Our readers will be interested to learn that the Oppenheimer Institute in addition to its place in New York and branches in Philadelphia, Detroit and Pittsburg, have opened up a branch at 2901 Pacific avenue, Atlantic City, N. J.

Physicians will doubtless prefer to have a considerable number of their patients go to Atlantic City for treatment, as they will there have the benefit of a most desirable climate and attractive and restful surroundings.

Coca as a Depurative of the Blood.-The problems that confront the practitioner during the heated months, are usually the outgrowth of previous unsoundness of health which have settled into a condition more or less chronic, or those more acute ills engendered through overindulgence in such bounties as are now lavishly displayed. In either of these broad classes, when physical strength and mental power is at a low ebb, there is no one remedy better adapted than Coca. It is an adjuvant to all known forms of treatment. The knowledge of this drug has come to the busy scientific world through its efficacious use in allied conditions requiring the most urgent support to maintain life. The Andean traveler toiling up rugged steeps through bleak and uninhabitable regions, at an altitude where sheer existence is sustained with difficulty, is supported in his efforts through the use of Coca, the leaves of which he chews unceasingly. The seemingly marvelous action of these, apparently simple leaves, has only recently been learned through a study of the physiological properties of their constituents. Coca primarily acts as a depurative of the blood, and as it is well known, when this nutrient stream is freed from the products of tissue waste-and not until then-the muscular and nervous systems are in a condition where physiological repair can be effected. Whether the exhaustion be of a temporary nature, as that induced through excessive physical exertion, or be due to the prolonged presence of disease, the products of combustion in the human machinethe ashes and the clinkers-must first be thrown out in order that the entire system shall work more effectively. Coca, it is known, will bring about this excreative action in a phenomenal way, and when the volatile principles of this drug are carefully preserved through skilled manipulation such as in the famous Vin Mariani-there is presented a depurifier and supporter par excellence.

An Old Friend's Endorsement.-In the "Reference Book of Practical Therapeutics," compiled by our old friend, Frank P. Foster,

PUBLISHERS' NOTES.

157

A. M., M. D., editor of The New York Medical Journal, we note the following: "Antikamnia Tablets have been much used and with very favorable results in neuralgia, influenza and various nervous disorders. As an analgesic they are characterized by promptness of action, with the advantage also of being free from any depressing effect on the heart." We are pleased at this expression of faith in the efficacy, promptness and absence of untoward after-effects of this most excellent remedy. We feel that the statement applies not only to Antikamnia Tablets, but to any of the tablet specialties offered to the medical profession by The Antikamnia Chemical Company, of St. Louis, Mo. Physicians desiring samples should write to this company for them and they will be forwarded promptly; particularly if they mention CHICAGO CLINIC.

The Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette, commenting upon the dietetic value of iron, says: "Pathologists have given pointers as to the special condition of the iron in the system and in the circulating medium, and the newer preparations aim to imitate that condition. Most of them have a brief day of fame and then drop out of sight for the reason that they lack some element of eligibility. Few are standing the test of time and the critical ordeal of the clinicians. Foremost among these it is safe to name Gude's Pepto-Mangan. It is probably the nearest approach to a physiologic reproduction yet devised. It deserves its universal popularity, and its manufacturers do well to restrict its sale to strictly ethical channels."

Timely Remedies.-Lest we forget the importance of guarding digestion in our treatment of coughs which are always present in our work more or less, but particularly so in the fall and winter seasons, it is well to bring to mind the fact that The Maltine Company have furnished to us an excellent combination, Malto-Yerbine.

This is a judicious mingling of Yerba Santa with Maltine. The Yerba Santa is an excellent expectorant, softening the most harsa and rasping cough, stimulating the secretions and favoring resolution upon the part of the inflamed mucous membranes of the air passages. The Maltine assists in the work and serves as a helper of digestion and nutrient.

THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL.
(A Dream of Fair Women.)

Last summer, as all of you know,

A doctor came over the seas,

To comfort and aid to a wee little maid
With congenital hip disease.

They came from all points of the earth

The halt and the lame of the land

To crowd by the score at the good doctor's door-
To be cured by the skill of his hand.
Soon the press of the land grew aghast

That the lot of the poor was so hard,
Printed columns galore of rich medical lore
And gratuitous ads by the yard.

Then the great Women's club took it up

And a hospital said they would found

Where the poor ones could be most gratuitously
Given care through the whole twelvemonth round.
Then they called on the public for coin

This club influential and strong

But the pleadings proved vain, for no money it came
To carry the project along.

Say, what is the rock which has wrecked

This dreamship so wondrously fair?

Is sweet charity then quite forsaken by men?—
No the cause of the wreck isn't there.

These women, in innocent faith,

Entrusted their plans in detail

To Doctors A. B. and C., whom we all must agree
Were anxious to see the plan fail.

So ponder, fair ladies, I pray,

To the moral that goes out with my tale-
Do not offer your plea to a frail trinity
That is anxious to see your plan fail.

DUDLEY JACKSON.

VOL. XVI.

MAY, 1903.

No. 5.

EDITORIAL.

THE Illinois State Legislature adjourned sine die on May 7 without having passed either the bill for a State Tuberculosis Sanitarium or the State Epileptic Colony Bill, both of which should have been energetically pushed by the medical profession of the state. The Tuberculosis bill was strangled in committee but the Epileptic Colony was viable and if the Senate had continued in session a few hours longer might have passed. The appropriation originally voted by the Senate was $350,000, to this the House failed to concur but assented to a $100,000 appropriation at the eleventh hour, too late for confirmation by the Senate. This means another two years waiting during which time epileptic children must continue to crowd our poor houses and insane asylums. Drowning within a few feet of land is more discouraging than in mid ocean with no possible help in sight, hence the CLINIC is greatly disappointed at the "almost success" of the Epileptic Colony bill. This is intensified by the fact that its delay largely arose from apathy on the part of the medical profession.

Energetic action on the part of State Medical Society we are assured would have saved the bill, but the Society thought best to expend its energies on organization and the epileptics and tuberculars are left to shift for themselves for another two years.

HOW NOT TO BE NERVOUS

Is the topic chosen by Dr. Patrick for his address given before the Mississippi Valley Association, and we rise to remark that it would be hard to find in another ten pages as satisfactory an etiology of American nervousness as that set forth by Dr. Patrick in his charming address. No other American medical writer, not excepting William Osler or Weir Mitchell, wields as graceful a pen as Dr. Patrick; but even better than literay finish is the hard common sense of this address. Dr. Patrick is a comparatively young man but parents and teachers and pediatricians may well ponder long over what he has to say about the "centripetal developed" American child and the nervous pitfalls which inevitably lie before such. "To force mature functions from an immature organism is to violate the virginity of Nature, a crime daily committed in the home and in the school, to be expiated in the sick room, the sanitarium or the asylum" is a sentence worthy to be committed to memory by every one who has been committed to the care or teaching children.

The only just criticism that occurs to us in reading this charming brochure is that etiology and prophylaxis have been discussed at the expense of therapy.

The victim of nervousness knows as a rule only too well what is the matter and why it is so. Like Coleridge they can say “I suffer from an impotence of volition not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself, go bid a man paralyzed in both arms to rub them briskly together and that will cure them." We wish Dr. Patrick had told us more in detail how to set the paralyzed will at work. Perhaps he has told us all that can as yet be said when he points us clearly to the causes of American nervousness, viz., misdirected energy, misplaced worry, longing for baubles and the fighting of phantoms. True, O King, but how to dispel these phantoms and most of all that baseless fear which in one form or another enters into the make-up of nearly every sort of nervousness. These things are too many for the average practitioner, but while groping for wider knowledge it is helpful both to the nervous doctor and his more nerv