ipulation. It includes a motor which has numerous uses, a pair of air pumps, an ozone generator, and an electric heater by which either filtered and dried air or ozone can be raised to any desired temperature, for use in the treatment of asthmatic, bronchial and other catarrhal troubles. It has also a very sensitive magneto-meter by which to test the conductivity of the nervous system, a step towards enabling the diagnostician to substitute science for guesswork in diagnosing many obscure conditions of the human system, since it is well known that the real or physiologic age often gives the lie to the record in the family Bible.

It is entirely plausible, in view of what has now been demonstrated, that we can hereafter succeed in disclosing phases of chronic disease that now baffle the astutest diagnostician, and this is a long step in ad

vance.

In corroboration of the claim that this device is an accurate test of the vital stamina of the human system, patients show a decided increase in registration after a general immersion of the entire body in the electro-magnetic zone.

Positive benefits and definite effects are thus apparently mathematically demonstrated.

Faith is always a valuable adjunct to any treatment, and is a sine qua non in many systems of practice in vogue. With this instrument it would seem to be not at all a necessity.

Other accessories include a very sensitive audiometer to test the hearing capacity of the subject, and a mechanical massage vibrator, by which any set of nerves or muscles can be efficiently and agreeably electromassaged, at the rate of two thousand five hundred vibrations or percussions per mi

nute.

"Curealls" do not stand in high repute in medical circles, but if any force or agency can be made to restore vital equilibrium, it logically merits the name, because in doing this, it enables Nature to effect her own repairs; for it is now conceded that under

every system Nature really does all the curing. Our efforts as physicians are successful just in proportion as they help or hinder Nature contribute to and restore vital force.

With these new facilities, therapeutic fields are being invaded that have heretofore constituted the opprobric medicine, since conditions and diseases heretofore amenable to no known remedy are being attacked with well-grounded assurance.

ARE ADVANTAGES DISADVAN

TAGEOUS?

WHETHER the toastmaster who introduced one of the speakers at the dinner of the Arkwright Club a few nights ago spoke both facetiously and wisely, or only facetiously, when he described him as one "who has been, and is, a striking example of the attainment of success, usefulness, and honor in spite of early advantages of wealth and ancestry," might be discussed with profit by those who have a taste for genealogies. Are wealth and ancestry handicaps which so heavily weight an aspirant for success and honor that when he wins in spite of them, he is entitled to extra credit? Frankly, we do not believe it. The number of those of obscure origin who attain conspicuous success in life is very much greater than the number of those born to the advantages of wealth and a distinguished ancestry who do this, for precisely the reason that white sheep yield more wool than black sheep-there are a great many more of them. It should also be remembered that to maintain a high level of intellectuality and general capacity is much less conspicuous than to rise from the obscurity of poverty and illiteracy to a place of influence and honor.

To say that wealth and a distinguished ancestry are a handicap to one who wishes to be in the highest degree useful in life is 10 more true than it would be to say the

same of a good constitution or a system free from hereditary taint. To say that they diminish the incentive to struggle with and overcome obstacles is true enough, since one who starts with great advantages does not have so far to lift himself and need not do as much hard work in hand-over-hand climbing. That in many instances the sons of rich and even great men show degeneracy and relapse into obscurity is unquestionably true, but it would not be difficult to show that poverty, an illiterate ancestry, and the lack of incentive to self-improvement hold millions annually at the bottom round of the social ladder, because they are incomparably better fitted to stay there than to ascend. Heredity counts for a great deal, and it is a safe generalization that the better a man's ancestry the better his chances of developing a high, well-directed, and sustained ambition. That this is not an inflexible law of nature is a cause for congratulation. If it were, society would gradually stratify into castes. As it is, the fact that some' are steadily sinking from the top to the bottom while more are as steadily, and much more rapidly, rising from the bottom to the top, and that between the bottom and the top is the great mass of solid, commonplace, right-minded citizenship to which the highest and the lowest strata contribute with every generation, establishes the existence and operation of a law not founded on a sentimental concept of the disadvantage of advantages nor of the advantage of disadvantages.-V. Y. Times.

SURGEONS IN THE DAYS OF ELIZABETH.

AT the present day surgery takes so high a place and so dominates the professional horizon, that it is difficult to realize how subordinate a position the surgeon occupied in early days in all his relations with the physician. As for the apothecary, who was

a tradesman selling drugs and compounding prescriptions, it was natural enough that he should occupy a very humble position in comparison with the physician, who at least posed as a man of learning. But that the surgeon, who nowadays so rules the roost, should until recent times have had to bow so low to the physician suggests what is indeed the truth that surgery has in recent times been far more progressive as an art than medicine. In an interesting address on the Elizabethan Revival of Surgery, delivered before a meeting of the Elizabethan Literary Society, Mr. D'Arcy Power tells us that from very early times in England the surgeons had felt it a grievance that they were not allowed to take complete charge of their patients. They were looked upon merely as craftsmen, able indeed to wield the knife and saw, but wholly incapable of ordering medicine or regulating the diet of those upon whom they had operated. To such an extent was this view carried that a physician had to be called on every occasion if more than a trifling change. was required in the regimen or medicine, the surgeon being thus kept in quite a subordinate position. This was not unnaturally felt by the better class of surgeons to be an intolerable hardship, and they devoted themselves actively to promote the unity of medicine and surgery. But the power of the physicians was too great, and instead of being able to free themselves they were soon in a worse plight than before, for in 1632 the College of Physicians procured an order in Council with a clause to the effect that "no chirurgeon doe either dismember, trepan the head, open the chest or belly, cut for the stone, or do any great operation with his hand upon the body of any person, but in the presence of a learned physician, one or more of the College or of his Majesty's physicians." Mr. D'Arcy Power says that it was not until after the year 1800 that a hospital surgeon was allowed complete control of his cases.

BUNIONS AND THEIR TREAT

MENT.

BY ROBERT T. MORRIS, M.D., New York City.

THE tendency in the treatment of bunions is to do too much or too little, although, perhaps, the latter fault is the prevailing

one.

The common site for the beginning of bunion formation is at the bursa on the inner surface of the head of the first metatarsal bone, and a tight shoe is usually responsible for the bursitis which represents the first stage in the development of the deformity. Incidentally the tight shoe is apt to crowd the phalanges of the great toe toward the outer side of the foot, but this, while adding to the deformity, is probably not an essential part of the disease, although it is usually classed as such.

With the progressing bursitis three important changes take place:

1. The synovial sheath of the bursa becomes thickened and hypertrophied in its attempt to secrete enough synovia to protect the region.

2. We have the development of a bony protuberance by hyperostosis beneath the bursa.

3. This change consists in the formation of a thick, horny layer of cuticle similar to an ordinary corn.

Aside from the local pain at the site of the bunion caused by pressure effects on the hypertrophy, we have a secondary cause for inflammation in many cases due to the disinclination of the patient to walk or exercise sufficiently to transform the proteids in his food, and lithemia naturally develops.

If we have a gouty form of uric acid inflammation developing as a result of the lithemia, the patient may suffer from podagra in addition to the results of pressure.

The common forms of palliative treatment, consisting in the use of perforated plasters and removal of the horny layer of cuticle, are not very efficient because of the

hypertrophied structure beneath, which will not disappear under anything short of mechanical means.

The older operations aimed at removing the entire head of the first metatarsal bone, and this commonly resulted in a stiff joint which was in itself a source of much discomfort. If we did not have a sufficiently close union to give a stiff joint, the sharp edge of the metatarsal bone, resulting from exsection, would sometimes cut into the tissues of the sole of the foot, so that it became necessary to exsect the heads of all of the metatarsal bones.

As a matter of fact a very simple operation will suffice to give relief in many cases of bunions.

Operation.-A longitudinal incision, not more than half or three-quarters of an inch. in length, along the line of the inner surface of the extensor tendons, exposes the site of the hyperostosis, and a sharp chise! separates the button of the bone readily from the head of the metatarsal bone. The open bursa can then be trimmed out with a pair of scissors without difficulty, and when the wound is sutured and the skin pressed against the surface of bone from which the button was removed, it becomes quickly adherent and the bunion is at an end.

This treatment will suffice to give comfort in most cases and no further operative work is necessary, but if the patient wishes to have the phalanges of the great toe placed in normal line with the metatarsal bone it is necessary to divide the external ligament of the metatarso-phalangeal articulation. This can be done subcutaneously, but in doing so we cannot avoid cutting a pretty large branch of the dorsalis pedis artery, as a rule.

Hemorrhage from this cut artery we can. usually disregard if a small, round, gauze pad is strapped firmly down upon the dorsum of the foot at this point beneath a light splint. We must inform the patient, however, that sometimes it becomes necessary to enlarge the incision and ligate the artery. I have not been obliged to do this as yet. but have had to exercise a certain amount

of skill in making proper application of

pressure.

After the simple operation of removing the button of bone, and the thick bursa, very little further treatment is required, and the patient may be allowed to walk in from 10 to 12 days.

In cases, however, in which it has been thought desirable to correct the hallux valgus by division of the external lateral ligament, we must apply a splint to be worn inside the shoe, which will hold the phalanges in place for several months. A very

good splint is made by hammering a piece of sheet copper into the shape of the sole of the foot, and turning up a flange which corresponds to the external surface of the great toe. A special stocking is then made with a separate compartment for the great toe, so that the flange from the splint can be interposed between the great toe and the

next one.

Very few patients are more grateful than the ones upon whom we operate for the cure of bunions, and it does not seem to be generally known by the laity that we can remove this deformity.

Not long ago, while in a country store, one of the old inhabitants who occupied a cracker box, said to me-without knowing that I was a physician-that no one could cure bunions, and remarked very impress ively that he would give $100 to any one who could cure his. I told him that the usual price for curing them was about twice what he offered, but that it could be done very easily and for nothing at all, if he was not able to pay what the services were commonly considered to be worth.-International Journal of Surgery.

A QUESTION OF GRAMMAR.

"I is." began Tommy, when his teacher interrupted him.

"That is wrong. You should say, 'I am.'" "All right," said Tommy. "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

SOMETHING BETTER THAN MEDICINE.

AN American, with the rare faculty for seeing things exactly as they are, managed to gain admission to a reception to a large Italian pilgrimage in the Sistine Chapel a few weeks ago. When the Pope was brought in he saw the frail figure and strangely white face he had expected to see; but he was surprised by the animation, the aliveness, of the features and gestures in response to the deafening shouts and cheers of the pilgrims. His astonishment became amazement when the Pope descended from the chair, walked to the rostrum, took off his heavy stole and handed it to an attendant, straightened himself, and in a firm, resonant voice proceeded to deliver a tenminute oration-a swift flood of eloquent and energetic words, emphasized by gesticulation that was continuous and forceful. And for an hour afterward the Pope sat talking and laughing with the heads of the several delegations into which the pilgrimage was divided.

Away back in 1875, when the Papal election was holding, Leo XIII was chosen as a compromise because the rival candidates, looking at him as he sat among them, the Cardinals thought that one so frail and white would not long postpone another attempt to achieve their ambition. That will. be a quarter of a century ago on February 20, and within three months Leo will be ninety-three years old. He has never been outside the grounds of the Vatican since he was hailed Pope. The Vatican is on the most unhealthful of the hills of Rome. He was born a physical weakling, has been inclined to sickness all his life. Yet every day he has toiled and toils more hours than tradesmen permit their sturdy adherents to toil; for 25 years he has personally directed the policies and acts of his world-embracing church, even to details; he has been harassed by the most vexatious problems that have disturbed Catholic Rome since the days of Luther. And when he became Pope he had been hard at work for 50 years.

Why has he lived? Why has he been able to work and work hard and well at the most exhausting of all labor? How has he withstood that fatal combination--work and worry? Why has he not been compelled to take "long vacations" and "much needed rests?" Why has he never been down with "nervous prostration?"

The answer to all of these questions is in two words:

Regularity. Diet.

The human body is nothing but a strong, delicate machine. It must be treated as a machine. It must be run regularly; it must be rested regularly; it must be repaired regularly. True, a priest can be regular with greater ease than many men of business or of the other professions. But it is also true that a man in any walk of life can compel himself to regularity-provided he has a serious definite purpose on earth and sets about it intelligently and not like a child given the range of a confectionery. It is possible for any man to rise and to go to bed at the same hours every day, to arrange his physical life in just as orderly fashion as he must arrange his mental life if he accomplishes anything at all.

But the great secret of Leo's power and capacity in spite of his feeble body and his ninety-two years is, diet. Diet means enough fuel-plenty, but not fuel to choke the fur

nace.

The Pope eats for the good of his body, not for the amusement of his palate. He lets his mind tell him when to stop, not greedy, blind, selfish, appetite. He eats so little that the average man or woman would call it starvation. But he eats enough, and it is of the best quality. At times he overcats-for the appetite for food is the strongest, the most insidious, the most dangerous in the human body. He is promptly punished, his feebleness making him luckier in that respect than are most overeaters. He doesn't then let his palate cajole and fool him into thinking he is ill because he eats too little; he doesn't eat more and send out for a package of pepsin chewing gum or a box of digestive tablets.

He apologizes by eating nothing for a while and returns to his routine.

Possibly your doctor may not assent to this he may like to eat, may have an appetite made morbid by years of over-stimulation; he may like to fancy that disease germs. can find lodgment in healthy tissue, that headaches and nerve-aches and fever blisters and low spirits and "nervous prostration" come from overwork and "our modern neurotic atmosphere" and not from a stomach overloaded by "three square meals." How many of us are willing to lay down our lives or, worse still, to spend them in discomfort and sickness for the sake of "three square meals a day" in defiance of our sedentary habits?

But, whatever your doctor and you may convince yourself of, the truth remains. And Leo XIII, born a physical weakling, now nearly ninety-three, toiling like a beaver and weighted with responsibilities, is an unanswerable witness to that truth-and a splendid example of rational self-control. Overeat if you will. But don't blame germs or the weather or work for the results.Saturday Evening Post.

THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF PEPTO-MANGAN (GUDE). Abstract of a Paper

BY DR. J. W. FRIESER, VIENNA, AUSTRIA.

THE medicinal use of iron dates back to a remote period, and since ancient times ferruginous medication has played an important part in the treatment of anemic conditions.

Since it has become known through clinical observation and investigation that iron introduced into the organism exerts a favorable influence upon pathological states of the blood, and that in anemia and chlorosis, as well as in other anemic conditions, it causes an increase of the number of red blood cells and of the percentage of hemoglobin, chalybeate medication has attained the im