8085 FRANK PARSONS NORBURY, M. D., HUBERT WORK, M. D., THOMAS A. HOPKINS, M. D., Managing Editor. Secretary and Business Manager. A COSMOPOLITAN BIWEEKLY FOR THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER. THE MEDICAL FORTNIGHTLY is devoted to the Progress of the Practice and Science of Medicine and Surgery. Its aim is to present topics of interest and importance to the General Practitioner, and to this end, in addition to a well selected corps of Department Editors, it has secured correspondents in the leading Medical centers of Europe and America. News of Societies, and of interesting medical topics cordially invited. Editorial Offices in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, St. Joseph, Kansas City, and Pueblo, where specimen copies may be obtained and subscriptions will be taken. Address all communications relating to advertising to the Fortnightly Press Company. Address all contributions and books for review to the Managing Editor, 911 Union Trust Building, Saint Louis. Subscription $2.00 a year, in advance, including postage to any part of the United States, Mexico and Canada. Postage to any foreign country in the Universal Postal Union, including Newfoundland, $1.00 a year additional. Actual Average Circulation 8000 Copies Guaranteed TO OUR READERS.-THE FORTNIGHTLY is in receipt of information from the Postoffice Department that second-class matter not having street address will not be delivered hereafter, but will be placed in the general delivery, to await call. We would, therefore, request our subscribers in the larger cities to advise us promptly where they wish their journal delivered, in cases where the wrapper does not contain the street and number. Volume XI. JANUARY FIRST. Editorial Department. Number 1 THERE is perhaps no disease which requires more constant attention, patient watching and real hard work, than nursing a typhoid fever patient. From Typhoid Fever experience as physician, nurse and patient, the writer believes that the nursing of the typhoid fever patient is the most important part of the battle. The many anxious days, the long hours of the night, and the protracted weeks, sometimes, of convalescence, require surveillance on the part of the nurse, which if assiduously carried out, give credit to a service which none can appreciate except those who have had experience. We have been greatly interested in the symposium on typhoid fever nursing, published in the Nursing World for October. These very valuable papers should be read by all physicians. The following abstract of a paper by Emily Macdonnel, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, is of special value: "Absolute rest is essential; rolling the patient from one side of the bed to the other, is all that should be attempted until after the temperature has been normal for a week. Change of postion in bed should be made often, to prevent hypostatic pneumonia. Diet to be strictly fluid. Experience teaches that milk and albumen water are the two stand-bys. If milk is objectionable it may be diluted and then gradually increased. It is not always necessary to sterilize it. Albumen should be given cold with crushed ice. [Panopeptone is largely used by us where milk is objectionable.—ED.] Bathing should be done with care. If a tub is used, the shoulders should be firmly grasped, the patient's head resting on the arm of the attendant. The feet are then lifted, and the patient placed in the tub. The duration of the bath is from twenty to thirty minutes. Pulse should be watched while the patient is in the tub, and a cold compress, which should be on the head, frequently changed. Gentle friction over the body should be kept up. Stimulants may be given when patient is taken out of the tub. The tub is not much used in private practice, cold sponging is used instead. "Cold sponging is given as follows: The bed should be prepared with a blanket and rubber. The patient is rolled on these, the bed-clothes and night-dress removed, and a wet towel placed across the thighs. A lump of ice wrapped in a towel is laid in each axilla, and a cold compress is laid on the head. Sea sponges answer best, and two should be used alternately for each bath. These should be kept, between baths, in a solution of I to 20 carbolic acid. In bathing the sponges are applied in long slow strokes. These baths should continue thirty minutes and the temperature should be 70°. The mouth and teeth need more than ordinary care. Bed sores are to be avoided. Bowels are to be regulated by enemata. Should be carefully given. Soap suds or glycerin, the last to be given gently, and never in a syringe. [We would suggest glycerin suppository.] Of the complications delirium requires greatest care. A delirious patient should not be left alone. Stools should be thoroughly disinfected. Soiled linen should be put in carbolic acid solution pending boiling it. Convalesence requires care regarding diet." ་ The paper of Esther Lucas Shields has some valuable points in it, too, notably Do not overfeed. Use 'Ideal' drinking glass on bent tube. [We suggest the "paper straws" to be had at the confectioners, used but once, and destroyed.] Feeding utensils must be cleaned with boiling water immediately after using. Have the doctor leave written orders. Avoid excitement in the sick-room." We wish space would permit us to quote more from these timely papers. WE ARE forever opposed to cheap doctoring and to enforce our position we are pleased to extract from our exchanges comments on this infamous practice, which is being introduced elsewhere than in St. Louis. This city, however, has become famous in this Cheap Doctoring. line, judging by the widely copied comments on the two clubs here, which are fostered by men who know better. The best is the cheapest and these attempts to palm off a cheap article, will most assuredly bring disaster to those nursing the medical clubs in this city. In the last number of the New England Medical Monthly, Dr. Wile has the following to say upon this subject: "Whether on account of the hard times or some other cause, there seems to have been an increase in the number of schemes for avoiding payment of legitimate medical fees. The effects of numberless hospitals, dispensaries, and various private institutions upon the medical profession of the larger cities, are sufficiently well-known to every one, but what shall be said of the innumerable fraternal and benefit organizations, and the many clubs and coöperative associations which number among their members many who are well-to-do, and fully able to pay the usual professional fee? These societies offer to their members free medical attendance as one of the inducements, and the candidate is at times only too willing to enjoy the various privileges secured by the payment of small annual sums. It is needless to state that an arrangement of this kind is demoralizing alike to the physician and the patient. The result is cheap work with all its attendant features. The member is exorbitant and unremitting in his demands, and the doctor, with a realizing sense of the demeaning character of his work, is in the end careless and indifferent in the rendering of professional services. The patient must at times accept second-rate talent, and on the other hand the doctor feels obliged to take charge of cases which under other circumstances he would neither accept nor retain. It is time that all such "combinations" against the medical profession should be broken down and discouraged. Cheap goods are always salable, but members of our profession should be made to understand that to handle them is disastrous to their self-respect and their future welfare. Cheap work is far worse than none at all, and all things considered— the profits are nil. DR. FLORENCE HUNT, of Chicago, has kindly consented to become a contributor to our list of eminent physicians for 1897. DR. C. H. HUGHES is to be commended for introducing the lavatory resolution before the City Board of Health. All cities should be supplied with these very necessary adjuncts to public health and comfort. We have seen strangers coming to St. Louis suffer greatly from the need of such institutions. As it now is the hotels and saloons offer the only relief for the demands in this line. THE SOUTHERN SURGICAL AND GYNECOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION elected the following officers, at its recent meeting in Nashville: President, George Ben Johnson, Richmond, Va.; vice-presidents, Filloyd McRae, Atlanta, Ga., W. E. Parker, New Orleans, La.; secretary, W. É. B. Davis, Birmington, Ala.; treasurer, A. M. Carledge, Louisville, Ky.; council, Wm. David Haggard, Nashville, Tenn., Bedford Brown, Alexandria, Va., Lewis S. McMurty, Louisville, Ky., Geo. J. Engelman, Boston, Mass., E. S. Lewis, New Orleans, La. Next meeting place, St. Louis. Chairman Committee of Arrangements, H. H. MUDD, M. D. DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXIC SERUM.-Through the courtesy of the H. K. Mulford Company, Philadelphia, we have received a copy of the sixth edition of their brochure on Diphtheria Antitoxic Serum, which is now being distributed. This brochure is in every respect one to be desired; it contains detailed expositions of the preparation of the serum, of its nature, strength and dosage, together with explicit directions as to the method of its administration. The latter part of the brochure is devoted to reports of various boards of health and clinical reports from Drs. H. C. Wood, Jno. S. Billings, Jr., A. Jacobi, Sidney Phillips and others who are recognized as authorities on the subject. Coming, as it does, from the Mulford Company this book needs no recommendation, it goes without saying, that it is absolutely reliable. It will be sent to those of our readers who apply to the H. K. Mulford Company, mentioning the FORTNIGHTLY. 170477 [SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MEDICAL FORTNIGHTLY.] LONDON, December 20th, 1896. Death has been busy in our ranks of late, and we have to deplore the loss of several eminent men-Sir J. Eric Erichsen, Bart., Sir G. M. Humphrey (whose portrait I forward), Morrant Baker, George Harley and Langdon Down. SIR JOHN ERIC ERICHSEN, BART., the author of the well-known text-book of surgery, was born in 1818, and studied at University College, where he was a pupil of Liston. After graduating he devoted himself largely to physiology, and as a result of his investigations in this department, published his "Essay on Asphyxia," which gained the Fothergillian gold medal of the Royal Humane Society. His natural bent, however, was surgery, and he sought for and obtained the post of assistant surgeon at University College Hospital, and when only 32 years of age was appointed Professor of Surgery and full surgeon. In 1866, he became Professor of Clinical Surgery, which post he held until 1875, when he resigned, and was placed on the consulting staff. He held also various appointments as examiner in surgery, and in 1896, the honor of a baronetcy was somewhat tardily conferred upon him. He was not a brilliant operator, but his vast experience gave him an unrivalled clinical insight. As a clinical teacher he had few rivals, and in this country, at least, no superior, and it should be placed to his credit, that he numbered among his house surgeons Lister, Henry Thompson and Marcus Beck. He died from an apoplectic attack on September 22d. SIR G. M. HUMPHREY, Professor of Surgery in the University of Cambridge, was born in 1820, and SIR G. M. HUMPHREY. at the age of nineteen entered as a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, James Paget being then curator of the Museum, and it was mainly on the recommendation of the latter that he was, at the early age of twenty-two, elected as surgeon to Addenbrooke's Hospital. He was diverted somewhat from surgery by an invitation from the University Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Clark, to undertake the teaching in human anatomy, and accordingly, in 1847, he became a commoner of Downing College, and graduated in 1852. In 1866, Dr. Clark resigned the chair of anatomy, and Humphrey became Professor of Human Anatomy. As a member of the University he was most active, and the medical school of Cambridge is mainly indebted to him |