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The knowledge that a man can use is the only real knowledge; the only knowledge that has life and growth in it and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like raindrops off the stones.-FROUDE.

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The Psalmist considered three score years and ten the natural life of man. This has ever since been accepted as a fair measure of what ought to be the length of human life, barring accidents. We believe this measure to be too short by thirty years.

It is a fair general principle in natural history that the animal should live five times the length of the period of its development from birth to complete maturity. Thus the horse, which comes to its perfect maturity at from five to six years of age, may safely be counted upon, if properly cared for, to live from twenty-five to thirty years. Individual exceptions need not be considered. According to this principal, the life of man should be about one hundred years, if accidental causes of premature death are eliminated.

One requirement necessary to the attainment of the condition most favorable to long

evity must be the abolition of the opportunities for acquiring great wealth on the one hand, with the consequent necessity for pinching poverty on the other hand. It must be established that every man shall be guaranteed the full measure of what he produces or earns. Then must come the consequent necessity that every able-bodied person must earn his own living by a reasonable amount of directly productive toil, under the most favorable conditions, or in some directly useful intellectual and scientific employment-the opportunities for speculation and otherwise living unjustly upon the work of others being removed. Then will be eliminated as causes of early death the enervating idleness, the cloying of perverted appetites and the vicious dissipation of ostentatious wealth; the exhausting labor, lack of proper food, and want of sufficient rest and recuperation of toiling poverty; and the worry. fret, care and anxiety of all classes in regard to supplies for the present and a certain guarantee for the future-the struggle to maintain and improve one's position. Then must every man earn and justify his existence by a few daily hours of health and wealth-producing activity of mind and body. We believe that, by the process of natural evolution, aided by the intelligent efforts of many who love mankind as well as themselves, civilized society will finally reach this desirable state. No class of workers will be benefited by its realization more than will the members of the medical profession.

Another requirement necessary to the attainmert of the conditions favorable to longevity must be such improved conditions of mechanical toil as will prevent life-destroying accidents.

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accidents against life, as they are clearly preventable. We believe that perfect sanitary administration endowed with due authority and proper advantages, can, in a relatively short time, eradicate most, if not all, of the infectious diseases from the face of the earth. It is unnecessary to point to the perfect cooperation and concerted action of the whole human race, required to achieve this glorious result.

Still another requirement must be universal education, including the hygienic principles most useful to preserve the health of the individual. Still another must be that efficient medical aid may be secured so easily that it will be summoned at the first suspicion of in cipient disease, that as many cases as possible of serious illness may be averted. While we have not mentioned by any means all of the attainable life preserving requirements, yet we believe that the complete attainment of these alone would give to man five score years of happy, useful life.

In this we have not considered the possibility, believed in by some, of some time attaining to the administration of some acid or other chemical substance during the declining years of life, or adapting diet and hygienic rules to the purpose of preventing the too rap d calcification of the tissues and preserving the normal proportion of organic matter in them, that "a green old age" may be considerably prolonged.

DOCTOR, you are now making up your list of medical journals for the year. You will take THE MEDICAL WORLD, of course, and some other or others. It is not easy to be too liberal in your expenditures for necessary medical literature.

The Great Epidemic.

A disease that prostrates hundreds of thou. sands of human beings throughout Europe and America within the space of a few weeks is certainly one of considerable importance. But when we consider, in addition, that it increases the death rate from twenty-five to one hundred per cent; that it checks the progress of manufacture and blocks the wheels of commerce; that it prevents the prosecution of great enter

prises for the advancement of the race; and that it leaves many of its victims in a condition of profound debility for many months, the enormous magnitude of its importance begins to be realized. It might be an interesting problem to compute how much more the entire machinery of our government has cost within the past two years than this disease has cost in physicians' services, medicines, time lost, funeral expenses, the financial value of the lives of productive members of society lost, and the immense incidental losses due to delay or complete failure in the prosecution of important enterprises.

What a pity that a disease of such vital import to humanity should be popularly known by a name so insignificant and trifling as "La Grippe." This encourages people in regarding the disease itself as a matter of slight importance -until they have had it once-and in neglecting the proper care and treatment of themselves and those dependent upon them. The best name yet given to it, because based upon its most prominent symptom, in the absence of a more definite pathology,-catarrhal fevershould be used. This recognizes the catarrhs of the various membranes in which it is manifested throughout the system.

The diagnosis of the disease is very clear, and as it is fully dealt with in our text-books, it is entirely unnecessary to treat upon it here. However, as most of the classical descriptions of the disease state that it spends its force upon the mucous membranes, we shall have to modify that by adding that serous membranes are almost equally susceptible to its influence, and hence we find it affecting the meninges, pleura, the joints, etc. Many persons afflicted with other ailments are strangely made worse during this epidemic without being able to account for it, the fact being that it is this new disease in addition to their already present affliction. DaCosta very happily expresses this when he says, "When influenza is prevailing on a large scale, it is often found peering out from under the garb of other diseases, and it may be diffi cult to separate its manifestations from those of the malady it accompanies."

The sequellæ are many and rather grave and persistent, but can all be grouped under the

two heads of, first, persistent local congestion, and, second, nervous debility, with the susceptibility to other diseases which that induces.

The active cause is unknown. This may as well be frankly acknowledged by the profession until more positive advance is attained. The disease travels and acts in every way like one caused by a micro-organism, yet none has yet The prebeen conclusively demonstrated.

disposing cause is debility, either from constitutional or organic weakness, existing disease, exposure, lack of nourishment or sleep, fatiguing labor of body or mind, ca: e, anxiety, grief, dissipation, or social or sexual excesses.

The pathology is not determined, but the most likely theory is that the disease spends its force upon the central nervous system-especially the spinal cord, and that the local manifestations are due to interference with its functions. This is quite sufficient to explain the symptoms, from frontal head ache, nasal, pha. ryngeal, laryngeal and pulmonary congestion, cardiac irritability, myalgia and intestinal catarrh down to priapism with erotic excitement and temporary paralysis of the lower limbs-all of which, and many more diverse symptoms, are well attested. The cases of erotic excitement reported by a correspondent of this journal some months ago and subjected to ridicule in some quarters, are not by any means strange or incredible, as we can testify from the experience of our own practice, that it constitutes a well-marked symptom in the early period of the attack in a considerable proportion of cases.

The magic remedies in this disease are the ammonium salts and camphor. By the intelligent use of these, with other indicated treatment, the cure is generally complete, and complications and sequellæ are not very likely to occur. The new antipyretics should generally be avoided, except in very robust subjects and confined to the first few hours of the malady.

The first remedy indicated usually is bromide of ammonium, continued as long as there is much acute pain. The next most important is the salicylate of ammonium, if there is fever alternating with chilly and sweating stages. If there is torpidity of the liver, the chloride should be used. If the kidneys require

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Therapeutics of Indian Hemp.

DR. SUCKLING says that in insanity in women, due to mental worry or moral shock, Indian hemp acts almost like a specific. He usually gives ten minim doses of the tincture three times a day, combined with iron and strychnine. He has also found it of great value in mania and melancholia, and in cases of chorea where arsenic fails; in such he combines it with hydrate of chloral. In migraine it is also useful, given with or without phosphide of zinc, when the severity and frequency of the attacks will be immediately diminished. It is also a valuable gastric sedative in cases of gastric ulcer and gastrodynir.—British Med. Jour.

SEE order blank on page xxiv.

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Headache During Childhood.

SIMON (Rv. Mens, des Mal de l'Enf., May, 1891) says that seven groups of headache may be classified:

1. Headache from rapid growth. It is usually frontal, is increased by exercise, and co exists with pain in the joints, periostoses, and hypertrophy of the heart. Treatment : muscular repose, tonics, liberal diet, phosphate of lime, malt beer.

2. Headache from intellectual activity. It occurs in intelligent and excitable children, who study too much, or in backward children, who acquire their lessons with difficulty. Treatment for the first class of cases, cessation of intellectual work, physical exercise, but not so severe as to produce fatigue, lukewarm baths. In the second class of cases the work

may be continued in moderation, plenty of exercise being enjoined.

It

3. Headache from digestive troubles. occurs in children who eat too much or too fast, and occurs in one to three hours after eating. Treatment: properly regulated hygiene and diet; by bitter tonics before eating, warm drinks after eating. Constipation should be

overcome.

4. Headache of nervous origin. It occurs in children who are excited by their manner of living. It is premonitory of future neuropathies, epilepsy, and hysteria. Treatment: antipyrin for the hysterical; belladonna and baths, walking, massage, valerian, aconite, and bromides for the epileptics. They should avoid taking cold.

5. Headache in children of gouty or rheuby intense congestive phenomena, which matic diathesis. It is sometimes accompanied of hereditary antecedents; there are neuralgias stimulate meningitis. There are manifestations arthralgias, myalgias; the urine contains phos. phates, oxalates, and urates. Treatment: moderate diet, exercise in the open air, vapor baths with friction, laxatives, alkalines, salicy

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