to an abnormal degree by disease, the fluid will distend all of the coverings of the scrotum and we have hydrocele. The most frequent cause is a contusion which causes a congested and unhealthy condition of the tunica vaginalis testis. Cases of this variety require for their care arnica, arsenicum and conium internally and alcohol alone or with a small percentage of hamamelis added for a local external application. It may be applied two, three or four times daily by means of a saturated poultice, and may be covered in some way to keep from evaporating too rapidly. If the case does not show signs of improvement in one or two weeks, from 4 to 10 drops of carbolic acid may be injected into the sack, one injection only, or not repeated oftener than in ten or fourteen days, and then only if improvement has come to a standstill. Another remedy which can be used as an injection in the same quantity and the same way as carbolic acid is iodine. Both remedies should be used with due caution, the quantity to be injected should be gauged by the size of the scrotum or better by the quantity of fluid which it contains. One such injection is often sufficient for a cure, but it can be repeated two or three times at intervals of of two weeks. I have used electricity in connection with other remedies, with benefit. Dr. O. L. Potter claims that a current of twenty to forty elements by two needles will cure all cases. Other remedies which I have used are kali-jod. in low potencies digitalis and rhododendron. Other remedies which have been used with success by eminent men in the profession are Graph. Calcarea fluor., Calcar phos., and Silicea. I have never met with a case where the above treatment was not sufficient to bring about a cure within a reasonable time. DISCUSSION. Dr. C. E Walton of Cincinnati described his treatment for hydrocele, in which the injection of one dram of carbolic acid was always efficacious. A secondary effusion usually occurred, but this always absorbed within a couple of days. Ind. Inst. of Hom., Indianapolis, May, 1894. ACONITE AND BELLADONNA DIFFERENTIATED. As Aconite and Belladonna are in some respects similar remedies belonging to the same gruop, it is well to know what the differences are between them, that each may be used only when truly indicated, and not confounded, the one with the other, as so commonly done by loose prescribers. These differences are well marked and easily remembered, and should be committed to memory by every physician. The red face of Belladonna is a dark or purple redness, while the Aconite patient has a bright red face. The red face of the Belladonna patient is the worse for leaning the head forward. In the Aconite patient, on the other hand, the red face becomes pale if the head be raised from the pillow. This is a great characteristic a key-note-of Aconite, though Veratrum has the same symptom. The Belladonna patient sees fantastic illusions and visions when he closes his eyes. Here is a key-note of Belladonna which ought to be carefully remembered. Belladonna has aggrivation, therefore, from closing the eyes, whilst Aconite is better from closing them. Belladonn has headache on the right side of the head, while Aconite has it on the left side. Belladonna is better from sitting up during the headache; lying down increases the headache. Aconite, on the aother hand, is better from lying down. The Belladonna patient has hot head and cold hands and feet. Here again is a characteristic which should always be remembered when prescibing. Belladonna has beads of hot perspiration standing on the forehead, whilst the body is at the same time burning hot. Aconite has hot, dry skin. The perspiration of Belladonna is apt to be pungent smelling, whilst Aconite has no perspiration until the paroxysm is over, and then it smells sour. Generally speaking, Aconite is a left-handed remedy, while the affections of Belladonna are on the right side. Belladonna affects the upper left and lower right side, while Aconite has the reverse. Aconite has dryness of the mouth with thirst, while Belladonna has dryness without thirst. Belladonna has chills descending, whilst with Aconite they ascend. Belladonna has sleeplessness before midnight, Aconite after midnight. Having, in the foregoing observations, shown some of the contrasts of Aconite and Belladonna, it may not be amiss to recount some of the special characteristics of Belladonna. Belladonna takes cold from uncovering the head; therefore, from having the hair cut in cool weather. Even when The great characteristic of its pains is throbbing. there is no pain, the patient can hear and feel throbbing all over him when lying in bed, especially in the morning. The patient is sensitive to the jarring of the bed on which he lies. This is one of the surest indications for Belladonna in the whole range of its pathogenesis. The editor has repeatedly verified it. One of the most remarkable cures which he ever made was by paying attention to this symptom. A young man who had contracted an attack of gonorrhoea had consulted a physician of the old school of medicine, who prescribed astringent injections which speedily dried up the flow. But attack of acute inflammation of the postate gland followed for which Opium suppositories were applied with leeches to the perineum. The patient became rapidly worse until he was in a critical condition. It was then decided to send for a Homeopathic physician and the writer was summoned. Among other symptoms the patient was sensitive to the slightest jarring of the bed, the shock if which was referred to the perineum. This directed attention to Belladonna and the fever, pulse, and other symptoms being found under that remedy, it was given with the most gratifying result and the patient recovered. To return to the enumeration of the characteristics of Belladonna, in headaches a tight bandage around the head relieves. Patients with congestion to the head bore the head deeply into the pillows and roll the head from side to side. Children suffering from cholera infantum, bore the head so deeply into the pillows that when they are lifted from the bed a deep hole of the general shape of the head remains in the pillow. Bearing down in the abdomen, as if everything would issue through the vulva, is another prime characteristic of Belladonna. Other remedies have the symptom, but none have it with the same positiveness as Belladonna. Desire for acids is one of the key-notes or characteristics of Belladonna. Under such circumstances the indulgence of the tast for acids is apt to suspend the action of the remedy. Aggravation from three o'clock p. m. to three o'clock a. m. is the characteristic time of Belladonna. A catarrhal fever caused by taking cold was cured by Belladonna with magical quickness by observing the time when the fever, delirium, and other symptoms came on, and when they remitted. Belladonna has convulsive motions or spasms of the muscles of the face, mouth and throat. It has chalky stools, like Calcarea, and incontinence of urine from eating sugar and sweets. Belladonna pains come on suddenly and as suddenly disappear. This is one of the great indications that should at once direct attention to this remedy. Belladonna has been used successfully to cure hernia. Dr. C. Carleton Smith once cured such a case which he afterward related to Dr. Lippe, on which occasion the writer of this editorial was present. The patient was a workingman who had ruptured himself by falling from a height. The hernia was very large and exquisitely sensitive to the touch, and the pain so intense as to induce delirium. The delirium was low and muttering. There was present a colic, which, in his lucid intervals, the patient described as a sense of grasping with the finger-nails at the umbilicus. The whole abdomen was tender to the touch, and there was green watery vomiting. Belladonna was administered, and the next morning the hernia had disappeared without any manipulation whatever. While all the indications given in this article are perfectly well known to Hahnemannians, and used by them every day, there is a considerable number of people in the profession, whose ideas are more or less undefined about the sphere of action of each of these drugs, and who constantly alternate them when uncertain of the right remedy. To all such prescribers this article is especially commended. The comparisons are derived mainly from Dr. Lippe's lectures and from private conversations with him. They show how clearly he had arranged in his own mind their respective pathogeneses. His knowledge of the other remedies constituting the polychrests of the materia medica was equally well defined, and thus we have the secret of his remarkable success in selecting the right remedy and thus promptly "healing the sick," as he constantly expressed it. The lesson his example taught ought to be learned by that great majority of the profession who believe in abolishing the blind adherence to law in presclibing, and in its place practicing according to rationalism, to theory, and to empiricism under the mistaken impression that they are advocating a broad-minded liberalism.-Homeopathic Physician. BRUDFS In another column is a circular from the chairman of the Bureau of Obstetrics of the American Institute of Homeopathy, addressed to the members of the corps of assistants of the bureau, reminding them of their duties and requesting them to prepare their essays at an early day and send them in, so that all of the papers may be properly arranged and the work of the bureau be complete. From what the chairman, Dr. Comstock, says in the circular, he gives a very timely hint about the neglect of obstetrics by the profession, as the most of them seem to prefer the more enticing department of gynecology. This is something that we have remarked for many years past, and a short time since, a well-known professor and gynecologist in our school said in our hearing that "every physician now in practice seems to be a gynecologist." The expression was sarcastic, but there is a great deal in what he said. From what we have seen it would seem that every tyro in the profession aspires to be a gynecologist, and to use the knife. They ignore the practice of obstetrics, because it is hard work to spend their time watching and waiting for the os uteri to dilate and for nature to complete the delivery. Some of our profession must do this work, and to be fitted and prepared for it no little study and clinical experience is necessary. Dr. Comstock has selected as co-workers a very able corps of assistants and he is very enthusiastic in wishing to have them present a very complete report of all advance in the art and science of midwifery up to the present date. As the institute meets in Newport, it is expected that the elite of our school will be present, and it is hoped and expected that it will be the best and most satisfactory meeting that has even taken place. We say, therefore, let us have a report from the Obstetrical Bureau that will be an honor to the institute, and show our old school friends that we are in advance of them, and that our motto is ever "Excelsior." CHLOROFORM DANGEROUS TO MEAT EATERS. The geographical distribution of accidental deaths from chloroform is peculiar, according to Dr. Lauder Bruton, as reported by the "British Medical Journel" for July 7th. Practitioners favor chloroform in the southern United States, in Egypt and in India, while in London and in the southern United States they dislike it. There has been a marked increase in the deaths under chloroform administration during the last few years in Great Britain. During these years the feeding of the population has been changed to an enormous extent by the increase in meat eating due to the importation of low-priced refrigerated meats. Edinburgh has been an exception to the rule that the physi cians of the colder cities do not prefer chloroform, but latterly the deaths from its use in that city have been more frequent, and gout has become less rare, both of which results may be due to the much-increased use of butchers' meat. A Russian has found that if the urine contains alkaloids, trouble may be expected from the administration of chloroform. This may explain why the cases which give the most trouble usually occur in strong, healthy men, who have been on full diet, and are thus likely to have stored in their tissues a quantity of such alkaloidal products as result from meat eating. These substances, accumulating in the blood during anaesthesia, may act as a poison to cause heart failure, while chloroform, administered in the ordinary manner, tends to paralyze the respiratory center before the heart is weakened.-N. Y. Med. Jour. SAFRANIN REACTION IN SPUTUM. A simple test as an aid to diagnosis is suggested by Zenoni (Lancet). It depends upon the fact that mucin is colored yellow by safranin, while albumin is stained red. In the sputum of bronchitis mucin predominates, while in that of pneumonia there is a much larger proportion of albumin. Zenoni, therefore, prepares a cover-glass specimen of the sputum by spreading the latter out in a thin layer on the former, places it at once in absolute alcohol, and leaves it for a quarter of an hour; by the end of that time the film becomes coagulated and fixed to the glass. The preparation is then stained in a half aqueous solution of safranin. When the cover glass is removed it is partially dried and then placed on a white ground and examined. If it is stained a yellow color mucus predominated in the sputum, and the case may be assumed to be one of bronchitis only, while if a red coler appears albumin is the chief constituent, and pneumonia was probably the condition present. This test, if proved to be trustworthy, |