titioner has to depend for literature upon a medical almanac and the pamphlet circulars of patent medicines. "This average doctor" is averse to innovations in medicine; he wants the world to stay where his text-book stands; he hates expensive novelties! His argument against medical journals is, that they don't help much, that he has to go to a favorite author (perhaps twenty years old) if he would learn all about a troublesome case. He never supposes that the best of everything first appears in the pages of a medical journal, and that it takes at least three years for it to reach the book-form. The average doctor regards the medical journal as fancy reading, as a good place to give accounts of monstrosities and to perpetrate medical jokes. What is the use of paying two dollars a year for such a luxury?

The enterprising doctor subscribes and pays for several medical periodicals; he cannot afford to be without the cream of medical literature, cost what it may. He is to prepare a paper to read before the District, State or National organization, and he must be posted as to the latest ideas, or be laughed at when the day of trial cometh. No single journal furnishes all the material needed-a dozen good periodicals should be at command. The British Med

"

ical Journal and The London Lancet are issued every week, at ten dollars a year, and are the best foreign periodicals devoted to medicine. The enterprising practitioner takes one of these journals, and keeps a file of them as guardedly as is kept any precious object. And this enterprising doctor" subscribes and pays for a few American weeklies-The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for the New York Medical Record, and for the Phila. Medical and Surgical Reporter-either at five dollars a year. Besides these, hethe enterprising practitioner-will subscribe and pay for several monthlies, a quarterly, and a semi-annual. He needs compends which separate the wheat from the chaff, which garner golden grain from every source, and present a record of medical discoveries. The talented monthly is the most indispensable of all of the pub. lications mentioned, yet, as said before, one periodical can never take the place of many.

The enterprising physician who subscribes and pays for several medical journals becomes a leader among the medical men of any community, and the man to be called when an important consulta

tion is held. His services are wanted in court when a case of lunacy is to be tried, or any point in State medicine is to be adjudicated.

The enterprising physician who subscribes and pays for several medical periodicals is not the loser by the outlay; in the end he regains the expenditure a hundred-fold in money, to say nothing of a growing reputation which is worth more than fine gold.

Establishing a Practice Under Difficulties.-BY W. S. BAIN, M. D., Caddo Mills, Texas.

[CONTINUED FROM November NUMBER, PAGE 488.]

Well, my patient with cerebro-spinal meningitis had gone the way of all animated nature; he had died, and the mountebanks were all supremely happy at the result. But time changes all things, and the time had come in the history of these mountebanks when they would be compelled to prove themselves physicians by their works. There was a lady in an adjoining settlement that mountebanks Nos. I and 3 had been waiting on and working with for three years. They had treated her for a variety of ailments; still she would not improve, but gradually grew worse, and from the long-continued drugging and suffering was reduced to a mere skeleton. Her husband, despairing of her ever getting well unless there was some change in her medical treatment, sent for me. I found her as above stated a physical wreck. In getting up a history of her case, I learned they were treating her for disease of the spine and bowels, with some obscure disease of the head and heart." The history of her case was about as follows: About three years previously she was confined; her labor was easy and normal, but she did not regain her usual health, though able to be up and attend to her domestic affairs. She went along in this condition some three or four months, when mountebank No. I was called to see her. He assured her he would have her up in a few days. A few days passed-so did weeks; finally years rolled by, and still they sang the same old song: She has spinal disease-she has, she has; Her heart is diseased-oh, yes! oh, yes! Her bowels inflamed-you know, you know: Which calls for more drugs-just so, just so. Chorus.-Pour in the beef soup-pour, pour, pour; Pour in the beef soup, pour.

On my first visit I made a close and thorough examination, and found her in the following condition: Bowels constipated; tongue coated; headache; cold hands and feet; palpitation of the heart; passing her urine and fæces caused severe tenesmus of rectum and bladder; foul, stinking leucorrheal discharges; the os uteri protruding through external labia, as red as a beet and studded over with filthy ulcers. I put her on appropriate treatment for such cases, and had the satisfaction of seeing her in two months' time able to attend to her domestic affairs and to engage in some private theatrical amusements. (I will state just here that I was not present at the theatrical entertainments, as all such were strictly private.) She became pregnant, and in due course of time gave birth to a bouncing big boy. Since then she has had no more uterine troubles.

This lady's case was well known to the neighborhood, and her recovery was a surprise to them. In this one case I had created a panic in the enemy's ranks; in my next communication I will show you how I routed them from the field.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

Deceitful Practices in Medicine.*-By E. L. STANDLEE, M. D., St. Louis.

Doubtless, from the title of this paper, your mind at once reverts to some of the many frauds and fraudulent practices imposed upon the medical profession. The science of medicine has long been regarded and classed as a true science, though somewhat imperfect, and although its present status is possibly the highest ever known to the world, we are indebted to our predecessors for many of the essential truths known to us. We profit by their experience; likewise the future is to be benefitted by ours. Thus medicine is and should be a progressive science. I shall not attempt to say that the practice of medicine has retrograded; but owing to the unscientific use of patent nostrums and preparations of like character among the masses, and the uneducated and ignorant manipulators of the practice, it is certainly wonderfully degraded. It has simply become an ordinary trade or traffic, not even left to the doctors and druggists; for plenty of towns I know where the most saleable patent medicines are kept and sold by dry goods and grocery merchants.

*Read before the Eclectic Medical Society of St. Louis.

Then think of the many men who call themselves "doctors" that will prescribe and use these nostrums in practice, because of the indications printed on the wrapper (for they see no indications, of course, in the disease, or symptoms manifest in the patient before them.) These are usually slow, easy fellows, amounting to very little any way. We find, however, a more troublesome class, equally as ignorant, but more egotistical and pretentious than those described above. This is the man who will dare to sign his name to a public document with an M. D., or more if necessary, when if he has ever been through a medical college it was like the boy who went in at the front door and out at the back. This is the so-called "doctor" who will by accident drop in at the house of your patient in your absence, slightly excuse himself by being ignorant of sickness in the family, ask a few questions, volunteer to examine the patient, offer some passing criticism upon the diagnosis and treatment, and, if allowed to, will prescribe and dispense the medicine, thus relieving you of further trouble in the case.

Here I have described one who is very disgusting to the educated physician. Distrust and ignore him as a physician, pity him as a man! Our States have tried to suppress these impositions by legislating; but have they accomplished the desired results? As yet I am bound to answer in the negative. My native State (Ark.) has laws to regulate the practice of medicine and surgery, and there I find men practicing medicine who have never been to a medical college; still they are lawful practitioners, for they hold a certificate from the County Board of Examiners, and have registered the same in the clerk's office. Well, when a young man graduates in medicine, and wishes to locate among, and practice alongside, these fellows, what must he do to become a lawful practitioner? You probably say, "Register his diploma and then go to work;" but not so. These County Examiners say: "We'll see if he is competent;" so he must put his sheep-skin aside and appear before the Board as his friend over there did, pay each examiner a fee, get the certificate of examination and register that. Does this look like the suppression of quackery? Not much; but it puts the graduated physician on a level with the uneducated ignoramus. In conclusion I will mention another kind of deceit practiced by most physicians. The most successful men in the practice of medicine control both the mind

and body of their patients, and it is often necessary to resort to strategem of some kind to get possession of a person's mind. This I deem perfectly justifiable. What physician does not know the value of psychical remedies? They often prove more efficient than the corporeal. The influence of the mind over the body is even wonderful, as observations will prove. A person in a bad state of mind will lose flesh rapidly; fear has been known to produce death, and what more than joy caused the death of the doorkeeper at the national capitol during the Revolutionary War, when Washington became victorious? Where in these cases would you expect to find the lesion? In the mind, of course. Well, a few sugar pills administered with care will cure some of your patients, and you may so influence the mind that a bread pill will produce active catharsis. Now is not this as purely psychical as the former? Why certainly. Then get possession of your patient's mind, and do not forget to use freely the psychical as well as the corporeal remedies.

Pertussis.-BY L. D. FOREMAN, M. D.

Dear Prof.:-As you asked for contributions from the weak and strong, I thought I would send you one. For the last year I have had quite an experience with pertussis, having tried all the best drugs recommended for it, none of which gave the satisfaction I wished for, so I resolved to give oleum lini a trial, and to my astonishment it proved a specific in every case.

CASE 1.-George B., aged three years, had whooping cough for three weeks; nose bleeds with every paroxysm of coughing; bowels moves every few minutes; could retain nothing on stomach. R. Oleum lini, simple syrup, aa., 3ij. Sig. Teaspoonful after each paroxysm soon checked the bowels and vomiting; made good recovery in one week.

I could give many more cases, but it is of no use. I consider it a specific in any case-not that it will check the cough altogether, but it will soon modify and lessen the cough, and places the secretions in good condition.

The reason I write this is, I have never heard of it being given, and wish my class-mates would give it a trial. For a child two years old, half drachm in simple syrup after each paroxysm of coughing.