We invite the most careful attention and consideration of our readers to the announcements made by our advertisers. It is our aim to keep our advertising pages clean and free from advertisements whose only excuse for their appearance in a homeopathic journal is the money consideration back of them. The advertising department is of educational value. It keeps the profession informed as to the new remedies and appliances. and brings prominently before them the representative firms who are working in their interests. We request our readers to mention the Reporter when writing to our advertisers. When writing to business houses who are not represented in our advertising pages ask them why they do not advertise in the Reporter. It will show them that we have friends and will influence them to include our journal in the allotment of their advertising. All this will help in enabling us to give you a larger and better journal for your money.

HOW GLYCERINIZED VACCINE

LYMPH IS MADE.

The following description of the method of preparation of glycerinized lymph by the H. K. Mulford Company is of particular interest at this time when so much has been said about the danger of tetanic infection from vaccination:

"Before collecting the vaccine, the vaccinated area is cleansed with sterilized water and cotton sponges. What little crust is beginning to form is soaked off, leaving the linear incisions filled with Dearly-white vesicles of absolutely typical appearance. It is important to know that we do not wait until these vesicles have reached the stage when they break down, but are taken about the fifth day, before any breaking down of the tissue

occurs. By this method, and at this stage, no one familiar with the process of vaccination on the animal can make a mistake in the character of the vaccine. The vesicle walls are broken open with a Volkman spoon and the vesicular contents are collected and placed in a sterilized vessel. This virus or pulp is then passed between glass rollers for trituration and mixed with a known and definite amount of glycerine and distilled water. This glycerinized lymph is then stored in a refrigerator for from thirty to sixty days and from time to time is subjected to bacteriological examination; when these examinations show that no pathogenic bacteria are present, it is then considered suitable for use; tests are made on guinea-pigs in doses one hundred times as great as would be used for vaccinating a child. A further test is also made for activity by vaccinating heifers, and only that vaccine is used which is proven to be free from pathogenic bacteria, harmless to guinea-pigs and is physiologically active when tested on calves."

"The purpose of glycerinizing lymph is to starve out such pathogenic organisms as are invariably found in vaccine when it is first collected and, also, to make all the vaccine glycerinized and triturated of uniform consistency and activity. Glycerine does not impair the value of vaccine, but does starve out other organisms."

"When the product after repeated bacteriological tests is found to be sufficiently pure to be placed upon the market, it is submitted to a physiologic test to prove its activity, when it is by special vacuum processes, drawn into small sterile glass tubes, which are hermetically sealed, thereby insuring the vaccine virus from any subsequent contamination from the atmosphere or from handling."

and we have no doubt but that the Greek letter men will follow suit. The Local Committee of Arrangements will be glad to have its services called into requisition and will do all in its power to push the arrangements.

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We know the fraternal spirit of these organizations, and we expect a hearty, active response to our suggestion.

OH! THE COMBINATION TABLET. With mingled feelings of admiration, approval and at the same time almost discouragement have we read the editorial "Which Road?" in the March number of the "North American Journal of Homeopathy. We admire the forceful, terse way in which Editor Porter makes his statements and his logical array of facts. We approve his arraignment of the Combination Tablet as the guilty factor in the unstable condition of some prescribing done by men who claim to be homeopathic in their practice. To this lazy habit more than to anything else can be traced the right our friends, the enemy, have for criticising us. And is it not discouraging to find these same friends (?) calmly and in a wholesale way appropriating the grand truths of homeopathy-and of course without credit? Listen to this quotation which Dr. Porter uses:

"Fractional doses of podophylin relieve a form of diarrhea characterized by darkcolored movements, cutting pains and worse in the mornings."-Ringer. "Nitroglycerine causes congestive headaches, with intense throbbing; when properly selected for morbid conditions of similar character, gtts. 1-1000 will give relief."

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To-day, as when Samuel Hahnemann first gave utterance to the principles underlying our practice, homeopathy stands upon the Similia, the single remedy and the smallest possible amount of that remedy which will effect the cure. We have no more business to change these principles than we have to change the principles underlying the law of gravity. And we say here, as we have said in other places

The remedy selected and prescribed today homeopathically meets the requirements just as fully as it did a half century ago when a glorious reputation was being made for Similia Similibus Curentur. Why should there be any question “Which Road?" Why should we allow our truths to be appropriated without credit? and why, above all things, should we be willing to be classed as mongrels-living false lives? We should not-and the Lord help us to say so that the world may hear uswe will not!

OBNOXIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS, The writer in an address before the members of one of the college societies took up the matter of advertisements of harmful character appearing in the local papers. Columns might be written on this subject. We might quote from hundreds of papers thousands of advertisements which not only are debasing in their character but which many times urge the reader either directly or by suggestion to do that which is absolutely criminal. is not at all necessary, however, to do more than to call attention to their presence. From one paper we clipped for use on the occasion above noted nearly a dozen of these miserable things-and each one seemed worse than the other-more suggestive and altogether contemptible.

* * *

It

And "What are you going to do about it?" All the papers publish them--not alone in the columns of the secular sheet are they found, but the religious paper, the one which is supposed to give tone to "Newspaperdom"-is guilty of admitting to its pages copy which should be classed as "rot" and condemned to the wastepaper basket.

Alas! in these great cities of ours nothing much can be done. We can preach against it-we can form committees who

may pass resolutions and publish them, but as long as newspapers are owned by dividend-loving syndicates and as long as human vampires exist-and that will be always-the street cars, the reading rooms of our clubs, Y. M. C. A., churches, and our homes will be filled with this stuff whose only aim is to excite the mind, inflame the passions and suggest that which is false, untrue and criminal.

But we believe something can be done in the smaller town. There the doctor is

the man of authority. He ranks high among those of whom counsel is asked. His influence is great-and properly exerted may accomplish much. A plea from him and the editor of the town paper may be brought to consider that there is something in his noble calling beyond mere dollars, that he is in danger of placing before his own boys, his own girls, his own wife, that which may lead to wrongful, perhaps criminal acts. And who knows but that a word properly and opportunely placed may have its effect in saving the health, physical and moralperhaps the life of many.

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So we say to our reader, as we said to our hearers, if your lot lies in one of these small places where but one newspaper is found, and that owned by, mayhap, a client, use your influence to keep that paper pure so that it may without bringing blushes to the cheek, be placed in the hands of the wife or the daughter or the

son.

SMALL POX-DOES VACCINATION PRO

TECT?

We publish this month a very able paper by Dr. J. W. Hodge, of Niagara Falls, N. Y., which answers the above question in the negative. The subject is one well worthy of all possible consideration. It is, however, hardly fair to base arguments on occurrences of a third of century ago. The fact that antisepsis-surgical cleanliness-has so much to do with successful inoculation is a development of only recent years. Nor is it fair to claim that perfected sanitation has been solely the

means of preventing the outbreak and spread of this disease. Vaccination could not be expected to afford the same immunity in districts where sanitary restrictions do not exist or are loosely enforced as in these same places when perfect sanitary conditions obtain. Nor is it fair to quote statistics gathered from armies in service in countries where small-pox is prevalent, because it is notorious that the presence of large bodies of troops has resulted in the creation of extremely unsanitary surroundings. Witness the history of the late Spanish-American warwhere in our own country infectious diseases were rampant and where in the Philippines small-pox prevailed not so much on account of the ineffectiveness of vaccination as the ineffectiveness of the sanitary precautions.

66

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'Being vaccinated' is not enough to prevent small-pox," its advocates tell you, "but acquiring vaccinia is necessary"-and there is a vast difference between the two. There are so many contingencies to be considered when we speak of protection that in the limits of a short review it is not possible to state them. Carelessness of the operator, the use in the dressing of some application which destroys the vaccine virus, the possibility of the virus being rubbed off, the failure of the virus to contain the essential germs of vacciniathese are some of the points which should be noted.

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Millions of people are daily carried on cars. Because a very small percentage are killed we cannot be expected to abandon that mode of transit. Because a small percentage of the millions of vaccinated persons contract small-pox, the others should not be denied the safeguard, if such it may be proven. Nor should it be denied because for some proven and avoidable cause a still smaller percentage have developed diseases admittedly traceable to the vaccine. Who is there to say that any specific disease is introduced into the system in this day of such perfect preparation of material for vaccination?

The

filthy conditions once quite common are to-day entirely absent. A latent dyscrasia may be roused by vaccination, so may it be roused by any one of a number of dis

eases.

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A fair middle ground which may be taken is that the two precautions go hand in hand. Vaccination without sanitation is not fully effective, sanitation without vaccination does not protect-but with thorough vaccination and perfect sanitation the greatest possible immunity from small-pox may be obtained.

SMALLPOX IN THE UNITED STATES. The latest reports of smallpox in the United States show that the total number of cases reported from December 28th, 1901, to March 21st, 1902, is over double what it was during the same period in 1901, 24,157 cases this year against 11,496 cases last year.

While the disease has been almost uniformly of a mild type yet the present mortality is much larger than a year ago. In the present year the mortality has been 0.029 per cent; last year it was only 0.012 per cent. This proportionate increase has been largely distributed but in one group of States it has been considerably above the average rate of increase. The group of States made up of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Missouri report 13,410 cases (over one-half of the total cases in the United States) for this year as against 3,014 cases last year.

That this alarming increase is looked upon as a menace to the commercial interests of the business center of this district is evidenced by the fact that the Chicago health authorities have asked the co-operation of the railroads in a joint

effort to prevent the spread of the epidemic. The railroads have agreed to refuse transportation to all persons in infected districts unless they can show evidences of a recent vaccination. Upon this point of recent vaccination it is interesting to note the fact that the authorities in London are compelling re- vaccination after the age of 20 years. They base this rule upon the clinical evidence which has accumulated during the recent epidemic to the effect that the protective influence of vaccine is lost after a period of time approximating twenty years.

DELAY.

The May number of the "Reporter" will not be issued until late in the month. It is the intention of the management to issue a "Special American Institute" number. This will embody very many interesting features and will, we are sure, receive the endorsement of our subscribers and advertisers. We have already enough material in hand to insure the success of the issue.

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It is the policy of the "Reporter" to be prompt. Every month the issue should be in the mails on the tenth. This contributes largely to increasing the confidence which our advertisers have in the systematic, business-like management of our interests. No advertiser, and we might say also, no [subscriber, has much confidence in a paper which is issued irregularly. Hence it is that we have been particularly anxious to fix our reputation for promptness-and hence, too, it is that we make this announcement in order to forestall any feeling of dissatisfaction when the tenth of May goes by without bringing the "Reporter."