'Memphis Medical Monthly [FORMERLY MISSISSIPPI VALley Medical MONTHLY.] SUBSCRIPTION PER ANNUM, ONE DOLLAR IN ADVANCE. The MONTHLY will be mailed on or about the fifteenth of the month. Sub scribers failing to receive it promptly will please notify us at once. Original communications, etc., should be in the hands of the Editor on or before the first of the month of publication. We cannot promise to furnish back numbers. Clinical experience-practical articles-favorite prescriptions, etc., and medical news of general interest to the profession, solicited. All communications, whether of a business or literary character, should be addressed to F. L. SIM, M.D., EDITOR, A. WEBB, M.D.-Nothing gives us more pleasure than the privilege of occasionally gazing upon the face of a good man ; such, it is our pleasure to place the shadow of before our readers this month. At the last annual meeting of the Tri-State Medical Association of Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, Dr. A. Webb of Collierville, in this State, was elected its President. He will preside over the forthcoming meeting, November 17th, 1892. Dr. Webb was born in Wake county, North Carolina, in 1828. While he was only two years old, his father moved to Williamson county, Tennessee, so that he may really be regarded a "full-fledged " Tennesseean. At the age of fifteen, the doctor's father removed to Fayette county, where he resided until young Webb reached his majority, and began the battle of life upon his own responsibility. At the age of seventeen, he began the study of medicine under the guidance of Dr. R. A. Donohue, at Macon, Tenn. He attended his first lectures in the Memphis Medical College at the age of twenty. After which he spent two years in the practice of medicine, and graduated from the University of Nashville in 1852. While at Nashville attending his second course of lectures, the doctor had the good fortune to be an occupant of the office of Prof. John M. Watson, and in consequence enjoyed the advanVOL. XII-33 tages incident to such relationship. He located in Collier-, ville in 1852, and has, from that day to this, enjoyed the confidence of the good people of the city and vicinity, and the esteem of his professional brethren throughout the State of Tennessee. THE CHOLERA.-After surmounting every obstacle placed in its course in Europe, this dread disease was first brought to bay on American soil and American waters. The obstructive efforts in the Old Country appear to have had little or no influence over the remarkably rapid strides of the disease, until reaching the confines of England; here the efforts of the sanitarian resulted more successfully, but it remained for this country to show to the world the real advantages to be gained by the timely use of preventive measures. To Dr. Jenkins, Health Officer of the port of New York, Dr. Walter Wiman, Supervising Surgeon-General of the United States MarineHospital Service, and to the New York City Board of Health, this country owes a lasting debt of gratitude for arresting and stamping out the cholera in the city and port of New York. The same success has been attained in the port of San Francisco, Cal., and in ports of Mexico. This success, together with preparations made by boards of health and sanitarians throughout the United States, has given to the country a confidence in preventive medicine not heretofore experienced. In our own State the good work of cleaning up, disinfecting and preparing the people for a possible visitation, has been pushed by local and State boards of health, until but little more remains than to persist in the preservation of cleanliness. The State Board of Health has been wideawake and very efficient in making use of the power and assistance placed at its disposal by the acts of the General Assembly passed in 1877, 1879 and 1885. Under date of August 27, a letter was addressed to every municipal and county health officer in the State; also to each individual member of municipal and county boards of health, including mayors and members of city councils of all towns in the State. In this letter, attention was called to the possi bility of the Asiatic pest reaching our borders, and the authorities upon whom the responsibility rests were urged at once to set about, in an intelligent and systematic way, to place their respective houses in order for the storm should it come. In this letter were enclosed copies of the two pamphlets issued by the board entitled, "Memorandum Addressed to the Local Authorities of the Cities, Towns and Villages of Tennessee," and "The Cholera and How to Prevent it." Thus Thus every nook and corner of the State was reached with such information as would create vigilance and allay panic. In a well-written article in the International Journal of Surgery, Dr. Francis Reder gives us a description of the use of the rubber bulb as an aid in intestinal resection. It seems that with the use of this instrument this delicate operation can be performed with less difficulty, more neatly, within less time, and with less assistance than similar operations that have been performed by ordinary methods. To sum up the whole, we have the following conclusions: The appliance consists of a bulb and stem made of soft rubber; there are three different sizes adapted for the large and small intestines, but the only difference as to size is found in the transverse diameter, the long diameter remaining the same. The diseased gut is excised, the interior of both ends of the bowel cleansed with sterilized water, the bulb partially inflated introduced, one end in the lower, the other end in the upper bowel. The ends of the intestine are slipped together over the bulb so that the margins of the wound come in contact, and the proper union is made in this way. The bulb is then inflated to such an extent that the bowel tissue in immediate contact with the bulb is put upon a gentle stretch. With the full inflation of the bulb, difference in caliber of the gut is overcome, and the inflation also tends to decrease to some extent the eversion of the mucous coat, which sometimes causes considerable annoyance during suturing by protruding markedly. There is a possibility that the gut may have a tendency to slip off under such circumstances: a small instrument called the "serre-fin," made of small spring wire, is used in holding the tissues in apposition till they are secured by sutures. Two serre-fins will |