New Publications.

NERVOUS ANd Mental DiSEASES.

By Archibald Church, M. D., Prof. Clinical Neurology, Mental Diseases and Medical Jurisprudence in Chicago Medical College, etc., etc., and Frederick Peterson, M. D., Prof. Mental Diseases in the Woman's Medical College, N. Y, W. B. Saunders, Publisher, Philadelphia. 1899. Price, $5.00.

This is a carefully prepared text-book, the authors presenting their facts clearly, briefly, and with brevity. In fact it presents in a comprehensive manner the generally accepted results of scientific investigation bearing upon the subjects treated, and portrays with proper force and sufficient clearness the clinical aspects of the diseases considered.

The subjects treated in the work before us are among the most abstruse in medicine, and it affords one real pleasure to note the manner of treating them, the 305 finely executed illustrations aiding in further impressing their import. Every practitioner is obliged to meet the diseases treated within the scope of this work, and we know of no similar volume so well suited to the requirements of student and practitioner as the one before us, it can not be recommended too highly.

Dr. Ferdinand Hueppe, Prof. of Hygiene in the University of Prague. Authorized Translation from the German by Dr. E. O. Jordan, Chicago. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. 1899. Price, $1.75.

This is a work that is not only of interest to bacteriologists but to all who have a desire to study the general facts or account of bacteria and their relations to the processes with which they are said to be associated. The author presents the subject in clear language, leaving out the laboratory methods and systematic details, giving a summary of the important discoveries of modern bacteriology, and any person desiring the information what bacteriology has accomplished and what questions are still in agitation nothing can serve him better than the outline presented in this small volume.

THE PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OF SEXUAL IMPOTENCE. By Victor G. Vecki, M. D. From the Author's Second German Edition; Revised and Rewritten. W. B. Saunders, Publisher, Philadelphia, Pa. Price, $2.00.

It appears that the first edition of this work created quite a little commotion in the ranks of the old and young fogies in the profession who were apparently indignant that any one dared to resist their intellectual tendencies, or refuse to worship their superannuated gods. This volume of a little less than 300 pages presents the subject in its most intellectual light, the most advanced thought is here briefly recorded. The author says: "The therapeutics of sexual impotence has received some valuable additions, and we have in the method of suspensions a frequently efficacious, and in hypnotic suggestion an occasionally efficacious remedy.

AN ESSAY ON THE NATURE AND CONSEQUENCES OF ANOMALIES OF REFRACTION. By F. C, Donders, M. D., Late Prof. Physiology and Ophthalmology in the University of Utrecht. Revised and Edited by Charles A. Oliver, M. D., Attending Surgeon to Wills' Eye Hospital, etc., Phila. P. Blakiston's Son & Co., Publishers, Phila. 1899. Price, $1.25. In the revision of this admirable monograph the editor has not attempted, he says, to draw comparison between the author's and his own thoughts and beliefs on the subjects treated, but his desire and aim has been to give a great man greater honor and to offer such a man's works an increased usefulness.

This little volume presents a summary of the nature of anomalies of refraction and their consequences in a plain, lucid manner and cannot fail to please all who are interested in this particular branch of medicine.

What the Busy Practitioner Wants.

I appreciate the SUMMARY very much, the SUMMARY the best. It always gets my Have two or three other journals, but like perusal, while the others are left on the shelf. I would not wish to be without the SUMMARY. It is a neat, up-to-date journal, full of practical knowledge in a nut shell-just what the busy physician wants. S. A. BUCHANan, M. D. 432 Snyder Ave., Philadelphia.

Summary Gleanings.

Absolute dryness prevents the development of germ life.

Let us have the records of your interesting and instructive cases.

It is difficult to freeze a germ to death, but boiling quickly destroys all microorganisms.

Apocynum cannabinum is considered valuable in valvular lesions of the heart and the resulting dropsy.

It is stated that a single application of the oil of sassafras will destroy all varieties of pediculi and their ova.

It is asserted that a fiery red nose can be "bleached" by being painted with a five per cent. solution of boric acid.

Don't fail to use turpentine in hemorrhage. Must be given in large doses-one to two drachms without dilution in emergencies.

For a hard, dull steady pain across the abdomen, with or without diarrhea, give from five to eight drops of spirits of turpentine every two hours.

In exophthalmic goiter three drops of the tincture of veratrum twice a day, gradually increased to the limit of tolerance, will cure many cases.

Schrieber says that torpid ulcers, even wher painful and due to varicose veins, may be made to cicatrize comfortably if dusted daily with antipyrin.

Strychnine sulphate, 1-20 grain thrice daily for six or eight weeks before parturition, is a serviceable prophylactic against uterine inertia during labor.

As a topical application in diphtheria, Waxham proposes the use of one grain of the bichloride of mercury in four ounces of the peroxide of hydrogen.

Hysteria and epilepsy are generally ameliorated by the pregnant state; epileptics, however, are more subject to puerperal eclampsia than others.

Phosphorus in small doses is indicated in the depression following prostrating fevers, where there has been much involvement of the nervous system.

Aletris farinosa is a female remedy, having a direct action upon the uterus, acting as a tonic to that organ. It lessens the tendency to hemorrhage of the uterus.

Bichloride of mercury should never be used for dressing extensive raw surfaces, and sublimate solution should always be avoided for the irrigation of deep wounds and cavities.

Inhalations of nitrate of amyl in 30 drop doses, succeeds best and quickest in opium poisoning; next comes hypodermic injections of strychnine and the hypodermics of theine.

An anti-diabetic diet and from three to five drops of Liquor Brom-Arsen.. Clemen's solution, three times a day has been a successful treatment in many cases of diabetes mellitus.

Dr. M. G. Price says: "Who of us has not been besieged by weary mothers for something for her crying infant that is suffering with three months' colic. Hyoscyamine is the drug."

Whooping-cough, when not compli cated with bronchitis or bronchial catarrh. generally yields to ergot in from one to three weeks. Dose, four to 15 drops every three to four hours.

Five drops of tincture lobelia in two ounces of water, and a half teaspoonful every few minutes, given warm, it is stated will cure many cases of infantile colic from whatever cause.

Dr. Ernest F. Clowes, house physician of the Royal County Hospital, Winchester, reports the successful treatment of diabetes insipidus with amyl nitrite. There was a gain of 10 pounds in weight.

A feverish patient is always thirsty. A drinking tumbler of pure, cold water, in which a teaspoonful of sweet spirits of nitre has been poured, is a refreshing drink, a few swallows of which may be given at frequent intervals.

To reduce high temperature caused by diseased conditions, give ice water enemas. They do not disturb the patient like a bath, are harmless, easily administered and grateful to the patient. This is particularly advantageous in climatic heat cases.

VOL. XXI.

TERMS:

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This journal has an extensive and constantly increasing circulation, is substantially established, and therefore presents to business houses desiring to reach the rank and file of the medical profession throughout the land, a most valuable advertising medium.

Entered at Phila. Post Office as second-class matter.

CARBOLIC ACID AS A POISON.

Hardly a week passes without a record of one or more cases of fatal poisoning by carbolic acid. The daily press teems with the record.

But recently the writer was summoned to such a case, two ounces of acid having been swallowed with suicidal intent, death resulting in 20 minutes. According to the statement made at the inquest unconsciousness supervened almost immediately, and in eight minutes after arrival of the medical attendant life was extinct.

Ineffectual efforts were made to

No. 3

antidote the poison with the usual result. Writers tell us that carbolic acid is one of the most rapidly acting poisons known to the profession. In not a few instances it has exhibited the amazing activity of prussic acid. Doubtless in many cases one or two ounces will destroy life in a few minutes, probably eight minutes being the shortest recorded time.

The foregoing remarks have special reference to the swallowing of the poison, accidentally or otherwise, but fatal consequences may follow its introduction into the system by other avenues. Hence, physicians cannot be too circumspect in its application.

Toxic doses paralyze the vasomotor center in the medulla, appreciably before affecting the heart. Vagi are first stimulated then paralyzed, whence follows paralysis of circulation and respiration. The acid is very rapidly absorbed and diffused. Disorganization of mucosa and active gastritis follow its ingestion. Swallowing of considerable quantity invariably causes profound shock.

Judging from the increasing frequency of its use by suicides one must believe that it ranks among the most popular of poisons. There is a cause for this.

Any one can procure a vial decorated with a red label and marked poison. Sometimes it is procured of druggists and physicians without such label, and even

without verbal caution as to its sinister character. Among the causes which lead to the choice of this acid by would-be suicides are the facility with which it can be procured, its celerity of action and the suggestion afforded by newspaper notoriety.

Appalling conspicuousness of crime in our daily press is believed to be a determining factor in the causation of murder and suicide. Consummate carelessness or ignorance helps accident. The careless purchaser puts poison where it may be easy of access to the child, ignorant or careless person. How culpable this is is hard to say.

The assuredly physician ought to be alive to danger, and suffer none of it to leave his hands except under the strictest safeguards. A precaution that may be taken is to dispense only dilutions. Make from strong acid a one or two per cent. solution, and let none except the responsible have this.

Undoubtedly the matter should be made a subject for restrictive legislation. Among the laity carbolic acid is extensively used as a disinfectant and healing application in domestic treatment. In city and country alike it may be found in almost every house.

Physicians and pharmacists, by common consent, should wage war against the indiscriminate sale and use of this poisonous article of the materia medica.

BRYONIA ALBA.

Although bryonia is at present a regular official U. S. P. preparation, it is not very generally used by those holding up the U. S. P. as an index board. It is, however, more generally known as having been used quite extensively by the followers of Hahnemann, and thus, when mentioning bryonia, we hear a soft, decisive murmur wafted back to us, "homoeopath."

But, my friends, bryonia was a well known remedy some hundreds of years before Hahnemann was born, and therefore it cannot be exclusively homoeopathic after all.

"To those who cannot rise above the mere partisan spirit of cliques and schools this may seem to be a righteous judgment. The man, however, who is loyal only to nature and to truth, regards such restrictions as sheer impertinence, and claims everything which cures, be the process explainable or not, as inalienably his own. * * He sets them a nobler example. He cultivates assiduously his own special field of science, but if he finds any residuum of truth or usefulness in any other system, he asks no man's permission to use it; but acknowledging its source, appropriates it by devine right as the legitimate property of every healer of the sick."

Although the U. S. P. allows the root of two different plants to go under the official name of bryonia, the best results are obtained from the white, preferably from the Hartz mountains. The fluid ext. should not be reddish or dark, but of a light yellow, straw color. The dose ranges from two to eight or more drops, according to conditions and frequency of administration.

Whether bryonia really has an action upon the liver or not-although that appears fairly well established-we know it cures many liver symptoms. In rheumatic pains, bilious headaches, recent colds with more or less bronchial irritation, including slight congestion of the lungs; in fact in all recent or acute cases generally called "a bad cold," where the congestion or stagnation has not only affected the digestive and hepatic organs, but the respiratory and circulatory systems as well-common, every day occurrences— bryonia has proved to be a most excellent remedy.