Jan. 2nd he was as well as before using the Boracic acid.— (Schmidt's Jahrb., ib., p. 28.)

Poisoning by Arsenuretted Hydrogen.

Says Stadelmann (Archiv. f. Exp. Path., xvi, p. 221): As far as we know the symptoms of poisoning by Ars. hyd., there is a marked opposition between the results of experiments on animals and the majority of the rare cases of poisoning by Ars. hyd. in human beings. For whilst in the latter, besides the very striking symptoms of copious hæmaglobinuria, a greater or less obvious icterus was observed, it (icterus) could never be found in the numerous experiments on animals, the most extensive of which were made by Naunyn (Beitr. z. Lehre von Icterus. Reichart und Dubois Arch., 1868).

But later experiments have shown that by conducting the experiments in a different manner icterus may be caused by Ars. hyd. in dogs as well as in man. Stadelmann gives an account of his experiments on eighteen dogs, in one half of whom icterus more or less marked was produced. All attempts to produce icterus in rabbits failed, but the desired result was obtained in a certain proportion of the cats poisoned by Ars. hyd.

Poisoning by Carbolic acid.

A young man drank Carbolic acid out of a bottle thinking it was brandy. He immediately felt burning pain in mouth and throat. He went to a public-house to get some brandy, sat down there on a bench and felt very weak and became insensible. When seen in the evening he was found to be a robust man of about thirty, the skin cyanotic, extremities cold, complete loss of consciousness, sensibility, and motion. He showed no signs of intelligence when shaken or holloaed to, or when pinched, the limbs when raised fell helplessly down, the eyes shut, pupils insensible, contracted, laborious breathing in jerks; bluish red closed lips covered with bloody froth; a coarse râle over the whole chest that completely hides the vesicular respiration. Heart's beats and sounds weak, no bruit, pulse small, scarcely to be felt, no trembling. Blisters were applied and Benz. acid internally. The following day (Feb. 4th) consciousness had returned, there was no cyanosis, breathing free, râles gone. Mucous

membrane of lips, mouth and gullet greyish-white, complains of burning and pain in mouth, gullet and gastric region, violent vomiting, urine black. Milk, ice and Chalk mixture were prescribed. The following day (Feb. 5th) the vomiting continued, also livid colour of skin and mucous membrane of mouth and throat. Complains of violent pains in mouth, stomach, and chest. February 6th.-Vomiting ceased, urine dark brown, pain in right side of chest, rust-coloured sputa. 7th.-Urine clear, temp. 39°, pulse small, quick; bloody sputa, delirium. Behind from lower angle of scapula to lowest part of right lung complete dulness, loud bronchial breathing there; râles. Prescribed Chin., Sulph., Milk, cold compresses to right side of chest. The patient died on the 8th.

Post-mortem.-Mucous membrane of lips and mouth leaden grey, fauces strongly reddened, mucous membrane swollen, puckered, with streaks of exudation, oesophagus especially strongly injected, coroded in some places, mucous membrane of stomach on its posterior wall extremely marbled with blue-red ecchymoses, but no loss of substance, no alteration in intestines, liver enlarged, fatty, spleen somewhat enlarged, right kidney enlarged, swollen, inflamed. No alteration in larynx or trachea, right lung in its middle and lower lobe firm, airless, in the stage of red hepatisation, the rest of pulmonary substance contains air. Heart firmly contracted. (Berl. Klin. Wochensch., July 2nd, 1883.)

415

MISCELLANEOUS.

Fortieth Anniversary of the American Institute of Homœopathy.

THIS year the Institute held its Annual Meeting at Niagara Falls, under the presidency of Dr. Bushrod James. The meeting was numerously attended. We subjoin a few extracts from the presidential address:

GENERAL MEDICAL PROGRESS.

There are some questions of deep interest to every physician to whatever school he may adhere, subjects which have a universal medical importance. Lessons are to be learned from these, not only by the observers engaged in the work of investigation, but by every student-for every medical man should be a life-long student. I refer, for example, to the researches of Koch and Pasteur, and Ehrlich and others in regard to the bacilli of consumption and other diseases; to the investigations of Formad and Wood, upon the producing germs and causes of diphtheria; to the claims of Norris, of London, in regard to the discovery of a third corpuscle in the blood, which he takes to be identical with the hæmatoblasts of Hayem and the small blood plates of Bizzozero; or to the later views of some physiologists who hold that the blood is a living fluid tissue imbued with vital activity and attended with the power of being nourished and of suffering waste and death; or to the researches of Prof. Frankestein and his belief in the discovery of the cause of pernicious anæmia. The origin of this, he holds, is in the decaying teeth. He found in the blood of pregnant women suffering from pernicious anæmia, minute active bodies, some in a state of transition into double-celled bodies. Upon investigating the liver cells he found in several cases a great number of multi-celled filaments. From these cells these filaments had found their way into the capillaries in numbers sufficient to seriously affect the circulation. The investigator claims that these organisms find their origin in a fungus growing in carious teeth. Fatty heart may, it is also claimed, depend upon the same conditions. This may open a wide field of enquiry; and the dentist may be able by scientific procedures to prevent incalculable misery, for where can so much danger lurk as where our every meal comes into contact with such a disease-producing cause as caries in the teeth.

I also refer to the researches of Prof. Salisbury, of New York, where, in 1000 cases of infusional catarrh in the past sixteen years, he discovered a

flagellate infusorium with body and legs," which he denominates the "asthmatos ciliaris" and found in great abundance in the nasal passages and on the conjunctivæ in cases of epidemic infusional catarrh. Even microscopic observers become affected by inhalation; and contagious cases of pneumonia are ascribed to this rapidly propagating cause. Dr. E. Cutler asserts that, if the case is mild, no serious injury may result, but if a "ropy, sticky condition of the blood prevails, with exposure to cold, followed by pneumonia, it becomes very serious and is often fatal."

All these and similar investigations show that medicine at large is widening its field of study. We must follow up these investigations, and wherever we can aid them by direct or indirect personal encouragement as well as continue those begun in our own school, and, when opportunity presents, inaugurate new themes for study and help on medical progress as well as medical reform in all times and in all places.

OUR STATUS.

That our materia medica workers, our microscopists, our ophthalmic and aural and general surgeons, our laryngologists, our gynæcologists, pædologists, sanitarians, obstetricians, physiologists, clinical investigators, pathologists, anatomists, and a host of others in the various lines of medical thought in our school, are assiduously at careful work, is a source of great encouragement and pleasure; and the labours of all such men are deserving of our highest commendation and congratulations for what they have already done, and what they are annually accomplishing. God speed your efforts and give you long life and great powers of endurance for the continuance of your tedious researches !

With our specialties rapidly developing, our careful thinkers and workers obtaining honourable positions, and the worthy members of our branch of the profession being admitted into the scientific associations of the country, and into the choicest social circles all over the world, I can but congratulate the science of homœopathy, to which I am an humble adherent, and this Institute, upon its present status.

ETHICS.

Looking across the medical chasm we see a great stir in the camp. A strange flag is unfurled. A motto is discerned. It reads: "The New Code." "Code!" Methought that was the remains of an old shell fish, that dear old fossil, "the code." It has become a triturated mass, and been turned into a "bolus," yea, a choking bolus. It has choked many an intimate friendship, and is now strangling many more. Its ethics are like a whirligig, affected by every breeze, now calm as a sleeping beauty, now flying with fury, turning first this and then another way; one moment quiet, and the next humming and buzzing like a nest of hornets, and in its work of mischief quite as hungry for evil.

"No consultation ethics" is on the other great medical banner that we see flying; and this is the lofty war ensign of the day in the opposing school of medicine. Happily we are not the antagonists in the fray; it is a home

rebellion in the venerable "old school" ranks. The great test battles have twice been fought on the soil of this state, and code reform has been victorious; and this state in the van of others will surely follow. A trickling drop of water wearing ever at a granite foundation will eventually crumble it away; and so will the constant efforts of brave, consistent hearts of ethical reformers wear a crevice in the obdurate heart of old school prejudice.

Towards our school the weapons are changing. At first we were classed as "quacks;" then as "irregulars ;" now simply as "sectarians." It has taken the "old" eyes a long time to penetrate far enough into their own definition of the term "quack and charlatan to see that our system is infinitely more free from charlatan practice and irregularity than their own, for ours is based upon a scientific law; and, further, all the teachings and writings and remedies of the school have always been free and open to everybody; and no quackery or secret drug or proprietary or patent remedy is allowed in the school under any form; and a liberality exists in our ranks far surpassing theirs in matters of medical education and of certainty of therapeutic application and success.

READINESS TO TEST THE NEW PRACTICE.

To prove the assertion of success, there is not a city in this country to-day where homoeopathic practitioners are found but in which the members of our branch will willingly test the system side by side in any and every hospital, if a fair, impartial trial be accorded. But, fearing the comparison, whenever the two systems are placed in such contrasts by the laity, the "noble" old school physicians, like a retreating foe, withdraw under their mottoed banner. Under the garb of "the code" they hide their dread and fear of homoeopathic practice. Ye laymen of the land, why do you not awake and compel the trial? In all your almshouses, your hospitals, and all your free or remunerative institutions, wherever the sick are found, we stand ever ready, ever waiting, for the trial and the work. You are interested; and if the "regulars" decline this fair examination of the merits of our system give us the institutions as a whole, by right and justice, and by reason of their ignominious retreat when asked to make the trial. Why should the American Medical Association prattle about a consulting rule of ethics, when consultations, many and often, have been held between prominent members of the two rival schools? The garments of a Beaconsfield or a Garfield were of such official importance and luring beauty that the old profession permitted bedside consultations between members of both schools over these honoured and valued men, and an interested and afflicted public encouraged and upheld the action. The medical codes of the two greatest English-speaking and the most influential nations of the world were thrust aside as though they had no existence, and "sectarian" brothers "met" by choice and not by chance. The more homespun gait of the lesser official and unofficial laity seems too humble to afford a repetition of the courtesy then demanded and granted. Are we to believe that it was compulsory magnanimity on the part of the old codists ?

VOL. XLI, NO. CLXVI.-OCTOBER, 1883.

DD