MEDICAL MEN AND THEIR HEALTH.

At this season when so many other portions of the community are planning vacations, relaxation, shorter working hours, it is well that the doctor, who spends all the rest of the year caring for the health of others, should take stock of his own and consider whether he is sufficiently solicitous for improving, or at least for keeping good, his own physical condition, for there is no laborer in any walk of life for whom such care is more essential.

Under the above head, Dr. John W. Teale, in the Lancet, offers some useful suggestions which physicians would do well to ponder. In response to a hypothetical question, "What will most conduce to the success of a general practitioner?" he replies, "Power of concentration and command of temper."

By power of concentration he would mean that power by which a man, however wearied, on entering a house is able at once to abstract his brain from everything that has already happened, and to concentrate his mental faculties on the case that is before him. Patients are naturally somewhat selfish and are very quick to observe if they do not get full attention, and if, when the finger is on the pulse, the mind is not on the patient.

Secondly, command of temper. To the quick, high-strung, sensitive man, exhausted by the worry and anxiety of daily life, thorough command of temper with testy, querulous, exacting patients can only be obtained by rigid self-control commenced in early life. To be forever bearing in mind. that the patient is the sufferer, that testiness and ill-temper are due to physical weariness and distress, and not to disloyalty to the doctor, is a task that will try the strongest nature.

In order to cultivate and obtain this concentration and command of temper, the physician should live as far as possible a simple outdoor life. in constant physical training. "Why," he asks, "should a man become stout and short of wind because he has reached fifty?" Simply because he is struggling with life work when his physical condition is not fit to grapple with it.

The exercises which Dr. Teale recommends are performed with light Indian clubs; these or with dumbbells or the ordinary parlor gymnastics constitute a kind of training which students are apt to drop when they leave college, but which can profitably be kept up during the whole life. It may be said that many medical men do not need these exercises, their physical powers being sufficiently tested every day on their bicycle and in other ways. Some in the country do a little at sawing or splitting wood in the morning to keep themselves in trim. It is a mistake to suppose

that the busy man wants a great deal of physical exercise. His ordinary day's work, with what it involves in taxing mind and body, is generally enough for him. One writer, moreover, suggests that it is well for the physician to cultivate the art of sleeping for a few minutes at any time. A man can only live safely on the interest of his vital strength. Any withdrawal of principal should be promptly replaced.

Dr. Teale advises that two good meals and one moderate one be taken each day, and thinks that a late dinner is preferable, for if taken in the middle of the work, either the meal or the patients must suffer. It is possible to be too busy to dine, in which event a cup of soup, or a sandwich and a glass of wine is better than a hearty meal. A good dinner implies leisure for digestion. Half an hour's leisure before dinner will often enable a man to eat a hearty meal. Everything that is good is wholesome, taken at proper times and in proper quantities. After a man is twenty-five or thirty, he only wants as much food as will maintain his weight and not add to it.

Like St. Paul, he believes in a little wine, taken diluted at meals (provided it be good wine)-some good people will resent this adviceand thinks that spirits are useful when one is jaded and exhausted, but are unnecessary and hurtful when taken between meals or at bedtime, except for special reasons. "Three hundred and sixty-five glasses of whiskey taken in one year at bedtime are an unnecessary and a severe tax on the liver when its work is in full swing."

With regard to baths, an ordinary healthy man may take a cold bath daily almost up to any age; but as the object is not only to get up a reaction but to keep it, most hardworking men require that cheapest of all luxuries, a fire in the dressing-room and a hot bath-towel. If this is followed by a course of Indian clubs in his flannels, a man will be fit to face any weather. The same underclothing should be worn summer and winter, of wool, and only the outer clothing varied. This advice is better suited to England than to New England. Colds are generally caught either in ill-warmed rooms or through ill-protected feet. "If chilled through by a cold drive, walk home, if possible, the last mile or two, keeping on your heavy wraps to restore your circulation. Light your fire whenever you can endure it; it is the cheapest and best health given in the world, especially in cold, thundery weather in the summer; with a well-arranged room and a proper fireplace most healthy people can learn to sleep with their windows open, winter and summer.”

Dr. Teale cautions against badly aired beds, and says "the risk will be best guarded against by carrying in the traveling-bag a light flannel dressing-gown to put on the damp sheets."

With regard to turning out of bed at night, no amount of precaution

can make this otherwise than dangerous. But if an arrangement can be made by which the clothes can be kept aired and warm, and a cup of hot milk with a teaspoonful of brandy can be procured, the risks can be reduced to a minimum.

There is a timely word about holidays. Every medical man, if possible, should have an outdoor sport of some kind; golf and cycling are good, but perhaps the best is fly fishing. It takes one usually into a beautiful country, the exercise is gentle and varied, the interest absorbing, and it is better for the jaded practitioner than scampering half over Europe in a hurry in a second-class railway carriage in charge of a party of tourists.

Much of the above is what judicious medical advisers are constantly telling their patients; but it is not amiss that somebody should tell it to the medical advisers themselves. The doctor is apt to have less attention paid him, whether sick or well, than any one else.-Editorial, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

FORMALDEHYDE AS A DISINFECTANT.

The use of formaldehyde, or formalin, as it is trade marked, for purposes of disinfection, is growing in favor. This is due to the fact that the gas is at once very noxious to bacteria, and very innoxious to living animal tissues. It is stated by the highest German authorities that formaldehyde unites chemically with sulphuretted or nitrogenous products of fermentation or decomposition, forming new substances that are odorless, and in many cases antiseptic, thus destroying the food of bacteria as well as the bacteria themselves. Yet it does not discolor furniture or tapestries, and in moderate quantities is not harmful to the membranes of the throat and lungs of those who breathe it.

Baeyer believes that formaldehyde is the natural protector of the tender sprouts put forth by growing plants, being generated by the action of sunlight on the carbonic acid and water of the air in the presence of the green coloring matter of leaves, according to the equation—

CO,+H,O=CH,O+20.

Subsequently it becomes the parent of the carbohydrate structure of the plant. It is from this property of combining chemically with albumenoid or nitrogenous bodies that formaldehyde derives its germicidal and bactericidal power, since bacteria and micro-organisms generally are not only albumenoid in character, but their food is mainly albumenoid.

The distinfecting properties of formaldehyde were first set before the public in 1890 by Berlioz and Trillat, and there are already several forms of apparatus for preparing it. One of the simplest and most convenient of these is the Moffatt generator, made by Eli Lilly & Co., of Indianap

olis.

In form it suggests the ordinary Bunsen burner. It is designated to burn wood or other alcohols in a limited amount of oxygen:

C2H2O+20=2CH2O+H2O.

It is claimed for this apparatus that a room may be thoroughly disinfected with it, without harm to the inmates of the room.-Pharmaceutical Era.

NEW METHOD OF PREPARING ANATOMICAL SPECIMENS.

Dr. N. Melnikoff-Rasvedenkoff.-The method of preparing anatomical specimens to which I wish to call attention comprises three different procedures, the results of which have proved excellent, for my first preparations, though dating from eighteen months, have not as yet changed their color in the least. These procedures are the following:

(1) The fresh organs are subjected, during from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, to the action of a 10 per cent. aqueous solution of formalin (a 40 per cent. solution of formaldehyde), to which has been added from 5 to 10 per cent. of sulphuretted hydrogen, or from 1-2 to 1 per cent. of hydrogen dioxide, and then laid for several days in 60 or 80 per cent. alcohol, after which they are put into a liquid of the following composition: distilled water, 100 parts; glycerine, 20 parts; potassium acetate, 15 parts.

(2) Excellent preparations are also obtained by first treating the organs with a 10 per cent. formalin solution, to which have been added small quantities of such substances as hydroquinone, hydroxylamine, pyrocatechin, glycerin and potassium chlorate, the subsequent treatment by alcohol, etc., being the same as above·

(3) Very good preparations are made by adding to the 10 per cent. formalin solution the following salts in the proportion of 3 or 4 per cent., viz.: the acetates of sodium, potassium, aluminium, ammonium, calcium, barium, magnesium, strontium, nickel and manganese, after which the organs are treated in the manner already stated by alcohol, etc.

The color of the fresh organs is thus fixed, not only by the formalin itself, but also by its solutions. To subject specimens to the action of one of these solutions, they are placed in a glass jar on a layer of cottonwool.

The solutions used in the third procedure give very bright and clear colors, whereas with the second procedure they are quite dark, It is preferable, therefore, to combine the two solutions, the following combination being particularly suitable for the purpose: potassium acetate, 6 parts; potassium chlorate, I part; formalin, 20 parts; water, 200 parts. For preservation of the specimens, a solution of 20 parts of glycerin, 15 parts of potassium acetate, and 100 parts of distilled water is used. The specimens may be placed in glass jars with parallel sides, or fixed in gelatin in glass cases or in crystallizing vessels.-The Medical Week.

SOME LUSHAI PROVERBS.

Here are a few proverbs from Lushai-land: "A fly finds out where the sore is: a husband knows too much of his wife." "Well-bred people are always polite: only those of low birth can afford to be rude." "If you love your spouse, neither tell her your secrets nor make friends with young policemen." "Caulk a new boat; beat a new wife." "A woman's fortune is her face: a man's is his understanding." "If a man runs after a woman he falls into marriage; if a woman runs after a man she falls into ruin." "In jungle scrub the castor-oil plant is king." "Any knife is sharp enough to cut a potato." "A lost fish is always a big one: child is always beautiful."-Indian Review.

a lost

Dr. Theo. W. Peers, of Topeka, Kas., says: I desire to report two cases in which I used Papine with very gratifying results. The first case was that of a man suffering with a non-operable case of epithelioma of the left side of the face. He had been operated on by a surgeon here, but on recurrence of the disease went to a "cancer doctor," who used a paste which "burnt" out a large amount of tissue, and started up a very rapid growth of the tumor.

When he came into my hands, in October, 1895, the disease was so extensive that to make him comfortable was all I could hope for. Morphine, cocaine and codein were tried, but with such distressing after-effects. that they had to be abandoned. I then began using Papine, and two to four doses a day of a teaspoonful each kept him comfortable, with absolutely no unpleasant after-effects and with no increase in the amount given per day. The rapidity of the growth was decreased so that he lived until June, 1896, whereas, when I first saw him I did not think he could live three months.

The other case was one of probable tubercular peritonitis. `I used it for six months with no after-effects, and always with relief to the patient. I know of no other anodyne that could be used for so long a time without unpleasant after-effects and without increasing the dose.

THE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS.-The following are the names of those who have been invited to deliver orations at the general sessions of the Moscow Congress. The titles of all the orations have not yet been announced. Lauder Brunton, of London, on the "Relationship Between Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology and Clinical Medicine;" Nicholas Senn, of Chicago, on the "Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Acute Forms of Peritonitis:" Krafft-Ebing, of Vienna, on the "Etiology of Progressive Paralysis;" Danilevski, of Khartov, on "The Action of Electric Rays on the Animal Organism at a Distance;" Lombroso, of Turin, on