“The proper medicinal value of Malt Extracts must be held to depend on the AMOUNT OF DIASTASE which they contain. * * In Malted Barley we have at command an unlimited supply of diastase powder."

*

WM. ROBERTS, M.D., F.R.S.,

PROF. CLINICAL MEDICINE, OWENS COLLEGE; PHYSICIAN TO THE MANCHESTER INFIRMARY, ETC.

Since the introduction by us of the manufacture of malt extract in this country, many preparations of this class, possessing more or less merit, have been placed on the market; and some, at least, the device of adventurers on the alert for catchword medicinal novelties, being mostly inert malted grain syrups. Hence it has been our endeavor to have the quality of malt preparations determined by appropriate tests which may be conveniently applied by every one interested in the administration of pure and reliable medicines. Every package of this Extract is accompanied with directions for making such tests, and the trade every-where have been long and repeatedly notified of our readiness to return the price in money or replace with fresh amylolytically active extract, any and every sample of our extract found to be deficient.

The superior amylolytic power of our Malt Extract has been proved not only by long clinical experience in hospital and private practice, but by careful and repeated analysis by so ue of the leading organic chemists of both Europe and America, whose reports thoroughly authenticate we are prepared to furnish on application. The mere physical properties of inferior proparations being liable to mislead, we have through our r-presentatives, by means of honestly made and classically accurate test, demonstrated the diastatic strength of our Extract, in the presence of thousands of physicians, pharmacists and apothe aries, both in private and at meetings of medical and pharmaceutical societies in every part of the United States.

The Trommer Company were the first to undertake the manufacture of Malt Extract in America, and the first in any country to employ improved processes in its preparation, with the object of preserving unimpaired ALL the soluble constituents of carefully-malted barley of the best quality, including, especially, the important nitrogenous bodies which possess the power to digest starchy food.

We guarantee the uniform strength and purity of our malt extract. We are engaged exclusively in this manufacture, and produce one quality only, and challenge any statement to the contrary by whomsoever made. We are able to furnish thoroughly convincing proof of its excellence, in the form of testimonials of physicians and chemists of high repute in America and Europe, many of whom in deference to a growing sentiment in the profession are averse to having their names appear in advertisements. We take pleasure, however, in submitting them in another manner to those who request it, free of expense. It is more than suspected that another class of testimonials which laud to the skies the wares of certain manufacturers, while denouncing an article of long established merit, have been in some instances too easily obtain d. Suspicion is further aroused by the tergiversations and inconsistencies characterizing certain eager contributions which on occasion have found space in medic 1 journals, exhausting the vocabulary f good words in one issue, while in another the same preparation is pronounced to be an inferior product of a house engaged in fraudulent practices. The readers of such contributions would probab y be edified if made acquainted with some facts having possible relations to their con tradictory character. For the general convenience we publish an approved method for the

ESTIMATION OF DIASTASE.

For carefully making this, have 12 clear and uniform 2-oz. vials filled with distilled water, and two drops Iodine Solution prepared from 2 grams Iodine, 4 grams Iodide of Potassium and 250 grams water, a good thermometer and starch mucilage. To prepare the mucilage, 10 grams starch are stirred with 30 grams water and poured into 125 or 150 grams boiling water. The hermometer is then introduced and the temperature allowed to cool to 100° F. and maintained so by the water bath Ten grams extract of malt dissolved in 10cc, water are then stirred into the mucilage, the time being accurately noted. After one minute a good extract will have converted the thick mucilage into a thin liquid. As soon as this change has taken place it is necessary to examine the progress of the conversion of starch into soluble starch, dextrin and sugar at the end of every minute, by the following method:

After the expiration of the first minute, transfer two drops, by means of a glass rod, into one of the 2-oz. bottles. The bottle is shaken and placed near a window At the end of every minute repeat this manipulation with a new bottle until the coloration is no longer produced. The time necessary for effecting this change gives the indication as to the amount of diastase present. Undecomposed starch mucilage gives a greenish blue color and after standing some time a blue precipitate. Soluble starch, the first product of the change, yields with Iodine, a dark blue solution without a precipitate. If the amount of soluble starch equals that of dextrin and sugar, the color of the solution will be purple. As the soluble starch disappears, the solution will be a decided red color if dextrin predominates, or faintly red if the sugar be in excess; and colorless. This experiment is very interesting and is simple to perform. For convenient methods for the estimation of solid matter and water, dextrin, sugar, etc., and determination of albuminates and free acid, refer to American Journal of Pharmacy

TROMMER EXTRACT OFMALT CO.

1

THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF
THE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS.*

NATHAN SMITH DAVIS, M. D., LL. D., OF CHICAGO.

GENTLEMEN: It is my duty to remind you that if there were one to whom more than another we are indebted for having the Ninth International Medical Congress in America, one who was well known for his contributions to medical literature, who was universally regretted as the most national leader in literary work, and had been selected to preside over your deliberations on this occasion, it was the late Dr. Austin Flint, of New York. He was taken from his carthly labors early in 1886, before the work of this Congress had been half completed. His ability and the number and character of his contributions to medical literature, had caused him to be known and esteemed in the profession in all countries, and his loss seems now, as it did immediately after his death, well nigh irreparable. But though he has taken his *Delivered on Monday. September 5, 1887, at the Opening Session of the Congress, in Washington.

departure the influence of his excellent example and his scientific work remains, and will continue to exert a beneficial influence over generations to come. Leaving this sad part of my task with a heart overflowing with gratitude to him and a sense of my own deficiencies, I thank you for the honor you have bestowed in selecting me to preside over the deliberations of this great and learned assembly. It is an honor that I appreciate as second to no other of a temporal nature, because it has been bestowed neither by conquest nor hereditary influence, nor yet by partisan strife, but by the free expression of your own choice.

Addressing myself now more directly to those here assembled, who have left homes and loved ones in other lands, and encountered the fatigue and danger of traveling by sea and by land, in the name of the Medical profession of this country, I welcome you, not only to this beautiful city and the hospitality of its citizens, as has been so admirably done already by the honorable representative of the Government, who has just taken his seat, but I cordially welcome you to the open arms and warm hearts of the medical men of this whole country, in whose name you were invited here three years since, and whose representatives are now here, side by side with you, gathered from the East, the West, the North, the South, as well as from the rugged mountains and fertile valleys of the Center, to make good the promise implied by that invitation.

If they do not cause you to feel at home and happy, not only in the social circles and halls devoted to the advancement of science, literature, and art in this city of our nation's pride, but wherever you may choose to roam, from the rocky coast of New England on the Atlantic, to the Golden Gate of the Pacific, it will be from no want of earnest disposition to do so.

And now I not only thus welcome you from other lands, but I take great pleasure in greeting you one and all, as leading representatives of a profession whose paramount object is the lessening of human suffering by preventing, alleviating, or curing diseases wherever found, and in whatever class or grade of the human family. Nay, more-With profound reverence I greet you as a noble brotherhood, who, in the practical pursuit of that one grand

object, recognize no distinction of country, race, or creed, but bind up the wounds and assuage the pains of the rich and poor, ruler and ruled, Christian and pagan, friend and foe alike.

Not that every medical man does not love and defend his own country and fireside with as fervid a patriotism as the members of any other class of men, but as disease and pain are limited to no class or country, so is the application of his beneficent art limited only by the number of those suffering within his reach.

With a common object so beneficent in its nature, and opportunities for its practical pursuit so universal, it is but natural that you should be found searching for the most effectual means for the accomplishment of the one object of lessening human suffering in every field of nature, and in every department of human knowledge.

The living human body, the chief object of your solicitude, not only combines in itself the greatest number of elementary substances and the most numerous organs and varied functions, so attuned to harmonious action as to illustrate the operation of every law of physics, every known force in nature, and every step in the development of living matter, from the simple aggregation of protoplasm constituting the germinal cell to the fullgrown man, but it is placed in appreciable and important relations with the material objects and immaterial forces existing in the world in which he lives.

Hence, a complete study of the living man, in health and disease, involves a thorough study, not only of his structure and functions, but more or less of every element and force entering into the earth, the air, and the water with which he stands in constant relation.

The medical science of to-day, therefore, embraces not only a knowledge of the living man, but also of such facts, principles, and materials gathered from every other department of human knowledge as may increase your resources for preventing or alleviating his suffering and of prolonging his life.

The time has been when medical studies embraced little else than the fanciful theories and arbitrary dogmas of a few leading minds, each of which became for a time the founder of a sect or

so-called school of medicine, with his disciples more or less numerous. But with the development of general and analytical chemistry, of the several departments of natural science, of a more practical knowledge of physics, and the adoption of inductive processes of reasoning, the age of theoretical dogmas and of medical sects blindly following some more plausible leader, passed away, leaving but an infinitesimal shadow yet visible on the medical horizon.

So true is this, that in casting our mental vision to-day over the broad domain of medicine, we see its votaries engaged, some searching for new facts and new materials; some studying new applications and better uses of facts and materials already known; some of them are in the dead-house with scalpel and microscope, not only studying the positions and relations of every part, from the obvious bones and muscles to the smallest leucocyte, in health, but also every deviation caused by morbid action or disease. Some are searching the fields, the forests, the earth, and the air, both for more knowledge concerning the causes of disease and for additional remedial agents; some are in laboratories with crucible, test-glass, and microscope analyzing every morbid product and every remedial agent, separating the active principles from the crude materials and demonstrating their action on living animals, while far the greater number are at the bedside of the sick and wounded applying the knowledge gained by all other workers to the relief of human suffering. A more active, earnest, ceaseless, and beneficent field of labor is not open to your vision in any other direction or occupied by any other profession or class of men. And thus has the Science of Medicine become a vast aggregation of observed facts, many of them so related to each other as to permit practical deductions of permanent value, while many others remain isolated through incompleteness of investigations, and therefore liable to prompt, hasty, or even erroneous conclusions.

Indeed, the most defective and embarrassing feature in the Science and Art of Medicine at this time is the rapid accumulation of facts furnished by the vast number of individual workers, each pushing investigations in some special direction without con