THE URINE IN GENERAL PARALYSIS OF THE INSANE.-Klippel and Serveaux (Archiv. de Neurol.) refer to the conflicting dicta of various writers on this subject and give results of their own analyses of the urine of patients in the second stage of general paralysis. In most of their cases there was slight polyuria, the urine was pale, feebly acid, of low specific gravity, and contained excess of mucus. As a rule urea was below the normal, sometimes much below. Uric acid varied much; occasionally it was augmented; when diminished it still was abnormally high in proportion to the urea. Phosphoric acid was always reduced in amount, the decrease being greater than that of the urea; most often the earthy phosphates exceeded the alkaline. The chlorides were nearly always considerably increased. Albumen was relatively frequent but never in large amount. Acetone was tested for ten times and only once was absent. Control analyses of six normal urines showed the presence of acetone in four. Indican often was found in notable quantity. Peptones were discovered in three of five analyses.-British Medical Journal.

CRUSHED AGAIN. "Isn't it awful?" said Mrs. Jenks to her husband. "Isn't what awful?" queried Jenks.

"Houston's boy was run over and received infernal injuries." "Internal, you mean."

"No. I mean infernal. I know what I am talking about."

After a quarrel of five minutes, Jenks produced a dictionary, and with considerable trouble managed to find "infernal."

"There!" he exclaimed, "I told you so. Infernal means 'relating to the lower regions.'"

"Well," replied Mrs. Jenks, and there was a ring of triumph in her voice, "ain't that where he was injured?"

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.-The following interesting reply was returned to a circular letter soliciting subscriptions to a certain medical journal (Pacific Drug Review):

FARIBAULT, MINN., February 22, 1894.

Your copy of the . Jurnal come, and the letter to-askin me to send fifty cens and git it fur a yeer, I don't need no jurnals. When I git a tuff case I go off inter sum secrit plase and tell the lord all about it and wate for him to put inter my minde what tor do. Thats bettern jurnals and syklopeds and such. If we hed more lord trustin doctors and less colleges weed fare better. The lord noes morn all the docters and if we go to him fur noledge it ill be bettern jurnals. Fraternally in the lord.

A CARISTUM DOCTER.

RECOVERY AFTER EXTIRPATION OF A CYST OF THE PANCREAS.-P. Zweifel (Cent. für Gyn., 1894, No. 27,) reports in full the history of a case of cyst of the pancreas for which he had operated, removing the entire cyst,

with recovery of the patient. Although the hemorrhage is very great in these cases, he was enabled to keep it in check by seizing hold of the tissues with forceps, ligating and cutting between the ligatures. He considers extirpation far superior to drainage, as the convalescence is so much more rapid and satisfactory. The patient four months afterward was in perfect health, and the urine, which had been highly diabetic, did not show a trace of sugar.

ACTING on the knowledge that strontium iodide is very well borne by the stomach, Dr. Wood began experimenting with stronium compounds, and now announces that the disturbances of digestion so annoying in the administration of salicylates may be entirely overcome by the use of salicylate of strontium. He says it is the best intestinal antiseptic known. He has cured cases of rheumatism given up as incurable under the old salicylates. He sometimes pushes as far as grains 120 in twenty-four hours, and the stomach is unaffected, though the system gives evidence of thorough saturation with the drug.-Medical World.

DR. PEPPER calls attention to the fact that in cholera infantum with cold and cyanosed extremities, a condition of hyperpyrexia exists in the trunk, and the rectal temperature will range from 105° F. to 108° F. This is the most dangerous symptom, and is to be combated by hydro-therapy, placing the child in an 85° F. bath and cooling the water gradually. To arrest vomiting he uses silver nitrate, gr. T internally. To check purging, hypodermic injections of morphia grain for a child two years old. He gives no food till the symptoms abate, as digestion is entirely suspended during an attack.

DR. WOOD says that true epilepsy is absolutely incurable. The bromide of potassium will defer and lessen the attacks in most cases, if given early and pushed to distinctive bromism and then dropped to strong therapeutic doses and kept up continuously. Dr. Wood combines with it antipyrine. The bromides of sodium and strontium are also useful. The union of bromide of ammonium and bromide of strontium have yielded him better results than the single drug. To guard against skin effects he gives Fowler's solution with the bromides.

MCGILL UNIVERSITY SEEKS PROF. Wm. Osler.-Prof. William Osler, of the Johns Hopkins University, has been offered the position of president of McGill University, Montreal.

"PASTEUR STREET."-The Municipal Council of Paris has decided to change the name of the Rue d'Ulm to Rue Pasteur, in honor of the distinguished scientist.

Special Notices.

PROFESSOR C. T. P. FENNEL, of Cincinnati, Chemist for the Ohio Food and Dairy Commission, and who made the analysis of “Vin Mariani” on which Mr. John Keeshan, a well-known druggist of Cincinnati was arrested on the charge of violating the Ohio Pure Food Law in the sale of "Vin Mariani," the claim being made by Professor Fennel that said preparation was not up to the standard within the meaning of the law, has now acknowledged that he has made a mistake in establishing what the standard is, and acknowledges to the counsel of Mariani & Company that he had not, at the time of making his analysis, examined the latest edition of the United States Dispensatory, and that "Vin Mariani" is clearly and completely up to standard as established therein. The case against Mr. Keeshan for the sale of "Vin Mariani" is thereby disposed of, and Professor Fennell has also authorized the public announcement through the press of the fact that the sale of "Vin Mariani" in the State of Ohio is perfectly lawful, and such sale can not be interfered with under the law.

SOLID FACTS.-I have two patients taking Phytoline (Walker) and they are being reduced from ten to twenty pounds monthly. They are much pleased with the results. One weighed 240 and the other 300 pounds. The latter now tips the beam at 250. This patient had fatty degeneration of the heart prior to taking Phytoline; was expected to die daily from heart failure. She had an attack of syncope every few hours; would become unconscious for an hour at a time; extremities cold; skin covered with clammy sweat. After the first dose of Phytoline she had no more attacks. She has lost 50 pounds; is stronger, cheerful, and goes anywhere, and can do considerable housework, whereas before this she was perfectly helpless, a burden to her family, and not expected to live from one day to another. These are solid facts and can be fully substantiated. D. W. BORDER, M. D.

KEARNEYSVILLE, W. VA.

W. H. CUNNINGHAM, M. D., Butler, Ala., on November 15th, writes: I have been using "PAPINE" for about a year. It is not only retained in the most irritable conditions of the stomach, but will also control nausea and vomiting with more certainty than any other remedy. Even in acute Gastritis it controls the vomiting better than Morphine hypodermically. A number of ladies in my practice can not take Morphia on account of nauseating after-effects. The PAPINE has never in a single instance produced any unpleasantness. As an anodyne for children (from two months up) it is simply inimitable. Permit me-without solicitation-to express to you my thanks for the production of a remedy so useful, and in many instances absolutely indispen

sable.

CLINICAL EXPERIENCES WITH SOLUTIONS OF Pyrozone.-Dr. W. W. Bulette, in his article on Acute Otitis Media, says: "After the hyperemic stage has passed and the inflammatory symptoms have begun to subside and the discharge has appeared, the ear should be syringed with hot water, first dropping into it 5 or 6 drops of a 3-percent solution of pyrozone, H2O2 (McKesson & Robbins). The douching should be kept up at each consultation until the epidermis of the canal assumes the appearance of 'washer-woman's hands,' after which the canal should be thoroughly dried with cotton on the end of a probe.”—Medical Bulletin.

FATS AND OILS.—If the digestive organs of your patient are unable to digest and assimilate fats and oils, THEN he needs SENG, two or more teaspoonfuls before each meal. No person will have Consumption whose digestive apparatus is able to digest fats and oils.

Certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than any thing else.-RUSKIN.

Original Articles.

TREATMENT OF PNEUMONIA.*

BY E. N. HALL, M. D.

"Pneumonia is a self-limited disease and runs its course uninfluenced in any way by medicine.

It can neither be aborted nor cut

short by any known means at our command."

Then if we regard pneumonia as a general disease with a characteristic local lesion, the treatment must be modified by the constitutional condition of each patient, and by the type of the pneumonia. If it is uncomplicated and occurs at certain periods of life, it will terminate spontaneously in recovery by crisis, but when certain complications exist, when certain conditions are present and at certain ages it is almost necessarily fatal. Any plan of treatment in such a disease, if resorted to indiscriminately, will prove unsatisfactory. Although a large proportion of cases will recover without treatment, yet welldirected therapeusis will save lives and render convalescence less tedious. We have no specific treatment for pneumonia. In cases of moderate severity a purely expectant plan may be followed, keeping the bowels open, regulating the diet, and, if necessary, giving a Dover's powder at night to procure sleep.

In severer cases a symptomatic plan of treatment should be pursued, meeting the indications as they arise. The first distressing symptom is usually the pain in the side, which may be relieved by local deple

* Read before the Bowling Green and Warren County Medical Society, January 5, 1895.

Hence

tion, by cupping or leeching, or, better still, by a hypodermic injection of morphia. Here arises the question of the propriety of venesection. Some advocate the abstraction of twenty or thirty ounces of blood from a young, plethoric patient with high fever and bounding pulse, but I doubt the efficacy of the treatment, so much so that I have never resorted to the plan. The careful study of the pathology of pneumonia not only leads to the conclusion that bleeding does harm, but it strongly contra-indicates the use of all those agents which have been employed for the arrest of simple pulmonary inflammation. veratrum viride, aconite, calomel, the tartrate of potash and antimony, iodide of potassium, and all other so-called "cardiac sedatives" have been discarded, for it is evident that they add a new load to an already overburdened heart. They may for a time lower temperature and pulse-rate, but this will be accomplished at the expense of heart power. Cardiac insufficiency will therefore appear earlier and be more profound. Should I deem it necessary to use any of the above named remedies, I have been made to believe, through my own experience as well as some authors, that tartar emetic is preferable, and is indicated in strong, robust patients with a full bounding pulse and high fever.

There are but few acute diseases that produce a greater shock to the nervous system than does an acute case of lobar pneumonia, and this, too, is from the onset of the attack. And now arises the important question, What measure shall be employed to counteract or mitigate the impression made on the nerve centers by the morbific agent which is operating to produce pneumonia? From the beginning of the disease until the infiltration is complete (usually for the first four days) the patient should be brought under the full influence of opium and held in a state of comparative comfort by hypodermic injections of morphia, repeated at regular intervals, and by this means you have produced rest, which is the first essential point. Absolute rest is important, and the patient should be moved as little as possible. If signs of heart failure occur he should not be allowed to sit up or talk.

In the majority of cases requiring treatment the indications are to lower the temperature and support the heart. The use of medicinal antipyretics in pneumonia is of doubtful propriety. Quinine has its advocates, administered in from 30 to 60 grains daily, but with its administration there are unpleasant effects. It disarranges digestion and produces vomiting, causing the patient to be disturbed. Antipyrine, antifebrin, and phenacetin have been thoroughly tried in pneumonia,