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CORRESPONDENCE.

BLUE VS. SMOKED GLASSES.

EDITORS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRACTITIONER: In Southern California about nine out of ten persons you meet wearing colored glasses have the smoked glasses on. The doctors, as the opticians say, prescribe them; they seldom having a call for the blue glasses. If we stop a minute, and but think of the properties of the various rays of the spectrum, we perhaps would do differently. The yellow and red rays are accompanied by the most heat, and are the most irritating to the retina. The blue rays are accompanied by the least heat, and neutralize the yellow or irritating rays. These facts make, theoretically, the blue glasses the best for the eye. Experience bears out the theory. In many of the ophthalmic hospitals the rooms in which patients are kept after severe operations are finished in blue.

Colored glasses should not be worn all the time, nor should they be of a very deep color. After sun down it is best, in most cases, to dispense with them until the next day; of course, in bright gas or lamplight they should be worn.

Yours respectfully,

WM. D. BABCOCK.

237 South Spring street, Los Angeles, July 26, 1887.

OPPOSED TO VACCINATION.

SIR: My attention has been called to the article upon this important subject in the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRACTITIONER by Dr. J. H. Davisson, and I hope you will allow me space for a brief statement of European experiences.

The vaccination acts were passed in England through the instrumentality of the Epidemiological Society, whose report (now shown to be full of fallacies) was accepted by Parliament, unexamined and unchallenged, in the year 1853. It is rather singular that this period should have been chosen for rendering the Jennerian prescription obligatory, as there was no epidemic of small-pox, and the mortality was greatly below the average. In London, for that year, there were only 211 deaths from small-pox, and the indifference to vaccination

was increasing all over the country; in some districts the practice had been virtually abandoned. Immediately after the passing of the act of 1853, small-pox began to rapidly increase in the metropolis, as will be seen by the following annual summary of the Registrar General for the last thirty years:

DECADES.

ESTIMATED MEAN POPULATION.

SMALL-POX DEATHS.

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The lowest decade averaging two hundred per cent more than the year this law was passed by Parliament. This increase is attributed, by some medical authorities, to be in part due to the contamination of the blood by vaccination and variolation. Nor is this view impossible when we consider the recent serious small-pox epidemics in Sunderland, Liverpool, Birmingham, Crewe, and other towns where vaccination is enforced with undeviating vigor, and where anti-vaccination leagues are unknown.

The effects of re-vaccination, now so loudly called for, are shown in the reports presented to the late Emperor of the French, in 1867, by the Paris Academy of Medicine. Dr. Ducharme, a first-class aid-major of the 1st Regiment of Volligeurs of the Guards, engaged with great zeal in carrying out the instructions for re-vaccination. He says: "After the medical inspection, in 1867, of the 1st Regiment, it was decided to practice re-vaccination. I chose youths of rosy complection, sound temperament, and free from acquired or hereditary disease. I completed a first series of operation the 31st of December, 1867. The number re-vaccinated amounted then to 437; when, toward the end of 1868, a small-pox epidemic, in a highly confluent form, broke out in the regiment. This epidemic made many victims, amongst others, one of the Infirmary assistants, who died in the Hospital of Gros Coillon. To what ought we attribute this epidemic in a regiment in which 437 re-vaccinations had been performed, when the hygienic conditions, as space, ventilation and food, were excellent; when in the 2d Regiment of Volligeurs, lodged in a precisely similar barrack in the same court, but on whom no vaccination had yet been made, not a single case of small-pox existed? What is the explanation of a

phenomenon so striking? Could I have developed, by my operations on men living in common, the germs of infection? May I not consider that I have caused a development of the small-pox germ particularly in operating on a crowded population? The idea now thrown out, will not, I think, he deemed erroneous, in presence of the facts occurring in my regiment, where I practiced vaccination so extensively, contrasted with what passed in the 2d Regiment, living in identical hygienic conditions, but among whom none had been vaccinated."

I may mention that the Commander-in-chief at Algiers has admitted the dangerous effects of a vaccination in the army in that country, and authorized Staff-Colonel Gausard to supply me, during a visit to that city in 1884, with the facts concerning the disaster to fifty-eight young recruits of the 4th Regiment of Zouaves, syphilized and ruined for life by the means of this perilous operation. According to the evidence of the Counseilles General of Algiers, M. Marchal, thirty of these unfortunate youths have since died of the injuries they received.

This is only one of the numerous vaccine disasters brought before the last International Anti-Vaccination Congress, held at the Hotel de Ville, Charleroi, Belgium, by the various accredited delegates.

Yours faithfully,

WILLIAM TEBB.

National Liberal Club, Charing Cross, London, June 29, 1887.

EDITORIAL NOTE-To refute the above unwarranted conclusions we refer our readers to Dr. Davisson's article in the May PRACTITIONER.

NEW LICENTIATES.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6, 1887. THE regular meeting of the Board of Examiners was held at No. 326 Geary street, pursuant to call of the President.

The following persons, having complied with the requirements of the law and this Board, were unanimously granted certificates to practice medicine and surgery in this State :

Myron H. Alter, Los Angeles, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, March 6, 1878.

David M. Amyers, Vallejo, Long Island Medical College Hospital, N. Y., June 2, 1878.

William D. Babcock, Los Angeles, Indiana College of Evansville, Ind., February 27, 1878.

Walter M. Boyd, Los Angeles, Columbus Medical College, Ohio, March 1, 1883.

Wm. Lang Chapman, San Francisco, College of Physicians, N. Y., May 16, 1882.

G. Del. Amo, Los Angeles, Faculty of Medicine, University of Madrid, Spain, February 2, 1879.

Adam Tribe Dickson, Sacramento, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, May 7, 1879; Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, November 9, 1870.

Herman N. Fenner, Los Angeles, Medical College of Ohio, O., March 1, 1881.

Hiram Paul Hugus, Los Angeles, Long Island Hospital College, N. Y., June 27, 1865.

Theodore H. Johnson, National City, Chicago Medical College, Ill., March 20, 1877.

George Louis Marion, Los Angeles, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Ill., February 16, 1886.

Francis P. McGovern, San Francisco, State University of Iowa, March 2, 1887.

Thos. D. Nichols, Riverside, University of Louisville, Ky., February 28, 1878.

J. Taylor Stewart, Monrovia, Jefferson Medical College, Pa., March 12, 1878.

John J. Still, Los Angeles, Bellevue Hospital Medical College, N. Y., March 9, 1885.

Abraham A. Sulcer, Riverside, Rush Med. College, Chicago, Ill., January 24, 1886.

Sidney Brown Swift, San José, Texas Medical College Hospital, March 3, 1880.

David B. Van Slyck, Pasadena, University of Buffalo, Medical Department, N. Y., February, 1852.

Theoda Wilkins, Los Angeles, Women's Medical College, New York Infirmary, May 27, 1885.

WM. M. LAWLOR, M. D., Secretary.

TRANSLATIONS.

TRANSLATED FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRACTITIONER.

Treatment of Bright's Disease and of the Uramic Symptoms after Scarlet Fever.-This child with the well-marked oedema in the face has had uræmic attacks. The urine contains albumen, also cylindrical epithelum, A Bright's disease in a child nearly always, and with great probability, procludes a previous scarlatina. The less the oedematous swelling, and the less the urine escapes, the more the danger. As a rule the uræmic symptoms are initiated with vomiting. If Bright's disease sets in during the fever, then children become pale and desquamation is retarded. When the urine ceases then we have uræmia. The children become sleepy, and suddenly convulsions of the most severe type appear. The attack may return within twenty-four hours. After the lapse of twenty-four hours the convulsive stage is over, the urine escapes, cedema is more expressed, partly anasarca, pleuritis, pericarditis, etc. Altogether the prognosis is not a very "triste" one, the majority of children recover. In case pleurisy, pericarditis, bronchitis are complicated, then the children may die of the attack.

Treatment-Chloral hydrate, in the form of rectal injections, are used, and in doses of 10 to 25 grs., according to the age of the child; or inhalations of chloroform, if administered with great caution, and not complicated with lung trouble. When the child is able to swallow, a good laxative should at once be ordered:

Aqu. laxat, Viennes, 50.00 (13 oz.);
Aqu. Creasot;

Syr, Rub. Id., of each 30 (1 oz.)

Aided by injections. Irritating diuretics should never be given. Very diluted milk or weak lemonade, with some cream of tartar, almond-milk, Selters water, etc. If the indications are of such a character give digitalis. In passive hyperæmia, Hofenokl prescribes diuretics, acetate of potassium 15-30 grs. In later times warm baths and pilocarpine have been advised. But Hofenokl warns against the use of the last, as severe collapse has been noted after its use. Warm baths, cold applications to head; envelope the child well in order to allow it to perspire. As long as the urine contains blood, the treatment above mentioned, combined with a restricted diet, are to be

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