THOMAS H. HAWKINS, A.M., M.D., Editor and Publisher. Henry O. Marcy, M D., Boston. COLLABORATORS: Thaddeus A. Reamy, M.D., Cincinnati. Joseph Price, M, D., Philadelphia. Thomas B. Eastman, M.D., Indianapolis, Ind. S. H. Pinkerton, M.D., Salt Lake City Subscriptions, $1.00 per year in advance; Single Copies. 10 cents. Address all Communications to Denver Medical Times, 1740 Welton Street, Denver, Colo. We will at all times be glad to give space to well written articles or items of interest to the profession. [Entered at the Postoffice of Denver, Colorado, as mail matter of the Second Class.] EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT FOOD ADULTERATIONS AND SOPHISTICATIONS. There are three kinds of adulterations; addition of harmless substances, addition of injurious matters, and abstraction of some valuable constituent from food. Adulteration is generally more fraudulent than harmful. Sophistication interferes with the digestibility and proper balance of food materials. Most states have laws prohibiting adulteration in general or special forms of it, and most large cities have some special regulations in this regard. According to H. W. Wiley, of the National Department of Agriculture, probably less than five per cent of articles of food are adulterated. The latest report of Edward N. Eaton, State Analysist of Illinois, shows that of 712 food products analyzed, 412 were adulterated or illegally labeled. The following numbers represent the specimens examined and those found fraudulent: Baking powder, 44-44; butter, 49-36; catsup, 47-45; lemon extracts, 34-27; vanilla extracts, 26-20; olive oil, 25-13; vinegar, 360-192. Desiccation and sterilization or pasteurization are the only proper methods of preserving perishable foods, but in practice chemical preservatives are very frequently added to "embalmed" flesh, fruits and vegetables. The most common of these preservatives are borax, boric acid, benzoic acid, salicylic acid, sodium chlorid, sulphite and silicofluorid; potassum nitrate and fluorid; sulphurous acid, formaldehyd, abrastol and saccharin. They all retard the normal process of digestion. According to Vaughan, however, dusting the surfaces of hams and bacon, which are to be transported long distances, with borax or boric acid, not exceeding 1.5 per cent by weight, is effective in preventing meat becoming slimy, and is not objectionable from a sanitary standpoint. Coal-tar anilin dyes are used largely for coloring milk, butter, oleomargarin, jams and jellies, preserves, confectionery, sausages, etc. Tea may be faced with lead salts or Prussian blue. Sugar is treated with ultramarine to give a bluish-white color. The green color of pickles is heightened with chlorophyl, sometimes fixed by means of copper sulphate. Spices are generally sophisticated with starches, sawdust, ground shells, and fruit stones, dirt, charcoal, hulls and cheaper spices. Artificial nutmegs are easily broken into a powder when treated with boiling water. Confectionery is made largely of glucose, which is further adulterated with talc, terra alba, baryta and fusel oil. Ground coffee is nearly always mixed with chicory, and tea leaves often with other leaves. "Lie tea" is an imitation made with dust and tea sweepings, starch and gums. Flour is sometimes adulterated with corn meal. The contained water in flour should not exceed 15 per cent. Alum is normally present in flour and bread to the extent of 6 to 10 grains in a 4-pound loaf. The addition of alum makes the loaf whiter and more hygroscopic and also prevents souring. Gluten meals. generally contain starch. Lard and cottonseed oil are sometimes added to skimmed milk cheese as a "filling." Fruit syrups aften contain no fruit whatever, but are made of anilin colors and flavors. Artificial honey consists of glucose, cane sugar, molasses and syrups, with dead bees introduced for effect. Maple sugar is commonly sophisticated with cane sugar, and maple syrup with glucose, cheap cane syrups and the juice of hickory bark. Dark molasses is bleached with sodium sulphite and zinc dust, the latter being removed with oxalic acid. Jams and jellies often contain glucose, gelatin, cheaper fruits, cores, parings and seeds. Preserves are made for sale with pumpkins, turnips, glucose, cheap fruits, vegetable seeds and refuse products. Milk is improved in appearance with caramel, annatto, aniline dyes and gelatin or chalk. Ice cream is sometimes made to deceive by means of poisonous dyes and flavors. Raspberry sauce is sometimes created wholly from gelatin. Vanilla extract is com. monly adulterated with tonka; also with vanillin and artificial colors and flavors. Vinegar is sophisticated with glucose and mineral acids; wines, with sulphur and plaster of Paris. Cheap wines are made largely from other fruits than the grape. Champagne has been concocted entirely from gooseberries and water. Gin is often made from a mixture of water, sugar, cinnamon, alum, capsicum, cream of tartar and a little alcohol. Hanson states that fusel oil with other adulterations will make a very fair whiskey for five cents a gallon. Acids are often added to liquors to imitate the acid reaction of mellow age. Fruits and "cider” usually consists of a weak solution of cider vinegar, flavored with rose water and sparingly sweetened. Oleomargarine is as nutritious as butter, but hardly so digestible. Lard is much adulterated with cottonseed oil, or beef stearin and excess of water. "Compound lard" may be made of maize, sesame and peanut oils. Olive oil, "imported" or otherwise, generally comes from the cottonseed. "No man is so poor but that he should be supplied with honest food." Deleterious preparations ought to be strictly prohibited by law. Adulterations and sophistications not manifestly injurious should be plainly labeled according to law, so that any who prefer them on account of the price can have them. Interstate traffic in these goods should be regulated by national laws, and the manufacture and sale of them within the state by state boards of health. EARLY STAGE OF HYPERTROPHIC RHINITIS. The mucous membrane is very spongy and bright pinkish in color. Probe pitting last but a moment. Cocaine causes marked contraction. Coakley recommends a cleansing spray of six grain of sodium bicarbonate and three grains chloride to the ounce of water. If the patient must go out of doors at once, follow cleansing with an oily spray of forty grains of menthol, fifteen grains of camphor, thirty m. of encalyptol, fifteen m. of oil of pinus pumilio and benzoinol to make two ounces. When these sprays do not completely relieve swelling, use light linear cauterization along middle of inferior turbinate with galvanocautery (cherry red heat or trichloracetic or chromic acid crystals-first cocainizing and wiping dry area to be cauterized and neutralizing excess of acid (if this is used) with sodium bicarbonate solution on a pledget of cotton. If by chance the septum has also been cauterized prevent synechiae by keeping a pledget of cotton between parts, and renewing it daily after spraying nose with salt and soda solution. Fowler's solution internally, five to ten drops t. i. d., is a useful remedy. LATER STAGE OF HYPERTROPHIC RHINITIS. The mucous membrane has become a rather pale pink and firmer. Probe pitting lasts several seconds or minutes. There is only partial contraction from a cocaine spray. Coakley directs to cauterize with the galvanocautery down to the bone at one sitting, or by repeated applications of chromic or trichloracetic acid in the same line. Remove prominent projecting parts with a cold wire snare, checking hemorrhage with very hot normal saline solution or hydrogen peroxide, or by plugging nostril with a long strip of inch-wide sterile gauze. Syringe the nasal cavity gently with a normal salt solution. THE LYING.IN ROOM. This apartment should be the sunniest and best ventilated in the house. It should have no connection with the sewer, and ought not to be too near the water closet. A rectal injection of soap-suds and water and a full bath should be given at the onset of labor, followed by the donning of clean clothing throughout. Thorough scrubbing of the genital region with antiseptic soap solution and hot water is now in order. During labor pledgets of absorbent cotton, soaked for half an hour in 1:1000 mercuric chlorid, should be used to wipe away from before backward any feces that may emerge from the anus. If leucorrhea or blenorrhea is present, the vagina should be thoroughly scrubbed in the early stage of labor with tincture of green soap, hot water and pledgets of cotton, and then be douched. with 1:2000 mercuric chlorid solution, using finally a little clear water. All water employed for douches and for washing the external parts ought to have been boiled. Hirst reports three cases of tetanus contracted from intrauterine douches of unboiled water containing two per cent of creolin. The position and presentation of the fetus can generally be determined by abdominal palpation, and vaginal examinations should be restricted as much as possible, since there is always some degree of danger from sepsis in this procedure. The accoucheur should cut his finger nails short and clean them scrupu. lously. The hands and arms should be scrubbed for ten minutes, as Furbringer recommends, with a nail brush, hot water and tincture of green soap, scrubbed again with alcohol and then immersed for at least two minutes in 1:1000 mercuric chlorid solution. The finger is now anointed with five per cent carbolized vaselin and inserted directly into the vagina, while the other hand lifts up the upper buttock as the woman lies on her side. A basin of antiseptic solution shauld be kept by the bed for frequent immersion of the hands. Forceps and other metallic implements used about the person of the woman in childbed, should be boiled in water containing a handful of baking soda for at least five minutes. The few instruments that would be injured by boiling may be sterilized for at least a half hour with a 1:1000 solution of mercuric chlorid in boiled water, or in a two per cent solution of carbolic acid The labor must be so conducted as to avert, if possible, injuries to the maternal tissues, such as perineal tears or excessive bruising by long continued pressure. In the third stage and the early puerperium great care should be taken to secure complete evacuation of the uterine cavity, and to keep the womb thoroughly contracted, thus avoiding sapremia and the absorption of germ products into the uterine sinuses and blood channels. Post-partum hemorrhages are generally due to uterine iner. tia, from local or general exhaustion. Occasionally they depend on retention of secundines, and exceptionally on lacerations. To prevent this alarming accident, Davis insists on sufficient nourishment; also chloral hydrate in ten-grain doses every three hours, or in a larger dose per rectum, and ammonium bromid, twenty grains, or trional, ten grains, in broth or soup with whiskey and hot water. Labor ought not to be allowed to drag on too long without assistance. The placenta should never be delivered in the absence of pains. The hand is simply kept above the womb till the latter empties itself and suddenly rises a couple of inches, |