CACTUS CRANDIFLORUS. On April 1st., Mr. P. brought his wife to see me. She was complaining of violent pain in the left side of the chest ranging up to right shoulder, with frequent papitations, pain in back, urine scanty, high colored and with lateritious deposit, pulse slow and feeble, bowels constipated, skin rather dry but no fever, appetite good and food well digested. I could detect nothing abnormal in the sounds of the heart and there was no increase of dullness. She was debilitated somewhat, low spirited, and unable to do her work regularly. I gave her a pill of aloes, rhubarb, iron, soap and iodide of potass., to be taken three times a day for the costiveness, fl. ext. gelsemium to be taken when the pain in chest was very severe, and 20 gtts. fl. ext. cactus grandiflorus every 4 hours. To report in a week. Her husband came at the specified time for a renewal of the medicine, delighted with his wife's improvement. He stated she had had but one attack of severe pain since she commenced taking the medicine, which was relieved by the gelsemium, though it gave her violent headache. Urine natural, no palpitation, and she was able to do her work; mind brighter, and in better spirits than she had been for months. I gave him another supply of cactus, with directions to report again in a week, unless his wife was so much improved as to render it unnecessary. I have not heard from him since, and I conclude she is well. J. B. MAYS, M. D. PERU, FLORIDA. PICHI IN DYSURIA. ROBERT NELSON, colored, laborer, was afflicted with dysuria to such an extent that he assumed the semi-erect position when urinating. The desire to urinate was experienced about every fifteen minutes, and so great was the pain and distress that NELSON was compelled to stop work. In this condition he presented himself to me. I.placed him on twenty drops of pichi, fl. ext., twice a day. In four days he could stand erect, and urinate without pain or difficulty, and the quantity, instead of being a few drops, is half an ordinary teacupful. In other less acute cases I have also used pichi with gratifying success. It can be proved clinically, first that pichi is a diuretic, second, that it has a prompt, decided effect on dysuria. J. H. DEWOLF, M. D. BALTIMORE, MD. The Medical Age. A SEMI-MONTHLY REVIEW OF MEDICINE. JOHN J. MULHERON, M. D., Editor. -PUBLISHED BY GEO. S. DAVIS, Medical Publisher, Box 470. 66 DETROIT, MICH., JUNE 10, 1887. Editorial. SUCCESS. DR. NELSON's note, in our present number, refers, in a somewhat jerky way, to the end which every true man has fixed as his goal, and to some of the means to this end. We apprehend that the criterion of success varies very little in all the professions of men. Occasionally a dreamer proclaims that the true success is the consciousness of having, in his own estimation, done well his part, let the result of his doing be what it may. It is, doubtless, a happy frame of mind which enables or permits a man to honestly feel this, but so few are built that way that the occasional one who attracts attention, does so only to become the butt of good-natured ridicule. Few physicians, for instance, we take it, should consider themselves successes" by having gained the unanimous verdict of being skillful practitioners and estimable men if their incomes were insufficient to permit an establishment in keeping with the demands of what is by general assent, recognized as good or refined society. The social standing of the profession in this country is second to that of no other calling, but it cannot be maintained by the individual, no matter what his inherent qualifications, if his most god-like efforts on behalf of suffering humanity are not followed by adequate pecuniary returns. The criterion of success is money, and no man is successful, in the accepted meaning of the term, who does not put money in his purse. This assertion will strike many as not a little harsh, but it will stand a very careful analysis. As the world goes it is pecuniary success, provided, of course, that it be honestly attained, which fixes a man in the esteem of his fellows. Medicine is, without a question, one of the most honorable of human vocations, but other things being equal, on the score of honesty, sobriety, and intelligence, the man who has put money in his purse commands the greater respect of the community, and that, too, regardless of the fact whether or not he be a physician. Physicians themselves (being men of like passions with men as they go) measure success by the size of a man's bank account, and that, too, whether this account has been credited through the writing of prescriptions or fortunate business ventures. So generally accepted is this standard that physicians are seldom content to trust to the savings of the surplusage of their receipts over their expenses, to create this account. The result is that in most communities the most "successful" practitioners are very generally interested in outside ventures. In this city a very large proportion of them "dabble" in real estate, and we venture to assert that there are none of them who would exchange the profits from a fortunate turn in the market for the reputation or even "the inward satisfaction" which follows a successful operation or the happy effects of a prescription. Reputation and inward satisfaction" as a result of professional service, are very nice things to have, but unaccompanied by what JOHN HUNTER was pleased to call "the damned guinea" they would not be exchanged, by very many, for the inward satisfaction" which attends a rise in real estate. DR. NELSON's suggestion that the man who has demonstrated his lack of the qualifications for success in the practice of medicine, should cast about for some other calling, has in it the food for much thought. It is a mistaken conception of the duty which he owes the profession which keeps a man in that profession in spite of his failure to achieve what is, by general assent, regarded as success therein. A man's first duty is to himself. The profession will not suffer by being made of secondary importance. In fact, he serves his profession best who serves himself best. We know men who harp much on the string "duty to the profession," the loss of whom the profession would scarcely feel. When they die the profession will scarcely feel the shock of their demise and in a brief time the gap created by their removal will have been filled in and the old profession will go marching on just about as it used to. The persistence of many men in the practice of medicine does the profession but little good, while it deprives some other useful callings of members who would embellish them and at the same time serve their individual selves to much better profit. Let every man be honest with himself, and when he has become convinced that he has made a mistake in his calling let him be bold enough to try something else. The general following of this advice would soon relieve the profession of the overcrowding of which complaint is heard on every hand. AN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH UPON RA BIES. DR. HAROLD C. ERNST, having received two rabbits which had been inoculated in PASTEUR'S laboratory, undertook to prove experimentally the following propositions: (1) Is there a specific virus in the brains and cords of rabbits inoculated with PASTEUR'S material and after his methods? (2) Does the treatment by drying, proposed by him, modify the strength of this virus? And, finally, (3) Does injection with such "modified virus" produce an immunity against an inoculation (or bite) with virus of full strength? His results with experiments in detail appear in the April number of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. DR. ERNST began the investigation as a skeptic, but his experiments seem to justify a change from skepticism to a belief in, at least, a portion of PASTEUR's assertions. The conclusions which ERNST draws from his experimental work he summarizes as follows: I. There exists in the cords and brains of animals inoculated in PASTEUR's laboratory a specific virus, capable of the production of similar symptoms through a long series of animals. II. That these symptoms are produced with absolute certainty when the method of inoculation is by trephining the skull, and injectioh under the dura mater, with less certainty when the inoculation is by subcutaneous injection. III. That the strength of this virus is lessened when the cords containing it are removed from the animals and placed in a dry atmosphere at an even temperature. IV. That the symptoms produced by the inoculation of this virus only appear after a certain period of incubation, distinctly shorter when the inoculation has been done by trephining, than when done by subcutaneous injection. V. That injections of the virus, modified in strength by drying, and in the manner prescribed by PASTEUR, exert a very marked protective influence against an inoculation with virus of full strength. VI. That a very moderate degree of heat destroys the power of the virus entirely, whilst prolonged freezing does not injure it. As will be seen, all of these conclusions are in complete accord with the declarations of PASTEUR; their importance lies in the fact that they were reached at a distance from him, and by work entirely separated from any personal influence or bias. ACTION OF BLACK HAW ON COWS. We are in receipt of a communication on the subject of the anti-abortive properties of vibur num prunifolium, which though somewhat out of the line of articles submitted to medical journals is, nevertheless, very instructive, as being corroborative of the claims made for the action of this drug on the female of the human species. The communication is from MESSRS. S. S. BROWN'S SONS, breeders of blooded cattle at Galena, Ills. In 1885 this firm lost five calves by abortion, out of a herd of twenty-seven short-horned cows, and in 1886 eleven calves were thus lost to them out of a herd of twentynine. Since then they have been exhibiting black haw, and during the present season out of a herd of thirty, eleven of which were threatened with miscarriage, they have lost but one calf. In the case of three animals similarly threatened the drug was omitted, with the result of loss of the calf in each instance. They have noted the fact that the period of gestation was prolonged through the use of the drug to from two-hundred and ninety to twohundred and ninety-two days. The amount of the drug administered was one ounce of the fluid extract (P. D. & Co.) three times a day. When it is considered that the loss of one of their calves means a loss of from $150 to $300, the pecuniary value to them of this effecttive drug can readily be estimated. Although considerable has been written touching the effectiveness of viburnum prunifolium in the direction indicated, the profession does not, we believe, properly appreciate the importance of this article. Doubtless, this is partially due to the indifferent nature of the preparations exhibited. MESSRS. BROWN'S SONS state that they have employed preparations which were attended by no appreciable effect, but that the employment of the proper article was invariably beneficial. It is, of course, of the first importance in determining the value of any drug that a reliable preparation thereof should be given, and in the case of one which is comparatively new this importance is enhanced. THE INDEX MEDICUS AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. We are The profession are familiar with the history of the struggles of the Index Medicus, a journal indispensable to a proper utilization of the periodical literature of the world. They know, too, that but for the enterpise and liberality of our townsman, MR. GEORGE S. DAVIS, this publication would have been suspended, and thus an incalculable loss sustained. pleased to note in this connection such expressions as the following, by the Tennessee State Medical Society, and are convinced that it but voices the sentiments of progressive physicians everywhere. The resolution was introduced by DR. J. BERRIEN LINDSLEY, Secretary State Board of Health, and was unanimously adopted: "WHEREAS, The medical profession of this country has for years taken a great interest in the permanent establishment of the Index Medicus, first published by LEYPOLDT, of New York City, in 1879; and "WHEREAS, By the death of this public-spirited friend of science and literature, the current cyclopedia book of reference was in articulo mortis; and "WHEREAS, MR. GEO. S. DAVIS, Secretary of the firm of Parke, Davis & Co., Detroit, Mich., at the earnest solicitation of medical editors and writers in all parts of the world, undertook to keep it alive; therefore be it "Resolved That the Medical Society of the State of Tennessee do hereby express its high appreciation of this liberal aid given investigators everywhere, and earnestly hope the profession will not allow the final effort to maintain a great periodical, which has reflected special credit on American medical science, to fail because of indifference and niggardly support; also, "Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to MR. GEO. S. DAVIS by the Secretary of this Society." Notes.. It is asserted by some eminent neurologists, says the Medical Record, that hysterical women under sexual or other excitement, exhale an agreeable odor, and a French writer declares that in early youth many women exhale a perfume whose entramament extends even to the clothes which they have cast aside for the wash, the perfume being butylic acid. Our practical contemporary denies this perfumewafting power of the human female, and maintains that the clothes they cast aside for the wash are more likely to be redolent of the odor of sweat and leucorrhoeal discharge than of emanations for Araby the Blest. It holds further that those who claim to have observed an agreeable odor in women under sexual excitement are liable to the accusation of suffering from subjective disturbances at the time. This is an exceedingly interesting topic, and we regret our lack of qualification to participate in its discussion. Facts bearing thereon, from the observations of any reader, will be thankfully received. Medical News: The desire of praise belongs to man in common with many of the inferior animals. The education of some of these animals is chiefly effected by appeals to this desire, rewarding, for example, the dog, when teaching him to retrieve, by kind words and possibly some food dainty; or the horse, when teaching him to stand without hitching, in a similar way. It is also of large application in educating the child. It furnishes one of the most powerful motives to industrious, philanthropic, or heroic action, on the part of the adult, no matter in what calling he is engaged. The physician is by no means exempt from the ambition for reputation; and although MILTON did refer to fame as the last infirmity of noble minds, it is one of the most powerful means, not only in advancing his influence and capa bility for doing good, but of promoting the interests of the profession. At a banquet given to MR. THEODORE METCALF, by the Boston Druggists' Association, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES gave his opinion of apothecaries, as follows: I have always had a great opinion of the medical advice of apothecaries. The truth is, they put up the prescriptions of all the best physicians in the place in which they live, and they have the very cream of all their wisdom at their fingers' ends. So, when I have myself been suffering from any slight bodily inconvenience, am ashamed -or ought to be, perhaps-instead of going to a professional brother, I have quitely crept into the back room and asked MR. METCALF what such and such a doctor was in the habit of prescribing." The "Autocrat " has never been regarded as an eminent therapeutist, and if his diagnosis of his "inconvenience" was correct he showed good judgment in trusting to "such and such" good doctor's prescription. The serious objection to the counter prescribing by druggists lies in the ignorance of diagnosis on the part of those gentlemen. From Plattsburg, N. Y.: On the morning of the 24th ult., just as early dawn began to lighten up the eastern horizon, there came a pull at the Dr's door-bell, cling-a-ling-ding ding" Is the Dr. at home?"-" Yes. What's wanting?"-"Woman sick."-" Where away?" "On the Battery."-"What's the name?"— "Smith."-"How about pay?"-and quick as thought the reply came, "that's enough, I don't want anything more of you sir; I pay my bills; " and off the caller went as angry, to all appearance, as if the doctor had hit him with a club. It is needless to add, that the doctor, who by the way, is not a junior practitioner by any means, returned to his couch much pleased with the result of his asking "how about pay?" To many of our readers the news of the death of DR. THOS. F. ROCHESTER, of Buffalo, will come as that of the death of a dear friend. He died at his home on the 24th ult., of Bright's disease. DR. R. was born in the year 1823, and was graduated from Geneva College. He settled in Buffalo in 1853, and was appointed to the chair of principles and practice of medicine in the University of that place, which position he continued to hold to the day of his death. He combined a profound knowledge of medicine with a high order of manhood, and was, therefore, an ideal physician. An instance of early paternity and one of early maternity have recently been reported. A correspondent of the British Medical Journal vouches for the correctness of the statement that a boy thirteen years and four months of age successfully impregnated a woman. The Journal says that this beats all previous records, the next lowest being fourteen years. The case of early maternity comes from Michigan. A girl in the northern part of this state recently gave birth to a child at the age of twelve years and two months. This case is, we believe, without a parallel in northern latitudes. On the last Saturday in March, 1861, in the town of "Ti," N. Y., there came to the house of a hardy young farmer, by his second wife. their first born-a son. The same thing happened to them on the last Saturday in March, 1862, and the same again on the last Saturday in March, 1863, and as the family attendant removed to a distant part of the State in August, 1863, he has no record to show that the same thing has not been going on with equal regulation ever since. "What about the Monroe doctrine ?" was asked a village candidate. "Oh, well, now," said he, "thar's jest as good doctors now as thar ever was. All this talk about Bright's disease and Monroe's doctorin' is nonsense. DR. BUCK, standin' thar, is as good a doctor as any of 'em." The new editors of the Medical and Surgical Reporter are DRS. N. A. RANDOLPH and CHARLS W. DULLES. The names are already familiar to medical readers, and we trust that they will find the new field an agreeable and profitable one. Book Notices. A TEXT-BOOK OF PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY AND PATHOGENESIS. This book, of nearly 1,100 pages, describes and represents with unsurpassed fullness and clearness the changes in the various tissues and fluids of the body caused by the various diseases to which they are subject. A minute knowledge of these changes is too apt to be regarded as non-essential by the practitionerpathology occupying a similar relation to his education, to that of the dead languages in the education of the layman, it being held as the correct thing to have studied such, but in after years they are regarded as a sort of mental gymnastics, the benefits of which are rather indirect than direct. Unquestionably there are many excellent practitioners who are very rusty in their pathology, as there are many excellent scholars whom a line in Virgil with which they were once familiar, would now stagger. While this is a fact, it is none the less a fact that, other things being equal, he who keeps up his proficiency in the essentials to his graduation is the best practitioner. The reader who gives active rather than passive assent to this proposition, and who renews the oft-broken determination to review the studies of his college days, will find in the book before us an unsurpassed, if not, indeed, an unequaled, aid in the direction of pathology. The work is profusely illustrated, containing two hundred and eightynine wood-cuts, which, with the lucid and even interesting style of the translation, will bring the subject within the ready comprehension of even those who have become "rusty." The work of the translator has been admirably done, and is singularly free from the clumsy expressions which are apt to occur in translations from the German. The manner in which the translator has supplemented the work of the author, by additions and modifications, has, moreover, brought the book fully abreast of the times. THE PRACTITIONER'S HANDBOOK OF TREATMENT; or, The Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. The author has adopted as his motto the saying of FROUDE that "the knowledge which a man can use is the only real knowledge, the only knowledge which has life and growth in it, and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like rain-drops off the stones." True to the idea herein enunciated the author has endeavored to select from all the divisions of medicine such material as has a practical bearing on the treatment of disease. There is enough of anatomy and pathology in it to meet the requirements in each case, and the practical application of chemistry and physiology is such as to give a rational conception of the disease, or disturbance of physiological action, and the remedies employed to right the disturbance. DR. FOTHERGILL has a very happy style and his use of it in the work before us has resulted in a very readable as well as very instructive book. It is unusually replete with common-sense suggestions, and while not distinctively a treatise on the practice of medicine, it discusses its subjects in a manner calculated to prevent the tendency to routinism into which the student who relies on his textbook in practice is prone to fall. We have spoken very favorably of this book on the appearance of previous editions and are pleased to note that its reception by the profession has created the demand for new editions in such a short time. A COMPANION TO THE UNITED STATES PHARMACOPŒIA, being a Commentary on the Latest Edition of the Pharmacopoeia and containing the Descriptions, Properties, Uses and Doses of all Official and Numerous Unofficial Drugs and Preparations in Current Use in the United States, together with Practical Hints, Working Formule, etc. Designed as a Ready Reference Book for Pharmacists and Students. With over 650 Original Illustrations. By OSCAR OLDBERG, Pharm. D., Member of Committee for Revision of Pharmacopoeia of the United States, etc.; and OTTO H. WALL, M. D., Ph. G., Professor of Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacy in the Missouri Medical College, etc. Second Revised Edition. New York: Wm. Wood & Co. This work, the first edition of which was noticed at length in these columns, differs from the U. S. Pharmacopoeia in that it notices many valuable drugs and preparations which the revisers of the latter decided not to classify as "officinal," and which, therefore, find no place therein. The number of such drugs is quite large, and the arbitrary exclusion of many of them will not prevent them from occupying a deservedly high place in the armamentarium of the practitioner. The work is, furthermore, an improvement in the U. S. P., in that it gives the dose of each drug and preparation, giving it in both the metric and apothecaries' weight. The physician will particularly appreciate this feature of it. Some attention is also given to a statement of the medicinal uses of the articles discussed. This division of the work is, however, not very complete. Taken as a whole, the book is much better adapted to the needs of the physician than is the Pharmacopœia, which in its compilation shows a little too conspicuously the ear-marks of the pharmacist. MEDICAL ELECTRICITY: A Practical Treatise on the Applications of Electricity to Medicine and Surgery. By Roberts Bartholow, A.M., M.D., LL.D. Professor of Materia Medica, General Therapeutics and Hygiene in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia; Fellow of the Col lege of Physicians of Philadelphia, etc. Third Edition, Enlarged and Improved. With one hundred and ten Illustrations. DR. BARTHOLOW contributes an admirable condensation of what has been written on the subject of electricity as a therapeutic agent, for the use of the general practitioner. Electricity has been redeemed from the hands of the mountebank, and is now a remedial agent of tolerably definite application to diseased conditions. It is no longer a panacea, but, like the various drugs of the materia medica of known properties, its application is quite clearly indicated. No writer has been more instrumental in effecting this exactness of knowledge than DR. BARTHOLOW. The previous editions of his very practical treatise have been extensively read, and, without invidious comparison, we believe there is no work on the subject which so fully meets the demand of the general practitioner. The present edition differs from those which have preceded it in that it amplifies at important parts and has added |