COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL.

EDITORIAL.

Heating and Ventilating.

The connection of the heating of a house with its ventilation is, of course, inseparable. Many persons will cheerfully expend ten or fifteen thousand dollars in building a house, putting from two to three thousand on outside ornaments, who would not dream of spending five hundred or one thousand dollars for the necessary Hot Water Apparatus to keep this same house thoroughly and comfortably warmed and well ventilated.

In reading the reports from the various Boards of Health, one can not fail to notice the startling increase in the death rate from Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, and allied diseases. It might safely be said that this condition of affairs is due to the fact that the tightly closed doors and windows, which cold weather makes necessary, prevents the ventilation of houses, which is essential to the maintenance of health.

To those who intend erecting a dwelling, we would advise that the matter of heating and ventilating be given much consideration; and before deciding how it shall be done, consult the A. A. Griffing Iron Co., Manufacturers of the Tompkins Hot Water Indirect Radiator, 518 Communipaw Ave., Jersey City, N. J.

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The reputation of this drug as a therapeutic agent was first gained through its employ. ment in the form of an infusion; and in the fifty years following its introduction into medical practice, a continuous effort has been made by manufacturers to perfect a preparation which would represent all the active principles of the drug, without the high price of the salts, either alone or in combination.

The most prejudiced writers on Materia Medica, accord to the late Wm. S. Merrell the largest share of credlt in the introduction of Hydrastis preparations, and to the present organ. ization the reputation of being the largest consumers of the drug in the world. For more than a half-century, Hydrastis has been made a study in our laboratory, and we do not think we exaggerate its importance when we assert that it stands pre-eminent to-day as the most valu able exponent of our vegetable Materia Medica.

The following preparations in fluid form are receiving our special attention at this time: Fluid Hydrastis-MERREll.

Is what its name implies the active, medicinal principles of the drug in natural combi nation and in a fluid form. It has a bright, yellow color, perfectly clear, free from sediment, and with an unmistakable odor of the fresh drug.

Fluid Hydrastis is a pure, neutral solution of all the alkaloidal constituents of the drug, rejecting the oil, gums, irritating and offensive resins and inert extractive matters. The suc cess attending its introduction is the best evidence of its therapeutic value.

Unsuccesful imitations and would-be substitutes are met with on every hand. Prepara tions said to be "just as good" or "about the same thing," but always a little cheaper," attest the wide-spread and growing popularity of Fluid Hydrastis. All such, compared with the latter as to physical appearance or as representatives of the drug, are condemned; dis pensed in prescriptions, they are readily detected; tested therapeutically, they are promptly rejected as unworthy of confidence.

Fluid Hydrastis is applicable to the treatment of all irritable, inflammatory and ulcera. tive conditions of the mucous tract.

This statement of a well-known medical writer and journalist has become axiomatic: "No remedy for physician's use has been received with such universal approval."

Solution Bismuth and Hydrastia-Merrell.

An invaluable and scientific combination, wherein the beneficial action of the white alkaloid is increased by association with Bismuth. This solution contains 21⁄2 grains of the double Citrate Bismuth and Hydrastia; twenty-five per cent. of which is Hydrastia Citrate.

The cordial reception accorded this preparation marks it as the most valuable combination in the market in which the white alkaloid alone represents the valuable properties of the drug. Used in diseases of the nasal passages, of the eye, of the throat, of the stomach and intestines, of the reproductive organs and bladder it is equally beneficial.

Colorless Solution of Hydrastia-merrell.

This is a permanent solution of the white alkaloid, without the addition of any other medicinal agent to modify or increase its action. It is offered without special recommendation to meet the views of an unlimited number of physicians, with whom the color of the Fluid Hydrastis is an objection. This solution contains in one fluid pint the same proportionate strength of white alkaloid as exists in an average quality of crude root.

See notes above on Solution Bismuth and Hydrastia.

"Merrell's Hydrastis Preparations" are for sale by Wholesale Druggists throughout the United States. Please Specify "Wm. S. M. Chem. Co." in ordering or prescribing.

The WM. S. MERRELL CHEMICAL CO..

CINCINNATI.

ORR, BROWN & PRICE and BRAUN & BRUCK, Columbus, Wholesale Agents.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

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 BOARD OF HEALTH. The Board seems to have been fortunate at last, in their selection of a Secretary. Dr. C. O. Probst, although he has held the office but a very few weeks, has already shown himself admirably fitted for the position. Although the law, under which the Board acts, is very inefficient, the system of reports is much better organized than would have been expected, the last weekly report being based on returns from eighty-nine observers in fifty-one counties.

Of course only a beginning has been made in the work, but in this case, as in many others, it is true that "well begun is half done." We are, however, sorry that, owing to the resignations of the two first elected secretaries, the Board will not be able to make quite as good a showing in its annual report as it would otherwise have done.

MEDICAL INCOMES IN CANADA. The Toronto Globe (quoted by the New York Medical Journal) says: "There is only one medical man in this city who last year earned $5,000 from his profession, combined with the interest he received on his previous savings. There is not one man on the list who had $4,000, and only four who touched $3,000. When we come to the comparatively modest and moderate $2,000, we naturally conclude that we shall have a full legion. But no, we have only fourteen all told who come up to this figure. When we come to between $2,000 and 1,000 the number becomes encouragingly large. As many as fiftyone of the best-known and greatly sought-after doctors of our city are put down under their own hands and seals as having last year lived on from $1,000 to $1,800. Some of these are professors. There remain

zero.

only the unfortunates who worry along with from $800 down almost to Of these, we are sorry to say, there were last year thirty-six." Toronto is a city of 120,000 inhabitants. That professional incomes there should be so much less than in the United Sthtes, seems strange. Professional jealousy is usually so great as to scarcely warrant the suspicion that the above returns were made-like those in Ohio of personal property-with a mental reservation, to save taxation: we have even heard of physicians, during the days of the "income tax," who were only too willling to be taxed on several thousand dollars more than their actual incomes, for appearance's sake.

As this explanation, then, is not tenable, we must either accept this great difference as an unexplained fact, or else fall back on the assumption that most of the reported incomes in the States are grossly exaggerated. Our readers must accept whichever solution they please.

JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE has recently been receiving considerable adverse criticim from the medical press. A part of this criticism is just, but much of it we think is entirely unmerited. That Jefferson has failed to adopt the three years' course of instruction, that she has instituted no entrance examination, that her faculty is relatively small, and that her final examinations are such as to be easily passed by nearly every applicant, are matters worthy of criticism; but that the recent resignations of one professor and two lecturers were due to causes incidental to the forthcoming International Congress, we do not believe, and can not but feel that all criticism based on that supposition is unjust and undeserved. We may be in error, but such is our conviction.

A PROPOS of the above, the newspaper readers of Columbus have recently been regaled with a species of controversy, in which the Dean of Jefferson took a prominent, but far from dignified, part. The whole matter was briefly as follows:

July 14, the Board of Health of West Virglnia, for satisfactory reasons, refused to register diplomas from Jefferson. This fact was telegraphed, by the Associated Press, all over the country, and published in the papers of July 15. July 16, an article appeared in a local paper, in which the writer not only endeavored to make capital out of this action of the Board, in favor of a local school whose diplomas were "black-listed" by the Board some years ago, but also made personal and offensive allusions to a local physician who graduated from Jefferson a dozen years ago. In replying to this attack, the physician alluded to

made some incidental remarks in regard to Jefferson which, while true, were not complimentary to that school. A few days later this same physician, having learned from private sources that the West Virginia Board had, on July 15, rescinded its action of the day before in regard to Jefferson, made known that action in the local paper. A week or so later, viz., August 2nd, Dr. Bartholow, Dean of Jefferson, came out, in the same newspaper, with a paid article, over a column in length, devoted about equally to a personal attack on the critic alluded to, and to an ad captandum puff of his school. In this article, Dr. Bartholow, by a skillful misplacement of quotation marks (he long since acquired a lasting reputation for his skillful omission of quotation marks), manages to wax very facetious over what he pretends to regard as the disappointed ambition of the critic; but those who are at all familiar with the state of affairs in Philadelphia, will readily read between his lines, and will easily see that he is really making a covert attack on those who have recently organized the Medico-Chirurgical College, have placed it on a firm basis, and are already drawing largely from Jefferson's supplies. It is these "mutual admiration sufferers," as he styles them, whom he fears and hence seeks to ridicule, and not the obscure critic who happened to furnish him with the long-sought pretext for his attack.

The critic made a short and plain reply to the Dean, the next day, in which he reiterated, extended and more fully elaborated his criticisms; but to this Dr. Bartholow made no response: he had no occasion to, as his purpose was fully accomplished, i. e., he had secured a first-class ad. of his school, coupled with a vicious assault on its rival, for general circulation. And he has since actively circulated it.

CLINICAL FACILITIES OF COLUMBUS. The outlook for hospital instruction for medical students during the coming winter in this city is not so good as usual. St. Francis Hospital, with its capacity of one hundred and fifty beds, will, of course, be accessible, as usual, to the students at Starling, but the penitentiary hospital-which has heretofore been the only other source for such instruction-is now in the hands of the homeopaths, while the much announced Hawkes' hospital, which has at last been built, turns out to be only a small pay hospital, almost exclusively devoted to private patients.

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS. There is but little new to be said as to the affairs of the Congress. It is pretty generally conceded that it will be largely attended by American physicians, so as to be ac