported next morning in high spirits, telling me I had given him a most wonderful medicine, and that he had been thoroughly and delightfully relieved. I saw him on the street a few days afterward, and he told me his headache had not returned.

CASE 2. A young lady of twenty-five had a "cold in the head," giving rise to very wearing pain in the cheeks and between the eyes. Tengrain doses, at two-hour intervals, relieved pain and put her to sleep. On return of pain the next day antifebrin was taken in the same way and again brought relief.

CASE 3. A married lady of twenty-three suffered much the same way as the patient in Case 2, but had in addition a very severe neuralgia affecting the first division of the trifacial nerve. One ten-grain dose of antifebrin gave complete relief and enabled her to sleep well during the night. The pain returned the next day, and was again relieved by the same dose.

CASE 4. A married lady of forty-four, with symptoms indicating her approach to the menopause, suffered every week or two with severe headache, lasting generally not less than a day. During one of these attacks she took ten grains of antifebrin, getting relief in fifteen or twenty minutes. On the third day after this another attack was relieved by the same dose.