tained 136 times, or in 40.47 per cent; of these, 105 or 41.33 per cent were in males, and 31, or 37.8 per cent, in femaleg. Serum-albumin was present with or without nuclec-proteid in 74 or 20.02 per cent, (59 males=23.22 per cent, and 15 females 18.29 per cent), and nuclec-proteid alone in 62 or 18.44 per cent, (46 male=18.11 per cent, and 16 females=19.51 per cent). 200 cases were grouped as "negative," of which 80 gave very faint reactions with the more delicate tests, which were probably due to minute traces of mucin, serum-albumin, or nucleoproteid. "There is little difference between the relative incidence of albuminuria in males and females. Cases of all ages were examined from 1 year to 75 years and above, but those under 5 and above 75 are too few to allow for reliable deductions. The highest incidence was at the ages of from 55 to 75 years (50 per cent); the next, between 18 and 25 (45.74 per cent); from 40 to 55 (40.5 per cent); from 12 to 18 (37.83 per cent); and from 25 to 35 (36.1 per cent); the lowest incidence was at the age of from 5 to 12 (11.10 per cent). "In the 108 soldiers a proteid reaction was found in 47.25 per cent. In 79 who had not drilled, the percentage was 41.76, while in 29 after half-an-hour's drill it rose to 62.3 per cent. There was a simultaneous increase in nucleo-proteid as well as in serum-albumin. Including the reactions due to traces of proteid, the total percentage of albuminuria was 96.55 per cent after drill. The lower rate of albuminuria in the hospital patients is explained by the rest in bed, and regulated diet, as both food and exercise are well recognized causes of temporary albuminuria." The above results refer, as stated, to minute traces of albumin. In a communication to the British Medical Journal, of December last, Dr. Herbert P. Hawkins points out that with tests of only moderate delicacy, the percentage of albumin in the apparently healthy is still high. He considers the picric acid test, showing 0.00015, as altogether too delicate, and prefers to stand by the old boiling test, which reacts with 0.0003, or even the old nitric acid test working at 0.003 of proteid. Even with these tests he says that after severe physical exertion albuminuria is nearly universal. That mental overwork often has a like result, and that diet, especially excess of proteide, is another cause. (It is here to be noted that these dietetic cases are probably of hepatic rather than renal origin; the result of the liver failing to transform the albumin and peptones of primary digestion into the non-diffusible serumalbumin of the blood.) Lastly, Dr. Hawkins points out the frequency of postural or cyclic albuminuria. He instances a family of five children who always exhibited an albumin reaction three hours after breakfast. They were perfectly healthy and were watched for seven years without any manifestations of renal disease. The writer has under observation the case of an adult aged 33, who for the past three years has always had albuminuria; sometimes'small in amount, sometimes quite abundant; and yet, without any indications of renal trouble. Moreover, it has not infrequently occurred that when showing the largest amount of albuminuria, his general health has been at its best. From all of this may surely be drawn the conclusion that the albumin scare should be laid at rest. A patient has no need anxiously to watch his medical attendant boil the fateful test tube, whose cloud in no longer fraught with the prospect of premature dissolution. The physician should see no more therein than a symptom of deranged function varied in origin, and possibly of trivial importance. Nor should its undoubted association with a renal lesion call for any special effort to effect its removal. The loss of albumin in these cases, is not a cause of the ill-health, but an accompanying symptom. Its removal does not mean cure, nor its persistence a proof that we have failed in our therapeutical efforts. ALL Surgeons, Assistant Surgeons, Acting Assistant Surgeons or Contract Surgeons, and Hospital Stewards, who served in the Army or Navy of the late Confederate States, will please send their post-office address to Deering J. Roberts, M. D., Secretary Surgeons' Association, C. S. A., Nashville, Tenn. Ar a meeting of the Corps of Teachers of the New York School of Clinical Medicine, held at the Academy of Medicine, June 21, 1900, it was decided to wind up the affairs of the School and close it permanently. This action was taken in consequence of continuous interference of the lay Board of Trustees in its affairs. PACIFIC MEDICAL JOURNAL. WINSLOW ANDERSON, A. M., M. D., M. R. O. P. LOND., etc. EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. W. F. SOUTHARD, A. M., M. D., Managing Editor. JOSEPH LECONTE, A.M., M.D., LL.D. BAM'L O. L. POTTER, A.M., M.D., M.R.O.P.Lond. EDWARD G. FRISBIE, M.D. W. L. ADAMS, M.D. CARL O. HANSEN, M.D. W.F. WIARD, M.D. O. W. NUTTING, M.D. P. O. REMONDINO, M.D. W.E. TAYLOR, M.D. W.S. THORNE, M.D. GEORGE H. POWERS, A.M., M.D. WILLIAM 8. WHITWELL, A.M., M.D. MARTIN REGENSBURGER, M.D. JOHN W. ROBERTSON, A.B., M.D. O. A. RUGGLES, M.D. FBANK HOWARD PAYNE, M.D. K. 8. HOWARD, M.D. E. M. PATERSON M.D. O. K. BONESTELL, A.M. A. P. WOODWARD, M. D. JOHN H. HEALY, M.D. GEO C. MACDONALD, M.D., F.R.O.S.E4. H. D'ARCY POWER, L.S.A.Eng.,L.R.C.P.Ire. O. F. BUCKLEY, B.A., M.D., L.R.O.P. Edin. J. BURRIS WOOD, B.S, M.D. A. O. BOTHE, A.M., M. D. WM. J. JACKSON, Ph.G., M.D. F. F. KNORP. M.D. SOPHIE B. KOBICKE, M.D. WILLIAM EDWARDS, Ph.G., M.D. A. F. WERNER, A.B., M.D. J. L. ASAY, M. D. THOS. MORFFEW, D.D.S. CORYDON B. ROOT, M.D., D.D 8. A. O. HART, D.D.S., M.D. WILLIAM A. BRYANT, M.D., D.D.S. J. HENRY FLINT, Ph. G. J. F. DILLON, A.M., M. D. CHAS. W. MILLS, M.D.,D.D.S. The Editors are not responsible for the views of contributors. All matters relating to the editorial and business departments should be addressed to the PACIFIC MEDICAL JOURNAL, 1025 Sutter St., San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO, AUGUST, 1900. Editorial. THINGS WORSE THAN PLAGUE. To the many other pests that infest or hover around San Francisco must now be added the minute plaintive wail of the Occidental Medical Times. This journal, published at Sacramento, edited God knows where, of semi-occasional appearance, popularly known among the profession as the Accidental Medical Times, and, judging from its recent record, possessing as mauy lives as the fabled cat, since it has been dead and resurrected some three times in as many years, is now adding its feeble contributions to the support of those who have so earnestly labored to establish San Francisco as a plague-ridden city. This it has been doing for the last two or three months, and we have refrained from giving it any attention, lest we should give these false reports publicity among the 'medical profession, but in its last issue with its red heading of "The Plague," its report of cases by an incompetent bacteriologist, propped up by the prejudiced and puritanical professor of dermatology, who proves his case by a quotation'from George Eliot, and then concluding with an attack upon the San Francisco Clinical Society, we consider it time to speak, in order that the few medical men into whose hands the Times might happen to fall may not be misled by its infantile efforts. In passing we might refer to the statement that "the membership of the Clinical Society, instead of being 200, would more correctly be given as 20," and say that if the San Francisco Clinical Society has not more members than the Accidental Medical Times has bona fide subscribers, that we will treat to a champagne supper, and in addition purchase the Times at a price more than it is worth. Now to the Clinical Society report: First.-"That no infected vessel could reach the port of San Francisco without the plague having developed." The nearest port at which plague has been claimed to exist is Honolulu, 2000 miles away. All conditions there are favorable for the development of the disease. Ordinary everyday plague, such as has existed in other parts of the world, and such as we learn of from history, would easily develop while a ship is sailing from Honolulu to San Francisco, and if the inspectors did their duty it could not come into San Francisco from this quarter. It is not even suspected that it came from any other source. Even the Times will probably admit that if the plague is or has recently been in San Francisco, it came through the U. S. quarantine lines. This would not be surprising since there has always been more effort to keep it here than to keep it out. This San Francisco plague is of the oddest and most unique variety. It is either spontaneous in origin, or its period of incubation is as indefinite and uncertain as the revolutions of a comet. It springs up like a phantom in the most unexpected times and places, and when pursued vanishes into thin air, leaving behind nothing except a healthy grinning Chinaman and a bad reputation. Second." That no ship infected with plague has ever been reported to have entered the port of San Francisco." This is not false. That the Japanese steamer "Nippon Maru" came to this port on June 26th, 1899, we admit; that it was infected with plague we do not admit, and it was never so reported. That two bodies were burned in the ship's furnace is not true, and the ship's log gives no record of any such occurrence. It was not proven positively or otherwise by Dr. Kinyoun, by the former Board of Health, or by anybody else, that the ship was infected with bubonic plague. Dr. Kinyoun's own bacteriological diagnosis was pneumonia. It would be in keeping with the position of the Times and its small coterie of misguided supporters to claim that the period of incubation was from June 6th, 1899, to March 6th, 1900. Third.—The statement to the effect that no two cases occurred in the same house; that no focus of infection had been discovered, and that this is positively contrary to the world's history of plague, is simply met by the Times with a denial. As the Times' denials are of no more importance than its assertions, and are not taken as proof, we pass this without further comment. Fourth."No clinical history of any supposed case of plague has been secured, and no diagnosis of a living case has been made." The Times here again uses its invariable argument by denying the assertion. In a few instances cases were seen by white physicians before death, but no definite clinical history was ever obtained, and such history as was obtained in no degree substantiated the theory of plague. The physicians who saw the cases did not pronounce them cases of plague nor even suspected cases. No diagnosis of plague was made excepting by those who were hunting for plague and were compelled to find it to bolster up their quivering reputations and their unressonable position. Fifth." Only bacteriological tests have been relied upon for the purpose of diagnosis, and such tests are known to be confirmatory evidences only, and alone are never conclusive." This is not false. Bacteriological tests were alone relied upon. These tests, we admit, were extended even as far as the Times claims, but the chain of evidence was always incomplete. No disinterested party could swear whence came the specimens; no case was asserted to be plague except upon these tests, and these tests were never verified so as to be free from suspicion. The assertion that clinical history is never relied upon absolutely is simply nonsense. It served for the diagnosis of plague hundreds, possibly thousands, of years before bacteriology was |