Page images
PDF
EPUB

Association, and member House of Delegates to same; and other medical societies; a consistent and faithful attendant at all medical meetings.

Dr. Nelson was born near Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 1859, and at the time of his death was in his forty-seventh year. He had practiced in Chattanooga twenty-two years. No death in recent years has caused such universal sorrow; he was beloved and esteemed by all. Died at Chattanooga, Tenn., November 9, from fracture at base of skull, the result of a fall from his horse thirty-six hours previous. The local Medical Society, at a called meeting, adopted the following resolutions:

66

Whereas, The Great Physician has called our brother practitioner, Dr. Daniel E. Nelson, it is with a feeling of profound sorrow that we recognize and submit to the inevitable in his death; therefore, be it

"Resolved, That in his life we appreciate the attainment of the highest qualities that should pertain to a physician in the true and full sense of that term; that we recognize his high mental capacity, his modest demeanor, his sterling integrity, his unswerving attitude for the good and true, his indomitable energy, and wide, far-reaching Christian charity, combined with an exalted ideal of the broad views of his mission as an agent of the Creator and Preserver of mankind.

[ocr errors]

Resolved, That in his death the Hamilton County and Chattanooga Medical Society has lost a true, good friend and fellow; the medical profession a conservative, capable member; the community a valuable citizen, and the world an honest man.

"Resolved, That these resolutions be spread on the minutes of the Society, and that copies be sent to the newspapers and his immediate relatives.

"Respectfully submitted,

"P. D. SIMS.

"G. A. BAXTER.

"E. B. WISE.

"B. S. WERT.

"B. F. TRAVIS.

"C. HOLTZCLAW."

ALEXANDER POWe Hall, M. D., Tulane University of Lousiana, Medical Department, New Orleans, 1859, of Mobile, Ala., surgeon in the Confederate service throughout the Civil War, and one of the volunteer physicians who served through the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tenn., in 1878, died at the Providence Infirmary, Mobile, October 22, from injuries received in a street car accident the day before, aged sixty-nine.

Hal Walker MANSON, M. D., University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, Medical Departments, Nashville, Tenn., 1867, a Confederate veteran, in 1897 a member of the Texas Legislature, died at his home in Rockwell, Texas, October 27, after an illness of several weeks, aged sixty-four.

Editorial.

SOUTHERN QUARANTINE AND IMMIGRATION CONFERENCE.

PURSUANT to a call issued by His Excellency, Gov. Jno. I. Cox, of Tennessee, quite a notable gathering of leading and prominent men of the South took place in Chattanooga, Tenn., beginning Thursday, Nov. 9, ult., with morning, afternoon, and evening sessions on that day and the following one. Governor Cox was made permanent chairman, and Thos. K. Brewer, of N. C., secretary. There were in attendance over two hundred prominent men as leading citizens of all the Southern States, including the chief executives of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, the Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service and Marine Hospital, the Commissioner-General of Immigration, U. S. Senators, Congressmen, mayors of cities, local and state health officers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, preachers, and men engaged in commercial, agricultural, and R. R. enterprises.

It was the outcome of the yellow-fever invasion during the summer, and a general interchange of views took place, some most excellent and practical addresses being made, and the outcome of it all was the adoption of a series of resolutions that we regard as a long step in advance of anything heretofore accomplished in the way of public health measures.

Among the splendid addresses and speeches made were the opening remarks of Governor Cox, the address of welcome by Senator Jas. B. Frazier, of Tennessee, the responses thereto by Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, and Hon. Chas. P. Lane, of Alabama, and remarks and

speeches of Governor Glenn, of North Carolina, Governor N. C. Blanchard, of Louisiana, Governor Broward, of Florida, Hon. Jno. Sharp Williams, of Mississippi, Hon. W. B. Richardson, of Alabama, Dr. Walter Wyman, and others, all breathed a full spirit of compromise, and while they were at some points divergent, these were of minor importance, and the following resolutions were adopted with but little if any dissent; and both in the resolutions and the remarks of the speakers, the matter of that old bug-bear, "State Rights," was given its proper place. It is all well enough to hold fast to the rights of the sovereign States, but when occasion arises, such as foreign invasion, domestic insurrection, and an invasion of microbes or mosquitoes, the strong arm of the national government is required for their early, if not immediate suppression. This is in accord with views that we have advocated in these pages time and again in the past and we are glad indeed to see that the pendulum is at last swinging in the right direction. At some future time we may have more to say on this subject, but now we will let the resolutions speak for themselves.

"Whereas, The experience of recent years and especially the experience of this year, have demonstrated beyond cavil that the house mosquito, known as the stegomyia fasciata, is the sole known cause of yellow fever epidemics and have demonstrated the futility and nuisance of many antiquated methods of quarantine hitherto resorted to, and the wisdom and necessity, in the interest of the public health and the public business, of uniform regulations to prevent the importation into the United States of yellow fever and its spread from State to State in the unfortunate event of its introduction; now, therefore, be it

"Resolved, That we, delegates from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, hereby respectfully request the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled to enact a law whereby coast maritime and national frontier quarantine shall be placed exclusively under the control and jurisdiction of the United States government, and that matters of interstate quarantine shall be placed under the control and jurisdiction of the United States government, acting in co-operation with the several State boards of health.

"We furthermore respectfully request that Congress shall make adequate appropriation to enforce and perfect the objects of this memorial and to stamp out as nearly as practicable the yellow fever-carrying mosquito in its breeding or living places in the United States, and by negotiating arrangements with the governments of Central and South America and the West India islands, in places where the said mosquito has its breeding places or exists in said countries.

'Resolved, second, That we urge upon the legislatures of the several

Southern States that they enact quarantine regulations as nearly as possible in accord and conformity as herein recited.

"We furthermore urge the governors of the said several States with the above object in view specifically to call the attention of the legislatures of their respective States to the wisdom and policy of this course."

In the course of his remarks, Governor Blanchard uttered the following:

"I am a Democrat, born and bred. I drank it in my mother's milk. I give way to no man on earth to the cardinal principles of the Democratic party.

"Yet, I stand here on this platform as a Democrat, as a lawyer, as well as a Democratic governor of a great State of the South, to tell you that if you ever expect to obtain uniform quarantine regulations, you are never going to have it until the federal government takes over not only foreign and maritime quarantine, but the State quarantine as well.” (Applause.)

And this paragraph is taken from the remarks of Hon. John Sharp Williams:

"I not only claim that it is the power of the federal government, but I go further, and say that it is its duty, and it is a duty which has hitherto been neglected, and as much a duty to protect American people from the invasion of this dreaded disease as it is to protect it from the invasion of a German, British, French, or Spanish army."

THE PROPRIETY OF PROPRIETARY MEDICINES. BECAUSE Some proprietary medicines are useless, ineffectual, and possibly in some instances harmful, is no reason that all such compounds are to be placed under ban, any more than because some lawyers are shysters, some preachers are "black sheep," and some doctors are quacks and irregulars, all the members of these professions should be condemned. The manufacture of trade-mark and proprietary preparations of drugs and chemicals is in our opinion a decided advance, a movement of progress; and if a manufacturing druggist can so arrange a combination of therapeutic agents as to make them more eligible, more palatable, more efficacious, he is in our opinion to be commended; and if he sees proper to give the combination a distinct and definite name, copyrighting the same, in order that he may reap the benefit of his investigation,— for as a rule all such are the result of investigation and study, - he should not be condemned any more than a writer of a medical book who copyrights the same. Any one knowing the ingredients of Fellows' Hypophosphites can compound the same, use and sell it, but he is debarred only from using the copyrighted name of "Fellows." And so it is with

all proprietary compounds - Listerine, Bromidia, Tyree's Antiseptic, Antiphlogistine, Hayden's Viburnum Comp., etc.

66

A patent medicine is a secret compound, its ingredients, as a rule, not known to other than the manufacturers-it is quite different to a proprietary" or trade-marked combination. It is not essential that one should know just exactly how a proprietary is manufactured, the details and particular measures and manipulations in its manufacture are of no more importance to the physician than are the special machines and measures resorted to in the manufacture of gelatine capsules or adhesive plasters. Some manufacturing pharmacists have certain methods of making ether and chloroform, peculiar alone to their establishments, by which it is possible they obtain a greater purity, a more definite and reliable article; and in some instance, this being known, a special name, that of the manufacturer, is time and again used in ordering or prescribing these and similar articles. What the prescriber is interested in, is that his patient gets just what he has ordered. It is perfectly immaterial to him as to exactly how this had been manufactured as from trial in the past, he can rely on the manufacturer. He has learned by experience, tradition, or otherwise that certain preparations will give certain results - that is all that he desires and needs to know, and he so orders or prescribes.

Some good proprietary remedies having been evolved by the progressive spirit of the manufacturing pharmacist, numerous attempts have been made to make others, some, as stated, are good, others fail to accomplish anything and soon pass away, but those that have been demonstrated to give certain definite results, have remained and will continue to remain, and will continue to do good in the future as in the past.

A successful medical practitioner of many years' standing makes the following statement :

"There are a large majority of combinations which extemporaneous pharmacy cannot prepare properly; and I know that through the dishonesty, ignorance, or indifference of many retail druggists we are not able to get on prescriptions the very best drugs; hence it is to the manufacturing pharmacist, whose best interest lies in the purity and uniformity of his product, that we must look for our most reliable remedies.

"I endorse worthy proprietaries, but I most heartily condemn the great tendency of the 'half-baked,' so-called manufacturing 'chemist,' to foist upon the profession and public cheap imitations of standard preparations."

In this we can most heartily concur, it coinciding with the views we have held for years, and as to which are only to-day the more positive in our mind. In the "Chairman's Address" before the Section on Pharmacology at the last (Portland) meeting of the American Medical Association, published in the Association Journal of Nov. 18, 1905, page 1537, we find the following:-"Almost the entire science of therapeutics is nothing else but more or less refined and varnished empiricism, all

« PreviousContinue »