The homeopaths are forging ahead because they give good medicine, and while there is no virtue in their doses, they yet succeed by enjoining rest, strict dietary, and operate along psychological lines-faith cures; in other words, by the "Vis Medicatrix Naturæ." They amuse the patient and nature cures the disease! If we use nauseous and unsightly compounds, we may lose out!

Question No. 2. Permanganate of potassium in pills uncombined, or in crystals in vial airtight, can be carried anywhere at any time. Only explosive when combined with some agents incompatible.

Question No. 3. You should not forget that creosote (from wood) and carbolic acid are agents to be handled with care. Carbolic acid, when locally applied, is an anesthetic, paralyzes the peripheral nerves. Larger doses of creosote can be more safely taken than can the same amount of carbolic acid. Carbolic acid, topically, except in large dilution, is productive of giddiness, vertigo, tension of the head, passing often into unconsciousness. The poisoning from handling timbers which have been creosoted, is because, in addition to the creosote, there is added the muriatic acid in the process. Where poisonous effects follow creosote or carbolic acid when used externally, may be treated by alcoholic stimulants internally, and the application of dilute alcohol, locally.

also as

Question No. 4. If a child has a "pot belly," I should say it is due to either summer diarrhea, affecting as the result the tonicity and contractility of the intestines; a result of a big liver. There is also an idiopathic dilatation of the colon which continues distended with gas. It is an obstruction of the lumen, and the innervation of the intestines is interfered with. The ballooning of the abdomen, when such a condition is found, it is probable it has supervened from either malarial poison, following diarrheal conditions, fermentative indigestion, or purely a catarrhal disease. I should think by treating for anemia and keeping the bowels open and removing the gas, would be by using:

R Yolk of egg, beaten in a saucer.
Spts, turpentine (added to
yolk)

Warm water

.3j.

.Oij.

M. Sig.-Pass slowly into bowels.

Some authors regard "pot belly" as the result of narrow colon. The doctor would like to know what condition would be found on examination after death of pot-bellied child? I should suspect he would find either congenitally big liver, or congenital obstruction and lack of innervation as the result of the pressure from distention. All these conditions would impair the nervous sensibility, and per consequences, a fixed torpor would result.

Question No. 5. Nightmare may be caused by various things. Indigestible food, reflex nervous states, mental disturbance, heart disease, either functional or organic; constipation, with consequent intestinal toxemia; position in bed, want of ventilation, and many other causes. I don't think there is hardly ever a pathological cause for nightmare. The causes are functional, reflex, etc. How about the night terrors of moony children? About nervous causes? I knew a young man whose business as a bank clerk involved a great strain upon his nervous system, as he had to get the balances of the bank every day at the close of banking hours. After a strenuous day's work he was kept late by the duties spoken of, superadded. It was the rule that, suffering from nervous strain and exhaustion, he frequently had dreadful nightmare. He was my son.

Question No. 6. Getting "turned around," is hard to explain, but it is the result of confusion and bewilderment, and is peculiar to absent-minded persons. Undoubtedly there is some peculiar psychological cause for it. Confusion of mind is more peculiar to old age, especially if there is any functional disorder. The trouble is with the brain, and no one can determine what the condition is, if we eliminate ramollissement, chronic nephritis, or other organic causes.

Question No. 7. Try turpentine under the caudal appendage of a dog, and note the effect. There are thin skinned people with full capillaries; people of nervous sanguine temperament, who can stand neither turpentine nor mustard. Persons of a lymphatic temperament, with sluggish capillary circulation, who can stand both turpentine and mustard anywhere with very little discomfort. Of course, the genital organs are super-sensitive.

Question No. 8. In extracting teeth of pregnant women, it would be safe, after

the period when maternal impressions may be made. To be sure, there is a shock, but that can be obviated by the application of an anesthetic to the parts. If the extraction is painless, it could make no difference.

Question No. 9. We give chloroform in parturition, and if carefully administered it can be safely used on pregnant women.

Question No. 10. There can be no rule as to the earliest age when hypodermics can be given. I should say whenever the muscular development, heart action, etc., are good, and the use of the same occasions no great alarm by the subject; a graduated dose, hypodermically, can be given to any one. However, I don't think it ought to be given to children before they are several years old, say, above six years of age. I have never given hypodermics to children, depending in certain conditions upon inunctions and rectal medications; also by inhalations. All of this in cases of spasms, epileptiform convulsions, etc., where the remedies can't be given per mouth.

Question No. II. Doctress! Many persons speak of women doctors, though.

Question No. 12. I don't believe there is any physiological relation between the mustache and the sexual organs, nor between the mustache and the eyes. If the titillation incident to the osculatory act between the sexes is to be considered, there may be some relation between the mustache and the sexual organs.

Jeffersonville, Ind.

D. L. FIELD, M. D.

BYGONE DAYS.

Editor Medical Summary:

I began the practice of medicine fortyone years ago, and at that time every physician dispensed his own medicine. The physician was his own pharmacist, and I don't mean to boast when I assert that I had good success in the treatment of the sick. Gradually the druggist was entrusted with the preparing and dispensing business, and now he is getting rich with our help. He duplicates, re-duplicates, and counterprescribes; in many cases he steals our formulas. Only a few days since I stepped into a drugstore, and the proprietor was

prescribing treatment for a case of "grip"! It never occurred to the druggist to say that it was the province of a doctor to prescribe, and his privilege to fill the prescription! They are doing us up all the time! The druggist is violating his trust. As to renewing the doctor's prescriptions, we cannot object, as the prescription belongs to whom it was given and paid for. It is no longer the property or under control of the physician. What riles us is, that one transfers a prescription, or rather the numbered from one to another, and the druggist encourages such violence to the doctor's rights and business. It is a common practice for a patient to pass his box of capsules, powders, or what not, to another patient; but the druggist should protect the doctor against such wrong!

The next question is, What shall the doctor do? Retaliate by boycotting the repeating druggist, and sending prescriptions to another. He will find the same thing elsewhere. A breach is bound to come between the physician and the druggist if the interests of the M. D. are not considered as a duty he has a right to expect from the druggist. Too many physicians are coming to regard the pharmacist as a thorn in his side, and rightly, too. Exorbitant prices are charged in too many instances, and if a working man has a long siege of sickness in his family, his savings are soon exhausted and the medical man, very often, can whistle for his money. Of course, the druggist's excuse is, that he is required by a vacillating and experimenting profession to load down his shelves with preparations the doctors prescribe perhaps, but a few times, when he is left with a bag to hold. While this is true, it can be no excuse for extorting overcharges from the innocent.

In this age of concentration and eligible agents, I see no good reason why physicians can't do a greater part of the dispensing of medicines.

A DIALOGUE.

Customer (to druggist)-"I believe I am taking the 'grip.' What's good for it?" Druggist "Well, what you want is some calomel and soda tablets, 1⁄2 grain; take one every hour till you take eight, and follow with a dose of salts."

Customer-"What should I take after

that?"

Druggist "The best thing for you would'

Customer-"My wife is just crazy with neuralgia in the head and jaws. What you got to ease her?"

Druggist—“I can't say for sure, but the boss remedy now is aspirin; five grains every two hours till pain ceases."

Customer-"How do you take it?" Druggist-"Oh, it comes in tablets and can be taken in capsules; its all the same." Customer-"Well, give me the tablets." He does so, and labels the dose accordingly.

can act by penetrating different tissues (contiguity), it also follows that their products may occur in deep tissues and that so wounds can be treated locally. Arnica has become established for muscular tissue, and it has seemed to be proper to use the antiseptic oils: wintergreen, cloves, cedar, origanum, for lymphatic swellings and synovial tenderness. Cedar, by its combined adhesive and penetrating powers does well in punctured wounds; cannot say that anything is peculiarly suited to periosteum, though Prof. W. F. Peck, the sequestrum expert, used balsam of Peru freely after the mallet and chisel. Ammonium chloride is the best all around agent for glandular swellings, or cakes, inside and outside, and enough alcohol can be added to get effect, and it is great also in fluid accumulation, recent cysts, etc., of the newborn, applied in the warm part of the day. It is

safer than the oils.

Bromine spray has soothed and cleaned so well a swollen, angry, but coated fauces that it does more than clean off or ozonize. The published formula said to be used by the originator is too vague and difficult; any solution must look very pale brown and taste but little, and so better than hydrogen peroxide. The solution used by Bartholow, thirty minims in an ounce of alcohol, might be a good base for most solutions required, and with soda it has a reputation of going in. It is of interest also, owing to their being normally some bromine in the pituitary body. Internally hydrobromic acid seems as soothing, given by the mouth, as the spray; but the acid had a remakable effect when given to an overgrown young man with indigestion, hemicrania, and insomnia. The amount taken in two parts was sixty minims. He slept twenty hours, and was roused only by warming up treatment.

Aconite controls local nervous states, irritable warts, subcutaneous tubercles, and neuralgia being cured by it, though in warts I am disposed to give arsenic internally, as it may be doubted whether it is not also a natural elementary principle of the skin, at least, as it is said to be of the blood, like iron in certain lower animals. Time required is greater or less, but persist. Local remedies may be food, alteratives by addition or subtraction, and either sedative or stimulant by action on tissue. In either case it may yet be found that a chemical

action takes place, and there is yet work for a Sajous.

Bismuth subnitrate for gald, intertrigo of infants, beats all baby powder, and it acts on erythemas in a way to show it must draw out, like an alkali will; but the alkaline bath has not yet been used systematically, owing to lack of bath-room meteorological data. A skin unable to unload may be unloaded by local action, as potassium hydrate for eczema; but this seems severe, and a general cutaneous application may be used if the room is right. A suggestion is ventured that the room should be, for most persons, at 86 degrees before the hot water is let into the tub. The bath should be quickly tempered and the patient quickly in it. The moist and close air should then be let out at the top of the room, and at once dry heat be brought into action at the bottom of the room. This may be by hot bricks, soapstone, etc., but not by

brazier nor oil stove. Electric heat would answer. The effect is to free the room from vapor so it will not be muggy or swelty, and yet not chill the patient. Hot air at the bottom of the room would expand and drive out the lightest moist air, and oxygen supply could be kept up. No patent on this suggestion.

Local electric treatment would scarcely be effective, unless the patient is able to supply the blood, i.e., salts, to maintain action. Let no patient boast of his blood to his detriment and your chagrin, but prepare for treatment and support it with proper dietary care. Healing will not take place, either, if the blood is clogged with retentia or deposits, which, if in kidneys, use potassium acetate; if in lungs or spine, use ammonium acetate; if in skin, potassium citrate. The system may require magnesia or lime if intestinal intoxication or infection, is present. Very good surgeons have neglected patients with lung and joint and kidney deposits till their patients sought aid or succumbed. Even rest for overstrained lungs or other parts is apt to fail if either air or food is mismanaged. Local treatment is not a fetish, but an aid, and when well managed it is more than a charm needed by the mind. There! Something has been attempted. Something done!

Franklin, Ia.

J. P. DICKSON, M. D.

LARYNGITIS-A CASE OF SUB

ACUTE.

Editor Medical Summary:

Mrs. J., age 43, complained of hoarseness with tickling cough at New Years. No medication, except simple home remedies was deemed necessary, the patient thinking the trouble would soon be better. Days passed and the hoarseness grew worse; attacks of dyspnea, with choking spells, became more common, loss of sleep with loss of appetite soon debilitated the patient. The neighbors diagnosed the case as asthma, and the usual patent asthma remedies advised, with no apparent relief. After six weeks the writer was called at night to drive ten miles over a bad road in the rain, the phone message being to hurry, the patient is choking to death. On arrival the patient was found struggling for breath, intensely nervous, and afraid death was near. The pulse was 110, temperature 99.6 degrees, tongue coated, pupils dilated, facies reddened and anxious, finger nails pink, feet warm. Immediate prognosis was most favorable; fear predominant. For the attacks of coughing the antiasthmatic granule (containing strychn. arsenate, hyoscyamine amorph., lubelin, apomorphine mur.), with glonoin, was given every half-hour until relieved, then every hour or two. The inhalation of steam was advised, and a spray of iodine, grs. 5; creasote (beechwood), 3j to liquid petrolatum, 3iij, prescribed, to be used every hour to three hours, as the case was benefitted. Strychnine arsenate, gr. 134, three granules every three hours, was also prescribed.

The bowels were constipated, and for their clearing out, calomel, ipecac, and soda tablets were given, two every hour for six hours, to be followed by saline laxative in sufficient dose to move bowels four or five times during the next twenty-four hours, and the saline continued daily to keep bowels lose. A 15-grain powder of veronal was left to procure sleep the next night.

The report next morning was to the effect that the patient was much better, and a few encouraging words while preparing an amyl nitrite capsule, with a few whiffs of this powerful antispasmodic and circulatory sedative soon restored the patient to a more comfortable state. The

breathing was hurried, noisy, and cough croupy and persistent, with spasms of coughing that shook the patient, as she expressed it, "all to pieces." Sleep was out of the question even if fear was allayed. The reclining position was assumed only when sleep overpowered fear, but in a few minutes the patient would rouse, struggling to a sitting position, fighting for breath. This had been going on for two weeks, the attacks increasing in severity and the patient growing gradually weaker.

The patient was given at once a solution of calcium iodized (calcidin) in hot water, one teaspoonful of the powder to the glass, and one teaspoonful of the solution, well stirred, given every fifteen minutes, until better, then every hour.

Improved, the cough almost gone, breathing still loud and labored; patient had had five movements of the bowels, the stools being almost black and very foul. The urine was free, slept all night except when aroused for medicine; breathing much easier than when awake.

A few intestinal antiseptics (W-A) were prescribed, and the other treatment continued, with advice as to bathing, changing bedclothes, nourishing diet, fresh air, plenty of buttermilk, and pure water. The patient improved daily, and in two

weeks

could talk very well. Family and personal history are good; no severe illness since puberty. Patient is mother of eight healthy children, the baby, eleven months' old, being weaned at my suggestion.

Emphasis is placed on the rapid relief of the dyspnea and cough under calcium

iodized.

anxious to continue work. The tongue was white coated and he appeared in a bad way; there was some bronchial involvement. Temperature 102.

He got the following treatment: I first bathed the eye and entire face with carbolized Epsom solution, Epsom salt one ounce, carbolic acid ten grains; two minutes bathing with the above solution, hot, and he said the pain was nearly all gone. He was given the solution and ordered to bathe the entire body at bedtime, and to make an all-night application to the eye; also gave calcium, five grains; sodium bicarb., five grains, to be taken at bedtime, and followed in the morning with a saline; also to repeat the bath in the morning. When he reported the next morning, to use his own words, he felt like a new man. No further trouble, worked every day since.

Schultz, W. Va.

S. J. Ross, M. D.

REPLY TO DR. BURNETT'S QUESTIONS.

Editor Medical Summary:

We hereby submit a few answers to Dr. J. A. Burnett's questions on page 375, February No. of the SUMMARY:

1. Sulphurous fumigation may be given. by placing a pan of water under the patient's bed, floating in which is a much smaller vessel containing a small quantity of burning sulphur; the fumes must be conveyed to the patient's body through an air-tight passage to the body; a fairly airtight bed canopy should confine the fumes to the air immediately surrounding the body. However, a better apparatus would be the consumptive's improvised bed-room, with the patient's head outside the limits of the room. The acid is a good oxidizing agent, while the heat accompanying its production is a good diaphoretic and calmant.

The fumes are irritant to the skin and mucous membranes, hence the fumigation is a counter-irritant to the former, and a

spasmodic irritant to the respiratory ap

paratus.

2. Most assuredly it is safe to carry around potassium permanganate.

3. The creosote process of treating wood