was excessive. The fluid ejected consisted mainly of bile.

One is at a loss to know what to use, so contradictory are the authorities and so prolific the number of remedies recommended. I could not get any relief from remedies used, except morphia, so I thought I would try a prescription I had read in a medical journal (the journal I can not find and the name I have forgotten). So I gave my patient six ounces of sweet oil, to be taken at one dose. Result of which was, complete freedom from pain, and passage of gall stones. Those who have not tried it, try it, and see how well it works.

Dr. Hopkins, of this place, being called with myself to see a case similar to the one I have just described, we concluded to give the olive oil, which worked like a charm.

I will say that if the editor of the New York Medical Journal ever happens to stroll through Southwest Missouri, and should have an attack of gall-stone colic while in Sarcoxie, he will find two doctors-Hopkins and Smith-who have the gall to give olive oil. Sarcoxie, Mo. Inhalation of Hot Steam in Pulmo

R. R. SMITH, M. D.

nary Phthisis and Asthma.

I have been experimenting with hot steam in pulmonary phthisis and asthma with very satisfactory results, though I failed to carry my investigations as far as I wished to, because of circumstances over which I had no control. My purpose in writing these lines at this time is, that some of my brother M. Ds. will take up and complete the pleasant task.

Taking the theory of Dr. Weigert, of Berlin, and others, that tubercle bacilli will die outside of the body at a temperature of 106° F. for my text, I began investigating.

Miss B., aged twenty-three, whose mother had died five years previous of pulmonary phthisis, became alarmed at her condition, and consulted me in regard to a cough which had constantly troubled her for the last six months, or longer, with more or less severity. Her personal history, given me on her first visit to my office, was, that she had attended a Christmas ball, and, after dancing nearly every figure and all the round dances, all night

long, was driven home (a distance of eight miles) against a heavy wind and during a very cold morning. The result of which was a very severe attack of pneumonia, which lasted about four weeks. She was treated successfully by her family physician, with no cough immediately following. But, in the course of two months or so, she discovered a dull aching in the right lung, at a point three inches above and two inches to the left of the right mammary gland, or rather, the nipple, which soon changed to a sharp, cutting pain, and about this time she began coughing. At first, it was the characteristic short, hacking cough, but it gradually grew worse, coughing up first a clear sputa, and then mucus streaked occasionally with blood, and pains in the region of the right scapula, and finally, with a fit of violent coughing, a severe hemorrhage set in, which was only controlled by her family physician with some difficulty. From this time, she commenced to cough up yellow, puslike matter, with more or less blood, and emaciation became marked.

At this period, I was consulted. I found her with all the leading symptoms of pulmonary phthisis: emaciation, expectorations of mummular or cheesy lumps, indicating softened tubercle, hectic flush of the cheeks, profuse nightsweats, curved finger-nails, suppressed catamenia. While in my office, she had a fit of coughing, during which she expectorated a viscid liquid of a dirty gray color. I immediately put her under the hot air treatment, for the purpose of destroying the bacilli with which the expectorations were filled, but, as she complained of unbearable dryness of the throat and "making her cough tight," as she called it, I changed to hot steam, beginning, as with the hot air, with a temperature of 140° F., and kept it up for two hours. At the expiration of this time, she said she felt relieved, with no sensation of dryness of the throat. I ordered this treatment to be continued for one week, at which time I wished her to visit my office again. On her return, I found her much improved. I increased the temperature from 140° to 175° F., gradually increasing to 180°.

At the expiration of one month, the sputum began to clear itself of bacilli,

and the dullness and rales became less marked. And at the end of two months of hot steam inhalation, she began to gain in flesh, menses returned, nightsweats had ceased, hectic flush nearly gone, and no bacilli in what little she coughed up. A cavity could plainly be traced in her right lung, in the region of the pain.

When last heard from, she was keeping up the hot steam inhalations, at intervals, and was able to resume light housework.

Owing to pressing business, I will not have time to continue my report of my other cases at this time, but, if requested to do so, will continue later on. I close, hoping that others will make a thorough test of hot steam inhalations in pulmenary phthisis and asthma.

Salina, Kan. C. W. STOWE, M. D.

Marriage and Other Matters.

In the September BRIEF, Dr. Doane gets clear away from the subject in attempting to prove that marriage is a mercenary contract. While the readers of this journal do not, as a class, believe that marriage in America is anything of the kind; yet, as physicians, the truth or falsity of Dr. Doane's position does not concern us so much as does that other question, the consideration of which led to the marriage idea. In the beginning, I took occasion to say that early marriages—marriages of the immature of either sex-are not good for the race, or for the individuals of such unions. The immature members of any class of animals do not beget the robust, well-developed specimens of that class. For this reason, I do not consider that early marriages are to be encouraged always, or even as a rule.

Dr. Doane is of the opinion that, since early marriages will stop the habit of masturbation, they are to be encouraged, and, if for no other reason, simply because they reclaim one or both of the contracting parties. At this stage of the discussion, the marriage relation as a civil contract caused the main question to be dropped, and it is to consider this that the subject is resumed.

In order that we may best judge of the needs of any case, wherein the normal condition of the parts is changed, it is very necessary that the examination

should be thorough, and the tendency of any abnormality duly considered. It is well, also, to mark the fact that any injury, real or imaginary, to the genitalia is infinitely more likely to occasion mental worry and depression than does any other affection of the whole body. Not one masturbator in a dozen of those who marry happily and are the heads of families but spends hours and hours in mental sackcloth over the real or imagined weakness he attributes to his own folly.

The varicose condition of the veins, particularly of the left side, satisfies him that his testicles are softening and wasting away. The cold, clammy state of the glans satisfies him that his virility is rapidly on the wane. With advancing years, he fails to attribute the decline of youthful ardor to aught but the ravages of a destruction that is believed inevitable. These ideas he has, without any regard to the assurance his medical adviser may have given him, that he needed no treatment. The patient feels that he does need something, and he needs more than quinia and iron and strychnia. Professional indifference drives him to a shark, who satisfies his mind, for a time, at least, even if he does occupy the interim in filching his pockets. The poor victim of ignorance and unbridled lust needs more advice than to seek a wife, and he needs more treatment than a tonic.

In a practice of nearly fifteen years, I have never seen a masturbator whose urethra was not abnormally sensitive and irritable in some portion of it. The unnatural demands made upon the procreative powers must result in injuries to the parts in and about the organs of generation, which cessation or rest will not alone remedy. The shock to the nervous system, made by so frequent and violent demands on the cerebro-spinal system, can not but leave the marks of injury behind. Time and rest will do much toward repairing the damages done before puberty, but they will not do all, and so long as it is in our power to offer reasonable hope, it is a very great mistake to neglect the subject and give it to the tender care and keeping of men who rob the victims of cash and hope at one fell

swoop.

Not long since, a young man came to me for treatment. He said he had been

to a dozen physicians, some of whom had advised him to use baths, some had given him tonics, and a few had told him he needed nothing but to build up his system and forget all about his indiscretions. This patient was satisfied that his manhood was going, since he could not, as in halcyon days, mark the limit which frail women and rank wine then made possible. He needed to be told that the candle, once burned, is out. He needed to be told that in the rosy east no sun of physical splendor would rise, and that in the years yet to come to him, insulted, violated and injured nature would always tell him that he reaps as he sows. But, at the same time, this patient needed treatment. Because there was evidence of testicular degeneration, there was reason for relieving the urethral irritability and the general irritability, which rendered normal erections and ejaculations matters of uncertainty and dissatisfaction. The patient is now a teacher, in a responsible position, is married and the father of a couple of bright children. He still regrets the folly of his indiscretion, but he has long since ceased to think that his mind is going and that decrepitude and imbecility lie but a little way beyond.

The great trouble in dismissing patients with the idea that he needs nothing, is that he does not believe it, in which case he is nearer the truth than his counsellor. Many youths plunge headlong into dissipation, believing that their sorrow can be drowned in the foaming beer. These are the silliest of the lot. They make a bad matter worse. Another very generous class embrace religion, and the mental anguish of these young people must indeed be terrible as the enormity of their sin is shown to them.

All these are the patients who come to us with quivering lip and tell us their sorrows and their fears. And I take it, that the medical man who tells such that they need no treatment, or need only a tonic, is ignorant of his duty, and the sooner he studies up and learns what he is expected to know, and ought to know, the better for a profession he does not elevate by membership.

Marriage is a civil contract, and it is made on the basis of affection, for the propagation of the species and the social

union of two beings. It is not a mercenary game, in which selfish and sordid motives actuate both parties. Marriage is, and should continue to be, the union of two pure and worthy people. It never should be made the makeshift to save a masturbator, for when it is, it is only legalized prostitution. The interest we have in a patient never reaches that point where we are warranted in advising a physically and mentally weak debauchee to save himself at the expense of a good, virtuous woman. The unfortunate victims of their own vile habits need such treatment as will correct, in so far as possible, the injuries done, and then our labor is at an end.

J. A. DE ARMOND, M. D.

Davenport, Ia.

Answers to Inquiries.

BY I. J. M. GOSS, A.M., M.D.

Dr. J. A. Green asks for best treatment for abdominal aneurism. The hamamelis, fil. ext. or saturated tincture of the bark, will aid the ext. of ergot in reducing the caliber of the vessels, and prolong the life of the patient, and cure

a recent case.

Dr. Wm. Protzman says: "Mercury stimulates the glandular system." It does, but its effects are morbid, and not healthful. He says: "The enemies of mercury dare not stultify themselves and deny its physiological action upon the liver, kidneys and lymphatic glands." Now, if mercury has any action on the kidneys, I have failed to see that action. He says: "Mercury is indispensable in the treatment of typhoid fever." It softens the tissues, and greatly aids a hemorrhagic tendency, and is thereby dangerous in the extreme. Wood, Ringer, Brunton, and Bartholow oppose the doctor's idea that mercury increases the red globules, but I believe they all admit that the free use, which is generally made of it, destroys the red globules or corpuscles. He says "it stimulates the glycogen function of the liver." Where is the evidence? It was proven by Bennett and also by Rutherford, in their well-conducted experiments, that calomel lessened the functional action of the liver after a few

doses. He says "it stimulates the metabolic action of the liver and enables it to work up worn out disintegrated tissue, such as creatin, creatinin, xanthin, lucine, tyroline, and worn out red corpuscles, as well as many other tissues which must be metabolized into urea, uric acid, and other nitrogenous metabolites." Where is the proof? This mercury could not do, unless it increased the biliary secretion. And it has been proven to lessen the liver's action.

As regards its diuretic effects, I gave calomel, for years, as a diuretic in dropsy, in all size doses, but failed to get any such an effect. And, as regards its stimulating digestion, that is all a hoax. It retards digestion and assimilation.

The doctor asks: "What other remedy, outside of mercury, will stimulate the functional activity of the glands successfully?" Muriatic acid is a good promotor of the salivary secretion, and dissolves the sordes, and acts upon the gastric glands. Iodine, or the iodides of ammonia, or of soda, or Lugol's solution, is a good stimulator of the glands, and a good antiseptic in fevers.

The doctor says he treated forty cases of typhoid fever last fall, without the loss of a single case, yet every one got the mercury.

Well, doctor, I have treated hundreds, and cured them, without a single grain of mercury. And if the doctor, and all others, will give iodine, and baptisia tinctoria, instead of mercury, the unfortunate sick will be greatly blessed.

Dr. H. M. Boyd asks for help in a case of Miss S., aged twenty, who, last January, while her menses were on, caught cold, and has not menstruated since. Has, for four weeks, had pain under the left clavicle, coughs a little, and raises some thick mucus. Has been spitting up some blood for two or three weeks. If the doctor will give ten drops of pulsatilla in a strong tea of polygonum punctatum, say a dessertspoonful of the infusion every three hours, it will be apt to restore the menses. The lady should bathe her feet at night in warm water, especially about the time of the expected flow of the menses. The hemorrhage should be treated with lycopus (bugle weed) fl. ext. in doses of one drachm

three or four times a day. And the lungs should be examined very carefully, and all the symptoms noted. The patient probably has phthisis.

Dr. W. A. Proctor attacks me because I do not bleed. He says I class bloodletting with calomel. No, doctor, I do not, although bleeding has carried to an untimely grave its thousands, it is to be preferred (as a hobby) to calomel, because it does its work quickly, while calomel does its destructive work slowly. The doctor says that I have peculiar notions, and that I am not satisfied unless I have something to abuse. Now, doctor, if you will lay aside your prejudices, and do as I did, investigate the various systems of practice, you too, will abuse calomel, and all poisons that inhere, like it, in the system through life. You ask why I do not condemn strychnine, arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, belladonna, aconite, gelsemium, etc.? Because these remedies are only dangerous in very large doses, and are quickly eliminated from the system, whereas, calomel inheres for life in the tissues, and entails untold suffering upon its victims.

While I regard Dr. Standlee a gentleman and a scientific physician, he is not a disciple of mine in any accepted sense, as I never saw him, nor had any communication whatever with him. But I would say, that if he had been taught by me he would not have been damaged by the discipleship.

But, doctor, you need not expect to reintroduce such a destructive remedy as bloodletting in this age of light. The lancet has been sheathed for ever. Let it be.

Dr. J. A. Ryan asks what do do for an eruption, but does not so describe it, as to enable us to diagnose the disease. It simulates dermatitis exfoliativa, called pityriasis rubra (see the author's Practice). It is a disturbance of the trophic nerves. The application at night of bran baths or a decoction of walnut leaves as a wash, followed by forty grains of resorcin to two ounces of sassafras. If this application does not do well, try oil of cade or juniper tar. Internally, give two to three drops tinct. of arsenic, or five drops Fowler's Solution, three times a day.

Dr. J. B. Bearden asks for treatment of cholera infantum, which has been given by me several times. The vomiting can be checked with small doses of euphorbia or ipecacuanha, say one-fourth to one-half drop fluid ext. of either, then the diarrhea may be checked with comp. syr. rhei, in doses to suit the age, etc.

The doctor asks what is the physiological action of collinsonia (stone root). Collinsonia impresses the whole digestive intestinal canal, especially the rectum. This action is through the portal system, through the abdominal sympathetic nerves. Through this system, the caliber of the portal veins is contracted throughout the whole circulation-those of the rectum more especially and powerfully. In large doses, physiologically, it produces nausea, with faintness, griping pains in the bowels, flatulence, mucobloody stools; tenesmus, at times. On the kidneys, it causes diuresis. Collinsonia has a marked action upon the heart, increasing the muscular tonicity of that organ. Therapeutically, its action, in doses of ten to fifteen drops, three times a day, aids in reducing the size of an enlarged heart, thereby prolonging life. It is also a valuable remedy in hemorrhoids, given in small doses.

If Dr. Jas. G. Phillips will try euphorbia, alternated with tincture of baptisia, one-half to one drop of the first, according to age, and five drops of the latter, for children, he will cure his cases of dysentery.

As Dr. J. D. Rush asks if he could have given anything better in his case of tetanus, that died, I would suggest that the doctor try the tinct. of fluid ext. of passiflora incarnata in his next case.

Dr. J. Young does not tell us what he has given for the pain in the lower part of the back. If it is not disease of the spinal marrow, it is a case of lumbago. If the patient is easy when in bed, he needs bryonia. If he is easier when moving about, then rhus toxicodendron is indicated. Apply over the pain my wellknown liniment, viz.: Menthol, one ounce; oil cajeput, one-half ounce; oil sassafras, one ounce; oil origanum, one ounce; alcohol, one pint. Apply with the hand, rubbing well.

Marietta, Ga.

Stomach Trouble.

Will some of the BRIEF family give diagnosis and treatment for a case with the following symptoms:

M. C. G., forty years of age, six feet ten inches in height, weighs 185 pounds; has black hair, fair complexion, brown eyes. Family history good. He has been suffering for the past twelve years with pain and tenderness in the right hypochondriac region. Pressure on the stomach, in region of pylorus, produces pain in the dorsal region. He has a dull, heavy aching under right scapula. The pain in the stomach comes on about once a month, though the tenderness is present, to some extent, all the time. When the paroxysms come on he is constipated, and he finds great relief when his bowels are moved by a cathartic.

All the other organs of the body seem to be normal as palpation shows.

Now, if some one who has had a similar case will give diagnosis and treatment, either by private letter or through the BRIEF, I will consider it quite a favor; as I am a young practitioner, and my experience is limited, I appeal through the BRIEF for help.

I don't see how I could get along without the BRIEF, as it is the best medical journal I have ever seen.

R. H. LASATER, M. D. Haughts Store, Tex.

Neuralgic Headache.

To Dr. Coleman Carter, Macy, Tex.: In MEDICAL BRIEF of last issue you ask for treatment in an obstinate case of' "neuralgic headache."

If you will give your patient ten drops of Fowler's sol., three times a day, and keep up treatment for twenty-one days, giving three or four large doses of quinine at intervals of three hours, just before the expected paroxysm of pain, you will undoubtedly cure your patient. With your patient, the central lesion is not in the ganglia or great sympathetic, but the cerebro-spinal system of nerves. Try this plan, and report result through the BRIEF. J. M. JACKSON, M. D.