SCORBUTOID. Anxious to communicate to our readers, any information of a medical nature which may fall under our observation, we call their attention to a disease of a peculiar character that we have lately met with, and which, though in a great measure arrested, is still we believe, prevailing on the banks of the Schuylkill: wecannot however, speak positively as to this, as we ourselves have not had any case of it for a fortnight. We have never met with any thing precisely similar to the disease of which we are speaking, and though it resembles in some respects the Scurvy, still, from its differing in others, it perhaps is hardly entitled to that name, and we have therefore, in conformity with the fashion of the day, called it Scorbutoid, or Modified Scurvy. As far as we could ascertain, the disease came on with the usual symptoms of fever, which in some cases continued violent for some days, followed by a No. 23. sponginess and tenderness of the gums, which bled upon the slightest touch. In some cases, the gums were alone affected, without fever; and in most of them the spots peculiar to scurvy were wanting; in the few cases in which they were present, they were more like the spots of Measles, than any thing else: they were however, very few and disappeared without scaling. The few cases that came under our own observation were near the water, and we were assured, that on the banks of the river there were many cases of it. It attacked all ages, sexes, &c. preferring those however who were feeble from previous sickness. We were induced in the first instance to suppose, it might be the mercury that had at different times been given to these last, which was affecting them, although the length of time which had elapsed since they last took any (2, 4, and 6 weeks,) made this improbable, and others taking it, who had not been sick before, we discarded this opinion. In our own practice, it yielded readily to doses of nitre dissolved in vinegar, (especially where the fever was violent,) with any simple gargle, and attention to diet. We pretend not to speak of the pathology of this disease, as we have no data upon which to ground an opinion: if any of our readers however, have themselves met with any thing similar, or heard it spoken of by others, it would give us great pleasure to hear from them upon the subject, and we shall be happy to lend the columns of the Register for this purpose. Medical Ethics-continued. Whenever a physician or surgeon officiates for another, who is sick or absent, during any considerable length of time, he should receive the fees accruing from such additional practice: but, if this fraternal act be of short duration, it should be gratuitously performed; with an observance always of the utmost delicacy towards the interest and character of the professional gentleman previously connected with the family. Some general rules should be adopted by the faculty, in every town, relative to the pe cuniary acknowledgments of their patients; and it should be deemed a point of honour to adhere to this rule, with as much steadiness as varying circumstances will admit. For it is obvious, that an average fee, as suited to the general rank of patients, must be an inadequate gratuity from the rich, who often require attendance not absolutely necessary; and yet too large to be expected from that class of citizens, who would feel a reluctance in calling for assistance, without making some decent and satisfactory retribution. But, in the consideration of fees, let it ever be remembered, that though mean ones from the affluent are both unjust and degrading, yet the characteristical beneficence of the profession is inconsistent with sordid views, and avaricious rapacity. To a young physician, it is of great importance to have clear and definite ideas of the ends of his profession; of the means for their attainment; and of the comparative value and dignity of each. Wealth, rank, and independence, with all the benefits resulting from them, are the ends, which he holds in view; and they are interesting, wise, and laudable. But know ledge, benevolence, and active virtue, the means to be adopted in their acquisition, are of still higher estimation. And he has the privilege and felicity of practising an art, even than in its ultimate objects. The former, more intrinsically excellent in its mediate therefore, have a claim to uniform pre-eminence. All members of the profession, together with their wives and children, should be attended gratuitously by any one or more of the faculty, residing near them, whose assistance may be required. For, as solicitude obscures the judgment, and is accompanied with timidity and irresolution, medical men, under the pressure of sickness, either as affecting themselves or their families, are peculiarly dependent upon each other. But visits should not be obtruded officiously; as such unasked civility may give rise to embarrassment, or interfere with that choice, on which confidence depends. Distant members of the faculty, when they request attendance, should be expected to defray the charges of travelling. And, if their circumstances be affluent, a pecuniary acknowledgment should not be declined: for, no obligation ought to be imposed, which the party would rather compensate than contract. When a physician attends the wife or child of a member of the faculty, or any person very nearly connected with him, he should manifest peculiar attention to his opinions, and tenderness even to his prejudices. For the dear and important interests, which the one has at stake, supersede every consideration of rank or seniority in the other; since the mind of a husband, a father, or a friend, may receive a deep and lasting wound, if the disease terminate fatally, from the adoption of means he could not approve, or the rejection of those he wished to be tried. Under such delicate circumstances, however, a conscientious physician will not lightly sacrifice his judgment; but will urge, with proper confidence, the measures he deems to be expedient, before he leaves the final decision concerning them to his more responsible coadjutor. Clergymen, who experience the res angusta domi, should be visited gratuitously by the faculty: and this exemption should be an acknowledged general rule, that the feeling of individual obligation may be rendered less oppressive. But such of the clergy, as are qualified, either from their stipends or fortunes, to make a reasonable remuneration for medical attendance, are not more privileged than any other order of patients. Military or naval subaltern officers, in narrow circumstances, are also proper objects of professional liberality. ANTIDOTE TO VANITY! The following well-known lines, are not inappropriate to a Register, in which the records of mortality perpetually present themselves. They have generally been considered as original, but the subsequent French lines, by Pierre Patrice, of Čaen, born in 1583, and a follower of Gaston d'Orleans, sufficiently establish their claim to the priority.-Both equally tend to repress vanity. "I dreamt, that buried in my fellow clay, not; More manners learn, and at a distance rot. thee; Here all are equal, now thy case is mine, This is my rotting-place, and that, is thine." The original, by PIERRE PATRICE. Je songeois, cette nuit que de mal consumé, En mort de qualité je lui tins ce langage: toi-meme! Ici, tous sont égaux; je ne te dois plus rien; Je suis sur mon fermier, comme toi sur le tien! On reading an account of a man who had a piece of his finger chopped off, and put on again.-Sport. Mag. 45, p. 308. "I have heard, Mr. Editor, Doctors of old, When a limb was cut off, grown lifeless and cold, Suppos'd, an adhesion again to the wound, We ask for information if the following be true. If it is, we believe it not to be generally known. It is taken from an English publication of 1815, and is headed" An effectual method of retaining good Apples in the country without grafting." Apples. In every perfect ripe apple there will be found one, and sometimes two round seeds; the others will have one or more flatted sides The round ones will produce the improved fruit from which they are taken; and those with flatted sides will produce the fruit of the Crab, upon which the graft was inserted. It requires not a long time to ascertain the difference; for if a circle is drawn in rich ground, and the flat sided seeds planted therein, and the round seeds in the centre, the variations of quality will be discovered in two or three years; the first will throw out the leaves of a Crab, and the latter the leaves of fibre, and a lanuginous appearance; and in an improved tree, distinguished in shape, due time the fruit of each will put every thing beyond doubt. It is to be observed moreover, that the seeds of Crabs, being originals, are mostly, if not altogether, round." On opening a bale of cotton-wool, lately, at the Mill of Messrs. Grinshaw, Whitehouse, greatly to the astonishment of all present, a small tortoise was turned out. It appeared at the time to be in a torpid state, but on being washed, and a short time exposed to the open air, it became animated and lively. It must have been at least six months excluded from the air, and deprived of food and motion, and may have been so for two years, as it frequently happens that cotton-wool has been so long packed before it comes to the hand of the manufacturer.-Ladies' Mag. v. 46, p.242. downwards, and also a little outwards and in-from the Belfast Com. Chron. "A soldier of the 93d regiment, quartered in the barracks of Cork, was looked upon to be dead, and after having been laid out in the usual way, during 2 days, was conveyed to the place of interment, when, on lowering the body into the grave, the soldiers assisting heard the noise of struggling in the coffin, and on examination found the man whom they were in the act of burying, endeavouring with his hands and knees to force up the lid. To their great astonishment they found their comrade still alive, and conveyed him home in the open coffin. This should prove an additional warning against premature interment."-Cork, June 7, 1815.-Ladies' Mag. v. 46. We cannot refrain from earnestly sug: gesting the propriety, and probable advantage of raising the Rhubarb amongst us: this article has now become an article of export from Great Britain.-Assuredly our extensive Territory will present to it a soil at least as congenial. Even so far back as 1794, we find its cultivation spoken of in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, 12 Vol.-a short review of which appears in the Analytic Review for 1795, p. 42. In addition to this it may be stated, that it is a most beautiful plant, and that the thick stem of the leaf, constitutes, in a Tart, a most excellent substitute for the Gooseberry or Cranberry. Nor is the root, when of sufficient age at all inferior to foreign ones in purgative powers. Dr. Wiedemann published in 1794, a Thesis on the defect of the Breast-bone, in which he relates some observations of apertures or deficiences in the middle or lower part of the Sternum; and then describes a case, which he saw in travelling through Carmarthenshire. In a child, somewhat more than a year old, and otherwise healthy, the breast-bone was wanting, except its upper portion, to which the Clavicles and two first ribs were attached as usual. The rest of the true ribs were not connected together at their anterior ends by cartilages, but moved freely upwards and wards, in the act of respiration. The pulsation of the heart raised the parts above it considerably; and if this part were pressed by the hand, the child seemed to have an oppression at the heart, the breathing was rendered quicker, and the face redder.--Analytic Rev. 1705, p. 108. "On the kinds of plants proper for different kinds of cattle." the Univ. Mag. 1760, I find the following, I In an excellent Essay in an early Vol. of shall be glad to know how far it is correct. "It is also a notion that prevails commonly that cows eat the crow-foot* that abounds in many meadows, and that this occasions the is generally known by the name of the butterbutter to be yellow, from whence I suppose it flower; but this I believe is all a mistake, for I never could observe that any part of that plant was touched by cows or any other cattle. Thus Linnæus observes, Fl. Lapp. p. 195, that it was believed by some people that the marsh marygold made the butter yellow, but, he denies that cows ever touch that plant. Yet he thinks that all kinds of pasture will not give that yellowness, and then observes, that the best and yellowest butter he knows, and which is preferred by the dealers in those parts to all other butter, was made where the cow wheat, grew in greater plenty than he This shews how ever saw any where else. very incurious the country people are in relation to things they are every day conversant with, and which it concerns them so much to know. A humorous description of Mortality, said to be written by the late Jonathan Swift, D. D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. rously to honour me with your friendship, I "As you have been pleased very genethink myself obliged to throw off all disguise, and discover to you my real circumstances; which I shall with all the openness and freedom imaginable. You will be surprised at the beginning of my story, and think the whole a banter; but you may depend upon its being actually true; and, if need were, I could bring the parson of the parish to testify the same. You must know then, that at this present time I live in a little sorry (*) house of clay, that stands upon the waste as other * A species of Ranunculus! † A species of Melampyrum. (*) His body. * cottages do; and, what is worst of all, am liable to be turned out at a minutes' warning. It is a sort of copy-hold tenure, and the custom of the manor is this: for the first thirty years I am to pay no rent, but only do suit and service, and attend upon the courts, which are kept once a week, and sometimes oftener; for twenty years after this, I am to pay ta rose every year; and further than this, during the remainder of life, I am to pay a tooth (which you'll say is a whimsical sort of an acknowledgment) every two or three years, or oftener if it should be demanded; and if I have nothing more to pay, "Out" must be the word, and it will not be long ere my person will be seized.-I might have had my tenement, such as it is, upon much better terms, if it had not been for a fault of my great grand-father; he and his wife together, with the advice of an ill-neighbour, were concerned in robbing an orchard, belonging to thelord of the manor, and forfeited this great privilege, to my sorrow I am sure; but, however, I must do as well as I can, and shall endeavour to keep my house in tolerable repair. My ** kitchen, where I dress my victuals, is a comical little roundish sort of a room, somewhat like an oven; it answers much to the purpose it was designed, and that's enough. My garrets (or rather cock-lofts) are very indifferently furnished; but they are rooms which few people regard now, unless to lay lumber in. The worst part of the story is, it costs me a great deal every year in ‡‡ thatching; for, as my building stands pretty much exposed to the wind and weather, the covering you know must decay faster than ordinary; however, I make shift to rub on in my little way, and when I rent day comes I must see and discharge it as well as I can. Whenever I am turned out, I understand my lodge, or what you please to call it, descends upon a low-spirited creeping family, remark able for nothing but being instrumental in advancing the reputation of a great man in Abchurch-lane; ¶¶ but be this as it will, I have one suug(*)apartment that lies on the left side of my house, which I reserve for' my chiefest friends: it is very warm, where you'll always be a welcome guest; and you may depend upon a lodging as long as the edifice shall be in the tenure and occupation of J. S. P. S. This room that I value so much, was set on fire once, and my whole building in danger of being demolished, by an unlucky t boy throwing his lighted torch in at the window, the casement happening to be open.I must not forget to tell you, that the person who is sent about to gather our quit-rents before-mentioned, is a queer, little, old, round-shouldered fellow, with scarce any hair upon his head; which grotesque fgure, together with his inviduous employments, makes him generally slighted, and often times much abused. He has a prodigious stomach of his own; whatever he gets, it goes all into his unrighteous maw, which makes a fool of the ostrich for digestion; he is continually exercising his grinders upon one thing or another, and yet he is as poor as a rake, and by that means goes so light that he is often at a man's heels before he thinks of him; he is very absolute and ready in executing his commission; and has a relation, one § Tide a Waterman, that is full as saucy and peremtory as himself. If you meet with either of them, and cry out "Stop a little," the devil a moment they'll stay.-Gent. & Lond. Mag. 1780. MEDICAL SOCIETY. This Society held its first meeting this season, on Saturday the 6th of November. There was no Lecture at this time, and up in orthe time was principally taken ganizing, appointing, examining, committees, &c. The second meeting was held, the following Saturday, and we were pleased to see a goodly array of M. D's, and a considerable number of junior members. After the usual preparatory business of proposing new members, reports of committees, suggesting improvements, &c. an interesting Lecture on the " Circula *By love. Cupid. Time. This description is elegant, and the slighting and abusing time, the teeth of time, and man's abuse of that precious jewel, even when he is at his heels, i. e. death reminds me of a line 1 have somewhere seen, "Every moment of time is a monument of God's mercy." § The author, no doubt, had the, old proverb in bis thoughts, viz. "Time and Tide will stay for no man. 9'9 |