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About Mad Dogs. ICTOR KEEN, M. D., is conductor of the Pasteur Institute of Indianapolis, Indiana. This institution is entirely devoted to the treatment of hydrophobia, according to the so-called Pasteur method.

Dr. Keen gives some good advice to people who happen to be bitten by a dog. The question will always arise, was the dog mad? Is the one bitten in danger of having hydrophobia?

The special advice which Dr. Keen wishes to give, and is printed in capital letters, reads as follows:

"If possible, do not allow the dog to be killed. Keep it under close observation for several days, as if the dog has bitten the child because it is rabid it will surely die in a few days, and the diagnosis will be thus clearly attained."

He says further: "It is a mistake to kill the dog. Keep it until you know whether or not the dog is rabid. For if rabies is beginning to develop in it, and this excitement causes it to bite the child, it will die in a very few days. In cases where the dog is killed, chop off his head and send the same to some laboratory for examination. The State Board of Health will examine it for you."

This is very good advice, for it will generally relieve the patient of the fear of hydrophobia. Not one dog in ten thousand that bites people is a mad dog. The suspicion of mad dog arises after the biting has occurred, so that if the dog is kept and found to be well for a week or so the patient can be sure that he is in no danger. As for chopping off the dog's head and sending it to some laboratory for examination, the diagnosis of rabies is almost sure to result.

medical profession, and nowhere else more than in this city, Dr.

of the health department, said. It is generally believed to be contagious, but one of the peculiar things is, its method of transmission."

These doctors have created their own mystery. There is nothing mysterious about spinal meningitis, whatever. Meningitis is inflammation of a serous membrane. So is pleurisy. So is pericarditis. As is well known, pleurisy and pericarditis may be the direct result of catching cold. So, also, may spinal meningitis result from the same cause. It is simply inflammation of a serous membrane.

There is, however, a special cause, no doubt, for spinal mèningitis, which does not exist in the other cases. An unusual and continued jar of the spine may pro

duce it.

Spinal meningitis was especially prevalent during the late Spanish war, when thousands of soldiers camped near this city. Green boys, from the country, were mustered into service. They were compelled, for the first time in their lives, to stand up straight. They did a good deal of marching, for practice. This caused them to walk, more than usually, in an erect posture, which produced jar of the brain and spinal cord. Quite a number of cases of spinal meningitis was the result.

There is no need whatever of going out on a germ hunt. This is all fudge. The Health Boards succeed in making themselves a nuisance, rather than a benefit, by such wild goose chases.

In the article above referred to it is freely admitted that spinal meningitis occurs here and there, rarely two in the same family. It occurs more often in young people, of vigorous health, and there is no way possible for them to account how it could be a contagious disease, spreading from person to person. Yet they will persist in regarding it as at contagious disease. contagious disease. Hence the mystery.

The facts of common, everyday experience break down every theory of germ transmission in spinal meningitis. Break it squarely down, do not leave a vestige of it, and yet the doctors cling to it.

No wonder it is a mystery. When any one will persist in holding a theory in square contradiction of facts, he has created for himself a mystery, and a mystery that never will be solved.

Germ hunters! That is what the Health Boards are. Mischievous germ hunters. Leaving the alleys putrid, reeking with filth and disease, giving no heed to cesspools and water closets that never should have been allowed for a moment. Ignoring the fact that hundreds of people are living in damp, unventilated hovels and cellars, they go about hunting germs high up in the air, chasing around following a theory.

Young, vigorous people get spinal meningitis simply because they are more active, more liable to produce a jar of the brain or the spinal cord.

An unusually long walk on hard pavements. A dance that continues far into the night. Roller skating on the sidewalks. Jumping rope. These are the disease germs that cause spinal meningitis, and everybody but the Health the Health Board knows it quite well. Add to this

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direct traumatic causes, the fact that a cold is liable to settle in any mucous or serous membrane of the body and cause inflammation, and we have all the explanation that is needed.

It is the Health Boards that are troubled with disease germs, not the people. The brains of the political, parasitical doctors are filled with microbes of fantastic forms and frightful ferocity. They dwell on these subjects continually. They produce bacteriological jimjams. Even the rooms the Health Boards occupy are Νο usually dark and unwholesome. wonder they see disease germs wherever they go. And when they do not see them they imagine them to be there. Mystery about spinal meningitis ! Fudge! There is no more mystery about this disease than about any other disease. Unfortunately, not only disease, but life in all of its manifestations, is more or less of a mystery. It, however, only thickens the plot for men of specious training and education to lug into the. mysteries that are inevitable, fantastic notions quite as absurd as were ever promulgated by medieval theology.

Q

UIT slandering your body. Quit saying such things as these: "I have a bad stomach. My eyes are naturally weak. I inherited sick headache from my grandmother." Quit saying such things about yourself. You can never be well and continue to slander your body in that way. You say over and over again you have dyspepsia. It will make any one have dyspepsia to keep saying it.

I used to have a patient, a woman from the country, who visited me while I was practicing medicine in the City of Elmira. She used to tell me every time she came how badly she was afflicted with catarrh, internally. She asserted that she was perfectly putrid inside with. catarrh, and many other words that a tendency to nausea prevents me from writing down. Every time she would

accuse' herself of the same sickening details.

Fi

I bore it for a number of times. nally I rebelled. I said: "Now, see here, my good woman, if you are going to talk that way I had rather you would not visit my office any more. I should think you would be sick, talking that way about yourself. If your body was half as bad as you describe it you would have been in your grave long ago. As your doctor. I positively forbid your saying any of these things again. To me or any one else."

She told me afterwards she believed my scolding did her more good than any medicine I ever gave her. I believe it did.

Quit slandering your body.

The other day I sat opposite two men, in a crowded dining room. The train

had stopped fifteen minutes for dinner. We wer most of us attending strictly to business, in order to get through in time

One of the men who sat opposite took time, however, to tell his companion about his troubles. "My doctor will not allow me to eat many things. My stomich is so bad. I cannot eat this because t sours on my stomach. The bread contains too much starch. The meat makes urates. Sauce creates too much acid."

And so he went on to enumerate. And he seemed to be proud of the fact that he could not eat like other men. Kept quoting his doctor. A glance at his face showed him to be a puffy, bloated, badly disordered fellow. He displayed a box of tablets he was taking. His whole conversation concerned the matter of his diseases, and what the doctor had told him.

The fellow to whom he was talking munched on contentedly. He was a happy, hearty looking fellow. He assented by nods and approved by grunts, between mouthfuls. Once or twice he ventured a cheerful remark, and feebly dissented from his companion's lugubrious prognostications

But the hypochondriac would not have it so. He nibbled, he minced, he talked incessantly about his doctor, about his physical ailments, about the drugs he was taking, about the foods he would like to eat, but could not.

Such a man is sick, first of all in his head. Perhaps wholly. It may be that there is not a thing the matter with that man except his mind. And he has been unfortunate enough to find a doctor who helps him along in his monomania.

The doctor that this poor fellow was quoting, to whom he was rendering such glad obedience, that doctor was probably at the same time regaling himself at a fourteen-course dinner, with the fee he had earned by forbidding his patient a rational meal. With that sort of treatment the doctor will have a steady patient until he is obliged to turn him over to the undertaker.

Stop calling the various organs of your body bad names. You would not speal so of friends. Your organs are

your friends. Every one of them. At least, they would be if you would treat them right.

Say no more that your blood is out of order. That your liver is deranged. That your kidneys won't work right. And all that. Do not say these things.

Take an optimistic attitude. Every time you speak of your organs they are encouraged or discouraged, according to what you say of them. Continual fault finding with them discourages every function.

The best way is to ignore them entirely. Leave them alone in their work. Say nothing about them. Think nothing about them. Attend to your own business. Let your organs alone.

In

But if you must speak of them, speak well of them. Think well of them. sist upon it that they are all right. Do not admit that the organs are to be blamed for anything.

If they are slightly deranged to-day, it is because you have misused them. Not from any inherent weakness.

Do not admit that your lungs are weak. If you must say anything about them, say that you have not treated your lungs fairly. That you have subjected them to bad air and misuse of every kind.

The various organs of your body are your helpers. Treat them as helpers ought to be treated. Do not disparage them. Either leave them alone with their function, without let or hindrance, or else defend them. Compliment them. Say nice things concerning them.

W

Pneumonia.

By C. THOMAS, Jackson, Mich. HAT is the reason for the increase of pneumonia in our land? With all the research of science, why is it worse?

Fifty years ago it was called lung fever, or inflammation of the lungs. If a cold developed into pneumonia, lung fever, and the doctor miles away, some good old grandmother, would come to the rescue. A kettle of ears of corn was boiled until heated through, each ear wrapped in flannel and put round the patient. A hot poultice of onions, mus

You were giving your patients strychnia, morphine, quinine, and a host of other poisonous drugs. Here it reads, right here on the page, in your own words. This is what you were doing.

At the same time you were writing these words I was editor of Medical Talk. I was writing editorials in that journal on the subject of consumption, and was earnestly advocating the fresh air treatment for consumption. I said over and over again, give the patients fresh air. Give them sunlight. Give them plenty of good nourishment. Keep drugs away from them. Teach them how to breathe deeply. Especially, nose breathing. Encourage them in exercising out doors. I was vigorously protesting against your creosote treatment, your indoor treatment, your poisonous drugs.

You held my writings those days in perfect contempt, as you probably do now. Yet I was telling you the truth. I was a true prophet. Twelve years ago I was writing the same things that you are advocating to-day.

Oh! yes. The old files of THE COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL will be of a great deal of use to me. I shall be able to tell you in your own words how you were treating not only consumption, but many other diseases. I shall be able to quote your words on points of medical ethics that you have had occasion to revise lately.

I shall not do these things to gloat over your confusion and defeat. Not at all. I shall bring these things up simply to try to convince you that you are not infallible in your judgments. I shall try to prove by your numerous changes that even though the medical profession quite unanimously agree on any treatment or measure for the relief of the sick, it does not absolutely prove you are right.

You have shifted your position so frequently.

Only a few years ago you were doing the very things that you do not do to-day. Indeed, you strictly avoid doing them. The history of the practice of medicine has been a continual inconsistency in this regard.

You have done the best you could, no doubt. Your motives were good, com

mendable. But there is just one lesson that ought to be learned from all this vacillation on the part of the profession, and that lesson is toleration towards others. If you could only get it out of your heads that you are all right, but the other fellows are all wrong, all this fearful record of experimenting upon the people with your pernicious drugs and false theories will be utilized for the good of the human family.

But I fear it will not have that effect. You will go right on, "cock-sure" that your latest theory is correct and your latest remedy is the only one. You will attempt to make it illegal for people to use any other treatment except yours. You will make doctors who disagree with you outlaws, if you can. You will not only entrench your own opinions with laws, but you will enforce your treatment upon the people whether they wish it or not.

If I can only show you, through these old files, that in the last twenty-five years everything concerning medicine and surgery has undergone a radical change. so radical that what you have advocated through the pages of this JOURNAL Would be regarded as malpractice to-day, if I can drive that into your heads it may have a softening effect upon your attitude toward the doctors who disagree with you.

I am writing other prophecies to-day. THE COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL will be full of objections to what you are doing to-day. I have no doubt whatever but that time will demonstrate the correctness of my views. I do not expect you will listen to what I have to say, or adopt any of it, but I do confidently expect that in fifteen or twenty years from now you will be doing the very things that I am advocating, which you consider so unethical and unscientific.

It seems to me that any fair-minded doctor has only to just glance over the pages of these files, to convince himself that the medical profession is in no position to dogmatize as to the practice of the healing arts. They ought to be very humble, very tolerant, very willing to allow every conscientious person the ut