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summer I saw marble cropping out of the ground in numerous places up in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and I wasn't looking for it, either. I suppose a clever promoter could get an option or lease on such land (plenty of it up there), incorporate a company, take a doctor up there, show him the marble-"there it is, right before your eyes "- take a pencil and paper and figure out cost of quarrying, transportation rates, prices, etc. (and about these things the doctor knows absolutely nothing), and show great profits (on paper), whereupon the doctor would buy stock, thinking that he had made a good investment. Then the promoter could go or write to other physicians and tell what this doctor who had been on the ground had done. Here is a paragraph from a circular letter before me:

"As a matter of fact, we are presenting theMarble proposition to prominent members of the medical world, because they seem able to start from a given point and think in a straight line to a logical conclusion, and because we can refer to two physicians who have personally inspected the property."

Further along they say: "Up to date we have interested fifty-six physicians." They offer a $500 six percent bond for $600, with a bonus of 80 percent of company stock. Well, leaving out the bonus stock, which may never have any value at all, you would get 5 percent on your money. Can't you do as well or better in your own vicinity, without any risk to your principal? Farmer Johnson wants to build a barn, or get some new farming machinery. He will give you 6 percent and secure the principal by a mortgage on his farm.

He will make much more than the 6 percent by use of the new equipment, and you will have a paying and a safe investment.

The mining craze still continues. Let us here bring forward the old play upon words: "Mine, Miner, Minus." This will be remembered by many, too late. The "skindicates" are getting in their work, for there are, among the incurable diseases, cancer, leprosy, and the stupidity of investors. A financial paper gives the following directions for a mine promotion:

"First get a claim near something. Give it a name that can be mistaken for that of the rich adjacent property. Leave a man there and provide him with means for reaching a telegraf office hourly. Experience of mining unnecessary. Must have a little mining lore, big imagination, and a large command of superlativs. Form a company. Get a lot of certificates printed. Engage two or three brokers on the curb to go thru the motions of buying and selling the stock excitedly. Let them do about 15,000 shares a day, or more on busy days, and get the quotations printed in the newspapers. Then call upon your man for telegrams. Get them printed wherever you can. Give a little stock to such tipsters as will take it. It adds to the zest of the game to let the tipsters make a little money if you think you can afford it. If the stock doesn't sell tell your man on the claim that he must make a strike; tell him to lay it on. If you think you can do better than he, write something yourself that he can telegraf back. Wait until things are quiet elsewhere on the curb and then suddenly announce your strike and raise the price at which your brokers are swapping

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"At least $200,000,000 are tied up in mining stocks that did not exist a year ago, and will probably not exist in five years from now."

How much of this money came out of the pockets of doctors? If you are poorer in money, you may say that you are richer in stock. Do you know how to find out the value of your stock?-whether it is mining stock, oil stock, lumber stock, etc. Here is a certain rule: try to sell it. It is worth what you can sell it for. Try it, and you will learn how rich-or poor-you are. Perhaps before you go far in your efforts you will wish it was Uncle Sam's legal tender. But it isn't legal tender. Maybe you will develop uncomplimentary opinions of yourself for buying such stuff. Do you want to know what promoters think of their victims? Here is the opinion of a notorious promoter:

"My opinion of people in general is that ninetyseven out of every hundred are absolutely hopeless idiots-not fools, but idiots-things that never had any brains."

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There is urgent need for Federal mining laws, providing for Federal supervision of mining corporations, and holding promoters to a strict accountability, and requiring them to be responsible for their transactions.

In my mail there is an exceedingly large number of expressions of appreciation of my work concerning investments. I will introduce only one here:

C. F. TAYLOR, M.D.; DEAR DOCTOR:-I beg to inclose draft for $3. Send THE WORLD right along. You are doing a good work. Your Monthly Talk is eagerly lookt for, and read with pleasure and profit. Keep up your hammering on the doctor to keep his own money. You might keep at the head of the column a standing request to let you know when any of your constituents realize anything on their ventures. Doctors are very prone to go into all kinds of schemes in the hope of getting something for their old age. They have not had the training that enables one to discriminate between good and bad ventures. They have not yet all learned that because a proposition is launcht with the names of governors, congressmen, bankers, etc., as presidents, directors, etc., it does not prove that these men have investigated and put in money of their own. FRED W. A. BROWN. Oshkosh, Wis.

I must say a few words in reply to a printed letter which has been sent out to doctors, but which was intended to be private to those receiving the same. That which concerns the interests of the medical profession cannot and ought not to be private. WORLD readers are everywhere, and they have their eyes open; and they consider it their duty (it also seems to be their pleasure) to keep me posted. I don't think it is any use to try to keep from me anything that any one puts out to any considerable number of the medical profession. This par

ticular letter, "A Word Concerning Investments," is aimed more particularly at me than at any one else, tho I am not named, and I will not name the writer, except to say that he is another medical editor. He says (concerning investments): "Fact is, the average doctor is about as good a judge of such things as the average medical editor." Then he makes a fling at savings banks and the 3 percent which they pay. Ostrander and all the fakes and skins in the country are doing the same thing. They want to get the money out of the savings banks and into their schemes-and thus into their pockets. I am sorry to see a medical editor in such company and speaking against such useful institutions as savings banks. True, once in a great while one of the many savings banks in this country fails; then, usually, there is a loss to depositors; but it is seldom, if ever, a total loss. The failure of the Milwaukee Avenue Savings Bank of Chicago, several months ago, was the most awful and disgraceful that has occurred in years; but that will pay something over 50 percent to depositors, and the president is already in the penitentiary, where he belongs (and where many mining fakirs belong). And when an inventory of the assets was taken, it was found that over $100,000 of the money had been sunk in worthless mining stocks. So, while there is an occasional failure of a savings bank, with usually more or less loss to depositors, but never a total loss, Mr. Guggenheim, who, perhaps, knows more about mines than any other one man in this country, estimates the chances of success in a mining proposition to be about 1 in 300. True, savings banks pay only 3 percent interest; but would it not be better that they should not pay interest at all, but preserve the principal safe and intact for your use when you want it, than for you to lose it all in some mining venture?

However, I am glad to see that this erstwhile "cocksure" medical editor admits that there are risks in mines. He says: "At the same time it is your privilege to put in your money and take your chances with the rest in developing a property with genuin big 'prospects.'" Yes, if you are past 21 you can take your chances," but remember that you will have to abide by the results. We have been waiting for years for some one to tell us of a single successful mining or other speculativ investment (I mean in stock boomed in circulars or circular letters by distant promoters who are strangers to you), and I haven't heard of a single one yet; and the money that has gone from doctors into such things would make many a broken-down doctor's old age comfortable and happy. One doctor recently insisted on a private correspondence with me about a certain investment, and persisted in the belief that it was a good thing (I have forgotten now just what

the proposed investment was). I wrote him frankly to go ahead and throw his money away that way if he wanted to, but to please see that he paid up all his medical journal subscriptions and all other honest debts first. I don't know that he owed anything, but if a man is determined to take a risk, he has no right to force others to take the risk too.

This editor, in the printed letter above mentioned, further says: "and don't squeal if you lose." So, you see, here is an admission of the uncertainty of the venture that he offers, tho the other literature concerning it is extremely optimistic. He further says: "You must remember that the returns on an investment are, as a rule, in inverse proportion to the risk." This is all right-just what I have told you many times. You don't want to lose the money you have saved; therefore make safe investments (first mortgages on property in your vicinity to not exceed 50 or 60 percent of the assest value), at say 6 percent interest. The speculativ habit is like the gambling habit—it is the gambling habit. If you win once, you will go in again and again, and your old age is almost sure to be spent in poverty. This is what I am trying to save the medical profession of this country from.

There is much else to say, about various other investment propositions which are before me, including some from medical concerns which wish the doctor to put in his money, and then supply the patronage by prescribing the goods (an excellent arrangement for the other fellow), but I have said enuf for this time-and it seems to me for all time. But it seems to be necessary for some one to say these things, and to keep on saying them. A professor in one of our great universities told me just today that it is surprising the number of investment propositions that are constantly received by members of the faculty. Thus in the centers of learning the fakirs find victims. I told him that it was well known that teachers, preachers, and doctors are the easiest victims of-suppose I call it optimistic finance, to be polite. General prosperity always stimulates this sort of thing. Don't let the schemers get your share of the prosperity. Keep it yourself.

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Since our vigorous showing up of the schemers who prey on the medical profession thru get-rich-quick schemes, most of the speculativ (so-called "investment") advertising has disappeared from the advertising pages of medical journals. Imagin my surprise to find a page and a half of reading matter (pages 162 and 163), consisting of a boom mining article from a trade paper, in the November number of that usually excellent magazine, Gaillard's Southern Medicin. I searcht for a reason, which was not hard to

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find two pages of mining stock advertising, headed in large type: "Buy before the Advance." And further down: "Mining has built many great fortunes." Ten cents per share, cash or installments." Here are two pages of advertising, and one and a half pages of reading matter in the midst of the reading pages, of the kind of stuff that makes doctors poor as sure as fate, if they read and invest. What is worse, if possible, in the same paper, is adv. page x, consisting of an article taken from the Medical Brief, written by that well-known fake, W. H. Morse, M.D., booming that awful fake, "Mandragorine (Syn.)" of the James Alkaloidal Co. This is many times worse than antikamnia. These things are enuf to make dear old Prof. Gaillard (of blessed memory) turn in his grave. When I am dead and gone, I hope that THE MEDICAL WORLD will be allowed to die a respectable death rather than be kept alive by such advertisements.

Buying Worthless Sand.

Many people who are too poor to own real estate where they live, having a desire to "own a home," will be tempted to buy where it is cheap. To this class of people, advertisements of lots for sale cheap, in new and distant places, appeal. They want to feel that they own a lot somewhere, to which they may want to retire some day. And then the speculativ element enters in, for it is always represented that the lots will rapidly increase in value. New Jersey has been and still is one of the worst states in the Union for this kind of swindling. The following clipping gives some facts:

FORTUNES SUNK IN JERSEY SAND LOTS. GOVERNMENT STOPS USE OF MAILS FOR LAND SALES.-FRAUD ORDER ISSUED ON COMPLAINT OF INVESTOR THAT TRACT BOUGHT IS BARREN AND WORTHLESS.

[Special Telegram to Public Ledger.] MOUNT HOLLY, Dec. 14.-The issuance of a fraud order by the Postmaster General against the Appleby & Wood Company and J. Rudolph Appleby, doing business at Lenola, near Moorestown, recalls many land swindling games that have been practised on the public with Burlington County's barren waste lands.

The complaint against the Appleby concern was made by E. O. Ellis, of New York, who stated that he purchast of Appleby a tract in Burlington County that was barren and worthless, consisting only of white sand, altho Appleby had shown him maps representing land open and cut thru with streets and avenues. The investigation on the part of the postal authorities has resulted in the Appleby concern being excluded from use of the mails.

This company, it is alleged, has been engaged for years in selling these sand lots, and the records in the County Clerk's office in Mount Holly show that thousands of deeds have been recorded, hardly a week having passed that one or more of the transfers has failed to appear. The record fees from this source have been a source of revenue to Burlington County's clerks for years. The people of the county have long suspected that the business was a swindle. It has been shown up in the newspapers time and again, but no action has been taken by the authorities until now.

Frequently buyers of these lots have come a long distance to learn whether they had any real value, and it now develops that in many instances women have been beguiled into paying $400 for a lot that was not worth 40 cents.

One man is said to have given a mortgage of $5000 on a lot and borrowed $4000 on the collateral.

Does Not Want THE WORLD to Come to an End. Dr. R. L. Weldon, of Buffalo, Ala., writes: "Please do not let THE WORLD come to an end, as I cannot do without it."

The Antikamnia List.

The antikamnia list of journals is omitted this month because it is likely to be greatly changed for next year. A new list will be made out by examining the January journals, which is impossible at this date of writing. It is suggested that the new list be made alphabetical-a good suggestion. We ask our readers and co-workers to help make out the new list. Here is the kind of help we want: On Dec. 10 the New York Medical Times wrote me as follows: "The antikamnia contract with us expired with the Dec. number, and will not be renewed." Here is a suggestion:

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-You are publishing the journals that advertise antikamnia. Will you please publish a list of those that have backbone enuf to cut it out? I wish to subscribe for a good weekly, and have been watching the list, intending to take one that was dropt. I would much rather pay double the price, if necessary, for a clean journal. R. J. WILLIAMS. Rocky Point, N. C.

This is an interesting suggestion, but it may be assumed that the journals not in the antikamnia list are above the antikamnia level.

Life Insurance Companies That Are Not Seeking Cheap Medical Examiners.

We herewith publish a list of the life insurance companies paying a $5 flat fee, as far as known to us. If our readers know of others they will please inform us : Ætna Life, Hartford, Conn. Citizens' Life, Louisville, Ky. Capital Life, Denver, Col.

Fort Worth Life, Fort Worth, Texas.
Manhattan Life, New York City.

Massachusetts Mutual Life, Springfield, Mass.
Mutual Benefit Life, Newark, N. J.

National Life, Montpelier, Vt.

Northwestern Mutual, Milwaukee, Wis.
Pacific Mutual Life, San Francisco, Cal.
Penn Mutual Life, Philadelphia, Pa.
Reliance Life, Pittsburg, Pa.

We believe these companies are thoroly reliable, that they do not pay their officers excessiv salaries, and are not mixt up with trusts or political parties. They should be favored in every way possible by the members of the medical profession.

Apropos-We note at the head of an advertisement in one of the state medical journals the following: "No Yellow Dog Funds, No Campaign Expenses nor Contributions, No Officers with $100,000 per year Salary."-Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey.

The Commonwealth Life Insurance Company of Louisville has already adopted the $5 fee since the Owensboro meeting and will only appoint reputable examiners hereafter. This means about $20,000 annually to the doctors of the state and hundreds of thousands eventually to the policyholders. All honor to the Commonwealth for being the first company to join us in our fight. Others are coming. Some have never wavered. Help these companies as much as possible. Get the agents of three dollar companies just as soon as possible to make liberal and honest contracts with this and other reputable companies, such as the Massachusetts Mutual, Connecticut Mutual, Northwestern and Mutual Benefit, and others whose names will occur to you, whenever you can.Dr. A. T. MacCormack, Sec. Ky. State Med. Assn.

It's funny, isn't it? We still get letters as follows: "I understand that it is our privilege to submit our difficult cases." Then follows the case, with stamp inclosed for reply. It seems that some doctors will not read the standing notice at the head of the Quiz department.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS

Short articles of practical help to the profession are solicited for this department.

Articles accepted must be contributed to this journal only. The editors are not responsible for views expressed by contributors. Copy must be received on or before the twelfth of the month, for publication in the issue for the next month. We decline responsibility for the safety of unused manuscript. It can usually be returned if request and postage for return are received with manuscript; but we cannot agree to always do so. Certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.-RUSKIN,

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Did I Cure Pneumonia? Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-The time for pneumonia is upon us again, and I believe I'll tell of my experience with that deceiver last winter. I was called to see a lad 15 years old; fever 104, respirations 34, pulse 100, tongue heavily coated, pain in right side. He had taken sick with a hard chill at school the day before, and his mother had been treating him for malarial fever. I found dullness over right lung, fine rales, and a real red flush on right cheek.

I gave him quinin in 5-gr. doses every four hours, then comp. spts. ether, teaspoonful every four hours, alternating them. I had him bathed by sponging with cold water to control fever. I gave other medicins as indicated, such as small doses of morphin, atropin, strychnin, whiskey, etc. He went on, worse in evening and better in morning, but, on the whole, he was worse on the fourth day than he had been at all. Now I grew more anxious, so I began on another new medicin, to be given every four hours thru the night. Next morning when I entered the room I saw the boy in a different condition altogether. Breathing 22, pulse 70, fever 97. Talked as tho well, had eaten heartily, and wanted more. Now, wasn't I proud of my medicin? Just cured him in one night.

The next case was a stout man of 26, heavily built, and symptoms so near the same I'll not mention them, except that he spat very much blood. I treated him in a similar manner, meeting symptoms as they arose. On the fifth day I resorted to my new mediein, and it was given from about 12 (noon) thru the evening and night. Next morning as I went in, a dog barkt close to me, causing me to jump to one side, and I heard my sick man laugh out loud. I went to the bed and found him perspiring freely, and normal in breathing, pulse, and temperature. Just think! Only the evening before, fever 104, pulse 110, breathing 38 per minute, and now perfectly normal. Of course, dullness and weakness still existed, but in both cases they went right on, and were well and out in less

than one week from the change. Now, didn't I cure them?

This is not all. My third case was a stout man of 54. His fever didn't go so high, only 103, pulse 80 to 90, respiration 28 to 34, coughed very hard, and had much pain. Lower lobe of right lung affected, with much pleural involvment. He was treated in the same manner as the other two, but I resorted to my new medicin on the fourth day, and the fifth found him down to normal in nearly every way, and he made a little slower recovery.

Now, what do you say? I have related these cases as nearly true as I can remember. The question is, did I cure them? Here are three cases treated, all the same winter, by the same doctor, and by the same line of treatment. A certain medicin was given to each patient and the crisis came on the night after the medicin was begun in every case. Did this medicin cure them? Oh, yes, you are wanting to know what the medicin was; but you must say before I tell you.

Now if you was the manufacturer of seng, and I should tell you seng was the medicin I used, you would say seng cured my three cases of pneumonia, wouldn't you? Then if I were a right young fellow, eager for a big name, you would write me a nice, beautiful letter, calling me a real up-to-date doctor, and publish my noted letter in your journalalmanac, and I'd love you to death. Now I'd say more good things about every medicin you made, even to liquozone.

But this wasn't seng I used. Suppose it had been peruna: That company would not only swear that peruna cured, but might send me money.

Suppose it was a number of little pills, to be given every 15 to 30 minutes: A thousand doctors would say they had cured from 10 to 50 cases just the same way. And the man that makes the little pills would pat me and the whole thousand doctors on the head until we would be bald, and we would verily believe our baldness was caused by our wisdom. Then we would be so wise that we would give the pills, not only to cure pneumonia, but to show our new learned methods; and often our patient would drop out from hypermedication, just as I believe I've known them do. I would just as soon die of antikamnia poison.

But this new medicin was not little pills, I'm thankful to say. The question is, did the medicin cure the cases? A beloved friend of mine wrote to me from Robertson county and told me THE MEDICAL WORLD says pneumonia can't be cured; but, says he: "I say it can, and I say I did cure my wife of pneumonia." Another man writes that a thousand doctors will say they have cured pneumonia. Well, if all this is true, then did I cure my cases? Certainly I would be justifiable in saying so, if they cured; for my

three cases came in succession, and a number of those only cured one or two before they wrote. You want to know what my medicin was? It was-well, I believe I will not tell you in this letter. It is like all the pneumonia cures: the newer it is, the quicker it will cure; and the more you surround it with darkness, the brighter it shines. Hence, I don't want it to lose its strength or brilliancy.

But, did I cure those cases? My conclusion is this: If the other doctors cured pneumonia, so did I; if they didn't, neither did I.

Pneumonia is a self-limited disease, running its course in 5 to 9 days, uninfluenced by medicin.

This is the conclusion of one of the greatest truth-tellers of modern therapeutics. It is not only one man's conclusion, but from every real authority with which I am acquainted the same doctrin sounds forth its mighty voice.

Even if the great writers had not told us of the incurability of pneumonia, the very nature of the trouble will teach us that it is hard, indeed, to say whether we have cured it or not. It ends by crisis. It may end on any day, from the stage even of congestion. It ends usually when the patient seems to be at the very lowest ebb. Who, then, trying any remedy that he thinks will cure, would not be deceived if the crisis come when he is using his supposed cure? And how often may we have even three cases, just like mine, that end on the administering of the supposed cure?

We may hope for a cure for pneumonia; we may search for a cure; yea, we may pray for a cure; but it is wiser and safer to let the hospitals do the experimenting. Meanwhile, treat your patients and not pneumonia; see that they have plenty of fresh air, plenty of good water, nutritious food, and little medicin.

You

Mt. Juliet, Tenn. D. P. OLDHAM, M.D. [Bully for you, doctcr. You are getting "onto" these "cures." Your "new medicin" might have been a sup of cold tea, or a snap of the fingers; no difference what it was, it didn't do the work. Nature made the cure. You treated the patient intelligently up to the crisis, and subsequent to the crisis. combated symptoms, and placed the system in a more favorable condition to combat the disease than it otherwise would have been. This is important, but you did not cure the disease, nor did your "new medicin" do it. When will doctors learn to consider the natural history of the disease that they are treating? You have learned this important lesson, and most "good" doctors have; but many still go blundering along without taking this important feature of what should be their education into consideration.-ED.]

"I consider THE MEDICAL WORLD the most practical journal

that comes to my office. I believe it has done more to break down the nostrum evil than any other medical journal."-Dr. R. R. Hopkins, Richmond, Ind.

Some Pneumonia Remedies. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In the December WORLD, pages 485-6, Dr. W. H. Burr has well stated the confusion which exists in the use of fever remedies and heart stimulants in pneumonia. Yet in spite of all this difference of opinion and practise among medical men, I believe that there are remedies, simple, safe, and easily understood, which, if used according to their plain indications, will greatly reduce the death rate from this dread disease.

Aconitin and veratrin are the remedies for the fever, and each has its special indications. Aconitin is preferable in children, in delicate women, in the aged and debilitated, and in all cases showing a tendency to asthenia; its specific indication is the small and frequent pulse. Veratrin is the remedy in strong and vigorous adults, and in those cases and stages of the disease which present markt asthenic symptoms; the specific indication for its use is the rapid, full, and bounding pulse. Both of these drugs are of most value in the early stages, and neither of them should be given in cases or stages of the disease showing great lack of vitality and markt asthenia, except as guarded by one or the other of the tonic alkaloids, strychnin or digitalin. When the respiration is embarrassed and the pulse feeble and irregular, they should be omitted entirely. A special advantage to be derived from the use of veratrin in appropriate cases is found in its property of increasing the elimination of the waste of the system, including presumably the pneumotoxin itself.

The standard alkaloidal granules of aconitin and veratrin each contain 1-134 grain. Whichever drug is indicated should be given either in granule form and followed by a drink of water, or preferably dissolved in a teaspoonful of hot water. The frequency of repetition is regulated largely by the violence of the fever. If the temperature is above 103°, begin with once in fifteen minutes for the first hour or two, then give every half hour until the signs of the lessening of the fever show that the desired effect has been produced, after which it may be given once an hour as long as it is desired to continue the effect. When the fever is below 102, give once every half an hour only from the first. Remember that these remedies will not bring down the fever as quickly as the coal-tar products, but they will do it more permanently, and above all, more safely.

Strychnin arsenate and digitalin Germanic are the tonic remedies. Of these, strychnin is the great nerve tonic and bracer, having a wider field of action than any other remedy of its class. It is a spinal stimulant and general tonic, influencing the whole range of the vital organs, and having an especial action on the respiratory centers, which

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