Gelsemium will give good results where the lids are heavy, with inability to move them; dimness of sight with vertigo; dull feeling in eyes, with aching.

Sulphide of calcium is the remedy where the eyes are painful in a bright light; where there are pimples on the face and styes on the eyelids. It is also of value in ulceration of the cornea.

Nux vomica is indicated in atrophy of the optic nerve, a paralytic condition of the lids, amaurosis from dissipation and the excessive use of tobacco.

Bathing the breast four to six times daily with the ordinary cream camphor liniment, then putting on a layer of absorbent cotton and strapping the breasts tightly, will generally arrest the secretion of milk.

Professor DaCosta considered aconite the remedy for cerebral congestion, combined with the bromides and laxatives, or even bleeding, in the severer forms.

It is seldom possible to cure internal piles by palliative measures when once they have reached any size, and it is better to advise operation when they begin to cause serious discomfort.

"Always caution a patient not to swallow when a fluid is being used in the nasal passage, for fear of injury to the eustachian tube."-Dr. Sajous.

In case of flatulent stomach, with headache, the aromatic spirits of ammonia may be taken in teaspoonful doses well diluted, but usually in thirty-drop doses-repeated. It promotes the eructation of gas, and relieves the nervousness accompanying such

cases.

In cases of dropsy arising from heart affections, diuretin has relieved where digitalis, apocynum and strophanthus have failed. This remedy acts directly upon the kidneys, and also influences the heart.

Echinacea is especially useful in all conditions in which a tendency to sepsis is a prominent characteristic, regardless of the name or location of the disease.

Glycerin, one ounce; tannin, one dram; camphor water, one ounce. Dissolve and mix. Excellent for sore nipples, and for chaps and excoriations generally.

In acne, when associated with stomach or intestinal disturbance give echinacea in conjunction with nux vomica, hydrastis, podophyllin, or berberis aquifolium, according to the conditions present.

The addition of menthol to other applications in the treatment of burns will increase the soothing influence of the application.

Jaborandi and gelsemium are advised where there is suppression of perspiration, increased heat and high temperature, in mild cases of sunstroke.

A good, all-around healing ointment is made by incorporating balsam of fir and gum camphor with mutton tallow.

Dr. Bloch recommends, in the treatment of diphtheria, a 10-per-cent. solution of citric acid, to be given in spoonful doses every two hours.

Don't apply chrysophanic acid to the face unless you can see your patient every day, as you may shut up both eyes with a dermatitis from the drug.

Cleansing the nostrils and fauces in scarlet fever, measles, tonsillitis, acute coryza, etc., is of prime importance.

Don't forget the drinking cup and the "all day sucker" as being responsible for the spread of impetigo contagiosa in many instances.

Dysmenorrhea has many causes, and in the treatment the cause should be found and removed. Belladonna will relieve most cases of congestive dysmenorrhea; cimicifuga in neuralgic form. Apiol is of value. when the flow is hard to get started free enough.

Hydrastis is of especial value in bleeding piles or where there is a discharge of mucus or muco-purulent matter from the rectum. Locally apply a weak infusion on lint or inject it into the rectum night and morning.

Vol. XXXI

No. 12

Subscription. $1.00 a year in advance; single copies. 10 cents. Postage on Subscriptions to Canada and Foreign countries, 25 cents additional. New Subscriptions may begin at any time during the year.

HOW TO REMIT: A safe way to remit is by postal money order, express order, check, draft, or registered mail. Currency sent by ordinary mail usually reaches its destination safely, but money so sent must be at the risk of the sender. RECEIPTS: The receipt of all money is immediately acknowledged by a postal card. ADDRESS CHANGE: It is particularly requested that subscribers changing their addresses should immediately notify us of the same, giving present and previous location. We cannot hold ourselves responsible for copies of The Summary sent to former addresses unless we are notified as above.

DISCONTINUANCES: The Summary is continued to responsible subscribers until the publisher is notified by letter to discontinue, when payment of all arrearages must be made. If you do not wish The Summary continued for another year after the time paid for has expired, please notify s to that effect. Address

"THE MEDICAL SUMMARY."

$821 Park Ave. Philadelphia, Pa. Entered at Phila. Post Office as second-class matter

BUSINESS TALK.

The greater number of medical journals. now give a little space each month to business methods, how to collect your money, what to do with it, how to increase your business, etc. Generally speaking the advice given is very helpful, although much. of it is calculated to make the doctor think that he is never getting value received for his services. Very often he does not. But we believe that the great majority of physicians get compensation that is about equivalent to what they are worth and what they are doing. The majority of doctors do not have but a few hundred dollars invested in the equipments necessary to practice

medicine. We believe it is about as easy to earn a dollar in the medical profession as in any other trade or calling. Everybody talks about a doctor's hard life, long rides, night calls, loss of sleep and social handicaps. These now are largely mythical. The doctor nowadays has quick and easy means of transportation in trolley cars and automobiles. Those who can not afford the luxury of the somewhat ubiqutous auto must content himself with a horse and buggy, but he has good roads to travel over. More than that the people are now bunched up closely together and the long and arduous drives have been eliminated except in some of the rural districts. The doctor who now drives at night a distance of ten or twenty miles in the country is indeed a rara avis. So we think if medical men will stop and count their many blessings they will find many of their troubles within themselves. Introspection is often a good thing. It enables us to get a better grip on ourselves.

We have made bold to say that the rank and file of the profession ought to get along sufficiently well financially that we ought not to hear so much of the wail of hard times. What, then, is the trouble? We hate to again spring a thing that is so hoary with age but it is nevertheless true. "Doctors are poor business men." Of course there are many, many exceptions. Lots of medical men become promoters of one sort of activity and another by which they have no difficulty in keeping a certain animal from the aperture into their homes.

Let us be a bit more specific. It is surprising to note the number of physicians who fail to protect their property by fire insurance. Recently a doctor past fifty years of age told us that fire destroyed his library and instruments aggregating in value over two thousand dollars. Not a dollar of insurance. It was all the man owned. Such things are not uncommon with members of the profession. Every thoughtful doctor should protect his property by fire insurance and his family by life insurance.

Many doctors practice economy very badly. They stock up their office often with apparatus that is not very usable and buy lavishly of elegant pharmaceuticals when cheaper (and positively known) drugs would do better. So often the library is graced by the kind of books that are not read. It may seem a bit cruel to say it, but in a general way we do not believe the doctor should listen with much interest to the siren song of the agent and detail man. What do you think of the man who would sell you a set of books with a valuable (?) lot adjacent New York City thrown in? Better give him and all his ilk the skiddoo sign and learn to trust your own judgment.

THE MUSTARD PLASTER. The SUMMARY feels sometimes that it owes its readers an apology for so often presenting naive and homely subjects like the one just captioned, for instance. But in this age of tremendous pharmaceutical research with its ever-increasing numbers of remedies (some of them almost specifics but the most of them almost therapeutically worthless) there is a tendency to let the very homely agencies drop into desuetude. We have frequently made the assertion that entirely too many old weeds and plants of one kind and another are doing duty as "curative agents" in the varied ills from which mankind suffers. Many trashy articles are written each year for medical journals in which rare and peculiar plants are described as possessing wonderful therapeutic value. Somehow scientific minds have become in a measure

tinctured with the absurd and inane lay notion that the Creator has put into herbs and plants a curative principle for every disease, and that it is man's duty to sort this matter out. This is about on a parallel with the wisdom in relation to drugs which is acquired by some intrepid white man who consorted for a long time with an Indian chief.

The mustard plaster is one of the best medicinal agencies at our command. We fear that its true value is not always properly estimated. Applied locally mustard is a dependable neuro-vascular stimulant; its effects are systemic as well as local. In gastritis with an upset stomach nothing is more efficacious and prompt in its remedial action. Its value in pleurisy, backache, abdominal pains, ovarian neuralgia, etc., is too familiar for reiteration here. The mustard plaster is one of the effective measures calculated to break up a cold on the chest, provided the patient is content to remain indoors a day or so. No one questions its value in most cases of pneumonia at some stage.

There are several ways of making a healthy, active mustard poultice and there are likewise wrong ways of making it. If the fresh ground seed can be obtained the poultice is preferably made from it, although the commercial drug answers reasonably well. An expedite way of applying mustard is to dip flannel cloths in hot water and then sprinkle the powder on them. A more common method is to incorporate a quantity of mustard, say a teaspoonful, with twice that amount of flour, using sufficient water to make a paste. The mustard sprinkled on a bread or flaxseed poultice is a choice method with many. A thin layer of gauze or muslin should in most cases be placed between the poultice and the skin. Another expedite manner of securing the action of mustard is to rub the powder into the skin, applying over the surface cloths wrung from hot water. It is well known that the white of an egg incorporated with a mustard paste will prevent blistering or scarring. Some skins are so sensitive and susceptible to the action of mustard that a poultice must be carefully watched, especially if the patient be asleep or unconscious. For a mustard burn lard is better than vaseline.