While there is great liability to error in investigating so delicate a subject as this, yet these observations seem to have been very carefully made, and are a valuable contribution to the subject. N. Y. Med. Times. and that cases of prolonged gestation | lute control. The study of the orphan may be explained by the fact that fecun- asylum statistics covers the period from dation may have taken place a number 1875 to 1892. In the nine epidemics of days after the last cohabitation. there were 218 cases of scarlet fever; 115 cases occurred before the introduction of the "milk-diet treatment. More than half of these had kidney complications during or following the acute disease. And it is farther recorded that many of these cases were of an extremely light form. In the second category there were many cases of great severity, some of which died in three or four days, but there was no development of renal complication during the stay of the patients in the hospital. PROPHYLAXIS AGAINST NEPH RITIS SCARLATINOSA. Dr. Ziegler (Berl. kl. Wochenschrift, January 11, 1892, p. 25) refers to the value of milk diet in the treatment of nephritis, especially in its acute form, and that in children it is very easy to carry out this line of treatment. Henoch, Senator, and Baginsky are each quoted in support of this statement. Dr. Ziegler gives the results of his experience and observation for a period of six years as physician to the Military Orphan Asylum at Potsdam, during nine epidemics of scarlet fever In uncomplicated cases, his reliance was entirely upon a milk diet and rest in bed, in order to avoid catching cold. The favorable results led him to use it as a prophylactic against the development of nephritis during and after scarlet fever. Milk acts as a gentle diuretic and is at the same time a nutritious diet, which can be said of no other means at our command. His mode of treatment is as follows: At the beginning of the attack, when there is high fever and loss of appetite, the milk is diluted with seltzer or sodawater. This, with water gruel, comprises the only treatment in uncomplicated cases. After a few days, when the desire for food returns, zwieback or rolls are given with the milk. The amount of the milk is only limited to the appetite of the patient-sometimes one and a half to two liters being taken in twenty-four hours. This diet is continued till the end of the third week, when other nouishment is gradually added. No statistics from his private practice are given, for the reason that he felt that they would not be reliable, as the patients could not be under abso In private practice he found it difficult to confine patients to an exclusive milk diet, as they soon grew tired of it. In such instances he allowed farinaceous food with the milk.—Brooklyn Med. Journal. case of A CASE OF CHOLEDOCHOTOMY. Prof. E. Küster reports a gall obstruction and jaundice in a woman forty-eight years old. She had suffered for two years and had been already icteric for months. Küster, from the symptoms, diagnosticated presence of stone in the common duct. The operation showed this diagnosis to be true. He found the gall bladder shrunken, the common duct very much dilated and containing several stones. The common duct was incised and several calculi removed. The wound was closed by a double row of sutures and tamponed with iodoform gauze. With the exception of considerable secondary hemorrhage the recovery was complete. This is not the first case. Another case is reported by Kümmel; yet another by Courvoisier, in all five cases, so that we have six cases with one death and five recoveries. The application of this operation is entirely circumscribed. The cholecystenterotomy of Winiwarter will not be entirely replaced by this operation. Rehn, of of Frankfort-onMain, had, in a similar case to that reported by Küster, extirpated the gall bladder, after which he found several biliary calculi in the common duct, which he removed by incision. Suturesrecovery. Braun, of Konigsberg, reported a case in which he, after separating the adhesions and fixing the shrunken gall bladder against the duodenum, discovered a large-sized biliary calculus in the common duct, which by Miscellany. HEALTH DEPARTMENT OF Statement of Contagious Diseases means of incision was removed. The for week ending April 22, 1892: THE SALIVA AND PATHOGENIC MICRO-ORGANISMS. I. 3. 5. WARD. 7. 8. 2 3 9. 10. II. 12. 13. 14. 15. 17. 18. Sanarelli (Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Paras., January 9, 1892) says that, considering the frequent presence of pathogenic micro-organisms in the mouth, it is remarkable that primary lesions appear so rarely there, and that wounds heal so kindly. The first condition has been attributed to the chemical properties of the saliva, to the resistance and regenerative power of the tissues of the mouth, and to the conflict between pathogenic bacteria and saph- 16. rophytes. The author investigated the properties of the saliva in respect to the growth of the micro-organisms most often found in the mouth. The saliva 21. is shown to possess bacteria-killing 22. properties not unlimited in degree, but 23. dependent upon certain conditions, and 24. chiefly on the number of micro-organ- 26. isms introduced into it. Thus the 27. staphylococcus aureus, the strepto- 28. coccus pyogenes, the micrococcus tetragenus, and the typhoid and cholera bacillus perished if in small quantities. Public Institu The diphtheria bacillus and the pneumococcus behaved differently, but the former at length ceased to thrive and the latter lost its virulence. It is not yet clear to what substance the saliva owes its bacteria-killing properties. The author sums up that the saliva is an unfavorable cultivation medium for certain pathogenic micro-organisms, destroying them (when not too abundant) more or less rapidly, and that it so alters the type in others (for example, pneumococcus) as to render them powerless. British Med. Jour. 19. 20. 25. 29. 30. tions. Totals Last week. Deaths. 2 3 4 ... 3 I 5 .23 6 18-41 Deaths between 1 and 5 years... BACTERIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF WATER. The chief interest attached to the bacteriological examination of water, writes Prof. P. A. Franklin in Nature, lies in its application to the hygiene of -48 water-supply, inasmuch as it is all but 12 certain that two at least of the most fatal zymotic diseases-cholera and ty108 phoid can be, and are, constantly 18.72 propagated through the presence of specific micro-organisms in water, and indeed the majority of the bacteriolo gists are agreed as to the particular forms responsible for these diseases. On this account it is conceived by many that the primary object of the bacteriological examination should be the search for such pathogenic microbes. It is obvious that if the typhoid organism could be detected with unerring certainty in any water in which it was present, a search for this bacillus in the ordinary 122 143 131 128 OHIO HEALTH BULLETIN. Infectious Diseases reported to the Ohio State Board of Health in 41 cities and towns during the week ending April 22, 1892. N Deaths. 2 3 I I Cleveland... 6 5 Dalton.... I Columbus..... 65 Hanging Rock.. 2 Mansfield I Lima... I I Lorain.. Middletown Springfield...... 3.. Scarlet Fever: Bellefontaine I ... .. Toledo Wadsworth Youngstown.. Whooping Cough: Cincinnati. New Lexington. Measles: Bond Hill...... have only a very subsidiary interest. Waters are surely not only to be condemned for drinking - purposes when they contain the germs of zymotic disease at the time of analysis, but in all cases when they are subject to contaminations which may at any time contain such germs. Sewage contaminated waters must on this account be invariably proscribed, quite irrespectively of whether the sewage is, at the time that the water is submitted to examination, derived from healthy or diseased persons. In the present state of our knowledge there can be no doubt that chemical analysis affords us in general a better, although a far from perfect, indication of sewage contamination than do the results of bacteriological examination. The real value of these bacteriological investigations, if judiciously 2 applied, consists in their power of furnishing us with information as to the probable fate of dangerous organisms, I should they gain access to drinking. water. It is by their means that we have learnt that many such organisms can preserve their vitality-nay, in some cases can actually undergo multiplication-in ordinary drinking-water; that they are destroyed by maintaining I .. 33 Cincinnati.. I 15 Columbus... Ravenna Cincinnati Columbus. .. No infectious diseases reported to health officers in 11 towns. C. O. PROBST, M.D., Secretary. the water at the boiling point for a short time; and that they are more or less perfectly removed by some process of filtration and precipitation, whilst other processes of the same nature are worthless, or even worse.-Med. and Surg Reporter. A BAD BILL. "A bad bill" is what the Toledo Blade has seen fit to call the bill introduced into the House by Dr. Sterrett, the representative in the Ohio Legislature from Miami county, because it appears to that paper to be "a blow at advertising physicians." The bill provides that every physician shall present his diploma to the State Board of Health, and if found genuine, he will be granted a license to practice, and that all non-graduates shall be examined by the board before receiving such license. It also provides that advertising physicians shall pay a license of $100 per month, and that the mayor of any town shall collect from $20 to $100 a day from itinerent physicians for every day he practices in that municipality. Power to revoke a certificate for unprofessional conduct is provided for. It is the last two clauses referred to that seem to arouse the ire of the Blade, for it sees in them a possible cause for a diminished income from advertisements in the future. seems it is not a question of right or wrong, or one of the greatest good to the greatest number, but solely a selfish one. It is simply that the income of the Blade shall not suffer, although many of its readers may be robbed, or suffer physical injury at the hands of these arrant pretenders who have placed their lying advertisements in the Blade. It It is possible that the editor of the Blade is sincere, and that he places greater confidence in the advertising physician than in the self-sacrificing local physician whom he has known for many years, and who, perhaps, has attended him through all the many ailments of his childhood. He perhaps uses "Shiloh's Consumption Cure" for his coughs and cold, and "Simmons' Liver Regulator," of which it is said "no home should be without," when his gall is up, and it is also possible that he has been "saved from death" by Kalkhoff, and that he now takes Beecham's Pills "to promote good health." If this is the case, the Blade is justifiable in its opposition to the measure that all physicians, regardless of school, believe to be a benefit to the suffering public. The profession is certainly in earnest in this matter, and physicians generally feel that the time has come when for bearance ceases to become a virtue, and when an expression of satisfaction with the present state of affairs must be considered either as evidence of imbecility or of total depravity. Physicians will enter the political arena and oppose those responsible for the defeat of this most salutary measure if the present legislature fails to give a favorable response to their request.—Northwestern Med. Journal. A HYDRATED MAGNESIA MILK OF MAGNESIA. (Mg,O, FLUID.) Efficient in the gastro-intestinal affections of childhood and adult life. Superior to lime water or chalk mixture. A reliable antacid and anti-Rheumatic. THE CHAS. H. PHILLIPS CHEMICAL CO., 77 Pine St., New York. THE CINCINNATI Tancet-Clinic ESSENCE OF PEPSINE (FAIRCHILD) ingredient of the GASTRIC JUICE. Exracted Directly from the Peptic Glands of the Stomach. 607 See Advertisement BATTLE & CO. last cover page. Apollinaris "THE QUEEN OF TABLE WATERS." "Much favored by her Majesty." -WORLD, LONDON. "The best beverage." "Cosmopolitan." -TRUTH, LONDON. BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL. The demand for it is great and increasing." THE TIMES, LONDON. "Cheap as well as good." 66 |