EAGLE VALLEY MEDICAL SOCIETY meets at Sanders, Ky., May 9, 1905, having the following programme : PAPER-Acute Articular Rheumatism, ..... Dr. H. S. Rowlett, Ghent, Ky. DISCUSSION, PAPER-Typhoid Fever, DISCUSSION,. Dr. C. H. Duvall, Warsaw, Ky. Dr. W. B. Messink, Worthville, Ky. Dr. J. P. Nuttall, New Castle, Ky. PAPER-Medical Treatment of Appendicitis, DISCUSSION,. PAPER-Glaucoma,. DISCUSSION,. Dr. B. L. Holmes, Carrollton, Ky. Dr. S. E. Hampton, Milton, Ky. Dr. William Cheatham, Louisville, Ky. Dr. Adolph O. Pfingst, Louisville, Ky. This Society is about a year old, has a large membership, and is one of the best-working medical societies in the State. THE Societe Internationale de la Tuberculose, the object of which is to study the most efficacious means of defense and treatments for tuberculosis, held its general annual meeting in Paris on March 14th, under the presidency of M. Richelot, Member of the French Academy of Medicine. After a discourse by Dr. Samuel Bernheim, in which he clearly set forth the actual state of the question, the Society proceeded to elect its. Bureau for 1905-1906, and the following gentlemen were elected members: PRESIDENT-Professor Lancereau, of the French Academy of Medicine of Paris. VICE-PRESIDENTS MM. Huchard, Richelot, S. Bernheim, of Paris; Professor von Schrötter, of Vienna; Sir Hermann Weber, of London; Professor de Lancasta, of Lisbon. GENERAL SECRETARIES-M. George Pettit, of Paris; Count Tolniewski, of London. TREASURER-M. Papillon, of Paris. ASSISTANT TREASURER-M. Q. Garnier, of Paris. SECRETARIES DE SEANCE-MM. Tartiere, Bourdin, Roblot, and Chauveau, of Paris. ARCHIVIST-M. Ruault, of Paris. All applications for membership, etc., to be addressed to Dr. George Petit, 51 Rue du Rocher, Paris. BOOK REVIEWS. Dwight's Epitome of Toxicology.-A Manuel for Students and Practitioners. By E. W. Dwight, M. D., Instructor in Legal Medicine, Harvard University. In one 12-mo volume of 298 pages. Cloth, $1.00, net. Lea's Series of Medical Epitomes. Edited by V. C. Pedersen, M. D. Lea Brothers & Co., Publishers, Philadelphia and New York, 1904. Dwight's Toxicology of the Medical Epitome series, is not a publication by any means amiss. The preface states that the work is not exhaustive, but we find it more so than that allowed the ordinary large chemical works, or even the Medical Jurisprudence text-books. Its order is well outlined, and the run of the reading is extremely smooth, all showing the authors familiarity with the subject. Certainly this valuable book, at its popular price, can fill a wide gap in many a physicians library. S. B. H. New Methods of Treatment.-By Dr. Lamonier. Translated and edited from the Second Revised and Enlarged French Edition. By H. W. Syers, M. A., M. D. Contab. Physician to Out Patients Great Northern Central Hospital. Price, $2.50 net. Chicago: W. T. Keener & Co., 1904. Lemonier's New Methods of Treatment is in reality a work on the therapy of the new remedies. The perusal of a large proportion of prescriptions of our successful general practitioners will reveal the presence of a great many new remedies, and by new is meant stable products of definite chemical nature not mentioned in but few of the so-called up-to-date works on therapeutics. This book is decidedly along the right lines. We would know more about these recent and reliable acquisitions to the medical armamentarium. Organs, therapy, serumtherapy, colloidal metals, new derivatives of the opium group, and other sleep-producers are all considered in this work, and some of the older remedies are considered and treated upon in the new manner as now used. Chemical nature, physiological action, and therapeutic application of agents is the usual form of elaboration used throughout the work. It will be found to contain much wanted material. Serums, Vaccines, and Toxins in Treatment and Diagnosis.-By W. M. Cecil Bosanquet, M. A., M. D., Oxon., F. R. C. P. Lond. Physician to Out Patients Victoria Hospital for Children; Assistant Physician (late Pathologist) to Charing Cross Hospital; formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford. Price, $2.00 net. Chicago: W. F. Keener & Co., 1904. It has been the reviewers' extreme pleasure, as well as his dnty, to go deeply into the perusal of these valuable pages of texts. It has been of material aid, with its innumerable points, in the study of immunity. Theories only in the majority have we, but facts that suggest these there do exist; and 'tis these facts and theories, well mingled, that we have in this book, which the writer, even were he so disposed, is unable to give an adverse criticism. We cannot recommend this book too highly. It holds one's attention and interest as would a crisp item of news. S. B. H. Clinical Urinology.-By Alfred C. Croftan, Professor of Medicine in the Chicago Post Graduate Medical College and Hospital; Physician-in-Chief to St. Mary's Hospital; Pathologist to St. Luke's Hospital. Illustrated. Wood & Co.: New York City, 1904. Wm. Croftan's Clinical Urinology is a very smoothly-reading text, well worded and decidedly interesting, that can be found of practical value to both the clinician and laboratory worker, even though the one cared not for other's aspect of study. In other words, a clinician may find this book a valuable aid to him without his dipping into the laboratory tests; as also the reviewer has found the laberatory methods reliable and easily followed. Newer and more plausible views are promulgated with reference to certain physiological and pathological processes that explain the presence of products in the urine, and several superior tests are given which should supplant the time-honored ones that usually prove to be only occasional successes. Although the contents are arranged as regards the chemical and physical nature of the urinary products, the processes of their appearances are fully, as far as known, explained. Clinical Urinology has an ample index, besides 292 pages, which, in turn, does not include the introduction. The arrangement of the body of the book is very convenient for both study and reference. It is a book one will never regret buying. S. B. H. Lea's Series of Medical Epitomes.-Nagel's Epitome of Nervous and Mental Diseases. A Manual for Students and Physicians. By Joseph Darwin Nagel, M. D., Consulting Physician to the French Hospital, New York. In one 12mo. volume of 276 pages, with 46 illustrations. Cloth, $1.00 net. Philadelphia and New York: Lea Brothers & Co., Publishers, 1904. The need of a manual of this kind is well put by the author when he says, "In this age of rapid progress and evolution of new theories and sciences, the student of medicine, who in four years is supposed to master the intricate and varied details of his chosen prefession, and the busy practitioner, who must still spend a good part of his time in research and study, both feel the need of a text-book which will give them the essence of the subjsct they are pursuing." This little volume meets the "needs." It is a clear, brief, and concise statement of all the essential facts known with regard to diseases of the nervous system and of the mind; an excellent work for the student and useful to the practitioner. Simon's Physiological Chemistry.-A Text Book of Physiological Chemistry. For Students and Practitioners of Medicine. By Charles E. Simon, M. D., late Resident Physician Johns-Hopkins Hospital; author of Simon's Clinical Diagnosis, etc. New (2nd) edition. Revised and enlarged. Octavo, 500 pages. Cloth, $3.25 net. Philadelphia and New York: Lea Brothers & Co., Publishers. This work should particularly interest the practitioner who was not taught physiology as it is today. As the author says, "Its study comprises the consideration of the various substances which are generally designated as food-stuffs, their origin, their transformation into living tissue, and their ultimate fate." A call for a second edition in so short a time speaks for its value, and enabled the author to add the recent results of investigations in this important branch of chemistry. Many chapters have been entirely rewritten. The subject matter being so well arranged and so clearly expressed, this work can be heartily recommended. J. J. MOREN. Graves' Disease, with or without Exophthalmic Goitre.- By William Hanna Thompson, M. D., L.L.D. Physician to the Roosevelt Hospital, New York; Consulting Physician to the Manhattan State Hospitals for the Insane; formerly Professor of the Practice of Medicine New York University Medical College; Physician to Bellevue Hospital, etc. Cloth, pp. 143. New York: William Wood & Company, 1904. As indicated by the author in the preface, this unique volume is devoted to the establishment of a new theory of the causation of Graves' disease, that of a gastro-intestinal toxemia, in opposition to the generally-accepted theory which has long obtained, that of the disease being due to a specific disorder of the thyroid gland. The author bases his theory on his claim that post-mortem examinations of thyroids in Graves' disease have utterly failed to show any difference from those of parenchymatous goitres which would tax the secretions of the gland during this growth and yet fail to produce any symptoms of Graves' disease; the symptoms produced by the administration of thyroid extract in large doses have failed to produce symptoms alike Graves' disease, except in a few particulars, and they non-essential; that the contention that because myxedema is due to deficiency in thyroid secretion, its antithesis in symptoms, Graves' disease must therefore be due to hyper-secretion is specious and illogical reasoning; that there is no other known example of a specific disease being caused by hyper-secretion on the part of any gland whatever; that the diminution or failure. of the secretions of the parathyroids the more probable condition in Graves' disease that hyper-secretion of thyroid. He considers the thyroid involvment in Graves' disease merely a complication dependent on the toxæmia causing the other symptoms; that this disease can be as severe and well marked in cases which have no exophthalmic goitre whatever. He publishes clinical reports of twenty-eight cases of what he considered Graves' disease, in which there was no axophthalmic goitre, in comparison with the clinical histories of forty-two cases with exophthalmic goitre; he considers all the symptoms identical, yet a careful study of the cases creates in our mind a vague idea that he has allowed hisvalue of the two characteristic symptoms, tachycardia and "morning exacerbations," to elevate some other rather vague symptoms to those always present in what has always been considered Graves' disease. He rather arbitrarily eliminates exophthalmos as a constant and important symptom present in even his goitre cases; he also claims that no intelligent explanation has ever been made of its mechanism, and does not mention that of MacCallum, which seems reasonable to us. We admirethe ingenuity of the author in his reasoning, but are not yet ready to accept his theory based on his observations in twenty-eight cases against all the cases seen by the leading medical men of the world for years. A. S. PRIDDY. "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 downwright facts at present more than anything else." -RUSKIN. Original Communications. EMERGENCY SURGERY.* BY JOHN R. WATHEN, A. B., M. D. Professor of Surgery in Kentucky School of Medicine; Surgeon to St. Anthony's Hospital, N this age of progress, with its increase of manufacturing industries, railroads, and even dangerous automobiles, we are confronted with many of the most difficult cases in the physician's practice. As all large corporations generally employ the services of a surgeon, just as they do their legal adviser, this work is deserving of special attention from our profession and should be studied more as a special department, differing, as it necessarily must, from the general class of emergency work seen in family practice. It is well that special men should be engaged for each corporation in order that they may be allowed to study the character of accidents a certain corporation may have, and that they will have arrangements made when they are detained to have others called in their stead. The old way of telephoning for the nearest available physician is fast passing out, and has not proven successful. In some of the largest concerns in the East and the North complete hospitals have been erected on the grounds and attention given within the works, as in the Homestead Plant and Carnegie Steel Company, of Pittsburg, and many other similar plants. In other corporations, such as street railways, when people are injured in any part of a city there often arise questions of ethics and law to complicate the accident. If the company's surgeon arrives after some physician in the neighborhood has been called, he should offer his serv* Read before the Louisville Clinical Society, April 18th, 1905. |