These are all the facts observed by Dr. Jolles, and it must be clear that of the discovery of the microbe of influenza there is really very little evidence, if any. In the first place, the assumption made by Dr. Jolles that Friedlander's bacillus has a casual relation to pneumonia has been, as far as croupous pneumonia is concerned (and it is for this pneumonia that its etiological importance had been asserted by Friedlander and others), abundantly disproved, since this microbe is present in various conditions in no way related to pneumonia; for example, normal sputum, the normal fluid of the mouth, etc.

In the second place Dr. Jolles' argument, that because in some cases of influenza one kind or another of pneumonia supervenes on the primary attack, one of the species of microbes present in the sputum of such pneumonia might be and probably is the microbe of influenza, is faulty in logic as well as in fact. We have already pointed out in the last number of this journal that the pneumonia following some cases of influenza is not of a uniform character and is evidently a secondary complication, and therefore the microbe, even if proved to be the cause of this pneumonia, need not necessarily be the organism of the primary disease, that is, of the influenza. The demonstration of the microbe in a sufficient number of cases of influenza during the early stages of the disease must be the very first and preliminary step. This, however, has not been taken.

To all those interested in the discovery of the nature and causes of epidemic diseases—and none can and ought to be more so than the general public-the publication of incorrect, misleading, and exaggerated accounts, such as were telegraphed on the subject of the discovery of the microbe of influenza from Vienna, and appeared in Vienna, London, and elsewhere, must always remain a regretable incident.-British Medical Journal.

CONGESTION OF THE LUNGS.-Dr. Wilks has done well to call attention to the laxity with which the phrase "congestion of the lungs" is employed, and there is much truth in his satirical comparison between the prevalence of this mysterious affection and the social status of the sufferer. Those who employ the term mean by it to affirm that there is an acute disease of the lungs which is of great gravity, and is associated with high fever, a condition independent of any other affection; in fact, a disease sui generis. But, singularly enough, the pathologist rarely meets with such congestive hyperemia, unless it be collateral or combined with inflammatory changes in the bronchi or the lungs, the congestive state with

which he is most familiar being that known as passive hyperemia, from obstructed circulation due to failure of the left side of the heart to empty itself, whether this latter depends on valvular disease or on muscular weakness. Strictly speaking, too, the conditions found after death are those of “edema " mainly; the effects of congestion, and not congestion itself. Almost the only condition of active pulmonary congestion of which there is any thing like positive proof is that which forms what is called the "first stage" of pneumonia, where every thing points (clinically) to vascular engorgement. Is it not, then, time to discard the use of a term which, if it means any thing, means pneumonia? The nomenclature of the Royal College of Physicians does not recognize any such affection as "congestion of the lungs" of the type alluded to, and in this it is consistent with pathological teaching. Lancet.

For attacks accompanied by gastric symptoms, properly called gastro-enteritis, with the characteristic malodorous stools, carbolic acid with chlorate of potassium in distilled water is a wonderfully good prescription, also salol in two to five-grain doses; beta-napthol and small and frequently repeated doses of calomel or a solution of bichloride of mercury in very small doses from

to grain, al-o a very dilute solution of the biniodide in solution of the latter often acts like a charm in grain dose.—Dr. J. A. Larrabee, N. E. Med. Mo.

MICRO-ORGANISMS IN WATER.-There is a difference of opinion among many chemists as to whether the presence of a large quantity of bacteria or a considerable amount of organic matter in drinking water justifies as such its condemnation, Waters containing few bacteria and little organic matter have been known to produce distinctly injurious results, while some waters containing much of both appear to be comparatively harmless in their action. Of course, very much depends upon the source of the water and the nature of its surroundings. The fact, however, that organisms believed to be agents in bringing about certain diseases exist in water for a long time, during which their activity is preserved, makes their absence distinctly desirable. Certain operations in nature would seem to indicate this. Investigations have shown that more bacteria are usually present in rivers than in lakes, in spite of the fact that lakes themselves in many cases are more or less polluted by rivers passing through populous towns. In a very interesting paper in the Zeitschrift für Hygiene, 1889, No. 86, B. Krüger considers that this rapid decrease in the number of organisms may very possibly be due in part to the action of direct sunlight, but in the main to the tendency of water in a comparatively undisturbed state to deposit and precipitate. He therefore carried out a number of experiments with a view to determine how far the removal of organisms was brought about by the mere mechanical deposition of inert matter and also by precipitation as a result of chemical action. mechanical precipitants employed, all in a state of fine powder and sterilized, were alumina, brick lust, clay, chalk, sand, coke, and charcoal. Water obtained from an ordinary service pipe was impregnated with a liquid containing bacillus growth of a species incident to tap water. This was divided into two portions-one for precipitation with the inert substance and the other

The

untreated for the sake of comparison. Experiments were similarly carried out in which precipitation was obtained as the result of chemical action such as is brought about by the addition to the water containing naturally lime, magnesia, etc., substances like wood ash, sulphate of alumina, and slaked lime. The general conclusion come to by the author from the results obtained is that undoubtedly large numbers of bacteria are carried down by inert substances merely sinking in the water, but that the action is very considerably increased when, in addition to mechanical deposition, a chemical precipitation also takes place. The corollary is evident-inert substances do mechanically assist in the precipitation of micro organisms, but preference should be given to chemical treatment.-Lancet.

PULMONARY HEMOPTYSIS.-M. Vidal recommends treating pulmonary hemoptysis in phthisical patients with ipecacuanha and antimony, or kermes (oxydum stibii sulphuratum rubrum) in small doses every ten minutes. If this does not completely arrest the hemoptysis, M. Vidal counsels applying Gounod's cupping glasses or ligating a limb. When fever is present, two grams of ergot of rye and one gram of sulphate of quinine divided in four doses, to be taken every three hours, M. Vidal has found successful, but condemns the use of iron or arsenic, generally considered good in treating hemorrhage.

THE TREATMENT OF ACUTE CATARRH OF THE RECTUM. Quite frequently the practitioner of medicine sees cases in which the entire list of remedies generally found of value in the treatment of diarrhea have proved useless or merely palliative in effect. While they may control the frequent movements of the bowels for a time, the trouble reasserts itself as soon as the medicine is withdrawn; at the best in a somewhat modified form. Careful inquiry will show, in such cases, several points of value as to diagnosis and treatment. The attack has probably been preceded by a few days during which there has been a sensation of weight and fullness in the rectum and about the anus; following this, a sensation of bearing down asserts itself, accompanied by violent pain referred to the region of the stomach or small gut. So severe is the pain in its paroxysms that the patient may cry out with it and the perspiration break out over the body. At first small passages may occur, but after a few stools they consist of wind and a few drops of mucus, which are expelled after a period of agonizing pain and

tenesmus. Opium makes the state ultimately far worse than before, and nearly all astringents are valueless. Under these circumstances small do-es of chlorate of potash injected into the rectum are most serviceable, only one or two injections being necessary in some acute cases to produce a cure. A saturated solution of the potash in water should be employed and about half a tumblerful injected each time, very slowly without force, and retained for ten or fifteen minutes. Large injections will cause pain and expulsion of the liquid, and no result will be attained.-Medical News.

SOMNAL, A NEW HYPNOTIC.-Radlauer, of Berlin, has introduced a new combination to which he has given the name "somnal." This substance is composed of chloral, alcohol, and urethane, and is said to be a true chemical compound, and not merely a mixture. It is therefore different from the "chloral-urethane" which has been used for a year or more, by alienists and nerve specialists, and which has been considered by some of them both safe and reliable. The British Medical Journal says that somnal occurs in clear, colorless crystals, having a slightly bitter taste and being readily soluble in water and in alcohol. It is given in doses of thirty grains, and sleep is produced in thirty minutes. The sleep is described as sound and natural, lasting from six to eight hours, and followed by no unpleasant effects. Somnal does not disturb the digestion, has no influence over the pulse or temperature, and, in fact, has the excellent qualities of both chloral and urethane without their disadvantages. Favorable experience with the drug is said to have been reported from the hospitals of Berlin and Moscow.-N. Y. Med. Journal.

IS THE GASTRIC JUICE A GERMICIDE?-Drs. Straus and Wurtz have conducted a series of experiments in order to ascertain the action of the gastric juice on the bacilli of tubercle, charbon, typhoid, and cholera morbus. The juice from man, dogs, and sheep was selected for the experiments. It was found that digestion for a few hours at a temperature of 100° F. destroyed all the germs. The bacillus anthracis

was killed in half an hour, the bacillus of typhoid and cholera in under three hours, while the bacillus of tubercle bore digestion for six hours, under which time it was still capable of provoking general tubercular infection. Even when digested for from eight to twelve hours the bacillus was still capable of producing a local tubercular abscess, not followed by general infection. Over twelve hours' digestion destroyed it completely. The germicide influence of gastric juice appears to be due to its acid

contents, as it was found that hydrochloric acid alone, dissolved in water in the same proportion as it is in gastric juice, proved as active a destroyer of the bacilli. The pepsin appears to have no influence on the germs. MM. Straus and Wurtz, who publish their researches in Archives de Médecine Expérimentale, wisely remind their readers that the germs, when protected by animal and vegetable tissues and introduced into the stomach in ordinary nutrition, are not exposed to so direct and prolonged action of the acid constituents of gastric juice as in these experiments.-British Med. Journal.

BACILLI IN LANDRY'S PARALYSIS.-A study of interest has recently been made in the Pathological Institute at Bologna by Dr. E. Centanni (Riforma medica, 1889, No. 161; Centralblatt für klinische Medicin, November 30, 1889) upon the infectious nature of Landry's disease. dry's disease. He had the opportunity of making an anatomical examination of a typical case of acute ascending paralysis, and found the lesion to be an acute interstitial neuritis, with some tendency to affect the spinal cord indirectly. Furthermore, a bacillus of peculiar character and in typical localization was observed in large numbers in all the peripheral nerves, when subjected to staining with methylene-blue borax, according to Sahli's method. The germ is cylindrical, rod shaped, with round ends, about 1.2 micro-millimeters in length, without spores, and showing no tenden y to any particular form of aggregation. It is found almost exclusively in the endo-neural lymph spaces surrounding the sheath of Schwann, and not elsewhere in the nerves or muscular system.-N. Y. Med. Journal.

DIAGNOSIS OF Cerebro-SpiNAL MENINGITIS BY PUNCTURE OF THE LIVER.—Dr. C. Bozzolo reports a case of cerebro-spinal meningitis, in which the diagnosis was assisted by bacteriological observations made on the fluid obtained by puncturing the liver. A man, aged fifty four, who had been ill for five days previously, was admitted into the clinic at Turin suffering from feverishness, pain in the right side of the neck, jaundice, enlargement of the spleen, painful enlargement of the liver, bronchitis, and albuminu ria. A rigor occurred more than once. Except the pain in the neck and vomiting, no symptom whatever of meningitis existed. Six days after admission the patient died, having been slightly delirious for the previous forty-eight hours. Diagnosis being difficult, the author had on the fourth day after admission made an exploratory punc

ture of the liver, which was still painful. The blood extracted showed by cultivation and after experiments on animals the exist ence in it of Fraenkel's diplococcus of pneumonia. This result, in the absence of pneumonic and pleuritic symptoms, with the existing pains in the neck and vomiting, encouraged Bozzolo to diagnose meningitis, a diagnosis which was confirmed by the post-mortem examination. In addition to the morbid changes in the meninges, gall stones and acute endocarditis were found.-Lancet.

PILOCARPINE IN ECLAMPSIA.-Pilocarpine may be said to be on trial as a remedy in the dreaded convulsions of puerperal eclampsia, and it is important to note the results which are from time to time reported by competent observers. On the whole, the reports are decidedly favorable, and a case recently published in a French contemporary shows clearly enough that in certain cases the drug may be relied upon to conjure the attack. In this particular case the attack had come on during labor, and was not relieved on the evacuation of the contents of the uterus; indeed, the condition of the patient on the following day was simply desperate. The injection of a third of a grain of pilocarpine at the critical moment is reported to have produced a most remarkable effect. After an abundant diaphoresis lasting over half an hour, the pulse returned in the radial arteries and the surface temperature was restored. No further convulsions occurred, and in the course of a day or two the injections continued night and morning, albumen disappeared from the urine, the patient becoming convalescent. The effects were too clear and too prompt for the results to be attributed to any other influence, and the remedy is one which should always form part of the armamentarium of the obstetric physician. Med. Press and Circular.

HOW TO LOOK FOR TUBERCLE BACILLI IN SPUTUM.-Ehrlich's method, somewhat modified, is as follows: Press a little of the suspected sputum between two cover-glasses so as to get a very thin layer. Dry the cover-glasses separately, either by moving them through the air or holding over a flame or by passing a few times through the flame. This fixes and dries the preparation. Place some drops of aniline oil in a reagent glass half filled with water, shake, and filter into a watch glass. Add several drops of an alcholic solution of fuchsin. or methyl violet to the contents of the watch glass till they are markedly colored. Warm this mixture till it begins to smoke. Place the cover-glass with the dried sputum face down

ward on the warm liquid and let it float from three to five minutes. Remove and rinse in alcohol, acidulated with nitric or hydrochloric acid, until very slight traces of color remain ; then rinse in ordinary alcohol (seventy or eighty per cent). Dry the cover-glass as before by holding above a flame, clean it where necessary, add a little pure glycerin and set under the microscope. An enlargement of four hundred diameters will show the bacilli if present. Col. and Clin. Record.

INTERMITTENT FEVER.-Dr. Alois Fénykövy communicates to a Vienna medical journal an account of some observations made on the treatment of intermittent fever by means of friction of the back along the spine. Many years ago, while at Nisch with his regiment, there occurred so many cases of intermittent fever that the stock of quinine was becoming exhausted, and in order that the patients might not be entirely without some sort of treatment it was ordered that they should be rubbed twice a day along the spine with simple ointment. The day after this order had been given it appeared that the usual attack had not come on; accordingly, since that time Dr. Fénykövy has very frequently employed this treatment, and usually with marked success. Indeed, he says that three fourths of his cases have done very well without any quinine at all.-London Lancet.

TRISMUS FOLLOWING VACCINATION.—It is reported that at Bromly recently an infant who had been vaccinated in September, at the same time and with the same lymph as six other children, had died of trismus, which had supervened upon inflammation of the arm. With the scanty details at present forthcoming, it is impossible to pronounce upon the case as to the possible connection between the vaccination and the trismus, an association which has, we believe, never been hitherto recorded. In such a case the need of a post-mortem examination is obvious, in order to exclude meningitis, which might have produced the symp toms in question.-Ibid.

DETECTION OF, PUS IN THE URINE.-Drop into the specimen of urine enough tincture of guaiac to give it a milky appearance, and heat it a few minutes to 100° F. If pus is present a blue tint will develop. Otherwise the urine may be passed through a white filter, on which is then allowed to fall a few drops of tincture of guaiac, producing, if pus is present, a distinct blue discoloration.-Pharma. Era.

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UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.

The Fifty-third Annual Commencement of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville was held in Macauley's Theater on Friday, February 28, 1890. The occasion was of unusual interest, in that it was the celebration of the conferring of the degree of M. D. upon the largest number of students ever graduated from the school. The Doctorate Address was delivered by Prof. J. M. Bodine, for twenty-four years Dean of the Faculty, and an indefatigable laborer in the cause of medical education.

The Louisville Courier-Journal, issued on commencement day, bears testimony to the Dean's worth and work in the following sketch:

"The close of this session completes Dr. Bodine's twenty-fourth year as the Dean of the Faculty. During this time he has never missed a lecture. He has been through many school storms, but every storm was calmed and affairs worked more smoothly than before. Although the doctor is fifty-eight years of age, he looks years younger, and is as sprightly as he was twenty years ago. Dr. Bodine graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine in 1854. Soon after he began lecturing before the classes of the Kentucky School, and in 1866 accepted a position as professor in the

University. During that session he was made dean, and, though he has tried to resign several times, he was never able to get out of the office, his resignations being always rejected by a unanimous vote of his colleagues. It has been many years since he was heard at the commencement exercises, and the announcement that he will deliver the Faculty Valedictory this afternoon will bring his friends out in full force."

The address, the full text of which appears elsewhere in this issue, discusses the problem of the doctor's life in the manner of a philosopher, with dignity, with sincerity, with eloquence, and with grace. It was fit that the largest class ever sent forth from the University should hear such words of counsel and good cheer from the lips of him whose love and labor have contributed so largely to the glory of the school.

The degree of M. D. was conferred by the Hon. James S. Pirtle, President of the Board of Trustees, upon the following gentlemen:

Alexander, S. C., Ky.
Azbill, Overton T., Ky.
Azbill, Charles M., Ky.
Allen, Richard, Ky.
Abernathy, B. F., Tenn.
Ball, Collin, Ky.
Bryant, Joseph B., Tex.
Butler, Thomas L., Ky.
Boyd, Frank D., Tex.
Bowen, Berry, Mo.
Baker, John H., Ky.
Bussey, Daniel C., Tex.
Berry, Andrew J., Mo.
Bradley, Robert L., Tex.
Byers, William L., Ky.
Bennett, Dyton, Ark.
Boyd, Robert L., Ky.
Brown, Michael, Ky.
Brown, Andrew E., Tenn.
Belsher, T. M., Tex.
Cain, Achilles W., Ky.
Colson, Huston G., Ky.
Crocker, Abner L., Tex. Hays, William F., Ky.
Collier, Wesley W., Miss. Heaton, Wm. W., Pa.
Chapman, George F., Ky. Hudson, Elmer M., Ark.
Crump, Robert P., N. C. Horne, Felix O., Miss.
Cherry, Elijah A.. Ky.
Campbell, Jeff. D., Tenn.
Corry, James F., Tex.
Craig, Hiram V., Ky.
Dunn, Jesse T., Ind.

Dukes, Noah M., Tenn.
Diamond, Wm. M., Ala.
Eads, Coleman J., Ky.
Ernest, William F, Ills.
Florence, William A., Ga."
Feaster, Thomas J., Mo.
Felix, Charles W., Ky.
Funk, Gabriel H., Col.
Grant, Elmore E., Tex.
Godfrey, M. F., N. Y.
Graham, Oliver P., Ks.
Goodman, George C., Ky.
Grant, Joseph F., Tex.
Hampton, Nat D., Tex.
Hicks, Samuel H., La.
Harral, Richard D., Tex.
Hensley, Thomas J., Ky.
Hemphill, John A., Tex.
Hibbs, Russel A., Ky.
Hodges, William J., Ky.
Harrod, Frank L., Ky.
Hendrick, W. B., Ala.

Hollifield, B. L. C., Miss. Johns, John B., La. Johnson, James M., Tex. Jones, J. Allen, Tex. Korvenstrot, B J., Ky.