three hundred times sweeter than sugar, mixed with starch and terra alba, would represent all the sugar candy, would they buy it so eagerly? Yes! The saccharine costs $12 a pound, but a teaspoonful in a bucket of water makes a liquid as sweet as sugar. Add starch and terra alba, with coloring matter, and flavor, and you have sugar candies.

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The modern dude, by some self denial, has acquired money enough to take the object of his adoration for an evening out. Fortunately for him, he knows nothing of science or religion. He has his divinity with him, and is going to have ice cream and oysters. She knows nothing of microbes, or of modern thought (adulterations we say nothing about). The ice cream contains the deadly tyrotoxicon, and by and by the nausea, vomiting and colic seize them both-and a doctor's bill is the consequence. If they happen upon a pure milk " cream, the oyster, which has been lately denounced as "the scavenger of the mud flat," and in whose liver reside the "microbes of fearful disaster," is sure to produce trouble. A night of unrest, and dyspepsia follows, and he seeks the barber in the morning, that he may have his head rubbed and oiled. He does not khow that in the brush reposes the microbe of alopecia areata, from some other head, that will fasten on his, and leave it as bare as a billiard ball. He needs a glass of whiskey to strengthen his nerves. That compound of methylic alcohol and oil of corn, produces such disturbance in the gastric membrane that a thirst is the resultt—a glass of beer will be the proper thing. If he thinks for a moment that the beer is only fermented barley and wheat, strengthened with nux vomica and alcohol, he would hardly try it; he don't know, and down it goes to produce lethargy and confusion of ideas. He will have a light breakfast, and asks for a cup of coffee, toast, and fresh eggs. Alas, he is ignorant that the hen whose product he is eating, may have been sick, while yet the egg was in embryo, and in its interior was planted the microbe, which will produce disturbance, and he is consuming an "inflamed egg," whose occupant may find a lodging in his liver! Truly, "Life is but an empty dream.” We go into the mountain to inhale the pure air, and drink the pure water from the flowing brook. No microbial milk; no inflamed eggs here. We happen upon a report of the United States Geologist, stationed at Pike's Peak, which shows us the analysis of the "pure snow," and water of the "icy fountains." Here is the source of the "mountain fever." The snow has caught the floating microbe in the air, and dissolving, carries it down in the pure (?) mountain water, to the dwellers along its course, and mountain fever results. We return to the city, dis

heartened. Surely beef, mutton, and pork, the shibboleth of the restaurant waiter, and the basis of life, must be free from the universal enemy -no adulteration here.

What shall we

We visit the market on Saturday-what rows of pure, fresh, glistening quarters of beef. What splendid exhibit of lamb and mutton, with fancy devices cut in the platysma myoides; what rolls of fat in the pelvic cavity. The very tails are appetizing; and the veal! say? We are tempted to eat it raw; and the hare, and rabbits. How many a chicken stew and pie will be served from them? And why not? Who can tell the difference? Ah! there is something in life yet-though milk deceives us, and eggs are dangerous; though ice cream and oysters distort our bowels, still there is the satisfaction that they are luxuries. Our thoughts wander far back into primitive life, when only the product of the chase was the food for the human race, and as we stand dreaming before a rich quarter of beef, our eye rests on a purple spot in the flesh. We make a gash in the spot, and out rushes a teaspoonful of pus. Not one of these beautiful beeves but has its abscess. Septicemia is not good to eat. Surely the tender calf, the infant beef, fed on milk.

milk from diseased cows! away with veal.

Ah! no

And we recollect with disgust and quailing of the stomach, the many reports of the health office, of immature veal "ultimely ripped (like Macbeth) from his mother's womb," and whose cellular tissue blown up with a quill, by the heartless butcher, proves seductive to the unwary housewife, and remunerative to the family physician. Pork, though very seductive in its infant stage, yet has a bad reputation for measles and trichina, and we discover that all our affections are placed on the young lamb, and its affectionate dam. We picture them sporting in the fresh green pastures, and thence innocently led to the slaughter "opening not their mouths." We order a quarter for our Sunday dinner, and since we are assured by the discoveries of Kock, that that wide-spread, desolating scourge of the human race, may possibly find its origin in chickens-we refer to the bacillus of consumption-we content ourselves with a beautifu hare, that we may not miss our accustomed stewed chicken. Seekers after truth, and feeling that our feet rest on firm foundations, we study the history of the hare. Alas! we find that it is the favorite and universal habitat of the Bothriocephalus latus, the tape worm, and that not one is exempt. We must give that to the cat, and we look at each other in fear, lest further investigation should deprive us of every morsel of food. We draw the line at the hare, and resolve to look no further into the mysteries

of human subsistence, but trust to the care of a kind nature, who certainly provides against the effects of unscrupulous greed and human ignorance.-Pacific Record.

THE ANTIPYRETIC TREATMENT.-We may prove to be a medical Wiggins, but we predict that the pendulum of the antipyretic clock, which has ticked with such monotonous regularity, is about to take a swing to the other extreme. The impetus given to it, in late years, by the positive teachings of Liebermeister and others of the German school, has recently received a decided check from counter statements as regards the value of the antipyretic treatment, particularly that of typhoid fever, which have been made by many eminent practitioners of the same school, who have been reinforced by several careful and original investigators in America and England. In Italy and France, also, it would seem that the profession are by no means a unit as to the essential employment of this method of treating pyrexia. Of course, we allude especially to the exhibition of internal antipyretics during the febrile condition.

Bearing upon this important subject, we desire to call attention to the letter of Dr. Caldwell, dated Vienna, August 16, 1886, and published in the Medical Record of October 9, 1886. The remarks of Dr. Caldwell, we think, ought to have wide dissemination, in view of the prevailing belief-which has assumed the phase of a religious dogma-that a case of fever which had not been treated on the antipyretic plan, and proves fatal, has been sacrificed, either to the willful neglect, or culpable ignorance, of the practitioner who attended it. We apprehend that in the treatment of the continued fevers the shibboleth with many in the profession has too often been "Sine thermometro nulla therapia," which may justly be echoed by the fever (and drug) stricken patient in the line "Timeo medicos dona ferentes."

Dr. Caldwell refers particularly to the practice of Prof. Nothangel, and to that of Dr. Gasch, his assistant, "one of the brightest teachers of clinical medicine in Europe." Speaking of the use of antipyretics in general, in the treatment of abdominal typhus, Dr. Gasch uses this very strong language:

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During the time we used them here, not only was this disease not shortened in its duration (though we controlled the temperature of the patient), but, on the contrary, it ran a more protracted course, and convalescence was more likely to be complicated by the intervention of a hypostatic pneumonia, and other untoward symptoms that arise from a weakened heart."

Now, what could be more radically revolutionary than this statement? Have we not been taught all along to believe, that the weak heart of typhoid fever, with its parenchymatous degeneration as well as that of all the tissues of the fever patient, was absolutely caused by the operation of an intense degree, or a protracted duration, of pyrexia ? Liebermeister says, "It is a poor excuse for the physician whose patient dies during the third week of typhoid fever from sudden paralysis of the heart, to justify his hitherto expectant treatment with the declaration, that up to this time no alarming symptoms had appeared, and no indications for active interference had been present. If he had observed and known the significance of the temperature, he would have foreseen the evil, and might have prevented it." How could he have prevented it? Why, of course by the antipyretic treatment; and embracing all that the term implies.

Not less surprisingly unorthodox are the views of Dr. Weinstein on the action of thallin, which dictum may be taken-as indeed he distinctly asserts to apply to antipyretics in general. Dr. Caldwell epitomizes from a series of articles which have appeared, from the pen of Dr. Weinstein, the following:

"He tried the remedy in croupous pneumonia, erysipelas, tuberculosis, acute rheumatism, and the puerperal processes.

"It was especially to test the virtues of the remedy in typhoid fever that the experiments were made, as Ehrlich and Laquer had lately published their views, putting foward the opinion that the remedy was a specific for this disease. He claims that the lessening of temperature is more imaginary than real, the error coming in this way:

"The agent acts by paralyzing the heat-producing center in the brain; that such paralysis acts most potently on the peripheral nerves, and hence though you may have a decided lowering of the axillary tem. perature, if you test the vagina or rectum you will find the temperature of these parts far less influenced.

"The cases of pneumonia treated did especially badly, and he leaves the impression on the reader's mind that two of the cases that died might have recovered under more favorable and rational management. He winds up by saying that he believes that antipyretics should be stricken from our pharmacopeias. He says:

"Observe the calm, easy quiet of your patient whom you have sponged or bathed in case of typhoid fever, as contrasting with his condi tion after you have lowered his temperature by giving either thallin,

antipyrin, kairin, resorcin, and the like. In the last case you will be likely to see him with an anxious look, bathed with a cold sweat, and perhaps have to give him stimulants to prevent an impending collapse.'"

We acknowledge to having a chill of disappointment when we read the closing remarks of Dr. Caldwell which relate to the treatment of puerperal fever by antipyrin, a drug from which we were led, a priori, to expect the best results. Quinine, which in this formidable malady we have employed to combat the hyperpyrexia, has not yielded the satisfac tion which would justify us in saying much in its favor; and we were ready to exclaim Eureka! when we had successfully used antipyrin in other febrile conditions which seemed to threaten the life of the patient, because of the exalted temperature. However, there are other obvious considerations which present themselves, in cases of childbed fever, that militate against a preconceived opinion that antipyrin, or indeed any antipyretic, could effect the good in this condition, which perhaps we have been ready to concede to its employment. Dr. Caldwell concludes

his letter by referring to this point. He says:

"Prof. Briesky, after a fair trial, condemns in most positive terms the use of antipyrin in childbed fever. The case of Dr. Chase, cited in the Medical Record, can only be explained on the supposition that his patient had some peculiar idiosyncrasy that is certainly very uncommon, but in this case causing the antipyrin to act as a hypnotic. I have used the remedy in my own practice extensively, in most forms of diseases that have fallen under my observation, and which are accompanied by a high temperature. The remedy in my hands has never appeared to act as a curative agent, and has often been followed, even when given in moderate doses, by such unpleasant symptoms as to oblige me to discontinue its use."

RECTAL MEDICATION AND ALIMENTATION.—That the rectum possesses no mean powers of absorption has long since been established; yet its great importance is not generally recognized, and insufficient attention has been given to the many advantages of rectal medication and alimentation.

Medication by rectal suppository or capsule is simple, direct, and cleanly, and when indicated remedies are properly selected and prepared is very efficacious. The advantages of this mode are obvious: the stomach is left free for food, the disgust produced by nauseous medicines, their probable rejection by the stomach, the troubles of administering to chil