chronic hypertrophic nasal catarrh, consists in the administration of balsam copaiba in doses of fifteen minims every three hours. I sometimes give this in capsules, but generally I exhibit it in emulsion. This is readily made, and can be made pleasant to the taste. I have the patient persist in this treatment for as long a period as is necessary. Often six weeks will see a complete relief and termination, but in others I have found it necessary to have the patient persist in the employment of the drug four months. Of course, the tractibility of the patient, his resisting powers, and the presence or absence of complications, and status of the morbid process when treatment is begun, will, to a large extent, determine the duration of the disease under treatment.

In the treatment of chronic atrophic catarrh our resources are such as to render a cure of the process a practical impossibility. Such cases call for such internal remedies as will tend to support the resisting powers. The antiseptic spray already spoken of will greatly aid us, in that it will relieve difficult breathing and allay the offensive breath, which often drives the patients to seclusion. It is best that these patients, when possible, should reside in a climate where there never come low temperature readings, and where humidity is seldom encountered. In conclusion, I must say that cases attended with occlusion due to exostosis, and cases presenting other complications that render them unusual can be referred most properly to the specialist. Cases not presenting complications such as referred to, can easily be treated by the family physician with great

success.

A REMONSTRANCE.

BY C. F. NICHOLS, M. D., Boston, Mass.

To the Editor of THE MEDICAL BRIEF:

IN THE MEDICAL BRIEF for November, Dr. J. A. Houser writes, page 869: "It is said that Wendell Phillips' wife sought him in marriage that she might have the glory of bearing a child for the chief champion of human liberty; but she learned later that she had wedded a great soul, who had transmuted his animal life into the beatific glory of the mind, and had none left to transmit to another."

Dr. Houser's general subject, "Race Suicide," is so important, and his paper so interesting, that the above assumedly illustrative statement instantly offers to the reader a striking picture of a relation somewhat dissatisfied, or possibly strained, between those happy and absolutely satisfied souls.

I am aware that such gossip and guesses were called out in the community by Mrs. Phillips' admiration for her husband, with his limitless.

response; yet no hypothesis could have had foundation more unfounded and absurd.

The writer, a connection by marriage, and Mrs. Phillips' sole medical attendant for several years, consultant with Dr. Thayer in Mr. Phillips' ailments, which terminated in his death by angina, was close to their life, physical and psychic. I know that, while there was love of children so strong that it led to child-adoption, there was neither ambition nor conscious plan on part of maid or wife to contract or pursue marriage with the especial object of child-bearing. "He wedded an invalid, and because of his wife's ill-health Mr. Phillips was, from the start, the tender nurse." Through claimed heredity, a brother of Mr. Phillips remained bedridden thirty years with locomotor ataxia.

The whole initiative and prolonged fellowship of their union was their mutual devotion to the Abolition Cause. Unconsciously to each, on that day of the "Garrison Mob," October 21, 1835, Ann Terry Green and the "stripling lawyer" showed simultaneous interest in that movement; Miss Green, as a member of a club of ladies in sympathy with Mr. Garrison's effort, passing below Mr. Phillips' office window, from which he saw the mob.

That Ann Phillips was absolutely unselfish, despite constant dependence on her husband's personal devotion, was evidenced repeatedly when, from the little chamber with its window-pane broken by an earlier mob, she drove him, again and again, from her sick bed to face unquestionable danger of injury or death.

Cultured, original and productive in thought, Mrs. Phillips was in much her husband's coequal. "My wife has always preceded me in the adoption of the causes I have advocated."

When silver-haired, as "silver-tongued," Mr. Phillips sprang upon a passing horse car, to gain the extra moment of transit, a block from Boylston street to Common street, he was always hastening to a companionship into which there entered no disappointment, nor the "shadow of turning."

"PARC MONCEAU OF THE UNIVERSITY" is the title given by M. Liard, Vice-Rector of the University of Paris, to his new scheme for a Palace of Science, officially known as "The New Sorbonne." The land available, some twenty-three thousand square yards, is bounded by the rues GayLussac, St. Jacques, and Ulm (in this latter street stands Pasteur's first laboratory). A chemical institute, the Oceanographic Institute founded by the liberality of the Prince of Monaco, radiographic and archæological services, etc., will form a vast square, in the center of which will be a handsome garden. The cost, £200,000, will be covered by subscriptions from the State, the city, and the "Friends of the University" Society.[The Chemist and Druggist, London, March, 1908.]

CORRESPONDENCE.

Editor MEDICAL BRIEF:

ERIE, PA., March 4, 1908.

Passed Assistant Surgeon H. S. Mathewson, in his report for January 31, 1908, as represented in THE BRIEF for March, says:

France and the United States are at present using a "strain" developed from

a case of cow-pox occurring in Beaugency, France, in 1871.

There is also in use with us a “strain” derived from a case of cow-pox occurring in Cohasset, Mass., in 1881. These strains are maintained by transferrence from calf to calf.

Professor James McFarland, Department of Pathology, Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia, Pa., in the issue for October, 1906, of the Monthly Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine, says:

The relation of vaccinia to small-pox seems entirely clear. Vaccination is variola of the cow. The virus, virulent in man, is attenuated in the cow.

Which is it? I hope your readers will elucidate.

Yours truly,

J. W. SEIP, M. D.

UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE-HOSPITAL SERVICE, OFFICE OF MEDICAL OFFICER IN COMMAND.

PORT OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, March 11, 1908.

The Editor THE MEDICAL BRIEF, St. Louis, Mo.:

SIR-Your letter of the 6th instant received, transmitting copy of Dr. Seip's inquiry as to the identity of cow-pox and small-pox. In reply, I would state that the identity of these diseases is, I believe, quite generally admitted, the proof for the belief being based on the experimental production of cow-pox in the cow by inoculation with material taken from the pustules of small-pox in man. The "strains" of vaccine now in use, however, as far as I know, have been derived from cow-pox occurring naturally, and not artificially produced.

Respectfully,

H. S. MATHEWSON.

CURRENT MEDICAL LITERATURE.

Metaplasia of Bladder Epithelia.

Renichuro Ikeda (Zeitschrift fuer Urologie, Bd. I, 5 Heft, 1907) points out that metaplasia of the bladder epithelial cells is met with in chronic cystitis, and can readily be seen in all primary and secondary chronic cases. The writer made out the presence of glycogen in his microscopic studies, an incident not hitherto noted by other observers.

Kidney Operations on Patients with but One Kidney.

Nicolich (Zeitschrift fuer Urologie, Bd. 1, 5 Heft, 1907) reported four cases in which one kidney was diseased, where the other had either previously been extirpated or had become functionless through disease. These cases were reported to lay emphasis upon the need of determination of the condition of the "other" kidney when operating upon a diseased kidney.

The Pretuberculous.

Bernheim and Dieupart (Zeitschrift fuer Tuberkul. Bd. 11, Heft 5) point out a condition which they call "pretuberculous," i. e., a state of health where there is a predisposition to the infection of tuberculosis through alcoholic indulgence, syphilis, reconvalescence, anæmia, etc., but where infection with tuberculosis has not yet taken place. It is important to recognize this condition in individuals, in order that they may be made resistant to the tubercular infection by appropriate measures directed to raising their health to the normal.

Rigor Mortis in the Stillborn.

C. H. Watts Parkinson (British Medical Journal, February 8, 1908) calls attention to the scantiness of the literature on the question of the presence of rigor mortis in new-born children, as indicative of the child having breathed, i. e., that it was legally alive. He mentions a few cases in his thirty-five years' experience as an English coroner, and makes these concluding statements:

I. Rigor mortis may set in, under certain conditions, before labor, and may pass off while the child is still in utero, and, possibly, may delay the birth in these cases until it passes away.

2. Rigor mortis may set in when the child dies during labor, and may either be complete before or may go on to completeness after birth, and in these cases increases the difficulties of expulsion.

3. A child may die during labor and be expelled before rigor mortis can set in, but rigor mortis may supervene after birth, more or less completely.

4. The attitude produced by rigor mortis in stillborn children differs from that produced by cadaveric rigidity under ordinary circumstances, and by its character enables an opinion to be given that the child had no separate existence, for in every such case the limbs and body become drawn into the position in which it normally lies in the woman's womb.

His two points, therefore, are first, that rigor mortis is not a sign of live birth; second, that the character of the rigor mortis enables one to decide whether or not the child was stillborn.

The Removal of Foreign Bodies from the Food and Air Passages. D. R. Patterson, M. D., M. R. C. P., Honorary Surgeon for Diseases of the Ear and Throat, Royal Seamen's Hospital, Cardiff (British Medical Journal, February 8, 1908), discusses the methods of removing foreign bodies from the air and food passages, recording two interesting cases of this kind. He maintains that extraction of the foreign body should be practiced as early as possible, and more especially is this true of soft bodies, such as beans, etc., which swell and are prone to start septic trouble in the lung. He says that articles in our journals still advocate the old method of performing tracheotomy, but he shows how readily bronchoscopy and œsophagoscopy can be practised without such cutting operations. With tracheotomy, the advocates believe that the object can be coughed up, and failing in that, they must confess that one has to grope in the dark with a forceps or wire loop. The direct method points the way that best carries out surgical principles; details of the first case will illustrate this point. A young sailor, while eating nuts when playing "leap-frog," inspired a piece of the nutshell. When seen twelve hours later, he had difficulty in breathing and coarse ronchi were heard over larger vessels. He was chloroformed, the upper part of the respiratory tract cocainized, a Killian tube nine mm. in diameter, was inserted through the larynx into the trachea, which was injected and contained much frothy mucus. This was removed by the salivary pump, and the lower respiratory tract cocainized. The tube was passed down the right bronchus, which was found empty. The left bronchus was blocked up by a reddish mass. Illumination was insufficient, as the lamp of the tube was worn out. The search was then suspended until the following day, when chloroform was given with the use of a new lamp in the Killian tube. The mass in the left bronchus was found