ROCHESTER STERILIZING OUTFIT AN INSTRUMENT A WATER STER- A DRESSING STERILIZER. The three great sterilizing necessities in one apparatus. Additional Water Sterilizer if All fitted to a neat, Equipped with gas, burner under each for Primus Oil Stoves. Also The fumes of gas can never enter Catalog at your dealers, WILMOT CASTLE CO., 606 St. Paul Street, such cases that come to autopsy is fully discussed. The work upon the Islands of Langerhans is thoroughly detailed, with the observations of Opie and others who have paid special attention to the pancreas at autopsy. The work contains 546 pages-quite a large work for the consideration of but one anatomical structure, yet the hitherto meager literature upon this organ certainly demands such a wide discussion. We can recommend it to all to whom a study of internal medicine appeals. A TEXT-BOOK OF MINOR SURGERY. By This work goes over methodically the numerous procedures and operation in minor surgery. A good point in the work is the photographic illustrations of disease conditions, as well as illustrations of the instruments needed in operations like tonsillotomy, etc. Minor surgical technique is described in full, asepsis, the operating room, preparation of the hands, the patient, solutions, anesthesia, treatment of the wound, control of hemorrhage, drainage, etc. The writer claims that it makes but little difference whether a patient comes with a full meal in his stomach to take a general anesthetic, claiming that the danger of vomiting from anesthesia is greatly "exaggerated." He says. "aspiration pneumonia ed not be greatly feared, and that if the patient vomits, the material should be engravings from original drawings SAL HEPATICA and photographs. D. Appleton & Company: New York and London, 1908. Price, $5.00. There is undoubtedly a field for writing upon minor surgery, for it is minor surgery that most surgeons are called upon to daily practice; it is the lot of but a limited few to do major operating. As the author remarks, the field of minor surgery is neglected, and what wonder it is, then, that the physician, untaught and unread in minor surgery, fails to achieve good results, and that more bad surgery is performed upon the hand than upon the organs of the abdomen? The original efferves- Write for free samples. given free exit and his mouth wiped out; that is all." We wish to challenge this statement sharply and determinedly, and trust that the readers of the book will also challenge it, and insist in every possible way upon operating upon patients with empty stomachs. There is always danger in the vomiting of food during general anesthesia. If only one case occurred in one thousand operations, the danger would be sufficiently great to warrant one in avoiding it. Beyond this one statement, we can heartily endorse the book in its entirety. Important Notice. On January 23, 1908, the private mail box of the American Thermo-Ware Co.. of New York, was broken into and mail stolen. The company wishes those who have been in correspondence with them to send copies of their letters. Facts vs. Fancies. You can prescribe bichloride, carbolic, permanganate, hydrastis, tannin, zinc or lead, for leucorrhea or gonorrhea, if you want to, but you can't get any more positive results, effects quicker but harmless, no matter what you use, than Tyree's Anticeptic Powder will give you. It comes as near absolute perfection as material and skill can make it. Nothing can be put into a preparation for inflammation of the vagina and cervix to make it more desirable and satisfactory than is found in this one. You get the best antiseptic astringent and detergent known, all in one so modified by proportion and treatment that their individual objections have been eliminated. The bland, gentle and quick effect of this powder is due in part to the selection of chemical agents as near non-corrosive in their natures as possible, treating them by a process of trituration by which a degree of harmless activity is acquired almost equalling that of the more powerful corrosive agent. Actual clinical tests have proven this statement to be absolutely correct in more than two thousand cases. Being cheap, cleansing, harmless, and very soluble, it can be used in such quantities as to insure more positive results than could be expected from an agent which must be used with precaution. A trial package will be mailed free of charge to physicians if they will send their name and address to J. S. Tyree, Chemist, Washington, D. Č. Puberal Anemia. It is a commonly accepted belief that chlorosis is a disease of the female sex, and to these during the child-bearing period. The fact has been overlooked that there is a disease condition of the blood affecting both sexes which occurs at puberty, and may be designated "puberal anemia." The condition is insidious in its onset, and is characterized by pallor or bloodless appearance quite different from the greenish hue of chlorosis. Examination of the blood shows a greater or less decrease of hemoglobin, but unlike chlorosis, the red cells and total quantity of the blood are lowered very markedly. The specific gravity is raised in puberal anemia, but lowered in chlorosis. In puberal anemia, the pulse is invariably feeble and empty, while in chlorosis it is often dull, and even of excessive pressure. The paramount need in this condition is to stimulate hematopoiesis, and for immediate effect in this direction PeptoMangan (Gude), has been found of great value. At the same time, the best of food, outdoor life and general good hygiene is recommended. Instructor in Radiography and Radiotherapy at Cornell University Medical College; Lecturer in Electro-therapeutic Association, Etc. [Written for the MEDICAL BRIEF.] Three conditions confront us in the use of any agent we wish to use therapeutically. First, it is well to understand the physical properties of the agent, for this usually leads to the second, or the physiological capabilities of the same; while a knowledge of the two will assist us in applying it to pathologic states. What is the X-ray? Its discovery is now history. To say that it is electricity in some form is simply begging the question. We must know, then, what electricity is before we can understand the physical properties. of the X-ray. If we come right down to the last and final division of all that surrounds us, the world, the stars-in fact, the entire universe-we are compelled to recognize three, and no more than three entities. These three physical entities are: Matter, Ether and Energy. Each one of these three possesses special properties whereby they essentially differ from each other, yet each one is directly influenced by the presence of the other. Thus, all matter has weight and fills space. Ether is that elusive substance that seems to exist principally in a negative form, yet it is everywhere, and is absolutely essential. We can not see, hear, taste, smell, nor feel it; nevertheless, we can, by many experiments, prove its existence. Without the ether there could be no waves or radiations of light and heat from the sun. The ninety-three millions of miles from the sun to us must be filled with something; nature abhors a vacuum, and there is no such thing as emptiness. Energy is that power which changes the state of motion of all bodies. Just as there is no emptiness, so there is no such thing as rest. The very particles of a solid piece of steel are in a state of perpetual, unremitting quiver. This motion is vibration; the cause or the power that continues or changes this vibration is energy. * Read before the Medical Society of the Borough of Bronx, January 8, 1908. We started out to define electricity; shall we say electricity is matter? No, it does not possess weight, neither does it occupy space. Yet electricity can not manifest itself without matter, for something must be electrified. Is electricity ether? No, because electricity may be manifested to our senses, and is tangible; but electricity requires the ether, for it is only the ether that occupies all intermolecular space that conducts electricity. Ether, therefore, is not electricity, but essential to it. Is electricity energy? No, since energy is possessed by all bodies, and only under certain conditions is electricity manifested. We may have energy without electricity, but not electricity without energy. Matter, We have thus reduced the entire universe to three terms: Ether and Energy. It was shown that not one could, by itself, and without the other, exist. In reality these three entities are so closely interwoven with each other that they really become one, and this one, whatever that may be, is necessary for the existence and manifestation of a certain condition we call electricity. Electricity is essentially vibration; the rate and magnitude of this vibration is fixed by certain physical laws of which we are more or less con versant. Electricity, ordinarily, travels at the rate of two hundred and ninety thousand miles per second, with a certain range of wave length. When a current of a sufficiently high tension or pressure traverses a glass sphere from which all the air that can be removed, has been removed, the waves, or oscillations, become shorter, but increase in number enormously. The waves finally become so small that ordinary substances offer little or no resistance to the vibrations, and they are, therefore, capable of passing through various substances and becoming manifest again after such passage. This phase of an electric current, on account of its similarity to a ray of light, has been called X-ray. X-ray, because it acted like a ray of light, and yet would not obey the ordinary light rays. The X-ray can not be deflected, nor refracted, nor bent from its course by a magnet, but through many substances passes as light does through glass. The X-ray is invisible, the same as electricity; no human eye has ever seen the X-ray, but the effects of the X-ray may be studied in detail. So much, then, for the purely physical properties of the X-ray. It has been said that all things are in a constant state of motion, or, rather, vibration. It naturally follows that the smaller the various particles of any substance, the greater should be its rate of vibration. The ether, no doubt, possesses the smallest of all particles, and the vibration of the ether particles is electricity. If the string of a violin be caused to vibrate in a room where there is a piano, every string in the piano of the same pitch will vibrate in sympathy with the violin string. Not only that, but every string possessing octaves below and above it will also vibrate if the initial vibration is strong enough, and the piano strings in harmony with it. Again, if two or more rates of vibration exist at the same time, the stronger will destroy the weaker. In nature there is no such thing as discord; all and everything is harmony. Each and every manifestation of life depends upon certain rates of vibration. The cells composing the organs of Cortie in our ears respond or vibrate in sympathy with all rates between eighteen per second up to forty thousand per second. The cells of Cortie can not respond to vibrations, though they may be in harmony after the rate of forty thousand. The rods and cones of our eyes are capable of responding to vibrations. when they reach four hundred thousand billion to seven hundred thousand per second. We recognize these rates as light and the various colors. There is much food for speculation in the thought that there exist sound-waves that no ear can hear, and color waves of light that no eye can see. The sum and substance of all this is that every single cell in our body is in a continuous state of vibration; more than that, it is harmonious vibration. The cell, as we know, is a complex arrangement of a cell membrane, protoplasm, nucleus and nucleolus. All these must be in harmony, and remain in harmony with each other and their neighboring cells. The very moment that discord or inharmony is caused to exist, that moment disease begins, and death of the part follows. The X-ray evidently possesses a rate of vibration far in excess of seven hundred thousand billions per second, because our optic mechanism is unable to respond to it. When the cells of our body are brought under the influence of X-ray vibrations, the cells either vibrate in sympathy, and so become actuated to a greater activity; hence we produce stimulation in the part, or the vibrations of component parts of a cell may be arrested, their vibration may cease, and so we cause inhibition. Should this arrested motion last too long discord would ensue, with the unavoidable alternative of death of the part. We have, then, three distinct effects from the X-ray, viz.: Stimulation, inhibition and destruction. These effects are not sharply defined; a large dose of stimulation by over-stimulation causes inhibition; a large dose of inhibitory effect would cause disintegration and death. It is not, then, the X-ray, but rather the way in which the various parts of the body respond to the X-ray that furnishes us with these varying results. It, therefore, depends entirely upon the state of the tissue at the time of exposure. This property of the X-ray to cause disintegration of tissue is due to the ionizing effect. So much, then, for the physiological properties of the X-ray. X-ray therapeutics, like all therapeutic measures, are only useful when applied to a pathological process. |