it seems only necessary to add that a long and continued experiment has been made upon a family with results which fully justify these claims. The bones were selected from perfectly healthy animals, none being used that bore any blemish or abnormal growth; carefully cured, without being allowed to pass through any perceptible chemical changes, finely granulated and incorporated into soups, gravies and breads, etc., in the proportion of from one to two or three spoonsful to each pint of soup, gravy or bread.

The relative proportions of nutritive elements in one hundred parts different kinds of animal food are as follows:

of

Beef, 26; mutton, 29; pork, 24; chicken, 27; brain, 20; blood, 21; codfish, 21; white of egg, 14; milk, 7; bone, 51.

CHRONIC MALARIAL TROUBLE CURED BY EXTERNAL

APPLICATION OF PHYTOLACCA.

BY J. W. HAMER, M. D., HOOVERSVILLE, PA.

The administration of phytolacca in this kind of trouble will doubtless be as new to the majority, if not to all, of the readers of the JOURNAL as it was to me. Although applied locally, it had its constitutional effect. The following case will show its curative power in this malady:

In May, 1882, I was called to see N. L. B., aged 40, who was just in the midst of a severe chill. I learned from his wife that he had resided, a few years ago, in the west, in a malarious district, and that he had been troubled with " 'fever and ague" ever since. He had been treated in the west by the best of physicians, he said, and also by the best here since his return, but all with the same result-no benefit. He would have his usual shake every three or four weeks in spite of all treatment, though a dose or two of quinine would stop it for the time. I gave him two fivegrain doses of quinia, and the next day gave him the following: R. Liq. pot. arsen, ziiss; tr. iodine, zij; aquæ, q. s. ad 3viij. M. Sig.– Teaspoonful three times a day before eating. Also left a few quinine powders to be taken a few days previous to the next expected attack. At the end of four weeks he had another attack, and becoming discouraged quit the use of all medicines.

About one week after this last attack a man (claiming to be a Frenchman) stopped at his house. A conversation was struck up and they

began talking about "fever and ague." The Frenchman told him to take poke-root and make a poultice of it, and apply it on the palms of his hands and soles of his feet, and that the trouble would come out of him (using the stranger's language) at the weakest point. Mr. B. did so that very evening, and the next morning found his eyelids pasted so tightly together that he could not open them without very much trouble. The poultices of poke-root were removed, a basin of warm water got, and he began washing; he could draw long strings of mucus from his eyes; he said to his wife, “I guess we have done it now, my eyes are ruined." He arrived at my office at an early hour that morning, being brought in in his buggy. While he was undoing the kerchiefs from his eyes he related to me what had happened. The Frenchman was anybody but a gentleman. With emollient applications his eyes were well in a few days.

It is now about two years since the poke-root experiment, and he has had no attack of ague, nor even a symptom of its returning. In conclusion, I would say that I wish the medical brethren, living in malarious districts, would give their experience with this drug in this disease and that some one would give us a reason why it acts so. All that I can find recorded of its effect on the eye is a dimness of vision (U. S. Disp). I presume its action would be attributed to it being an alterative.

Had I not been called about six weeks before this poke-root experiment, I might have doubted its authenticity; but it being a true case I write this that it may excite a further investigation in the use of phytolacca in this malady, and also in other troubles.

STRANGULATED FEMORAL HERNIA-MORTIFICATION -SEPARATION OF BOWEL-RECOVERY.

BY JAMES V. LEWIS, M. D., AUBURN, IND.

In presenting for publication the report of this case, I do so with a twofold purpose in view: firstly, believing it to be almost, if not quite, an unheard of result and a departure from the course such grave affections usually pursue when mortification is unavoidable, it consequently becomes of much interest to the surgeon and general practitioner; secondly, to give a synopsis of treatment employed in the case, to satisfy the demand of a number of practitioners, for a report of the case, and to

offer my theory as to how the cure was effected without the use of the knife.

I was called to see Mr. T., aged 51 years (a laborer) in consultation with my partner Dr. Cowan, July 29, 1883. He had been suffering for a number of days with what had been supposed to be impaction of feces, or invagination of the bowels, up to the morning of same day, when pain called the attention of the patient to the right iliac region. Examination revealed. the pressure of a tumor about the size of a hen's egg, which he said had existed in a lessér size since he was 16 years of age, and which had been caused by excessive jumping. The tumor was exceedingly painful, presenting a marked gangrenous appearance in the center, including an area not larger than a fifty-cent piece, the circumference retaining its vitality, although highly inflamed and of a purplish color. Vomiting of stercoraceous matter had existed for several days, which, together with the obstinate constipation that had existed from the onset and the lack of knowledge of the presence of the tumor, had led to the diagnosis of intestinal obstruction from other causes than hernia. He had repeatedly been given brisk cathartics and enemata, with no other result than exaggerating the pain and causing more frequent vomiting of ingesta. The presence and nature of the tumor now made the diagnosis plain; hence, all cathartics were withheld, enemata discontinued, and small doses of morphine administered hypodermically, with stimulants per orem. The case was now apparently beyond the hope of relief, either by taxis or the knife; hence the only course left to pursue was to save, if possible, the life of the patient by the formation of an artificial anus. This being agreed upon, we determined to open the sac to the confined bowel, and if enough vitality remained in it, to pass it back into the abdominal cavity and operate for the radical cure. I incised the skin only, when there exuded about two ounces of black, frothy, stercoraceous matter, containing small particles of undigested food and detached portions of This being cleared away, the bowel on examination proved to be a portion of the small intestine, most probably of the ileum, gangrenous and perforated in several places in the loop, which was about three inches in length, covered above by a small portion of the omentum also gangrenous and sloughing.

omentum.

A careful examination of the parts the following day showed the entire and complete separation of the gut, the ragged ends of the separated bowel remaining in the sac, held there by adhesions as proved from the

fact that an attempt to withdraw either portion was wholly futile. About two hours after the opening of the sac, and escape of the accumulated matter, there was a free evacuation of the bowels-the first for five or six days, both through the artificial opening and per rectum.

The dead portions of the gut, omentum, and integument were now removed as nearly as possible, and the cavity filled with lint saturated in a solution of glycerine and carbolic acid, one part of the latter to forty of the former, and the patient treated with the view of establishing an artificial anus. By August 12th, all the gangrenous portions of the omentum, bowel and superficial tissues had sloughed off and been removed, leaving a large cavity formerly occupied by omentum and bowel, the walls of which were to all appearances perfectly healthy, as extensive granulations had been thrown out, especially on the tegumentary portion.

I now began to slowly close the opening by pressure and by approximating the edges with the aid of adhesive plaster, and from this time on very little passed through the opening, although the patient's appetite was good and he allowed a moderate amount of easily digested food. October 1st the opening was almost perfectly healed, a mere sinus only remaining unclosed, through which enough fluid passed to form a small crust, the size of half a pea, about once a week. This, however, continued only a short time, and at this date, August 15, 1884, nothing passes; a small cicatrix only remains as proof that the hernia had ever existed, and the patient announces himself as perfectly well and is again at his old occupation in the employ of the Wabash Railroad.

One peculiarity which I noticed especially, and deem worthy of mention here, was the spontaneous operation of the bowels so soon after the opening of the sac, which, as above stated, had not responded to large doses of active cathartics and enemata. Prior to the opening of the sac the patient was fast becoming delirious, his countenance wearing the terrible expression of pain and anxiety so often noticeable in these cases, all of which passed away with the first few acts of defecation.

How this radical cure was effected in this case is a matter for much speculation, but from minute and repeated observations, I am forced to the conclusion that the ends of the separated bowel did not reunite spontaneously, but that each part being held firm by adhesions to the walls of the canal, which was very large, there was formed out of a portion of the sac a kind of pocket or receptacle which, by closing the opening exteriorly, acts as the connecting link between the openings of the separated bowel. The case was subsequently presented at a meeting of the

DeKalb County Medical Society for examination by a number of physicians present, with many and varied theories, as to how the cure was wrought without the aid of the knife, and by directly uniting the ends of the bowel and holding them intact by sutures. Some, especially, claimed that the gut was evidently a portion of the colon-which truly seems plausible--and that, instead of a complete separation, there was only a perforation with adhesions to the walls of the peritoneal cavity, the walls forming a part of, or replacing, the destroyed portion of the gut. Other theories were advanced, which were too improbable to merit a passing notice. This view, regarding the colon as the part involved, although apparently well founded, I know to be erroneous, as the whole calibre of the intestine could be examined after complete separation had taken place. Again, it is not probable, as Erichsen says the colon is rarely, if ever, implicated in a femoral hernia; yet, from all proof and conflicting evidence against the theory, it has its advocates, who believe they have as good an hypothesis as anyone, and one which will not be demonstrated to be incorrect until death and circumstances grant opportunity for the scalpel to reveal what to them is a matter of conjecture.

CHOLERA AND HOW TO MEET IT.

From Address of Dr. Cameron, President Section of Public Medicine, British Medical Association.

Editor Columbus Medical Journal :

I send you here a clipping from the Belfast Whig, of the latter part of Dr. Cameron's paper on the "Cholera Microbe, and How to Meet It,” read before the British Medical Association. This is the practical part of the paper, and the facts here published are worth more in anticipating or meeting an epidemic, than all the theories which have been held on the subject. They also show that the subject is a wide one on many other accounts than in anticipating an epidemic of cholera. At this particular

time the spread of this knowledge before the profession, is of the utmost importance.

Cleveland, O., Aug. 25, '84.

Truly yours,

W. J. SCOTT.

[In the first part of his paper, Dr. Cameron gives a resume of our knowledge of the cholera microbe, reciting the contradictory results of the