Dangerous Flint Mills.

THROUGH the energy of the Governor of Maryland and the State Board of Health, the dangerous flint mills in this State have been closed up. The mills were used to grind a certain kind of flint stone which was especially adapted to make a fine kind of china, and was exported to England, as well as used extensively in this country. It was necessary to employ dry grinding, causing the escape of much dust in the process. This led to such widespread mortality. among the men at work in the mills that the owners provided the workmen with respirators and employed a man to see that they were used.

In spite of all these precautions the men would not take care of themselves but walked openly into the arms of disease and death. Public opinion has been so strong in the neighborhood of these mills that they have been closed.

The disease which this dust inhalation causes is called by the general term pneumonoconiosis and is a form of interstitial pneumonia unaccompanied by the tubercle bacillus, unless the sharp edges of the flint stone make a wound through which the bacillus can enter and find a good medium of growth. Such cases tend to improve when removed from the source of danger, but the interstitial thickening never disappears and the victim is usually disabled for life.

Butter and its Imitations.

***

IT is always an unfortunate circumstance when misguided sanitary zeal or a strong mercantile combination can drive a good article of food out of the market. In more than one instance science has shown herself superior to nature in supplying a food or flavor, and when the laws can be made to work against a known pure article to favor an uncertain compound made of supposed milk it is time to give legislators primary lessons in food inspection.

Oleomargarine and butterine have been practically driven out of the markets of this region, not because they are less valuable than butter, but because butter has more friends. Butter at its best is an uncertain compound, as is the milk of which it is made. The artificial butters, on the contrary, are made of known compounds and are as pure as chemistry can make them. Moreover, they

are preferred by a large number of consumers and this not only on account of their price, which in some cases is as low as that of butter and in others as high or higher, but because the flavor and standard of the artificial butters is constant.

A test case will soon be decided in Baltimore and then it will be seen whether a good product may be sold side by side with an uncertain one.

***

STATISTICIANS often tell us agreeable facts and again they deal out statements which we hope are not true. A correIs Red Hair spondent in the London Lancet Disappearing? asks if red hair is disappearing and then adds his own testimony that red heads will soon be a memory and no longer a reality. Statistics, which sometimes tell the truth, aver that blondes are disappearing and that brunettes are annually increasing in proportion.

Red hair is supposed to denote violent temper, great quickness of intellect, a warm temperament and a particularly clear complexion. If red hair is disappearing, then tempers and intellects must be on the decrease. It would hardly be right to make a statement that red hair is disappearing unless a special investigating committee, which is just now the fashion, should make a full report. The disappearance of hair of any color is to be deplored, but as long as white horses exist the red head should not be allowed to die out.

***

THE melting snow and thawing ice have brought about a climatic condition favorable to the recrudescence of that unGrippe Again. welcome and suddenly appearing disease, grippe, or epidemic influenza. This disease, which created so much consternation a few years ago, has again appeared in many of the large cities and caused quite a flurry of practice among physicians.

It is not easy to understand the sudden appearance and quick subsidence of this mysterious malady, but its connection with unclean streets full of slush and melting ice and snow which make the air so chilly, would tend to show that these very periods of sudden warm weather following close on a snow and freeze render those who work too hard and expose themselves to wet and rain without proper protection particularly susceptible to an attack.

WASHINGTON NOTES.

The regular meeting of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia was held on Wednesday night. Dr. J. J. Kinyoun read an able and interesting paper on Diphtheria and its Treatment by Antitoxine. The discussion was opened by Dr. Walter Reed of the Army Medical Museum. Dr. Kinyoun has just returned from Europe, where he has made a special study of the antitoxine treatment.

Dr. Lamb of the Army Medical Museum presented a case and specimen of appendicitis. The new hospital, the gift of Mr. William J. Sibley, and called the Sibley Memorial Hospital, is nearly ready for patients. The medical staff is as follows: Attending physicians, Drs. H. B. Deale, D. Olin Leech, Frank Leech, G. C. Ober, D. B. Street, J. L. Suddarth, J. T. Winter and W. C. Woodward. Attending surgeons, Drs. E. A. Balloch, H. H. Barker, C. W. Brown, I. S. Stone, J. Van Rensselaer, J. R. Wellington. Surgeon to the Eye and Ear Department, Dr. C. R. Dufour. The consulting physicians are Drs. W. W. Johnston, J. Ford Thompson, Z. S. Sowers, S. S. Adams. Dr. S. S. Adams is President of the hospital and Dr. Frank Leech is Secretary. It is the intention of the officers to have a resident physician, matron and nurses.

The Health Department reports a slight improvement over last week. There were only three deaths from diphtheria and there was marked falling off in the mortality from typhoid fever and lung diseases.

The contract for removing garbage has been completed. About four hundred tons of refuse were hauled away in three days.

New cases of smallpox are being constantly reported and as a number of people have not been vaccinated and others imperfectly so, the Health Department has appointed eighteen additional physicians, whose business it will be to go through the alleys and courts and to vaccinate free of charge and to compel these people to be vaccinated in accordance with the law.

The medical bill was discussed before the Commissioners by a number of physicians, all the different societies being represented, but nothing definite has been determined on. The Contagious Hospital seems to be at a standstill. As soon as a site is suggested, every person in that vicinity at once comes forward with a protest and even those not

living there, but owning a few feet of ground in that neighborhood, raise the greatest objections. It seems almost a pity that the Commissioners do not choose a place and erect a hospital for contagious diseases regardless of protests, as the need for one is apparent to all.

PUBLIC SERVICE.

OFFICIAL LIST OF CHANGES IN THE STATIONS AND DUTIES OF MEDICAL OFFICERS.

UNITED STATES ARMY.

Week ending January 14, 1895.

The leave of absence for seven days granted Captain Reuben L. Robertson, Assistant Surgeon, is extended twenty-one days.

Ordinary leave of absence for one month and fourteen days in addition to the extension of leave of absence on surgeon's certificate of disability, granted him, is granted Captain Adrian S. Polhemus, Assistant Surgeon.

The leave of absence granted First Lieutenant Charles Lynch, Assistant Surgeon, is extended one month.

First Lieutenant George D. De Shon, Assistant Surgeon, will proceed from Fort Logan, Colorado, to Fort Douglas, Utah, and report' for temporary duty.

UNITED STATES NAVY.

Week Ending January 12, 1895.

Assistant Surgeon Ammen Farenholt detached from the United States Receiving Ship "Vermont" and to Naval Hospital, Norfolk, Va.

Assistant Surgeon C. P. Kindleberger detached from Naval Laboratory and Department of Instruction and to the United States Receiving Ship "Vermont."

Medical Inspector George H. Cooke, in addition to present duties, will attend officers on duty at League Island Navy Yard, but residing outside of the Yard.

BOOK REVIEWS.

INTERNATIONAL CLINICS: A Quarterly Journal of Clinical Lectures. Edited by Judson Daland, M. D., J. Mitchell Bruce, M. D., F. R. C. P., London, and David W. Finlay, M. D., F. R. C. P., Aberdeen. Volume III. Fourth Series, 1894. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1894.

There is a great variety in the clinical lectures in this volume. Some are very short and practical and others are so evidently padded that they are beyond the limits of anyone's patience. The original idea was to take the lectures fresh and full of interest as they were delivered in the amphitheater or in the wards, but in time each contributor desired to revise what he said, until now many of these international clinical lectures are pre

in this mode of preparation, but the temptation to put in historical references and pad is in some cases noticeable. In spite of these objections, these lectures will be of great service even to the city physician, who in despair may find in these very volumes what he has searched for in vain in his reference works. The editors have taken great pains to put a pleasing variety before their readers and almost everyone in all the specialties will be able to find what suits him best in this collection. The press work of the set is all that could be desired and the illustrations are very liberally distributed.

REPRINTS, ETC., RECEIVED.

Report on Typhoid Fever in the District of Columbia, Submitted by the Medical Society of the District of Columbia to the Committee on the District of Columbia of the United States House of Representatives. 1894.

The Procedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. Held at Washington, D. C., on May 1, 2 and 3, 1894. St. Louis: Buxton & Skinner Stationery Co. 1894.

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

E. B. Treat of New York announces an early publication of the International Medical Annual for 1895.

Messrs. P. Blakiston, Son & Co. of Philadelphia have in press "The Dynamics of Life," by William R. Gowers, M. D., London. The F. A. Davis Co. of Philadelphia will issue, in February, a companion book to Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing's famous treatise, "Psychopathia Sexualis," entitled "Suggestive Therapeutics in Psychopathia Sexualis," by Dr. A. Schrenck-Notzing of Munich.

Messrs. Wm. Wood & Co. of New York make the extraordinary announcement that they will begin at once the publication of the "Twentieth Century Practice," which will be an international encyclopedia of modern medical science by leading authorities of Europe and America. It will consist of twenty volumes of over seven hundred pages each. Dr. Thomas L. Stedman is the editor and such men as Dujardin-Beaumetz, Brouardel, Councilman, Delafield, Ewald, Gamaleia, Hare, Jacobi, Jaksch, Kaposi, Kerr, Loeffler, Lombroso, Shrady, Welch and many others will contribute.

OPTICIANS.

The Refractionist.

IN recent years there has sprung up a class of people consisting of jewelers, watchmakers, and jacks-of-all-trades, who try to claim for themselves this dignified title and deceive people not only in reference to their knowledge of a straight optician business, but even go so far as to palm off on the public their pretended knowledge of things that pertain to the realm of legitimate ophthalmology.

BOOK REVIEWING.

The Journal of the American Medical Association. WHEN the publisher of the journal is also the publisher of a competing book, and by some invisible method makes the editor speak according to the dictates of mercantile rivalry, we then have the abuse of which we complain. Far worse, however, than misrepresentation of a book and manifest hypocrisy, is to ignore it altogether. Not to review the competing book of a rival firm is worse than to review it through the counting-house spectacles.

TEACH MEDICAL HISTORY. Philadelphia Polyclinic. THE history of medicine, its development, its errors, its trials, its triumphs, should be systematically taught by competent instructors at all our colleges. The chair of the History of Medicine should be one of the most important, and by the respect paid to it, the value of its teachings should be emphasized. At this writing we can recall but three Amercan colleges in which lectures on medical history are given, and none in which historical teaching is invested with the dignity and importance that it merits.

ANTIVIVISECTIONISTS PROTEST.
Medical Record.

THE pictorial organ of the humors of antivivisection in this town is so far discreetly silent. But England has spoken in the person of Lord Coleridge. He has appeared at the head of a deputation protesting against the appropriation of money by the city for the purpose of manufacturing antitoxine. His argument is that it is a misuse of the taxpayers' money; but behind it all is the profound philosophical feeling that it is wicked to prick a few horses in order to reduce the mortality from diphtheria among human beings fifty per cent.

PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT.

All letters containing business communications, or referring to the publication, subscription, or advertising department of this Journal, should be addressed as undersigned.

The safest mode of remittance is by bank check or postal money order, drawn to the order of the Maryland Medical Journal; or by Registered letter. The receipt of all money is immediately acknowledged.

Advertisements from reputable firms are respectfully solicited. Advertisements also received from all the leading advertising agents. Copy, to ensure insertion the same week, should be received at this office not later than Monday.

Physicians when communicating with advertisers concerning their articles will confer a favor by mentioning this Journal.

Address:

MARYLAND MEDICAL JOURNAL,

209 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Md.

TO PRACTITIONERS OF MEDICINE. The Medical Law as repealed and re-enacted, with additions and amendments, by the Maryland State Legislature, has been printed at this office in neat and convenient form for physicians. Copies may be obtained at the Journal Office or will be forwarded by mail on receipt of 15 cts, in stamps or coin.

NOTES.

A NEW antiseptic is cadmium salicylate.

*

VALERIANATE of ether is claimed to be a specific in persistent hiccough.

*

ASTHMATIC patients can take large doses of the iodides without danger of iodism.

*

GLYCERINE is said to have a decided power in preventing fermentation in the stomach.

*

TWENTY grains of ichthyol after each meal are said to be an efficient internal means of treating urticaria of alimentary origin.

*

A SPECIFIC for gonorrhea is said to be a I per cent. solution of creosote in decoction of hamamelis combined with boric acid. It is claimed that this will destroy the gonococci in two hours.

IN the constipation of infants, often the only treatment indicated is massage of the abdomen over the descending colon, once or twice each day, practiced from five to ten minutes each time.

THERE is no griping following the use of glycerine suppositories composed of pure cocoa butter and pure glycerine. The cocoa butter melts at the body temperature and the glycerine, distributing itself over the mucous surface of the bowel, produces an easy and efficient action.

PHARMACEUTICAL.

WE are informed by Schulze-Berge & Koechl, 79 Murray Street, New York, who are the sole agents in the United States for the Farbwerke vorm. Meister Lucius & Bruning, Hoechst O. Main, Germany, who manufacture Diphtheria Antitoxin-Behring under the immediate supervision of Professors Behring and Ehrlich, that they are assured of a regular supply of this product in the near future, and will soon be able to fill all orders for the same.

In order to protect both physician and patient from the necessity of paying exorbitant prices for the remedy to persons who may be inclined to purchase it for speculative purposes, the above firms are willing, although contrary to their custom, to sell direct to physicians and retail pharmacists who are unable to promptly obtain the remedy from their dealers, at the following prices, but only when the order is accompanied with cash.

No. 1, green label, 600 Antitoxin Units, $1.90, No. 2, white label, 1000 Antitoxin Units, $3.50, and No. 3, red label, 1500 Antitoxin Units, $5.25. Directions for use are wrapped around the vials. We are pleased to learn that the original and reliable serum of Professor Behring is so soon to be generally available in this country.

CONSIDERABLE interest is being evinced by physicians regarding the tonic stimulant action of Kola, and it is coming to be largely used in cases of nervous exhaustion, as it combines the invigorating properties of caffeine with the stimulating effects of theobromine and kolanin, which latter peculiar principle is claimed by some investigators to be superior to cocaine as a stimulant, without the enslaving properties of the latter alkaloid. This peculiar principle is found more abundantly in the fresh (undried) Kola nuts, and taking advantage of the knowledge of this fact, Messrs. Frederick Stearns & Company, of Detroit, Mich., have placed on the market a Wine of Kola, for which they have coined the fanciful title " "Kolavin to distinguish their product from similar preparations, which in time will undoubtedly appear. "Kolavin" is a delicious aromatic tonic wine, each dose (a tablespoonful) of which contains 30 grains of the fresh (un