recently lived at Round Mount, on account of his health, a plucky old army surgeon, whose personal safety was more than once in jeopardy for his fearlessness as a citizen and as a physician. The doctor was liberal and benevolent to all that needed his services; but his retired and aristocratic status gave the natives offense, and, by a process of slow torture, they got rid of him. They stole his property, killed and mutilated his stock, polluted his well, defrauded him of his just claim, and, as the execution of the law was in their own polluted hands, he had no redress for any of these vandal and visigothic doings. We will very briefly mention a few of his medical cases. He served a woman who passed through a difficult and dangerous labor. By the most consummate skill he saved her life. It happened that the husband had a small claim against the doctor as purchase money—an amount less than the doctor's bill. The man, void of all manly delicacy, instituted suit against the doctor, and this "granny bill" became the dirty public property of the courts for two years. The doctor not only lost his fee, but had the costs to pay. One item of this cost was $25 from a lawyer, who brought suit against the doctor for saying "I would" to his employed lawyer. It is ridiculous to suppose that such a claim could be established even in the most corrupt of tribunals. Still the case went against the doctor on this unique basis. The court believed the claim a fraud, but as the account was legally substantiated, the verdict was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. A wealthy cattle man broke his wrist. The doctor treated the case with the pistol-shaped splints. The man took off these splints and applied lateral pressure, of course with unfavorable results. He not only refused to pay his surgical bill, but assailed the doctor for a fault he committed himself. The doctor brought suit against him, but, as might have been expected, he lost his bill, and gained no credit professionally. Another case: At one time he performed, with fine success, an operation on a child for club-foot, and took a bill of sale for six cows for the operation. When the doctor sent for the cows, the father secretly drove them out of the country beyond the doctor's reach, and, what was most singular, in order to

ruin the effects of the operation, the mother took the club-foot shoe from the child's foot.

A young, talented, good-natured physician succeeded this surgeon. If they treated the latter badly, there is hardly a comparison to be found to what the former had to endure. He occupied the new field but a few weeks, when he became the victim of the laws through the instigation of rascality. A few cow men entered his office one day, one holding his abdomen as if he was in great pain. The doctor was not in, but he asked the office boy to give him a little alcohol for colic. The boy, not suspecting anything wrong, gave him the alcohol. The scoundrel immediately left the office, and before the maligner had the liquor taste out of his throat, he stood before a justice and entered his complaint against the doctor for violating the local option law. Sometime after, a more serious misfortune happened to him. A girl had been seduced, and in her premature labor (brought about from some cause unknown to the doctor), had an alarming hemorrhage. The doctor was sent for, and he gave her the necessary attention. Afterward he was indicted before the grand jury for committing one of the most scandalous crimes a physician could be guilty of. This same physician served in that country a wealthy cattle-man, who had been shot in the abdomen. This patient monopolized the doctor's undivided attention for two months. His skill and assiduous care saved the patient's life. The doctor charged him $150 for his services, which his ungrateful patient refused to pay. The doctor brought suit against him to recover his bill, but a Texas jury, through a Texas court, decided the case against the doctor, notwithstanding he was a college graduate, as he had not been a (examined) physician according to the laws of the State.

Several years ago, a physician with consumption, stopped in Fredericksburg, to be benefited by the mountain air. While there, he was urged to give a patient some attention. In return for the benefit he bestowed on the patient, through the patient's own instigation, he was prosecuted for practicing medicine without paying the occupation tax. It cost the

doctor $100 to get out of the scrape. At this place, a physician recently opened a sanitarium, for the accommodation of invalids that resort to the mountains. One would suppose that the place would take a pride in an enterprise that would bring their insignificant little village into notice; instead of that it is the old story over; his superiority must not triumph -he must be ruined or driven out of the country. The doctor speaks of moving his establishment to the capital, that is, out of the pan into the fire.

Such a record of ignorance, ingratitude, and most devilish malice, among a white people, might, with you in the North, be not believed; but this is nothing to be compared with what you will find in the annals of crime in Texas, where many a physician has been waylaid and assassinated, in the harness of his benevolent mission. I will mention a case or two, where the occurrence took place within a day's journey of all the cases already cited. Dr. Hunter, a good and benevolent citizen and one of the best physicians, on his way to see a patient, was waylaid, shot and killed, by a band of his own neighbors, and it is said that one of them was his own brother-in-law. But a few months ago, a Dr. James was asked to go into the country to visit a sick woman. On his way, he was waylaid by a party who nearly beat him to death with their quirts. The first was killed on account of his political sentiments, and the other nearly killed on account of his religious belief. But to return to my own experience. In self-respect, I finally withdrew entirely from the practice. But even then I was not exempt from further molestation from Texas laws. Disposing of my medical effects, I had notice to pay a merchant's license, or reap the penalty of the law. As I felt that I was in a bad harvest, and what I reaped, I reaped in sorrow; so, as not to reap any more, I paid it.

Perhaps the most ridiculous of legal oppressions of this State in connection with medicine occurred to a pauper patient of mine-a poor, miserable Confederate cripple with chronic ophthalmia, which had resisted the treatment of several physicians. I gave him a collyrium of benzoic acid, and the use of it cured his eyes in a short time. The poor fellow begged me

to give him the formula of this wonderful eye water, which he would prepare himself and sell for a living. Texas is the land of sore eyes, and it was reasonable for him to suppose that he might make a nice thing out of it. I gave him "the bread" he asked for, but advised him to take legal counsel before embarking in the business. He consulted the comptroller, who told him the occupation for selling eye water would require a tax of $200 for the State, $100 for each county, aggregating for the entire State a tax of $25,000. The poor fellow concluded not to go into the eye-water trade, but pursue a less hazardous business of begging and stealing to keep out of jail.

One might think from my narrative that the laws of Texas are most vigorously enforced. So they are on harmless, inoffensive citizens and where money can be extorted, but for murder and other gross crimes there is almost a certainty that the offenders will not reap the penalty of the law. Life in Texas is worth next to nothing, and it is a common saying that to buy a farm in Texas is to buy a law suit. The whole machinery of Texas government is not to work for the good of the people, but to give a living to an army of hungry State and petty officers and occupation to Texas lawyers, that swarm this country with Egyptian cussedness. When we compare the occupation tax, wherever it exists, with the tea tax that inflamed the spirits of our forefathers so much, we almost doubt our identity as their descendants who submit to this yoke of oppression, that is a thousand times more aggravating. Any country that cannot keep its government in operation, through an honest taxation on real estate and personal property, but must assail occupation, industry, skill and education, is a Denmark rotten to the core. It is hardly necessary to ask, what is the matter with Texas? She not only commenced her career as a State with a gift of $10,000,000 from the United States, but retained all her public lands to sell them in competition with the General Government. She should be the most prosperous State in the Union, still she has not the greatness and prosperity of little Rhode Island. AUSTIN, Tex., June, 1880.

W. P.

CONCENTRATED EXTRACTS.

SURGERY.

STRANGULATED AND INCARCERATED HERNIA.

Dr. Frank Hamilton, before the New York Academy of Medicine, in some remarks upon posture and traction in the management of these cases, gave the following resume of the subject, which was subsequently published in the Medical Herald: "I. Hernial apertures are not under the control of the muscles. II. Posture does not relax the aperture when the seat of the hernia is in the sack itself, nor when it is at the internal ring in inguinal hernia. III. Neither warmth, nor cold, nor any other sort of local applications are capable of relaxing the apertures. IV. Neither do chloroform nor other anæsthetics affect herniae apertures, except, perhaps, in cases where the hernia is very recent. V. In short, herniae apertures can seldom be affected at all by any means brought to bear upon them, whether local or general; but this is not requisite for relief, since the strangulation is not the result of contraction of these apertures, but of the pressure of the distended hernia upon them."

In regard to the postural treatment, he says: "I. Taxis is of prime importance. II. Internal traction is only second to this in value. It is to be effected by securing paralysis of the abdominal muscles, and exciting peristalsis in the intestines. III. Chloroform hot baths and other similar agents are the best means for accomplishing muscular relaxation, peristalsis and anti-peristalsis. IV. Ice can only relieve the buttonholing' when this is due to congestion, and when it is applied very early. Opium is somewhat limited in application. V. Emetics may be of service in causing upheaval of the viscera, also, probably, by exciting peristalsis. VI. Purgatives act by causing peristalsis above and anti-peristalsis below the seat of stricture. VII. Stimulating enemata and enemata of tobacco also induce peristalsis, and are both direct and indirect in their effects. VIII. All positions of the patient are beneficial in which the viscera are drawn upward; and that is likely to be