to everything that tends to destroy the organism. Now, when we consider the fact that we are surrounded every moment by thousands of toxic agents floating in the air we breathe, swimming in the water we drink, swarming in the food we eat, does it not occur to any rational mind that there must be some organized resistance to such toxic influence? Left to their mercy, without any normal physiological recognition of their toxic power or physiological resistance to their toxic effect, existence would be impossible for a single moment. If there is such a physiological guard set over the citadel of life, what is it? What is its functional rank? What are its orders, and what is the countersign which it asks of that essay to enter the gateways of the organism? I will tell you what it is. It is NUCLEIN. In the first place, to recall its origin, all proteids must first go through the white blood. corpuscles the leucocyte; in fact, as we follow their track transformation and transitions, we shall see almost as much red tape as would be streaming from a ten-year-old London chancery claim. But examining the morphological character of this ultimate tissue trophic substance, we observe first that it is directly developed in the leucocyte by the principle resident in the nucleus, nucleolus, etc. This is the first real step in the march of physiological development. Let us trace the process ab initio. There is always a point at which, after the analogy of primitive Methodism, nutritive material becomes "converted." Converted into what? Physiology answers, like theology: From "death unto life;" or, to speak in more scientific, though I doubt if in more expressive, terms, the nonassimilable but absorptive products of the digestive tract are delivered to the leucocyte to receive a cellular impress to become endowed with a vital power which lifts it out of the inorganic world entirely. Wherever, then, this cellulized, vitalized nutritive. material occurs, it possesses two distinct functions, one an environing, the other a directly metabolic, function. Gathered by molecular affinity, it throws about tissue an envelope of physiology, as it were, through which everything must pass before it becomes converted into perfectly assimilable material. Any kind of cellular matter or blastema must mingle with it before its influence can reach the true physiology of the organism. The question may be asked, and very naturally, too, what have physiologists been doing all these ages past that a cellular relation such as this has so long been hidden from view, lying, as it does, at the very foundation of all vital expression of animal life? What has so long obscured the vision of the microscopist for, lo! these many years, when so constant a condition of histology has so long been overlooked? I admit that it is indeed strange-passing strange. But we may ask with the same reason, why astronomy waited SO long for Copernicus, and geography for Columbus, physiology for Harvey, therapeutics for Jenner, politics for a Washington, and appendicitis for a Morris, a Fowler or a Price. There is always a time for the birth of every principle, and we are daily startled with sudden sunbursts of thought upon places long dark, which disclose the most valuable principles of truth. As to the exact composition of nuclein, chemical analysis gives us the formula: C29, H49, N9, P5, О32its richness in phosphorus being especially remarkable. As will be observed under the microscope, it is granular in character, presenting the exact appearance of cell blastema and acting in every way like it-receiving carmine and eosine after the manner of all cellular substances. will cause it to proliferate or multiply. 4. The leucocyte is the tissue builder of the organism, and carries the nuclein to the several tissues of the body. 5. The leucocyte is also the physiological antitoxine of the organism, as is proved by their great multiplication in disease in the effort to destroy the toxic germs. 6. It is the nuclein produced by the leucocyte which is the real antitoxine element, for, by investing the toxic germs, it carries them directly under the nuclear influence of the leucocyte, and in this way it becomes phagocytic in its action, and neutralizes the cellular activity of the toxic germ. These are the six salient physiological points which it has been the object of this paper to establish, all of which, to complete the number of perfection, lead up to the great practical idea that, if the development of nuclein is the object of the culture method (and it is this or nothing, the articulum stantis vel cadentis ecclesia), then the final claim is this: that, if we can supply this phagocytoblast and tissue builder directly by physiological methods without resorting to the revolting process of introducing disease into the body, we are so much the nearer to the ultimate aim of true scientific therapy. THE CAUSE OF CATARRH AND ITS EFFECTS, By S. A. BASIET, of Beyroot, Syria, Student of St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, St. Louis, Mo. HINKING that my statement THI of catarrh will, no doubt, bring to the memory of physicians some facts, which I am sure will be a great satisfaction to their superior thoughts, I would mention my ideas of catarrh and what is its real cause, from the difference that I noticed between this country and others. Everyone knows that the Arabs and those who live in Africa and other hot countries hardly use soft mattresses on their beds; not because they don't like them or enjoy their softness, but on account of heat and the very poor ability they have, comparatively, to the civilized nations. Now we must know why those people don't suffer from catarrh, nasal affections, and all troubles connected with the throat. Some of them are hard drinkers and those who smoke need but one match in the morning for the first smoke, and light the others from one another. Some one might say, on account of the atmosphere and the changes in the weather, that is all right in one respect, but let us think a little more and see if that is the cause of catarrh and its surroundings. If we give those Africans a chance to come here and enjoy the purity of the American atmosphere, do you think they will suffer from catarrh, or indeed die young? Hardly. Above all, they have very changeable weather all the time, more especially in Egypt. The impression I have on my mind is that these people, by using hard mattresses on their beds, naturally can't sleep on their backs but on their sides, except the wealthy and delicate race, who use soft ones underneath them, and they are the only sufferers. It is because they can sleep on their backs easily and thus expose the nose fully to the air that all the mucus which comes out of the nose will, in such a position, flow to the throat and there will accumulate and cause irritation and swelling in the mucous membrane. This will be the earliest start of catarrh. I believe that if people try to bring up their children not so delicately and use for them hard beds they will save them in their elder days not only from catarrh but from many other sicknesses. THE SÉLECTIONS. THE WITCHES' PHARMACOPIA,* HE subject of this evening's paper is extraordinarily copious and long-descended in its history. A belief in witchcraft characterized the earliest periods of which we have any record. It prevails among all savages or semicivilized peoples at the present time, and is by no means extinct in otherwise intelligent communities. The cowardly fear and the resulting cruelties which have sprung from this strange superstition are too well-known to need comment. In Merry England and in religious New England men and women, old and young, the ministers of the Gospel, the clown and the philosopher, have perished at the stake or on the gallows, victims to this hideous delusion. A striking feature in the history of withcraft is the fact that by far the greater number of its votaries were women, mostly old women. It is hard to find any explanation of this condition. King James I., in his Demonologia, ungallantly accounts for it by saying: "For as that sex is frailer than man is, so is it easier to be entrapped in these grosse snares of the Divell, as was over well-proved to be true by the serpent's deceiving Eve in the beginning, which makes him the homlier with that sexe sensine." The personal appearance of the typical witch was not attractive. Harsnet, in a work published in 1603, says a witch is "an old, weather-beaten crone, having her chin and knees meeting for age, walking like a bow, leaning on a staff, hollow-eyed, untoothed, furrowed, having her limbs trembling with palsy, going mumbling in the streets; one that hath forgotten her paternoster, yet hath a shrewd tongue to call a drab a drab." If she ventured out in the day- Crowds of boys The horse-shoe's nailed (the threshold's guard), Your genuine witch was believed to be incapable of shedding tears, and if through torture she could be made to weep, her power had departed and she became a helpless victim to justice. King James says: "They cannot even shed tears, *Read before the Historical Club of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, April 13, 1896. though women in general are like the crocodile, ready to weep upon every light occasion." Old age was not always a necessary adjunct to witchcraft. Some of the famous witches of classical times, such as Canidia, Erichthoë and Circe were beautiful women. The first was a famous hetaira, and was once the mistress of Horace. Accounts are given in history and legends of wizards who practiced their diabolical art, but they seem to have labored for more important purposes than their female rivals. In old chronicles, in popular story, and above all in the drama, it is the witch who figures as the minister of evil, and it is with her and her marvelous storehouse of materials we have to do to-night. to British Herbal, gives a list of over 500 plants with the planets which govern them. The doctrine of signatures, too, had its influence in the selection of ingredients for malevolent as well as for healing purposes, and if liver-wort or eyebright were powerful for good, the lurid flowers and leaves of aconite, hemlock, henbane and belladonna were manifestly suited for diabolic charms. The term pharmacopoeia, made use of in the title of this paper, must be understood in its most comprehensive sense. It comprises substances from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the products of the atmosphere must be included. In addition to its materia medica, witchcraft has its especial pharmacology. Not only must the materials be procured with certain magical forms and precautions, many of which are of Druidical origin, but the commixture must be made under spell and incantation. There are two divisions of the pharmacopoeia of witches, of distinctly opposite qualities-one, and the most numerous, comprising noxious ingredients, and the other consisting of the ordinary healing remedies of popular medicine. The woman who made use of the latter was known as a "white witch." She removed warts, cured fits, counteracted the spells laid upon cattle, and was looked upon as a generally beneficent sort of neighbor. The grey witch was one who, as occasion required, practiced It is a mistake to suppose that these materials consisted only of offensive or grotesque substancesof "eye of newt and toe of frog." If the time permitted it would not be difficult to show that certain legendary qualities attached them have come down from classic and pre-classic days. This will to some extent appear as we progress in the inquiry, for the literature of witchcraft is very ancient, and it will be found that the same ingredients have been made use of through many ages to produce the like results. Astrology lent its aid, and plants which were under certain planetary influence, especially those belonging to the moon, acquired more potency in consequence. Old Culpepper, in his either the kindly or the malevolent |