hypodermic and then die; and I would get the honor of having killed her. But, as the time for "resting on my oars" was not yet, I gave her gr. morphin hypodermically, intending to repeat if necessary. As supper was about ready at Mr. S 's, about 75 yards distant, and as it is generally conceded that red-headed women can beat them all making coffee, I stept over to Mr. S.'s, telling them to let me know should patient have another convulsion before I returned. I had not more than got the scent of that coffee before they called me back. I learned that she had had a very light spasm about the time I got to Mr. S.'s house. As I was too "chivalrous" to let her "paddle her own canoe (Dr. Wilkinson), I repeated the hypodermic of morphin, using about gr. Never have I seen coma so profound as in this case, and it continued till up in the morning-I having gotten there about 5 p.m. But she could not be coaxt to have another convulsion after the second hypodermic. Therefore, a motion to "rest on oars" was in order. No, I don't like to talk about "them spasms!" I have seen them.

Now, a few kind words to Dr. Rimmer about the case he delivered for old Dr. P., of "clay-pipe" fame, and I will hush. Doctor, when you go to a woman having puerperal convulsions, don't wait till she has had the third one after your arrival before you proceed to business. Give her a hypodermic of gr. morphin "right now!" Tho you might be able to deliver her ("forcepsly") in ten minutes, you should give her the hypodermic first, for emptying the uterus does not always stop the convulsions. Unless "authorities" have lied to me, a woman may have puerperal convulsions as late as the seventh, eleventh, or eighteenth day after delivery. Give your hypodermic; draw off the urin, if necessary; unload the bowels; put the skin to acting. I have, as I said, had eleven cases of "them fits," and the eleven women and the eleven babies lived to see

"the rosies come again!" Meet a case of convulsions "on the square;" for, as we "know not what a day may bring forth," so we know not what one convulsion may bring forth.

Now to those who grow hysterical over the "sufferings of the poor woman," and use the forceps simply for the relief of pain, I would say use chloroform and morphin as "judiciously " as you do the for

ceps and your patients will be spared all this "agony." I think a "judicious" use of chloroform will compare favorably with a "judicious use of the forceps, when we reflect that those who "stand high in the profession" often lacerate the pubes" in the attempt to deliver their patients forcepsly. (I have as good a right to coin an adverb as anybody.) We all sympathize with the patient, but we manifest our sympathy in different ways. I am still fostering the hope that I may some day be able to report a "forceps delivery" THE MEDICAL WORLD. But as it brings back the memory of "them fits" when I think of forceps I will adjourn, for I don't like to talk about "them spasms." Hohenlinden, Miss. A. C. GORE.

Falling of the Womb

to

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In reply to "doctor's wife," on page 445, October WORLD, the Editor neglected to mention two important means of cure. I disapprove the use of sponges and other artificial means of support as much as he. They should never be used, only perhaps in rare cases for temporary relief. If they cause pain they are doing more harm than good. If they relieve entirely without distress, it is hard to get the patient to relinquish their use, for as soon as she does this the old trouble returns.

I have had the best success by getting the patient in the knee-chest position, putting the chest as low as possible and the hip as high, and then passing the finger into the vagina and pressing the perineum towards the anus, letting a little air pass in by the finger, when the womb will fall suddenly towards the stomach; if there are no adhesions the patient frequently feels the change in position take place, and nearly always with a feeling of relief.

The practise is also equally good in retroflexion, as it tends to straighten as it assumes the normal position. The patient can do this for herself. The best time is when she gets ready to lie down at night. During the night hours in the recumbent position, with the strain thus removed, the ligaments have a chance to regain some of their lost tonicity. If at the same time an astringent tablet is used, as the Editor suggested, it will add very much toward a cure. If it is difficult for the patient to reach, have her get into the proper position and then pass the detacht

vaginal nozzle of a syringe, which will be all that is necessary, as that will remove the atmospheric pressure (the air will pass thru the tube). There is some question in my own mind in regard to the advisability of using strong astringents without first restoring the organ to its normal position.

The use of the faradic current with high frequency is very useful to strengthen the weakened and relaxt ligaments. It is better to use it after the organ is replaced, tho I have frequently felt the pressure of the womb grow lighter on a cupshaped electrode as the current was turned on. The contracting and stimulating effect of the current on the ligaments and other supports, lifts it towards its proper position.

Newport, N. H.

D. M. CURRIER, M.D.

Abdomen Failed to Close.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-June, 1896, I was called to attend Mrs. M. P., age 29, white, native of U. S., in her second confinement. She said she had not expected confinement for four or five weeks, but had felt no motion for a week or so, which had become gradually weaker and weaker, until it had ceast. She was having hard expulsiv pains. On digital examination I found the vagina full of intestines (!) which from their size I could distinguish as those of the child. I told the husband and others what I had found, giving it as my opinion that the child had died when she ceast to feel motion, and told them that I thought the abdomen had failed to close, explaining to them the mode of Thru the mass of intesdevelopment. tines I could feel the oncoming breech. After three hours' labor a male child was

born. The abdomen had not closed, being open from a point an inch or so from ensiform cartilage to near the pubis; the small intestin and the greater part of colon were outside the abdomen; the other organs were inside. On top of the head was a soft mass the size of an orange, which contained brain and fluid, protruding thru an opening in the skull.

R. F. SLAUGHter, M.D. Tonganoxie, Kan.

Don't treat tenia versicolor as symptomatic of hepatic disorder. The use of antiseptics, baths, and a frequent change of undergarments are the rncativ agents. Relapses are not uncommon.

Driving Lamps for Doctors. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I am in the same trouble as Dr. Blackmore in regard to the Dietz driving lantern. I have one of them and it is worthless. It will jar and blow out, and has never been of any service to me. I have written to the manufacturers about the lantern, and they say they can't imagin what the trouble is, and send testimonials. This is all they say. I consider a hand lantern much superior to mine. I want some other good lantern. W. E. MEREDITH, M.D.

Scottsville, Ky.

Dr. C. F. TAYLOR:-Your article in October WORLD, pages 438 and 439, concerning Dr. Blackmore's trouble with the Dietz-Reefy lanterns, was read with quite a good deal of interest. I do not understand this, for I have used a Dietz lantern in my driving for a year and it has given entire satisfaction. I have used it over rough roads and on nights when the wind was high, but it never went out. I am surprised at the firms concerned taking this so coolly, for such an adv.(?) will cause all prospectiv buyers to invest elsewhere or

not at all. Since these lanterns are of no use to Dr. B., and you have no way of testing them, I wish you would send me one by express to Piqua, Ohio, and I will pay express charges, test it with mine and report results. I have considered my lantern a treasure, and in conversation with other doctors have lauded it highly. Lockington, Ohio.

E. E. LOWRY.

[The lamp has been sent.-ED.]

MR. EDITOR-I have just read the communication of Dr. F. L. Blackmore, of Aplington, Iowa, inquiring for a reliable lantern to be attacht to his buggy for night driving. I can sympathize with the Doctor, having had a similar experience with the old kerosene lanterns that are

always smoking flues and jolting or blowing out just when most needed. Several months ago I bought a bicycle lamp for use on my buggy. It is a small affair, weighing less than two pounds, and is easily attacht to the middle of the dash by means of an upright rod and thumbscrew at the top. Any blacksmith can attach in short time for 25c. The lamp cost me $2.50. Instead of burning oil it has a receptacle at the base which is filled with carbide of calcium, costing 20c. for a two pound can, sufficient to burn the lamp

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constantly for ten days. It also has a water tank for generating the gas. This lamp throws a strong light 100 feet on the darkest night, sufficient light to recognize a friend that distance, and strong enuf to see a horse or buggy 150 to 200 feet. particularly strong feature of this lamp is that it cannot be jolted nor blown out. All that is necessary is to keep it primed with plenty of carbide and water, and it is always ready and reliable; no smoke nor greasy oil to contend with. The NorrellShophigh Hardware Company, of St. Louis, have what they call an acetylene carriage lamp which is some stronger than the one I use, and by attachments may be adjusted at different angles. It is, however, more expensiv, but it is no doubt worth to the country doctor, in one winter, all it costs. My little carbide of calcium lamp is worth any two or three oil lamps I have ever seen, not only for the amount of light furnisht, but for reliability, cleanliness, looks and comfort. W. M. WHEELER, M.D.

Gray Summit, Mo.

Soon

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I wish to give a little information to doctors who may deem the use of lanterns a necessity on their vehicles when making dark night voyages. I write this especially for the information of Dr. Blackmore, who wrote the pitiful article in October WORLD, pages 438-439, giving the worthlessness of the Dietz lamps for buggy use. after the acetylene bicycle lamps were put to use, I being a bicycle rider and using a gas lamp thereon, I put my thoughts toward utilizing my bicycle lamp on my buggy. Therefore I went to a local blacksmith and had him to take a straight rod about three-fourths inch in diameter and about two and one-half feet high, and put a screw clamp at the end downwards to clamp on my buggy pole, and the top end of the rod I had made so as to give it a size suitable to clamp or adjust my bicycle lamp on it. Now I have a good and cheap driving lamp. It is best to place the lamp well back on the pole or shafts where the motion is the least; if driving but one horse it would be very good to attach one lamp to each shaft; if driving two and the lamp is on the pole, any lamp gives good service, as the light shines out between the horses where most needed, and the lamp or lamps are up and out of the way of all mud. D. BARRINGER, M.D.

Rocky Ridge, Ohio.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-On page 438 of the October WORLD I notice Dr. Blackmore's article on lanterns, and I can sympathize with him, for I have had a similar experience. The only good driving lantern that I know of is the acetylene, as it will not blow out, nor will the flame lessen when going over the roughest roads, while the light makes the road perfectly plain for a long distance. I use the ordinary bicycle lamp (acetylene) and find one all I need. R. A. BENNETT.

Dover, N. J.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-On page 438, October WORLD, I read what Dr. Blackmore has to say on carriage lights. I am much pleased to say that I can help him out. I have had the experience that most physicians have who have to travel on country roads in the night. You feel the wagon tipping, and you do not not know whether you are going down an embankment or upon a bank. Now you could hardly hire me to go into the country without my light. My lamp is an acetylene gas light. It is called the Solar Plexus and is manufactured by the Budger Brass Manufacturing Company, Kenosha, Wis. I think it cost me $3.50. I hope all who read this will believe every word I say, because I am going to give you facts. My lamp will throw a light strong enuf so that you can see the road plain for fifty feet. It will throw the light on a building one hundred feet away. It will burn with one filling for about four hours. I have never used it that long, but I know that half a charge will burn over two hours. My lamp has never gone out, no matter how rough the road or how hard the wind blew, and I have never had to use it enuf consecutiv hours to have it go out. It must be taken care of. Just unscrew the cup which holds the carbide of calcium as soon as you are thru with it. This is a bicycle lamp, but the fixtures are all right for fastening on any buggy or cutter. I know a I know a man who had his blacksmith make a piece which was permanently attacht to the seat of the buggy, so he could set the lamp in it. It is quicker than to put on the bicycle attachment, which, however, does not take two minutes. By writing to the company, I would not be surprised if you found that they have special attachments for carriages. I am not advertising this company. There are a number of different bicycle lamps on

the market, but this has been perfectly satisfactory and more durable than the other one I had, and it gives a better light. If you use one once and see what a comfort it is, you will never be without it again. Albany, N. Y. GEO. T. MOSTON.

Study the Materia Medica of All Schools. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-It appears to me that one of the greatest needs of the medical profession at this time is a more thoro knowledge of materia medica. In order to be successful practicians of medicin we must have a good knowledge of medicins and their actions: we must know the physiological actions and the therapeutic indications of all the remedies that we use in our practise. It is doubtless true that too many physicians are depending upon the use of proprietary medicins. Some of these medicins are doubtless good, where there is an indication for such drugs, but we fear too many doctors are depending upon what is said on the wrapper, instead of diagnosing his case carefully and then selecting the remedy from his knowledge of the action of drugs to fulfill the indications. The first requirement is a thoro understanding of the conditions, or the departure from a healthy standard; and then he must be able to apply the remedy that will best assist nature back to the performance of her natural functions. All remedies have two or more actions, depending largely on the manner and on the amount given. To illustrate: Quinin, one of the worst abused remedies known (mercury not accepted). is a good remedy only when indicated, and when the system has been fully prepared to receive it. Eleterium is lookt upon by ninety-nine out of every hundred doctors as a hydrogog cathartic only, and they

are too often not aware that it is one of our best remedies in inflammatory difficulties like cystitis, when used in small oft-repeated doses when there is an uneasy burning after urinating, as if all had not been voided. Give:

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action. This only shows the lack of the doctor's knowledge of the action of the drug, which is nearly always indicated in lobular pneumonia. The same doctor who fears to use veratrum in pneumonia will give large doses of ammonia carb., and perhaps assist in sending his patient beyond the fabled river. We believe carbonate of ammonia has sent its thousands of pneumonia patients to a premature grave by over-stimulating an already over-workt inflamed organ. During more than thirty years I have used veratrum in pneumonia when indicated, and I find it indicated in nine out of ten cases of that disease and I seldom lose a case of pneumonia. often meet physicians who have a horror of pneumonia, losing more than twothirds of their cases, and I find these same doctors invariably using ammonia carb. Lay aside prejudice, which is the curse of the medical profession, and take the materia medicas of all schools and study them as your never studied before, and put in practise what you learn, and you will not blaspheme Providence by attributing the death of your patient to the Divine will. Ignorance of the action of drugs is our greatest fault as a profession. No one materia medica contains all that is good and useful; nor does any single materia medica give all the uses or actions of all drugs. The only way in which we can learn all this is by careful study and by close observation. If a physician does not learn something new in the uses of drugs each year, he is not fit to practise medicin.

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On a certain occasion I cured a severe case of cholera morbus after all opiates and hot stimulating drugs had failed, with two big doses of gelsemium. thought I saw an indication for that remedy, and as a last resort I gave it, with the happiest result possible. Who ever heard that gelsemium was a cure for cholera morbus? It is not a cure for that name, but a condition happened to be there that I thought gelsemium would help, and it did help it quickly. La Salle, Ill.

FLOYD CLENDENEN, M.D.

Dr. Mulnix vs. Homeopathy. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Dr. Mulnix so completely annihilated homeopathy under the title "The Unreasonableness of Homeopathy," page 337 of THE World, that you will be surprised that any one should dare to talk back. Homeopathy

is a grand truth that has been demonstrated in hundreds of thousands of cases for a hundred years, that diseased conditions can be cured by drugs that will produce similar symptoms in healthy people. The homeopathic doctor, in studying a new drug, gets as many persons in as nearly perfect health as possible to take that drug continuously for some time, each person independently noting all symptoms produced by it. The symptoms it produces on say twenty persons, not previously afflicted with symptoms of any disease, might be considered the characteristic action of that drug. Now when the doctor sees a patient suffering with any disease whose symptoms are similar to the characteristic action of that drug on the healthy, he prescribes that drug with confidence that the patient will be benefited. Will he prescribe for his patient the same dose of the drug as caused similar symptoms in twenty well persons? A reasonable caution might suggest a smaller dose, lest he make his patient worse. And a hundred years of experience and observation have demonstrated that with some druga, at least, there is a point in size of dose where, tho it may not aggravate the condition of the patient, yet it does not cure him. The drug is apparently inert for that person in that dose and must be further attenuated or "potentiated" to get a curativ action.

Now if 20,000 homeopathic doctors had demonstrated a hundred times each that the third decimal dilution of ipecac would relieve a nausea quicker than the same quantity of tincture of ipecac, and that the thirtieth attenuation of sulfur would relieve an urgent 5 a.m. diarrhea more promptly and surely than would the 3x trituation, or any other more material dose of the same drug, and numerous other drugs acting the same way, would it not be reasonable that the doctors so using remedies should in time get to using the term potency instead of dilution or attenuation, and believe that the extended trituration of insoluble drugs in sugar of milk, or the succession of others in pure alcohol does so more minutely divide the particles of the drug that they can thus more readily enter the system, and that there is, thereby, a greater curativ power developt therein? Lycopodium is a substance so inert it is not mentioned in some leading works on materia medica of the dominant school. It was formerly used to

roll pills in to prevent their sticking together, having no known medicinal action. But by extreme trituration it is developt into a wonderful remedy. If Dr. Mulnix has a patient who goes to the table hungry, but after a few mouthfuls is so full he can eat no more, the gas continually rumbling and gurgling thru the bowels, and frequently a sensation of a lump rising from the stomach to the throat, the patient always being constipated and always wanting fresh air, a reddish, sandy sediment in the urin and he feels generally worse every day about 4 o'clock p.m., or from 4 to 8 p.m., if the Doctor will properly prescribe the thirtieth attenuation of lycopodium and it does not benefit this patient, I will pay for the Doctor's next year's subscription to THE MEDICAL WORLD. Now if the Doctor should see such a chronic state restored to perfect health by such a "banquet of sac lac," would it be to him a possible argument in favor of the theory he assails? Suppose the Doctor had a case of intermittent fever for which he prescribes quinin in doses that can be seen and tasted, and possibly heard. This stops the chills quite promptly, but in ten days or so they are back again, when larger doses longer continued again stop the chills. If after the third or fourth relapse of this sort the Doctor should observe that the patient manifested the symptomatology of natrum muriaticum and prescribed that remedy in the thirtieth dilution, and his patient was promptly restored to complete and permanent health, would that be a "possible argument" that infinitesimals may cure under the law of similars?

I was first educated in what I insisted on calling a regular medical college, and later in a homeopathic college, and have practised twenty years, so have seen something of both sides. I have palliated pain with measured quantities of morphin, and supprest chills with ponderable doses of quinin; and I have relieved and cured pains and chills with various potencies of various remedies; but I have been very much more pleased with the results of the latter than of the former prescriptions. But Dr. Mulnix now asserts that it is unreasonable" for me to believe my own senses; that only those patients who were given morphin had suffered any pain, and only those who received quinin had ever had a chill; that the others only imagined that they so suffered, or that their suffer

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