To remove it the nose is cocainized and the dressing loosened by the application of hydrogen peroxide. Etiology of Eclampsia.— Leipman, one of the foremost workers in the research field, has published (Muench. Med. Woch.) some interesting observations on puerperal eclampsia. He found that while the injections of normal placental tissue into the peritoneal cavity of rabbits produced no reaction, the introduction of placenta from an eclamptic patient was uniformly fatal. This shows conclusively that the toxin producing the convulsions is in the placenta. Hence it seems that there can be no question that the early and complete removal of the fetus and placenta are indicated. Anæmia of Rickets. — In rickety children when anæmia is present to any degree the following combination will be found useful: Sig. A teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful after meals. Gastric Ulcer and Hyperacidity. Merkel has obtained some astonishing results from the use of olive oil in cases of chronic ulcer with hyperacidity, or hyperacidity with pyrosis. The symptoms were alleviated almost immediately, and the patients began to gain in weight at once. Hæmoptysis. Dr. William Porter (Col. Med. Jour.) has found restricted movement of the affected lobe to be the most efficacious measure for the control of hæmorrhage in pulmonary tuber culosis. A towel is rolled like a roller bandage and placed on the chest, at right angles to the ribs, then a wide bandage is tightly applied holding the towel and exerting sufficient pressure to limit the movement of that side of the thorax. This bandage is left on for at least two weeks, being readjusted or tightened when necessary. Opiates are used in conjunction with this measure if the patient is restless or excitable. Local Anæsthesia in the Radical Cure of Inguinal Hernia, John A. Bodine has operated on 284 patients, with 300 hernias, under local anesthesia, without a death or a suppurating wound. By means of Schleich's infiltration the amount of cocaine is reduced to a minimum and limited to a small area, producing acute local anæmia, effectually retaining the fluid in one spot. Cocainization of a sensory nerve trunk, abolishing pain sensation in the region supplied by it, renders it possible to operate for hernia by its use. The operative area is superficial, and the region restricted by the anatomy of the parts. In strangulated hernia local anæsthesia does not increase the shock, while general anæsthesia is often too great a load to be borne. The local anesthetic permits of the application of hot towels to a possibly gangrenous iutestine for some time, in order to determine whether it will react. The operation does not give rise to the danger of injury to the nerve fibers. The danger to a line of deep sutures from vomiting is done away with. There is no danger of cocaine poisoning with the small dose necessary—that is, onehalf grain injected intermittently throughout an hour. Morphine given after the operation would act as an antidote were poisoning possible. The operation is more thorough because of the absence of haste and the lack of need to save the patient pain. There are no evidences of pain during the operation. The cocaine solution should be made fresh. The solution is one-fifth of one per cent. for infiltration of skin and nerve trunks, and for subdermic infitration half this strength is used. The line of skin incision should be infiltrated throughout its extent sufficiently tightly to maintain the local anesthesia for an hour. The aponeurosis of the external oblique requires no infiltration. It should be incised over the situation of the underlying ring; the ilioinguinal nerve will be exposed by retracting the flaps, and its trunk is then cocainized by a few drops of the solution. The incision may be carried painlessly into the external ring, and the flaps reflected to expose Poupart's ligament and the conjoined tendon. The iliohypogastric, if found, may now be cocainized. The margins of the internal ring are infiltrated. A line of infiltration along the long axis of hernial protrusion. permits a clear cut through the hernial sac and coverings. The neck of the sac is infiltrated, dissected away from the underlying cord, ligated, and amputated. The genitocrural nerve is cocainized. The sac is dissected away from the cord, and the operation completed. Operation on the female is easier than on the male.-Med. Rec. A New Method for the Estimation of Uric Acid.— Dimmock and Bronson, of England, have worked out a process for the simple and rapid estimation of uric acid in the nrine, which consists of the following: Take 100 c. c. of urine' and add to it one gram of lithium carbonate. After boiling in a conical flask (Erlenmeyer) of about 500 c.cm. capacity for three minutes, the liquid is filtered whilst hot to remove the precipitated earthy phosphate, etc., which are washed with a little distilled water until the filtrate measures exactly 100 c. cm. To 50 c.cm. of the filtrate, which contains uric acid as lithium urate, 5 grams of ammonium chloride are added, shaking the liquid until dissolved. After three minutes the contents of the flask are warmed to 120° F., so as to secure a uniform aggregation of the precipitated ammonium urate. The whole is now poured into a tube graduated in parts per thousand of uric acid and deposition allowed to take place, the reading being taken after four hours have elapsed. Chronicle and Comment. An original copy of the pamphlet by William Harvey, entitled "The Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood," published in 1628, was recently sold in England for about $150.00. It was from among the collection of Dr. Petti Alcohol, in the form of whiskey or brandy, has always enjoyed great prestige as a household remedy and, until quite recent times, was esteemed by the medical profession as a valuable therapeutic agent in many conditions. The temperance hospitals were ridiculed, by the majority of physicians, until such institutions were able to show series of cases with the same, or even lower, mortality rates than the hospitals in which alcohol was commonly administered. In the light of recent scientific investigation we are forced to believe that alcohol is far from being the stimulant it was formerly considered, for its depressant action is far greater than the transitory stimulating effect immediately following its ingestion. The administration of alcohol for the treatment of disease is fast becoming limited to its use as a beverage and, even in the weak form and small quantities in which it is so taken there are few if any conditions in which the patient would not be benefited by total abstinence. Plans for the first of the model tenement houses to be built with money from the $1,000,000 gift by Henry Phipps are on file. The main features include careful sanitation, 219 fountains in the interior courtyards, roof gardens, kindergartens and the newest appliances for housework. The first of these buildings will be put up in East Thirty-fifth Street (New York) between First and Second Avenues. This site was selected because of the cosmopolitan population. There will be from two to four rooms in each suite and the rooms will all be open to the air. The rent will not exceed $15 a month for any apartment.-Jour. A. M. A. Is not such a practical philanthropy much more commendable than the founding of libraries, or even the endowment of universities? Rats being the recognized propagators of plagues, the health authorities of Calcutta have offered rewards of one anna for live rats and one pice for dead ones, as an incentive to their destruction. However, though the natives of Calcutta are desperately poor, the result has been disappointing as the rat is an object of some religious or superstitious significance to the natives. Blufton, Indiana, has added a department of preventive medicine to the course of study in the public schools. The city physician will deliver illustrated lectures exploiting the germ theory of disease and practical hygienic measures. The object is, of course, the promotion of a better personal hygiene among the scholars. Riesman has recently described an original method of auscultation of the heart, to which he gives the name transmanual auscultation. The principle advantage of this method is in the ease with which heart murmurs may be timed, i. e., distinguished as systolic or presystolic. This has heretofore been accomplished by auscultating over the heart and noting the pulse by a finger on some artery, preferably the carotid. Riesman found that, using the phonendoscope, or one of its numerous modifications such as the Bowles instrument, |