"The physician's highest and only calling is to restore health to the sick, which is called Healing."

"The highest aim of healing is the speedy, gentle and permanent restitution of health, or alleviation and obliteration of disease in its entire extent, in the shortest, most reliable and safest manner, according to clearly intelligible reasons. The italics are my own, for though Hahnemann later, in his appendix to the Organon, discountenances the formation of theories, almost as a rebellion against the mysterious ways of Divine Providence, yet I believe that we have here, in his own words, authority to demand from Nature the secret laws which govern the vital processes of the wonderful human organism and so to understand and formulate them as to be able the better to readjust disturbed. relations and restore the harmony of health.

THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS*

BY PROF. J. R. Buck, M. D.

Cincinnati, O.

A T the present stage of the science of man the vortex of thought, or the storm-center of investigation may be expressed in one word, and that word is Consciousness. Consciousness is the primal endowment, the basic attribute of man. This fact has either been largely overlooked or wholly underestimated up to the present time. Few persons are really able to dig to the foundations, begin at the beginning and to think clearly, logically and conscientiously on any subject. Hence arises confusion and contradictory results. If, however, one is able by introspection to examine the working of his own mind, to observe the whole process of thought and feeling, will and desire, and so to determine the order and relations of the various so-called faculties of his own being, he will be compelled to assign to consciousness the first place. Without consciousness there is no thought, no action; nothing.

On the one side man is complex, made up of many parts; diverse with seeming differentiations, discords and antagonisms in body and mind. On the other side man is a unit: his con

* Read before the Miami Valley Hom. Med. Socy.

sciousness is one. While consciousness is the theatre in which are contained and displayed all conditions of thought and feeling, and the impress of all actions, yet consciousness itself never changes. Here in consciousness lies the persistent self-identity of man. Consciousness is to the whole range and round of experience of man what space is to universal nature. It is the allcontainer, but what it is in itself we do not know.

The general speculations and investigations of physical science at the present time are deeply concerned with the Ether of space and the primordial atoms. The vortex-ring theory suggested by Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin and others imagines the ether to be one imponderable continuous continuous substance, without friction, and the atoms to be mere rings or vortices in this perfect fluid or substance, and differing from the ether only as to the motion of the rings. Thus the ether may be said not to fill space, space being one theory and ether another, but the ether and space are one and the same, indistinguishable and inseparable. The primordial atom is thus a vortex-ring of ether, in the ether. Hence science has worked back to substance and motion, to ether and atoms as the matrix of matter, force, law, etc., of the physical universe. Helmholtz worked out the mathematical theorem involved in this vortex-ring theory, and since then it has been steadily gaining credence among the most advanced scientists. Sir Isaac Newton spoke of the ether as Sensorium Dei, the organ of divine consciousness. It may be said in passing that science has thus formulated a new Pantheism, scientific and philosophical to the last degree. Time will not permit nor would this occasion justify the elaboration of this cosmic theorem and its relations to the nature of man. It may be said in passing that this theory which on the physical side explains the genesis of matter, movement, law and order on the physical side of the equation, recognizes Divine intelligence and universal consciousness and universal life on the metaphysical or spiritual side.

Omitting many links in the chain of sequence and gradations by which the individual merges from and is related to the universal, the human with the natural and the divine, we may say in brief that intelligence in man is related to his consciousness, as is that unseen power in cosmos that sets the wheels in motion in the universal ether, and that thought may be compared to the vortex-rings in the ether. Thus the movements in consciousness constitute thought-consciousness in motion is thought. Just as the ether is one and idivisible because homogeneous and con

tinuous, itself unparticled, so are the vortices innumerable while consciousness is one and indivisible.

My object at this time is not to elaborate or explain, but simply to call attention to these advanced concepts in the outposts of modern science, and to emphasize their importance to the student of psychology and especially to the physician above all others.

He who fairly apprehends the problem of consciousness. has in his hands the key to the whole science of man. One who has given the subject no special attention can have the least conception how far-reaching this problem is, or what doors it opens for exploration and progress in knowledge. The next decade is bound to revolutionize all our concepts regarding man, and this will necessitate a recast of all our ideas of every form of mental and nervous processes and likewise disease. Some of my hearers will doubtless say I am enthusiastic and have gone off on a tangent. I shall only reply that the theory is not new to me, and that I have been studying along these lines for more than twenty years, and fifteen years ago embodied the suggestions that involve this theory in my Study of Man and The Way to Health. Hence I have no special attack of enthusiasm.

When, however, I find scientists who but yesterday ranked as materialists, and who were at least wholly agnostic on these questions to-day recognizing the potencies of matter as involving consciousness and intelligence, instead of mere mass and motion. I feel justified in at least calling attention to the problem. I could quote scores of extracts from the recognized leaders of science justifying all I have said and more.

Beyond all theorizing and all philosophical concepts, there is an empirical and an experimental side to the problem. I am acquainted with individuals who have taken the problem of consciousness as thus basic and experimented along this line. would hardly dare tell you the results of these experiments, for if unfamiliar with the subject I could hardly expect you to believe me. I desire, however, to say to every young man present who is hungry for knowledge, who really desires to know, and who has the intelligence to examine and the will to persist in his quest, here is the open door. The problem of consciousness is clearly formulated, and it is as certain to lead to a knowledge of the soul as is any theorem in mathematics to lead to the correct solution of a problem in physics.

THE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF PULMONARY TUBER

CULOSIS.*

BY HOWARD PERCY DEADY, M. D.

WENTY years

TWE

Liberty, N. Y.

ago, pulmonary tuberculosis was rated by the profession and laity alike as a well nigh hopeless malady and the isolated recoveries reported were either thought to be examples of mistaken diagnosis or marvellous exceptions to the rule.

When Koch in 1884 demonstrated his germ theory and the tubercle bacillus entered the field as an element to be considered in the treatment of tuberculous subjects, it constituted a tangible basis for scientific research and investigation. Former apathy induced by constant failure was immediately replaced by enthusiasm, and professional interest and study received its greatest stimulus at this time.

New diagnostic devices were rapidly introduced and either rejected or accepted as the merits of the case might prove. Innovations in general and special treatment naturally followed, and the largely increased percentage of recoveries (as high as 40 to 60 per cent.) observed among incipient cases prove conclusively that the high mortality of the past was due rather to late diagnosis than any other single factor.

Again it is well to bear in mind that imperfect methods of diagnosis in the old days overlooked thousands of cases of tuberculosis of the lungs, which went on to spontaneous cure without ever being recognized as phthisis. The victim was simply thought to be in decline, or to be afflicted perhaps with a winter cough which would disappear with the advent of warm weather. As conditions became more favorable, usually the patient would recover or possibly might improve only temporarily, in which event the typical exacerbations would occur and finally when the disease had reached an advanced stage, the disorder would be pronounced consumption. It was this type of cases which made statistics at that time and under the circumstances the strong prevailing sentiment against the curability of tuberculosis of the lungs, is not strange.

Considering these facts, it cannot be denied that early diagnosis

* Read before the Homeopathic Society of the State of New Jersey.

is the paramount essential in the successful management of patients afflicted with pulmonary phthisis.

In this paper the writer desires briefly to describe the more important symptoms and physical signs, which may lead up to a diagnosis of incipient tuberculosis of the lungs and not to include acute tuberculosis in any form.

Many authorities at this time recognize a pre-tubercular state, though just what may be the limitations of this term is rather vague. Should it refer to a period immediately prior to the actual eruption, predisposition and general physical conformation must necessarily control the diagnosis to a considerable degree. While these characteristics must surely serve as a warning to the individual, they would indeed seem slender evidence upon which to base a diagnosis of tuberculosis even though it may be fair to assume that the disease will develop at some later date.

If, however, this so-called pre-tubercular stage is intended to cover a period immediately subsequent to the actual eruptive process, yet before the onset of more or less active subjective symptoms, this condition may no doubt exist pathologically, but hardly clinically; at any rate the term pre-tubercular is obviously misleading when thus applied.

Of the early objective symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, perhaps the first to attract attention is anæmia or more properly speaking pseudo anæmia, for a blood count at this time will rarely show a deficiency in the percentage of hemoglobin or a decrease in the number of R. B. corps. As the disease advances, especially if it be acute in character, a true anæmia supervenes. This pseudo anæmia is explained as being a neurosis producing vasomotor disturbance.

Occasionally slight hæmoptysis will apparently be the first warning received by the victim of phthisis. Blood spitting need not always signify the presence of tubercular difficulty. Yet, in the absence of positive evidence, indicating the nose, throat or stomach as the origin of the hemorrhage, the patient cannot be subjected to too rigid a medical examination. The burden of proof lies with the physician; it is not sufficient to show the absence of an actual pulmonary lesion, but the up-to-date diagnostician is expected to prove that tuberculosis either does or does not exist even in some other latent state.

Cough is probably the most constant of all symptoms and, as a rule, when a chronic cough is not related in any way to throat, heart or stomach irritation, a careful examination will often find tubercular foci at some portion of the lungs. In case of failure