That a pound of crude drug of good quality, properly manipulated, should produce a pound of fluid extract, seems a good base for operations; but when the variability of crude drugs, and the consequent variability of fluid extracts produced therefrom, is known, one can not but look forward to the advent of the new Pharmacopeia with the hope that some uniform and more reliable method of standardizing fluid extracts, upon some safer and surer foundation, by which a preparation must be produced that can be used with more confidence in its definite therapeutic value, may be adopted. Individuals and manufacturing houses have, in a measure, recognized the necessity for such a standardization, and have in the past in various ways endeavored to meet the requirements of the medical profession in this respect.

The result has been that there are already standardized preparations on the market, but these vary greatly in the strength adopted as the standard. There should be one only, and for this the Committee of Revision of the Pharmacopeia for 1890 should prescribe the process.-Medical Age, Nov. 25, 1889.

One tablespoonful three times daily.

For the pill-form the following is recommended:

In irritative cough and diarrhea, the following is administered :

q. s. M.

For children, creasote in the form of the following emulsions seems best adapted:

For drop doses the author uses the following:

Fifty drops, three times daily, in half a cup of warmed milk or Malaga wine.-Deutsche Med. Wochen.; Med. Record.

FOR HOARSENESS.-In the ordinary hoarseness of singers and talkers a piece of the following lozenge should be allowed to dissolve in the mouth just before using the voice:

Black current paste, enough to make 20 grains.

Dr. Hinckle in Chem. & Druggist.

PLEURISY and articular rheumatism bear a certain resemblance to one another, in that there is in both inflammation of a serous surface with a disposition to serous effusion, fever and pain accompanying the process. The similarity of the two diseases led Herz to extend to the treatment of pleurisy the recognized specific remedy for acute articular rheumatism, and the results were so surprising that he published them at once. He gave to his pleurisy patients salicylate of soda in quantity amounting to a drachm and a half a

day; in every case the pain was much diminished at the end of the first day, and had disappeared entirely at the end of the third. The patients could draw long breaths without pain before the friction sound of the fever had disappeared, showing that the anodyne effect of the drug was more marked than its curative power, although the disease appeared to be cut short also, so that the resemblance to rheumatism is quite as striking in the behavior of the pleurisy under salicylic treatment as in the pathological process.-N. W. Lancet.

TOBACCO HYSTERIA.-At a recent meeting of the Paris Hospital Medical Society, M. Gilbert showed the members a patient, aged sixty-two, who had worked in a tobacco factory forty years, and smoked excessively. About a year ago he exhibited symptoms of motor and sensory disturbance in the lower limbs. These were apparently cured by the influence of a magnet, but soon afterward reappeared in the form of motor hemiplegia with sensory anesthesia. These cases often occur in tobacco factories. MM.

Gilbert and Letulle diagnosed the case as toxic hysteria. M. Hayem objected to the constant misapplication of the term, hysteria.-British Medical Journal.

GLYCERINE SOAP SUPPOSITORIES.-Dr. Schaffer recommends the use of suppositories cut from a cake of glycerine soap, as a substitute for glycerine enemata. The soap is said to contain thirty per cent., or more, of glycerine, and the remedy is as effectual in this form, he claims, as it is when used pure.

SURGERY.

THE RADICAL CURE OF HERNIA.-Dr. Wm. S. Halsted describes the following operation :

1. The incision begins at the external abdominal ring, and ends one inch or less (less than one inch in children) to the inner side of the anterior superior spine of the ilium, on an imaginary line connecting the anterior superior spines of the ilia. Throughout the entire length of the incision, everything superficial to the peritoneum is cut through.

2. The vas deferens, with its vessels, is carefully isolated up to the outer termination of the incision, and held aside.

3. The sack is opened and dissected from the tissues which 'envelop it.

4. The abdominal cavity is closed by quilted sutures passed through the peritoneum at a level higher by 11⁄2-2 inches than that of the so-called neck of the sack.

5. The vas deferens and its vessels are transplanted to the upper outer angle of the wound.

6. Interrupted, strong silk sutures, passed so as to include everything between the skin and the peritoneum, are used to close the deeper portion of the wound, which is sewed from the crest of the pubes to the upper outer angle of the incision.

7. The skin is united over the cord by interrupted stitches of very fine silk. These stitches do not perforate the skin, and when tied they become buried. They are taken from the under side of the skin, and made to include only its deep layers-the layers which are not occupied by sebaceous follicles.

8. One or two small, short gauze plugs are used as wound drains.

The gauze plugs are removed at the first subsequent dressingusually at about the seventh day. The patients are allowed to walk about on the twenty-first day.-Johns-Hopkins Hospital Bulletin.

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