Why do People Marry?

I have said that in this degenerate age men seldom, if ever, marry for love, while women generally do. Men marry in order to gratify passion or for money, position, or in order to add to personal

convenience or comfort.

Sentiment seldom enters into the calculations of a man of mature years and experience, and he that asserts otherwise shows his lack of knowledge of mankind.

Young men, under thirty, frequently do marry for love. Old ones seldom.

These facts show that our social system is all wrong, all astray, for such sentiments and motives always lead to misunderstanding and frequently to di

vorce.

who fails to see the tendency of the age, and seeks to ignore them.

Marriage of to-day is a mere contract in which the man seeks for wealth, position or convenience, and in which the woman, recognizing her helpless and dependent condition, accepts the situation, marries for love when she can, but marries for anything else sooner than become an old maid, with all the old maid's disadvantages and wretchedness.

I presume the learned M. D. will now assert that what is written here is incorrect, and, being incorrect, should be contradicted, but it strikes me that if a man marries FOR AUGHT BUT LOVE, IT IS PERFECTLY PROPER FOR HIM TO MARRY FOR ANY OTHER REASON.

L. G. DOANE, M. D.

New York City.

What Will Remove the Splotches of Pregnancy?

Will some of you be kind enough to give me a remedy to remove moth or

A close observer once said that "at sixteen a woman marries for love, at twenty for position, at twenty-five for money, and at thirty neither money, love nor position enter into the matter, for the question is, "Where is the man? This wretched old cynic saw with jaundiced eyes the world of to-day and understood society as it is with all its artificiality, hypocrisy and selfishness."

In olden times parents were only too glad to have their daughters marry the men they loved, and money, show and position were secondary considerations. Love, honor and energy counted for much; now they count for little, and a regretable state of affairs it is, too.

In olden times, honor, love and energy counted for much, now they count for little. Money is the God, and money gets the choicest of the sex in marriage. "'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true."

My esteemed friend and critic may doubt what I say, but facts support the truth of it, and he is but a slow man

pregnant women?

1 have a blonde patient who is now completing her sixth pregnancy; up to her fourth confinement, these splotches disappeared shortly after labor. They have not disappeared since her fourth confinement, but have steadily increased, and now her face is nearly brown. I have used many cosmetics and alteratives, without success, so I have at last decided to appeal to the BRIEF and its many able contributors in her behalf.

This patient has had, until this sixth gestation, an intolerable itching of the entire body come on about the seventh month of gestation and remain until a day after labor. This latter trouble I attributed to pressure, as the patient had been afflicted with chronic enlargement of the spleen. But one year ago this hypertrophy began to subside, and now her spleen is nearly normal, and, as the itching did not appear at all, it corroborated my diagnosis.

The patient is twenty-eight years of age, and enjoys excellent health, but she is very anxious that something should be done to improve her complexion. Hope some of you will assist me in this. E. H. SMITH, M. D.

Smithland, La.

Mother's Marks.

There have been many interesting articles in the BRIEF upon maternal impressions. I send this article as a part of my contribution upon the subject. Some mothers do mark their children, and sometimes in a manner that would stir the sympathy of the most skeptical mind. To speak of and treat the subject of maternal impressions, as some are disposed to do, as a relic of superstition, is not, to say the least, in accord with the spirit of inquiry, and the progressive thought of the present. There are, and have been, too many manifestations of its truth, to affirm to the contrary, or that they are not of a nature to warrant the belief in the power of the mind of mothers to conditionally mark their children. An affirmation, however, without reason, is as meaningless as faith without works.

The phenomena do appear to be mysterious, and, as such, nurture superstition in common with skeptical thought. Let us consult the "nature of things 19 which is the oldest of all books concerning the subject. If we do so understandingly, perhaps we may be led to look upon it in a different and more attractive light. It clearly points to the fact that people differ in the condition and responsive power of their nervous systems. That the nerve sprout or force is in a state of helpfulness to the mind, as well as the direct cause of all the physical activity, and functional virtues of the body. It says, therefore, that the nerve sprout is the enabling force of man, and that if we will consult the sense of feeling, instead of the theories and opinions of men, concerning the respective responsive power of the nervous system, that it will reveal the condition in which mothers are in, that mark their children, and bring this subject and its apparent mystic manifestations as plain before the mind as those are which are a source of culture and of educational interest. It further says, to inquiring minds, consider the adaptability of things before the sense of feeling is directly questioned about its solution or explanation. They may bring forward the reason for the affirmation that some mothers do mark their children. It says a pebble dropped into an ocean disturbs atomic

ally the particles of the ocean; that a footstep, likewise, upon the earth, disturbs its atomic particles; and that the body of a man is the subject of the same law. But, asks the skeptic, what has this to do with the philosophy or truth of maternal impressions? Just this: It will inform us understandingly why a few mothers are liable to mark their children, and the many are not. The nerve spirit or force of the brain and body being blended with and in a condition of helpfulness to the spirit or thought force of the mind and soul, when it happens to be in its higher and highest states of response will transmit the impressions upon the mind, of fright, etc., to the child or children of mothers whose wills are not able to cope with the influence of circumstances over their thoughts.

The statement that the nerve spirit is the enabling force in man may be questioned, but the nature of things declare it to be one of the primal forces in man, and that it is another form of electricity, just as muscle and bone are another form of the food we eat and water we drink. That the nerve spirit of the nervous system is nourished and sustained in a systematic manner, by the electric spirit or system of the atmosphere and universe, as much so as the lower systems are respectively by the lower in creation.

or

When I advanced this theory of the nerve spirit or force, in a lecture in New York, in 1852, it was "pooh-poohed." When, in Philadelphia, in 1848, I advanced the theory that impure water, that from cisterns and wells was the cause of the spread of yellow fever as an epidemic, it appeared to amuse, rather than inspire, the confidence of cultured thought. When, in 1845, I called attention to the fact that there were some persons in a psychological or natural state, in contradistinction of the mesmeric state that could be impressionally controlled, despite the will, and while conscious of what they were doing, nothing but demonstrations after demonstrations would satisfy others that it was true. And when, at a later date, the theory that the will, in its normal or natural state, had the power to cope with circumstances in their influence over

thought, it was and is placed in the background, as a dream of the imagination.

Therefore, I expect the story which the sense of feeling will tell us, cooperatively with the adaptability of things, to be likewise disbelieved. It nevertheless admonishes us to question it, and we will do so. But how is this to be done? The adaptability of things says: by disturbing the atomic constituents of the body, by pressing it with the finger or thumb at any convenient point or part. Then, for the sake of convenience, grasp the left hand of another with your right, and make pressure on the outside anywhere above the joints of the fingers, hard enough for them to sensibly feel it. In doing so, there will necessarily be an atomic disturbance of the vital constituents of the nervous system, from the point pressed, to the brain. All will feel the pressure, but there are a few, who will feel the atomic disturbances in common with the pressure. Some will answer that it feels somewhat like that of an electric sensation passing up the arm, while the many will answer to nothing but the feeling of the pressure. The few are in the higher state of nerve response and helpfulness, and are those that mark, and are liable to mark, their children, while the many do not, because of the lack of this higher response.

Some may jump at the conclusion that this is a highly abnormal state, and that is the cause of the marks. In reply do not affirm too soon. I thought so once, but in my investigations of this and kindred subjects for thirty years, I have found some eighty males and females, whose sense of feeling told that they were in this higher state of nerve response. They all, with one accord, said they were not liable to disease, as others appeared to be, and that they had no recollection of having suffered with pain from disease. Nor did I find one among them that were the creatures of habit, drinking liquor, chewing or smoking, and among them were some fifty males. The oldest was eighty, and the youngest sixteen years. One of them was a lady of such blooming health and cheerfulness I almost knew that she was in this high responsive condition. The pressure and the description of the sensation

up her arm she gave me, told me I was correct in my opinion as to her vital condition. She told me she was a married lady, and was the mother of six remarkably healthy children. When I told her she had, nevertheless, marked every one of them, her astonishment was such that I have never forgotten it. After the surprise was over she replied it was too true; that she had, without any intention of doing so, marked every one of them, and the last, she uttered with sorrowful tears, was born with but about half of the right ear. This she accounted for by unexpectedly coming near two men who were fighting in the street, and seeing one cut off half of the right ear of the other.

I have already taken up too much space, perhaps, and will consider the toward side or aspect of maternal impressions, in my next, which the nature of things appear to place in the pathway of the "survival of the fittest."

B. BROWN WILLIAMS, M. D. Meadville, Pa.

Help Wanted.

I have a lady patient, Miss S., aged twenty years, who, last January, while her menses were on, caught cold, and has not menstruated since. Has, for four weeks, had pain under left clavicle, coughs a little in morning, and raises some thick mucus. Complains of soreness when she coughs, and also on pressure. Has, for two or three weeks, been spitting a little blood. Her mother and two sisters died from consumption.

She has taken tinct. ferri muriate, chamomile, quinine, Aletris Cordial two parts, Maltine one part. Also santonine thirty grains, divided into three powders, one each night.

Answers to Inquiries.

I would here again notify the readers of the BRIEF that no private answers to inquiries can be given, as I can not find time to answer the thousands of questions propounded to me by letter.

Dr. Thomas H. Stewart, of Dixie, Ga., asks for help in a case of hypertrophy and vavular insufficiency. Now, doctor, if you are sincere in your desire to cultivate fraternity, I am with you in the good work of healing. I hope you are more magnanimous than the perblind, misanthropic bigots who are now lobbying the legislatures of Georgia and of other States, in order to get laws passed to kill our chartered liberal colleges, and to prevent us from curing diseases with the God-given specific and harmless remedies that are found on our mountains and valleys. Then, doctor, if you will have light, you will give collinsonia and cactus grand. for valvular disease, or for dilatation and let the blisters be put on a log. For heart debility, if the collinsonia does not relieve it quickly, give one to two drops of digitalis, and two to three drops of strophanthus, every three or four hours. And for the dropsy, a mere result of the valvular disease, give apocynum cannabinum (the infusion, saturated) in doses of ten to fifteen drops to remove the serum. (See my Practice and Materia Medica.)

Dr. F. M. Wilson, of Bartow, Fla., says that" Mercury is cumulative, if considerable quantities are administered for a sufficient time, but would our brothers of the new school discard it for that reason." No; we discard mercury because it is dangerous to health, and ruinous to the constitution, and because it has been conclusively proven to be non-curative of disease. He says: "Calomel may be depended on in the commencement of typhoid fever, if given in large doses." It sets up a diarrhea that often proves fatal.

He says: "In yellow fever, it is good to begin the treatment by mercurial purgatives." Under such treatment thousands have died, and where can any man prove one has been cured by mercurials? Why then give it? He says: "Calomel has not taken a back seat yet." The doctor is greatly mistaken. It will soon get behind the back seat. There is

not perhaps one-fourth now used that was used a few years ago."

When I commenced the practice, in 1843, calomel was recommended for almost every disease in the catalogue of ills of humanity; now, it is limited to a few. The doctor will find podophyllin, euonymin, irisin, celandine, and even ipecac., far better to act on the functions of the liver than calomel. It has been proven, and that by such men as Bennet and Rutherford that calomel lessens the functional action of the liver.

Dr. A. J. McIntyre, of Corinth, Ill., asks for a remedy in oxyuris vermicularis (pin-worms). If the doctor will inject with a solution (one grain to four ounces of water) of sulph. of iron, it will quickly remove the worms.

I cordially approve the inquiry of Dr. Thomas H. Standlee, when he very properly asks for the indications for the use of calomel? Hitherto, physicians have said that a yellow fur on the tongue, and the so-called biliousness, indicated calomel. How is that? Too much bile-too great activity of the liver, demand calomel to act so as to increase the too much bile! Ah! gentlemen, it is preposterous. Drop the old hobby, and investigate rational medication based upon the relationship of the remedy to the symptoms calling for it-direct action of remedies. The various pathological conditions, as indicated by the symptoms, point directly to a remedy or to remedies which will act certainly.

Dr. J. M. Jones, of Cataract, Ind., says he would like for some one to ask him questions about the action of mercury.

Well, doctor is there any element of bile in mercurials?

Does mercury act on the liver by increasing the flow of blood to the liver, or by lessening the flow to it?

Why is it necessary to give calomel in the so-called biliousness-too much bile? And why is it necessary to give calomel in the cases of deficiency of bile?

Is it possible for calomel to act thus in precisely opposite ways? If so, upon what law of therapeutics?

Did you ever cure a case of any disease with calomel alone?

Did you ever try euonymin, celandine, podophyllin or irisin to act upon the liver?

Did you ever see half of the inferior maxillary bone destroyed by calomel?

Did you ever see a patient die from violent diarrhea from calomel?

Did you ever see fatal glossitis from calomel?

I have seen all of these fatal effects. And, doctor, if a physician is certain, from a long experience, that a remedy is very dangerous to both life and health, and has no certain facts to convince him that the said drug can cure disease, is he justified in giving that doubtful remedy instead of a harmless remedy, which from long experience he knows will cure the disease he is treating?

And, doctor, what would you think of a man or men, who, rather than lay down old hypothetical opinions, and investigate the opinions of their brethren, would try to prevent their brethren from the exercise of their opinions, based upon careful experience?

Please answer.

Drs. Webb and Nunnery of Liberty, Miss., asks for treatment of paralysis of a little girl. If there are evidences of hyperæmia of the spinal cord, then belladonna is indicated. If anemia is the cause, then nux vomica, one to two drops will do good; so will electricity.

Dr. Coleman Carter, of Macy, Tex., asks for treatment of periodical neuralgic headache, which comes on three to five times a month. Have you used gelsemium or passiflora? If not, try them; giving them in thirty-drop doses each, for two or three days (twice a day), before the expected attack, and stop the patient from using coffee and tobacco.

Dr. Richard Lewis Hinton, of Prescott, Ark., asks: "Shall we bleed in pneu

monia?" If we wish to cure the disease we should not. I would state that epidemic pneumonia (which I have met in a periodical form) does not require additional debility, to counteract a malarial poison, but specific antiperiodics, and expectorants where they are indicated. Sporadic cases of this disease debilitate the patient enough to endanger his life, without bleeding. Taking blood is taking a man's ability, or lessening it, to contend with the disease, therefore, it is to be avoided.

I. J. M. Goss, A.M., M.D.

Marietta, Ga.

Calomel.

I have been a reader of the BRIEF for two years and the calomel question has been well discussed during that time, both for and against its medicinal properties.

It is useless for me to say anything about it, as all has already been said for and against it that could be written, but I will say that I am a firm believer in calomel, and find it almost as essential in the South as quinine, and if properly used there is no danger in it.

But what I want is this: Let every one who reads this article send in his name, either for or against calomel, so it may appear in the October BRIEF, and I think I will find twenty for it to one against. P. G. SWEARINGEN, M. D. Colmesneil, Tex.

Blood-letting.

In the August BRIEF, p. 376, Dr. Goss, in answer to Dr. Hinton's question in regard to blood-letting, says we should not bleed in pneumonia or any other disease.

It seems astonishing, indeed, that such an able man as Dr. Goss will condemn this mode of treatment, which is advocated by the best of both ancient and modern medical authors as the most efficient remedy at our command for the treatment of inflammation, under certain conditions. He probably classes this with calomel, and discards the two from his almost innumerable list of specific remedies, simply because they are productive of great harm when injudiciously used, as a large number of our drugs are when not properly administered. What would strychnine, arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, belladonna, aconite, gelsemium, etc., do if we did not exercise great judgment in their administration?

Does Dr. Goss condemn these powerful remedies? No; and why is it? It is not because they have not produced alarming and probably fatal results, time and time again, but simply because they are remedies that are endorsed by the medical profession, and will meet indications in the treatment of diseases that could not be met without them. So it is with venesection. It is a powerful remedy, and is advocated by the medical profession as a remedy par excellence in the