R. Cubebæ... 3 ij; 3 j; M. SIG.--Of this take a heaping teaspoonful in a tumbler of water ter die; the dose to be increased. Should the discharge still persist, use an injection of- THE EXCISION OF SYPHILITIC CHANCRE.-(E. L. Keyes, M. D., Professor of Cutaneous and Genito Urinary Diseases in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, in Phil. Med. News.)—In 1884, a medical gentleman called at my office to show me a small pimple situated upon the middle portion of the integument of the dorsum of the penis. This lesion was an accuminated papule, not capped by a pustule. The epidermis was unbroken. The color was slightly livid, the size about threesixteenths of an inch at the base. There was no appreciable induration, indeed the lesion had no pronounced specific character. It was not painful. There was no inguinal glandular engorgement. The lesion had appeared during the afternoon of the day before I saw it. It was less than twenty-four hours old, and the patient ascribed it to suspicious sexual contact dating back two weeks. The integument of the penis and of the rest of the body was normal, the general health good. A diagnosis was impossible, although the general appearance of the lesion suggested an accidental papule, and would have justified a favorable prognosis as to syphilis. Yet the patient was solicitous that some thing should be done. I proposed to him excision. He gladly accepted the test. I caught up the little papule with a full margin of the ample soft integument around and with scissors, curved on the flat, excised an abundant fold, including the lesion and considerable healthy tissue around. On his return home the doctor visited the suspected party and found that she had a syphilitic eruption. The wound healed promptly by first intention. On the sixty-second day, after three or four days of premonitory fever, no medicine having : been taken, the patient observed a mild roseola, which promptly disappeared. Fourteen days later he visited me. He had lost eight pounds in weight. In one groin were two indolent indurated glands, one in the other groin. The site of the excised chancre was soft and perfectly well, showing only a faint linear white scar. There was intense rheumatism, worse at night. There were scabs in the scalp, and the hair was falling. A profuse general papular syphilide covered the entire trunk, the face and both the palms. Mucous patches abounded in the mouth. The eruption was brilliant and abundant, the patient pallid. The disease had not been interfered with by any medical treatment, and was a plain instance of a sharp attack of syphilis which had not seemingly been in any degree modified by the excision of the initial lesion, although executed under unusually favorable circumstances. This case I consider worthy of record because it fulfills the most exacting conditions for testing the question, still under consideration in the profession, as to whether syphilis is or is not already a constitutional disease when the chancre appears. I do not care to tabulate statistics of the excisions practiced by various operators. The resume of Dr. Morrow, in December, 1882, covered enough cases to allow generalization, and nothing which I have seen since that date has modified the conclusion he seemed justified in drawing; namely, that the excision of chancre does not attenuate the poison of syphilis or modify the general symptoms. Berkeley Hill's case, it appears to me, carries more weight than any other reported before or since. A man tore his frenum during intercourse at 4 A. M. At 3.30 P. M. on the same day-less than twelve hours after exposure-Hill destroyed the entire raw surface with fuming nitric acid. An eschar separated and the wound healed. A month later the cicatrix indurated and general syphilis followed. My own opinion has been strongly opposed to the belief that local excision of chancre would prevent or modify general syphilis. I have offered the treatment to many, but as I never felt conscientiously at liberty to promise any advantage as a result of the operation my proposition has been declined. I would not have operated in this case except that the patient, being a physician, earnestly desired it. My case is quite analogous in its history and result to one reported by T. W. Taylor, in which a papule was excised upon the day on which it appeared-with no advantage to the patient, whose general symptoms came out in two weeks. It is on a par with others in which early incision was practiced in vain (Mauriac, forty eight hours). J. F. BALDWIN, M. D., Columbus, EDITOR. Communications, reports, etc., are solicited from all quarters. Authors desiring reprints, will receive fifty, free of charge, provided the request for the same accompanies the article. Subscribers changing their location, are requested to notify the Publishers promptly, that there may be no delay in receipt of the journal, stating both the new and the former post-office address. We have no authorized Collectors, except such as carry properly made out bills, countersigned by the Publishers. HANN & ADAIR, Publishers, Columbus, (). STATE RIGHTS IN MEDICINE. The question of spelling Nation with a big N, came up at New Orleans, at the meeting of the American Medical Association, and appears to have been decided in the negative. It seems that last year a committee was appointed to invite the International Medical Congress to hold its next meeting here. This committee was instructed, in case the invitation was accepted, "to act as an Executive Committee, with full power to fix the time and to make all necessary and suitable arrangements for the meeting of such Congress." The words which we have italicised would seem to indicate beyond a peradventure that the Association intended to give the Committee carte blanche in relation to the whole affair. The Committee was successful in getting the Congress, and accordingly proceeded to carry out its instructions, as given above, by appointing the officers of the different sections and the various necessary sub-committees. We received the list of appointees some time ago, and failed to find anything to criticize. We thought the names had been selected with great care, to secure men of, as far as possible, National, if not International, reputation. But not so with all. The Committee had made no provision for the eloquent champion of the pap-chewing mothers of Texas; they had ignored the oleates; they had not tested all their appointees by the shibboleth of the Code; they had not given the "rural deestricts” their numerical ratio of the offices; whole states and territories were entirely ignored; even Ohio had but 14, and of these her metropolis had all but one, while New York, Philadelphia and Boston were liberally remembered. And so there was a kick. The original kick was kicked, it would appear, in Texas, whence in the vigorous, but slightly mixed, figure of the Courier Record -it (the kick) "rolled into one mighty billow and at New Orleans inundated, swamped, aye, snowed under the whole arrangement." And so it was decided to increase the size of the committee, and otherwise so arrange matters that the ranches of Texas, the prairies of Kansas, the mines of Colorado, and the forests and wheat fields of the great Northwest should all be "represented" among the officers of this congress. Verily, we trust the original committee, and their rustic accessories, may duly exercise, the former, patience, the latter, humility, and both moderation, to the end that the Congress may be a success; for unless they do this we greatly apprehend the Texas "kick" will overturn "the fat into the fire." HOW YELLOW FEVER SCARES MAY ORIGINATE. Dr. Norman Gay, who has been on a trip to the sunny South, returned Saturday. He treated a number of yellow fever cases on the way up the river, and was considerably used up when he first arrived, but was feeling all right yesterday. The above appeared in the Ohio State Journal, of Tuesday, May 5, just after Dr. Gay's return from New Orleans. The flimsy basis of the startling statement reminds one of the story of "The Three Black Crows." Dr. Gay was seized, while returning, with an attack of cholera morbus. On getting home he sent a messenger to the drug store to get a prescription filled, remarking to him that he felt "as though there was a yellow jacket in his stomach." By just what process of evolution this simple remark developed into the Journal statement, would be an interesting subject for investigation. Fortunately, however, the Associated Press agent did not see the item, or there is no knowing what damage might have been done by its general promulgation. COM THE COMING STATE LEGISLATURE. Now is the time for physicians throughout the state, who take any interest whatever in the advancement of State Medicine in our commonwealth, to have their eyes on the budding candidates for our next legis lature, irrespective of party. See that they are in favor of the enactment of a law to create a State Board of Health. Do not allow Ohio to be the last State to wheel into line. The interests of the people have long since demanded it, and as guardians of the people's health it is our duty to do all we can to secure it. No political creed should stand as a barrier between us and duty, or the people and the protection of their health and the prolonging of their lives. OBITUARY. DR. JOHN B. THOMPSON. Dr. JOHN B. THOMPSON was born at Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, September 15, 1802. He received such an education as the facilities of those times afforded in a new country. When a young man he went to Cambridge, Ohio, where he read medicine with his brother, Dr. Robert Thompson. It was here he met Miss Seeber, and in 1827 they were united in marriage. In 1835 he removed with his family to Columbus, Ohio, where he afterwards resided, and was in every way identified with the growth and prosperity of the community. Belonging to a family of physicians whose extended reputation was secured by sterling ability, he proved himself well qualified to sustain the lustre of his house. He lieved to be the last of his race, and died on May 12, 1885, in the 83rd year of his age. He was among the earliest members of the Ohio State Medical Society, and held all the offices within its gift. He was a strong advocate of total abstinence, a staunch abolitionist, and an earnest friend of every movement for the education and advancement of the people. He was an humble and sincere Christian, doing all for the glory of God and, as he felt, under His special guidance. He retired from active practice several years ago, when he had come to feel, with Emerson, "It is time to be old, To take in sail; The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said, 'No more!" " OBITUARY RECORD. Died in Steward, Lee Co., Ill., May 10th, of mesenteric tuberculosis, William Slade Herrick, M.D. Dr. Herrick was born in West Randolph, Vt., on May 3, 1838, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1860. He studied medicine under Dr. E. P. Cook, of |