Needless Self-Sacrifice.

The newspapers and many medical journals are still engaged in commenting on the deeds of self-sacrifice of Dr. Garnault, the French physician, who is endeavoring in various ways to inoculate himself with bovine tuberculosis. Incidentally, the similar experiments, involving possible loss of life, performed on themselves by the late Pettenkofer and others, are mentioned with the proper degree of admiration and appreciation of the heroism involved in experiments of this nature. While we fully share in the veneration of those immortal heroes who sacrificed their lives on the altar of science, we must admit a lack of enthusiasm on our part when we witness such foolhardy experiments as performed by Garnault and Pettenkofer. Suppose Garnault had succeeded in producing localized tuberculosis at the point of inoculation, which he did not; it would only prove what has already been irrefutably established by the dozen or more cases of accidental inoculation with bovine tuberculosis reported by Ravenel and others.

Again, suppose Garnault should succeed in producing generalized tuberculosis by intravenous injection, a method which he contemplates employing; it will only prove at most that bovine tuberculosis may be transmitted in a direct and certainly unusual manner, but it will not throw the slightest light on the debated question as to the possibility of acquiring tuberculosis from ingestion of tubercular milk or meat. On the other hand, negative results would not in the least support Koch's assertion, since Dr. Garnault may possess an individual insusceptibility to the disease in any form, just as the negative results which fortunately followed Pettenkofer's ingestion of a pure culture of cholera bacilli did not prove that the latter are not the cause of cholera.

It is to be remembered that in investigations involving experiments on man or animal the experiments must be repeated to such an extent as entirely to exclude the personal equation of the experimenter and the individual characteristics of the subject experimented upon. Unless this is accomplished, the experiments are subject to error and therefore of little value. Our famous yellow fever commission has certainly shown the necessity of repeated and crucial experiments in establishing a scien

tific fact, and it is on account of the thoroughness of their work that the etiology of yellow fever, in so far as its relation to mosquitoes is concerned, was irrefutably established. Experiments like Garnault's, on the other hand, prove nothing one way or another, and are of the nature of fanatical suicides, such as are of such frequent occurrence among religious monomaniacs.Philadelphia Med. Journal.

A Psalm of the Game.

Tell us not in mournful measure,

Life is but a rose-strewn way; Paths of peace afford no pleasure Like a brilliant grand-stand play.

Life is fierce, life is savage;

And the truly noble soul Loves to maim, and lame, and ravage Down the line from goal to goal.

Not for us the wordy wrangle; Protests, kicks and howls are vain; But to act, that every tangle

Leaves a few less yards to gain.

Lives of players all remind us

We may triumph in the chase, And departing leave behind us

Footprints on full many a face.

On the white-lined field of battle
Let no mercy drive or lead;
Be not like tame, plodding cattle-
Organize a grand stampede.

Let us then be up and slugging
Like heroic gentlemen;
Smiting, jabbing, punching, chugging-
Seven-nine-two-sixteen-ten.

-Minneapolis Journal.

Boiling Water for Tumors.

After tests covering two years, a physician of New York City has announced a new method of treating tumors. It is by the use of boiling water.

He uses a syringe with a metal cylinder and adjustable piston with needles of varying size.

Using the ordinary asceptic precautions, water is taken directly from a cauldron and injected into the substance of the tumor.

The water must be at a temperature of from 190 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, or even higher.

The water, he says, should be hot enough to coagulate the blood and the albuminoids of the tissues immediately, but it should not be forced in so extremely hot and under such pressure as to scald and produce a necrosis of the skin.

During the treatment the patient is put under the influence of narcotics.-Minneapolis Tribune.

Ten years ago 10 out of every 17 physicians in Berlin did not earn more than $750 a year, and only 250 earned more than $2,000. Today the situation is even worse.

A curious form of mental ailment has been developed by the Russian Grand Duke Constantin Constantinovitch. His highness is said to be incessantly reciting scenes from Shakespeare's "Hamlet," which he himself has translated into Russian.

The native countries of the tallest and shortest people of Europe, the Norwegians and the Lapps, adjoin each other.

In the canton of Zurich, according to the official school report for the year 1899-1900, 108,297 children were examined medically, and the ears were found in some way affected in 117 per 1,000.

It is announced from Barringen, in Bohemia, that a wealthy citizen has just had his thirty-seventh child baptized.

Dr. Rollet, professor of ophthalmology, at Lyons, has recently performed an operation for cataract on a Calabrian wolf in the Lyons zoological gardens. The operation was exceedingly difficult, the animal having become ferocious with the oncoming of blindness.

In Germany, 70 per cent of male and 68 per cent of female cancer patients suffer from cancer of the digestive organs.

It is estimated that in France that are over 125,000 cretins and idiots. In the eastern part of the country the proportion of cretins rises to the extremely high figure of 32 per 1,000, while goiter shows as high as III per 1,000.

A young Parisian woman, who recently became engaged to be married, on applying for her official papers, discovered that a mistake as to her sex had been made, and she had been put down on the register as a boy. She also discovered that the police, believing her to be a boy, had a warrant for her arrest for not presenting herself for military service. She will now have to prove her identity, and, in the meantime, the marriage has been postponed indefinitely.

A special sanatorium for women-alcoholics is being established in St. Petersburg.

France contains more people over sixty years of age than are found in any other European country. The next greatest percentage of old people is found in Ireland.

The title of "doctor" was invented in the twelfth century and conferred for the first time upon Inerius, of the University of Bologna. The first "doctor of medicine" was Gulielmo Gordenio, who received his degree from the College of Aosti, in Italy.

I220.

Murdoch advises orthoform in the diagnosis of gastric ulcer. He reports in detail two cases showing its good effects. He always gives it in powder, finding relief follow in twenty minutes. It is especially indicated in the gastralgic form of gastric ulcer. Philadelphia Med. Journal. Bleeding at Stool.

In young children in the absence of symptoms of dysentery, is almost always caused by the presence of a polypus; rectal examination clears up the diagnosis.-International Journal of Surgery.

Extra Compensation Wanted.

The question as to whether or not a physician, beginning the treatment of a patient in a summer resort, is under obligation to continue his visits after he has returned home, the patient remaining in the resort, without exacting a larger fee, was passed upon a few days ago in the Supreme Court. The suit was that of Dr. Jacob H. Asch, who sued Charles Goldsmith to recover a bill for medical attendance, in which he charged $15 for each visit paid to the defendant after the time he had left Arverne. where the defendant continued to reside. The defendant held that $15 a visit was too much for the physician to charge after leaving the resort, and that the trips out of town ought to have been charged at the same rate ($3) as visits made when both physician and patient were at Arverne. The jury decided in favor of Dr. Asch, giving him $250, the full amount of his claim, after deliberating for five hours.-Medical Record.

NEW ORLEANS POLYCLINIC.

Sixteenth annual session opens November 3. 1902, and closes May 30, 1903. Physicians will find the Polyclinic an excellent means for posting themselves upon modern progress in all branches of medicine and surgery. The specialties are fully taught, including laboratory work. For further information address New Orleans Polyclinic, postoffice box 797, New Orleans, La.

(March 1903.