New Publications.

THE TREATMENT OF PELVIC INFLAMMATIONS THROUGH THE VAGINA. By Wm. R. Pryor, M. D., Professor of Gynecology New York Polyclinic, Consulting Surgeon City (Charity) Hospital, etc. With 110 Illustrations; 248 pages. W. B. Saunders, Publisher, Philadelphia. 1899. Price $2.00.

In his preface the author makes a perfectively truthful statement when he says there exists in the profession the utmost confusion regarding the most successful methods of treating pelvic inflammations, and inasmuch as inflammatory lesions constitute the majority of all pelvic diseases, the subject is an important one.

This work is an elaboration of what the author has said and done before his audience at the New York Polyclinic, and was written at the request of the gentlemen attending these lectures. The entire subject is presented from a practical standpoint, and we can commend it to the general practitioner and specialist as a valuable addition to the literature upon the subject.

OVER 1000 PRESCRIPTIONS or Favorite Formulæ of Various Teachers, Authors and Practicing Physicians. Carefully Indexed and Including Most of the Newer Remedies. The Illustrated Medical Journal Co., Publishers, Detroit, Mich. 1899. Price $1.00.

This is a second edition of a popular book of prescriptions, all of which have appeared in the columns of Leonard's Ilustrated Med. Jour., the editor of which has seen fit to compile them for publication in book form, and over 1000 prescriptions are thus represented.

We notice that many of the newer remedies are among the prescriptions, thus bringing the treatment of many of the diseases down to date. Both old and new writers, of both home and foreign countries are represented among its formulæ.

Blank pages are frequently introduced so that a handy place is furnished for recording any new prescriptions that one might wish to preserve. The printed index will index all such penciled additions, if care is taken to write them opposite a

page with a formula for similar disease; this would then save the bother of indexing the penciled additions.

THE HYGIENE OF TRANSMISSIBLE DISEASES: Their Causes, Modes of Dissemination and Methods of Prevention. By A. C. Abbott, M. D., Professor of Hygiene and Director of the Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Pennsylvania. Handsome Octavo Volume of About 325 Pages, with 44 Illustrations, 20 Charts and Maps and a Number of Important Tables. W. B. Saunders, Publisher, Philadelphia. 1899. Price $2.00.

This work does not present the subject of hygiene in the comprehensive sense ordinarily implied by the word, but deals with simply a section-that dealing with a knowledge of the preventable specific diseases, or in other words, this book presents the detailed management of transmissible diseases.

This is an important subject and one of great interest not only to physicians, but also to health officers and laymen. The work before us is an important and timely contribution to the literature of preventative medicine. We recommend it to all.

AMERICAN POCKET MEDICAL DICTIONARY. Edited by W. A. Newman Dorland, M. D., Assistant Obstetrician to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Containing the Pronunciation and Definition of over 26,000 Words of the Terms Used in Medicine and Kindred Sciences, Along with over 60 Extensive Tables. W. B. Saunders, Publisher, Philadelphia. 1899. Price $1 25.

This is a veritable vade mecum, as was stated in our notice of the first edition, which, the edition being a large one, the publisher says was exhausted in six months. In its present improved form this is about as perfect a pocket medical dictionary as we can well imagine one could be made. The thumb index is an admirable feature, as is also the large amount of matter in tabular form.

TO SUBSCRIBERS, -Please examine the wrapper in which your SUMMARY comes, and see the date to which your subscription is paid. If your time is out, a remittance is in order!

Summary Gleanings.

Conium will cause the absorption of hard glandular tumors.

Offensive nasal discharges, green or brownish, after exanthemata call for thuja.

Dr. Davis says that a warm bath at night is better than drugs for the sleeplessness of pregnancy.

Stelwagon asserts that in well marked cases of scabies some eruption will be found on the shaft of the penis.

Psychro-æsthesia, or a sensation of coldness, particularly about the joints, may be a symptom of rheumatism.

In all cases where anemia is the cause and not the consequence of menorrhagia, iron is the indicated remedy as it were.

In "dry labors," lard or vaselin, used freely, is a passable substitute for the absent lubricating cervico-vaginal mucus.

Dr. R. T. Pollard, of Garrett, Pa., writes: "The SUMMARY is the most practical medical journal coming to my office."

It is authoritatively stated that iris versicolor is among the very best of internal remedies for chronic diseases of the skin.

Dr. C. K. Bond says that 10 minims of wine of ipecac three times a day, gradually increased to 40 minims t. i. d., has cured cases of epilepsy.

Sweet spirits of niter, one ounce, and sugar of lead, 10 grains, applied locally, are said to neutralize the poison of rhus toxicodendron and similar plants.

Dr. Faisons claims that influenza is an important etiological factor in appendicitis. Cases of appendicitis, he says, are always more numerous during epidemics of la grippe.

Dr. M. G. Price says that "in tinnitus aurium tincture cimicifuga in maximum doses has helped. The bromides give good results. Ten grains of the bromide of ammonia or of the sodium salt after each meal, or three doses during the evening, is a good prescription. If these fail try nitrate of silver.

Dr. H. S. Oliphant, in the N. Y. Med. Jour., says that pertussis may be limited to a week by the local use of formalin in dilute solution. It causes emesis, which further tends to dislodge germs."

There is little doubt that to "adenoid vegetations" are due most of the catarrhal symptoms to which so many children are subject, and which, too, may eventually lead to serious pulmonary trouble.

Starch digestion has been found by experiment to be much more rapid in arrowroot than in any other starchy food, especially corn, potatoes and wheat, and therefore much more valuable as an invalid diet.

A well applied binder gives a needed support to the abdominal organs and adds much to the comfort of the patient. This comfort in itself should be sufficient reason for using a binder, but there are other reasons.

When the post-nasal space is blocked,. nasal sprays have an injurious rather than a beneficial effect, and it should be remembered that in most instances the operation for the removal of the offending growth is comparatively simple.

As a prophylactic in neuralgic headache and in migraine with anemia, Dr. Thornton prescribes a combination of five minims of syrup iodide of iron with one minim of phosphorated oil and 20 minims cod liver oil, given in a capsule two hours after meals.

Dr. Clarence Rice, of New York, states that according to his experience in almost 90 per cent. of mouth-breathing children the condition was one of permanent nasal obstruction, very largely the result of more or less enlargement of the pharyngeal tonsil.

In pneumonia, Dr. T. J. Mays, of Philadelphia, says, "don't lose sight of the great value of tincture of capsicum in relieving great nervous depression, delirium, dry black-coated tongue, picking at the bed clothes, etc. Give it in from a half to one teaspoonful doses, in water, every two or three hours, or oftener, in alcoholic pneumonia."

VOL. XXI.

TERMS:

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Subscribers failing to receive the SUMMARY should notify us within the month and the omission will be supplied. When a change of address is ordered, both the new and the old address must be given. Subscriptions may begin with any number. How to Remit.-Payment can be made by Postal Money-Order, Bank Check or Draft, or Express Money-Order. When none of these can be procured, send the money in a Registered Letter. All postmasters are required to register letters whenever requested to do so.

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Address THE MEDICAL SUMMARY,

No. 8

same inflammatory base is found to underlie ileocolitis as enterocolitis; as a matter of fact the former is often clearly an extension of the latter. Inflammation, congestion, thickening of the mucosa and submucosa, and ulceration mark steps of the malady. Rapid progression and great depression are characteristic.

Promptness to differentiate and readiness to apply the right remedy are here, as elsewhere, the key to successful management.

The literature of treatment abounds in examples of devotion to stereotyped methods and formulas of the past diluvians. It may be affirmed that the real tendencies of the malady were misunderstood, and as a consequence the treatment fell short of accomplishing the desired object. To prove this, attention may be calied to the unfortunate reliance on opiates, which served to do little else than to lock up and prevent the escape of the bowels' irritating and festering contents.

Such practice in the modern light of the nineteenth century receives merited reproach from the profession.

Should it not subject the persistently guilty party, if there be such, to penalties for malpractice? In recent editions of works on practice mistakes and sad blunders of the past are still served up for the consideration and edification of

the student and practitioner. Modern therapeutics has revolutionized all this. The new light teaches that an empty bowel thoroughly cleansed and kept so is indispensable; it must be kept free of products of fermentation and all sources of irritation. Lurking germs must be got rid of by antiseptics and irrigation. If any anodyne must be given, no opiate need enter our prescription. We thus secure the greatest possible safety to the patient with the most effective means of relief.

ARSENITE OF COPPER.

The literature of this drug is never silent. Each succeeding year confirms our good opinion of it and adds new luster to its

name.

Almost from the time of the publication of Dr. Aulde's investigations, cupric arsenite has taken a strong hold on professional confidence. No one who has carefully watched its effects can doubt its power.

As an example, vomiting from whatever cause is speedily controlled, even rebellious cases where other means have failed. In summer diarrhea of infancy, and more especially in dysentery, its effects appear to be little short of the marvellous.

No case of dysentery in the adult, sporadic or epidemic, should be treated without this drug. The watery character of evacuations is laid down by some as an indication, but the range of application is not so restricted.

It is an antiseptic of known and posi tive value, which has been conclusively proven in the treatment of typhoid fever. The latest reported achievement of the arsenite is the cure of cerebro-meningitis. An account of this use of it will be found in a paper by Dr. Kolipinski, in the Maryland Medical Journal.

Solutions of the arsenite are quite tasteless, and can be taken and retained by the infant and the most delicate adult.

PUERPERAL SEPTICEMIA.

Dr. P. J. Collins says that chlorate of potassium is an absolute specific for puerperal septicemia. He gives a tablespoonful of the saturated solution every four hours until the peculiar odor disappears, then every six hours. He does not say whether the saturated solution is in cold or hot water.

We remember reading, not long ago, of a girl of 16 years being bodily injured by a five-grain dose of the same drug taken to relieve salivation; also, that in a case of stomatitis, taken in one-grain doses and swallowed, violent poisonous symptoms set in. Such, however, we must believe to be very rare and exceptional

cases.

Recently we have noticed this remedy highly recommended, in eight to 10 grain, doses, for some stomachic difficulties. In a late new, up-to-date work on therapeutics, the author classes chlorate of potassium under the head of irritant poisons, also as an active antiseptic.

This principle of antiseptic seems to be the point wherein the chlorate of potassium operates in the cure of puerperal septicemia.

The question here arises, why this dangerous effect in small doses, when some 20 odd grain doses in the tablespoon of saturated solution is recommended in cases of septicemia ?