John M. Lee, former head of the Lee Hospital, filed in the Surrogate's Court. The net estate, valued at $92,850, is divided among the widow and two daughters.

The health of Great Britain is growing steadily better, according to Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the Ministry of Health. The week-end habit of enjoyment of the seaside and sea bathing, cheap excursions, extended travel, annual holidays and what is called the emancipation of women are having an enormous effect on personal and public health. Other things making for improvement in public health are an increase in sobriety, more sensible eating, more windows, more tooth brushes and greater simplicity in dress.

Dr. Rocha Lima, who has been professor of tropical diseases at the University of Hamburg for some time, has returned to his former position as chief of the Brazilian institute of microbiology; he resumes his connection with the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

The Folha Medica states that the three medical societies of Rio de Janeiro held a joint meeting to welcome Dr. Miguel Couto, president of the Academia de Medicina, from his trip abroad.

The Hamburg medical faculty recently conferred a gold medal on Dr. J. A. Beruti, professor of obstetrics, University of Buenos Aires, for research in his specialty.

Construction of a new hospital for the benefit of the Indians on the Klamath Reservation, at Klamath, Ore., has commenced and will be pushed to a rapid completion, it was announced at the Interior Department. It will cost approximately $25,000. A contract has already been let for the building. which is expected to be finished within the next few months. The bed capacity will be sufficient to care for fifty patients. At present there are 1,241 Indians on the Klamath Reservation. Plans for the building of an addition to the present Indian hospital on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana have also been completed by the Indian Bureau. The present hospital has a capacity of twelve patients and the addition will increase the number of beds to forty-four. Work has already started on the addition and its cost will amount to $16,000. The number of Indians on the Fort Peck Reservation is now 2,273.

Ernest P. Bicknell, Vice-Chairman of the American Red Cross, in charge of foreign operations, has been named Vice-Chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies, succeeding Sir Claude Hill, who recently resigned. He will have headquarters in Paris.

An epidemic of malaria has been sweeping Basra, Iraq. Asia. Medical authorities say 80 per cent. of the population are stricken. Free issues of quinin are made to workers in government departments, school children and the poorer classes. Mosquitoes flourish in the marshes formed by floods.

The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research announces that from now on there will be two separate Simmons' fellowships at the institute; one of them will continue research on the

physiologic and psychologic factors of sleep under the supervision of Harry M. Johnson, Ph. D., and the other by Thomas H. Swan, Ph. D.

The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia has awarded the Howard N. Potts gold medal for 1926 to William D. Coolidge, Ph. D., inventor of the roentgen-ray tube which bears his name, now assistant director, research laboratory, General Electric Company. The medal will be awarded October 20 by the institute, "in consideration of the originality and ingenuity shown in the development of a vacuum tube that has simplified and revolutionized the production of x-rays." Dr. Coolidge will then

present a paper on his new cathode ray tube.

At a banquet given by the Palm Beach Medical Society, July 22, a medical society representing the twenty-first judicial district was organized, and Dr. Hady C. McDermid, Okeechobee, was elected president; Dr. James W. Bishop, Alachua, vice-president, and Dr. Grover C. Hardie, Fort Pierce, secretary. Among the speakers was Dr. H. Mason Smith, Tampa, president of the Florida State Medical Association.

Symptoms of influenza have been found in an epidemic that has broken out in American Samoa, Captain H. F. Bryan, governor of the island group, has reported to the Navy Department. The disease started August 12. No deaths have occurred, but request has been made for permission to exceed medical appropriations to combat it. Fifty members of the naval personnel are affected, and the station has been quarantined. The Navy Department believes the medical staff and nurses at Tutuila will be able to control the situation.

The state board of health conducted in June a short post-graduate course in Jacksonville, Fla., for the study of venereal diseases in cooperation with the U. S. Public Health Service and the American Social Hygiene Association.

Spinal meningitis, which made its appearance recently at Tirschtiegel, along the Polish corridor, and caused fifteen deaths, now has broken out in the Catholic Orphans' Home in Hanover. Five died and twenty-four more are afflicted. The city of Hanover reports two additional cases. Spandau, near Berlin, reports one new case. It is not known how the contagion is carried. Mosquitoes were first blamed, but Hanover doctors contend drinking water contains the germs. Orders have been issued to boil all water before using.

Improved methods of treating erysipelas, some acute heart troubles, pneumonia, whooping cough and a few other diseases have been made possible, it is announced, owing to a discovery by Sir Thomas Horder and Dr. S. N. Ferry, of Detroit. Their joint efforts have produced a new process of isolating bacterial antidotes. As the germs carry in themselves not only the disease-producing poison, but their antidote, it is now possible to get the antidotes without any poisonous properties. Cultures of germs were washed in a saline bath and put into a centrifugal machine which threw out the bacteria, leaving the liquid containing the antidotes.

A silver medal has been presented to the American Red Cross by the Belgian Red Cross

as a token of apppreciation for aid extended victims of the recent floods in that country. P. Nolf, president of the Belgian society, in his letter of presentation to Chairman John Barton Payne, of the American organization, assured him that his countrymen had been "much moved by the spontaneous intervention of the American Red Cross," and that its gift of $5,000 "had a most beneficial effect upon the national subscription."

"Smoking isn't doing women any good; it enlarges their vocal cords, makes their voices harsh and guttural, instead of soft and sweet, and creates a general catarrhal condition," said Dr. Franz Fremel, Austrian ear, nose and throat specialist, at Atlantic City, N. J. Dr. Fremel and Dr. Gustav Guist, eye specialist of Vienna, were spending a few days there. Fremel declared that the number of persons suffering from throat infections was increasing, due largely to dust in the air. The condition was especially noticeable in the cities, he declared. Next to dust, he said, smoking caused the most throat trouble.

Dr.

Dr. James Glover, the London physician who made legal and medical history by saying that he was suffering from an overdose of insulin when accused of being drunk in an automobile charge, has died of diabetes in Spain. Though supported by the evidence of four doctors, Dr. Glover's plea was unsuccessful. He was found guilty by a London magistrate and fined $100, with $50 costs, for being drunk, and $50 for dangerous driving, in addition to which he was disqualified from operating a car for a year. Ye gods! His death from the disease for which insulin is the only palliative comes as a mordant comment on the sentence. Such a law! Dr. Glover had been greatly upset by the conviction, which is said to have had a serious effect on his health. He had given notice of appeal and gone to Spain to recuperate, but the disease grew worse.

The Los Angeles Children's Hospital recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Of the 2,370 children cared for in the last year, 1,053 were charity patients. The contract has been let for the erection of the new $1,000.000 Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles.

Dr. Charles H. Farmer left the service of the state board of health as medical officer for the Jacksonville, Fla., district, recently, to engage in practice at Lakeland.

Dr. Elliott M. Hendricks, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been appointed superintendent of the Edwards Hospital. to succeed Dr. Russell R. Hippensteel, who has returned to Indianapolis.

Dr. Wyman W. Harden has been appointed commissioner of health of St. Petersburg, Fla., to succeed Dr. Ray H. Davies.

The first serious scarlet fever epidemic Poland has had since 1921 has broken out within the last week and 500 virulent cases are reported. Scanty medical supplies are being rushed to the isolation centers. Twenty new cases have alarmed the authorities, who are not prepared to cope with such a situation.

With funds gathered in a drive covering the entire county, a $5,000 radio set was bought and installed in Grasslands Hospital. There is a head set for every patient, ten of whom are veterans suffering from tuberculosis.

The Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, East Lansing, will offer this fall a four-year college course for the training of laboratory experts, bacteriologists, serologists, chemists and pathologists. The course is designed to give the student, also, a liberal education, and non-medical studies may be elected to a considerable extent. The announcement states that Michigan State College is prepared to train students in the sciences that may assist the medical profession in their effort to cure and prevent disease; that there is being constructed now a chemical laboratory, comparing favorably with the laboratory of bacteriology previously completed. Co-operation has been established with the Michigan Board of Health laboratories. The new course has been approved by the Michigan State Medical Society.

The first of the permanent monuments to be erected in the Hall of Fame in the Parliament Buildings a memorial to Canada's Nursing Sisterhood-was erected. Names of members of the United States Army Nurse Corps are listed on the memorial with Canadian and British nurses who lost their lives in the great war, as follows: Florence B. Graham, Marion L. Overend, Kathleen E. Symes, Anna L. Walker, Anna K. Welsh and Lydia V. Whiteside.

The trustees of the University of Pennsylvania and the Diagnostic Hospital of Philadelphia have filed a petition in common pleas court for permission to merge the hospital with the graduate school of medicine of the University. The agreement sets forth, it is reported, that Dr. Henry B. Ingle, of the Diagnostic Hospital staff, shall be the first director of the diagnostic clinic of the graduate school of medicine, and that the university shall estabIlish the clinic within a year from the date of occupancy of the hospital building soon to be erected at Nineteenth and Lombard streets. for which a permit was granted by the Bureau of Building Inspection, July 27. The agreement provides, also, that the dean of the graduate school of medicine, George H. Meeker, Ph. D., and Dr. Ingle, the director of the clinic, shall endeavor to arrange so that other members of the staff of the Diagnostic Hospital may assist in the work of the graduate school. It is further agreed that all assets of the hospital shall be transferred in fee simple to the university to be held as a separate trust fund to be known as "The Endowment Fund of the Diagnostic Hospital," to be invested and the income to be used for the general purposes of hospitals.

The action of the Turkish authorities in closing the American baby home at Stambulon on the grounds that it lacks a permit is strongly deprecated in American circles at Constantinople. The home was established four years ago and only Turkish babies to the number of twenty-five at one time are admitted. The home is under the patronage of Admiral Bristol, United States diplomatic representative, and is maintained by charitable institutions. The Turkish action is specially regretted, as it is felt it will afford encouragement to antiTurkish elements in the United States to carry on an active campaign against ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS

Short articles of practical help to the profession are solicited for this department. We will be glad to receive from our readers at any time anything they have for publication. Send us the papers you read at your medical society meetings. Articles to be accepted must be contributed to this journal only. The editors, of course, are not responsible for views expressed by contributors. Copy should be received on or before the fifteenth of the month for publication in the issue for the next month. We decline responsibility for the safety of unused manuscript. It can usually be returned if request and postage for return are received with manuscript; but we cannot agree to always do so.

Oertainly 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 anything else. -RUSKIN.

I

By OSCAR BAER, M. D.,
Niagara Falls, N. Y.

A Method Suggested, and a Plea for
Statistics.

F it were possible by some means to prevent gonorrheal urethritis in the male effectually, what effect would such a discovery have on the morals of society? Would it be an important factor in the upkeep and promotion of prostitution? Would it influence our young men to be less hesitant in satisfying their sexual appetites and so stand to suffer some of the other consequences referable to illicit and promiscuous relationships?

There are those who say that it is more important to teach young men to avoid contamination rather than to master the best means of remedying it. However, we know that the effects of educative efforts and actions are slow at the best, and in the face of statistics which quote 80% of men having been infected with gonorrhea, it probably is not out of place at least to consider a method for the prevention of gonorrheal urethritis in the male.

Gonorrheal urethritis in the male depends for its possibility upon the histologic structure of the mucous membrane of the anterior portion of the urethra

1 Read at the regular meeting of the Niagara County Medical Society, May 11, 1926.

(e. g., the fossa navicularis) and the mucous membrane at the meatus. A deposit of some discharge or secretion infected with the gonococcus upon the mucous membrane of this region, which is made up of stratified pavement epithelium, should theoretically be harmless. Infection here is actually retarded. We find mucous glands only in the roof of

the fossa navicularis-e. g., in the valve of the navicular fossa (Guerin's fold). However, it seems reasonable to assume that any such deposit will find its resting place on the floor rather than on the valve or roof of the fossa.

Ordinarily the gonococci first multiply between and secondarily within the stratified epithelium of the navicular fossa, and hardly ever do they penetrate

accomplish this, and is a very simple procedure:

Local anesthesia-4% novocain or ethyl chlorid spray may be used. I prefer the latter. With a sharp scalpel or scissors make an incision through the meatus. The plane of the incision when completed should represent a triangle at the meatus, extending into the urethra, the base of this triangle externally representing a line from 6 o'clock of the original opening downward for about 5 millimeters. The other two sides of the triangle should meet each other about 8 millimeters back on the floor of the fossa navicularis. Persistent bleeding is easily controlled by pressure. An effort must be made to keep the opening open during the healing process. The patient himself is instructed to pull apart the two surfaces every time he urinates. Also, meatotomy sounds must be passed at first daily for about a week, and then a few times at weekly intervals.

My statistics to substantiate the above claim are, indeed, very meager. A great number of individuals must be experimented with in order to establish statistics which will prove valuable. Such vast material is not available in the private practice of any one physician.

If you gentlemen are at all interested, I would be pleased to accept from you such data as you are able to collect for me, so that I may be able to produce statistics which might prove whether these contentions are right or wrong. If right, the benefits to humanity derived therefrom would be immeasurable. Meatotomization of all male newborn might well become a law, and so their future would be insured against Neisserian infection. Every man in the army or navy could be, through this simple procedure, kept free from gonorrhea. Education through definite and proper channels would tempt every young man in civil life to submit to a meatotomy to keep healthy and to prevent his wife from being infected. It would mean no more blind children due to gonorrheal infection -no more misery and misfortune from that source eventually.

Case 1-A few years ago there came into my office a young man about 18 years of age who gave me the following history: About five days after promiscuous intercourse there developed near the meatus urinarius a small elevation which I translated according to his description to resemble a papule. He proceeded in his

anxiety to use carbolic acid in order to burn it off. I treated the burn. It left a contracted meatus. I performed meatotomy. About one year later I saw him again, when he told me that he and two of his chums had been out with the same girl, and that both his friends had gonorrhea; that so far he was all right; could he do anything to prevent it? He did not get infected.

Case 2.-I had treated a man 28 years of age for chronic gonorrhea, and in order to pass the larger sounds had to perform meatotomy. One day he came into my office immediately after a young lady, whom I was treating for acute gonorrhea, was ushered out. He told me that a few nights before he had been out with her. He was not infected.

Case 3-Was out with a group of boys, several of whom became infected by the same woman. He himself had a meatotomy during the treatment of chronic gonorrhea two years prior, and did not get infected now.

These were three striking cases which brought to my mind the idea that it might be possible by the reconstruction of the floor of the anterior portion of the urethea and meatus to prevent gonorrheal infection in the male. 3903 Lewiston Road.

A

Strangulated Hernia.

BY OLIVER F. SHEARER, M. D., Downs, Kansas.

BOUT 2 p. m. on a cold night, in the winter of 1892, there was a loud rapping on my office door.

Responding to the alarm, I was told that two men and a buggy were waiting outside to take me six miles into the country to see a man who had a rupture which was out of the abdomen and would not go back. I quickly realized that what I was up against was a case of strangulated hernia.

Hastily dressing and getting inside my heavy overcoat, I caught up my buggy satchel and crowded into the seat between

the two men. After a brisk drive we arrived at the home of the patient, where I found a man 60 years of age, who gave the following history:

For many years he had been the victim of a chronic inguinal hernia, which he kept in place by means of a truss.

On the evening previous when he removed the truss to go to bed, the hernia came down and refused to go back. Calling a doctor from another town, prolonged effort was made to reduce the hernia, without success.

The physician, no doubt, realizing that he was face to face with one of the most serious emergencies of medical practice, and not having the ability to cope with it, decided to give up the case. He told the man to call some other doctor, and withdrew.

Giving the patient an anesthetic, I made gentle taxis for about 10 minutes, but while some of the hernial protrusion seemed to go back into the abdomen, the result was not satisfactory. Giving him a mild anodyne and putting a pressure pad over the hernial tumor, and elevating the hips, I withdrew, hoping that maybe rest and the relaxation of the drugs might cause the gut to slip back into the abdominal cavity.

Giving directions to notify me in the morning as to the patient's condition I was driven back home, with my mind quietly considering the matter of a surgical operation, if the man's life was to be saved.

Not hearing from him in the morning led me to think and hope that maybe the best thing had happened, and the hernia had slipped up into the abdominal cavity. This hope, however was rudely dispelled when about 4 o'clock in the afternoon the patient's son-in-law came in and reported that the man was no better.

I immediately and strongly told him that nothing but an operation, done just as quickly as possible, would save his father-in-law from a terrible death.

After some hesitation, he acquiesced, and hooking up my horse and buggy, and getting a professional colleague to go along and assist, a hurried packing up of the needfuls for the ordeal was made, and we were on the way.

Arriving at the house, we began to make preparations to save the man's life with all the expedition that we could, for we realized that time was precious and night and failing light were coming on.

My colleague anesthetized the patient, and with the light of an old smoky lamp and an old lantern, I proceeded to do the operation of herniotomy.

In the winter of 1882 I had had a splendid training for this operation in connection with a case of strangulated hernia at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, operated on by that grand old surgeon and grand old man, Dr. William