to have recourse to so numerous and prolonged sittings (half an hour), whilst, with the excellent apparatus I am in the habit of using, incomparably better results can be obtained in a much shorter period.

With regard to non-malignant tumors, I will give in my next paper an account of what I have attained by electrolytic treatment. Especially the soft tumors, nævi, etc., yield very rapidly to it. A large goître of eighteen years' standing has completely disappeared in the course of two months. So far as I can judge from my experiments on animal (rabbits), the electrolytic treatment of varicose veins and aneurisms, promises to be highly successful. Examining microscopically the thrombi, I could repeatedly convince myself, in opposition to the assertions of Tschaussoff, that the organization of a thrombus really does take place, a fact which had been already experimentally demonstrated by the classical researches of Virchow,† as far back as 1846. Again, it is not difficult to follow up the gradual transformation of the colorless blood-corpuscles into connective tissue-corpuscles, which was likewise accepted by Virchow.

But the most surprising effect can be produced, by the electrolytic treatment, on organic strictures of the urethra. The only case I have had is a gentleman who is yet under my observation. He has been suffering for about ten years from organic strictures impermeable even for the thinnest bougies. He told me that, though he had been under the care of many distinguished surgeons, no one could ever succeed in introducing a catheter into his bladder. On the 20th of July I introduced a French catheter, No. three, up to the principal stricture, situated in the prostatic part of the urethra, the prostate itself being enormously enlarged, and by a very simple contrivance, directed the electrolytic action of the negative pole upon the stricture during two minutes. Immediately, to my great astonishment, the catheter passed within the bladder, and an immense quantity of turbid and decomposed urine was discharged. Since this the patient has been able to pass urine easier than he has ever done before. On the 24th July I repeated the operation with the same result, but using catheter No. six of the French scale; and I can now introduce Nos. eight and ten without resorting to electrolysis. So far as I can ascertain, the prostate itself does not seem to be enlarged any longer.

In spermatorrhoea this mode of treatment can not be surpassed. I have had several cases of inveterate spermatorrhoea, which all yielded to a single or to repeated electrolytic treatment of the prostate part of the urethra. I am sure that those who have once tried this method, will find it far superior to all the others, which are comparatively tedious and uncertain.

The first discoverer of the electrolytic treatment was Crussel, of St. Petersburg, Russia. Already in 1839 he demonstrated experimentally the different effects produced by the different poles, and used electrolysis in the treatment of strictures, exudations, tumors, and ulcers. A number of others followed him, amongst whom one of the

Archiv fur klin. Chirurgie. xi. 184.

†Gesamelte Abhandl., p. 323.

CRUSSEL: Die electrolytische Heilmethede.-Medic. Zeitung Russlands. 1847-48.

most successful is undoubtedly my friend Dr. Moritz Meyer,* of Berlin. Dr. Althaus has quite recently improved the method and shown the great importance of the negative pole in the treatment of tumors. Certainly every observer will agree with him that electrolysis, besides annihilating the pain, acts in a threefold manner,† viz: 1. Through mechanical disintegration of the tissues by the nascent hydrogen; 2. Through the dissolving action of the accumulated free alkali (potash, soda and lime); 3. Through the local modification of nutrition (by means of the vasomoter nerves) of the parts brought under the immediate influence of the current. To these local effects I can now add, from my own experiments and observations, the constitutional effect of electrolysis, which latter especially makes this method invaluable in many hitherto incurable diseases. One of its great advantages is that it is never followed by inflammation, suppuration, sloughing, or other disturbances, and that the patient can continue his usual occupation and mode of life.

The electrolitic treatment is called to open a large field for surgery, and will be applied very soon to a variety of surgical diseases, to the advantage of the profession and the benefit of suffering humanity. The surgeon now, besides his biological knowledge and the use of his mechanical appliances, will acquire and appropriate to himself the knowledg of physics, electro-physiology, and the management of the complicated galvanic apparatus.-Medical Record.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE INDIANA STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY AT ITS NINETEENTH ANNUAL SESSION, HELD AT INDIANAPOLIS MAY 19 AND 20, 1869.

The most noticeable feature of these "Transactions" is extreme poverty.

Comparing them with similar productions from neighboring societies, we are painfully impressed by this feature.

It is not within our province to account for this state of affairs. Certainly this result does not indicate any lack of talent, or even an ebb in the tide of medical enthusiasm amongst our professional brethren. It may have been from some impairment of the machinery of organization. Some neglect in the application of forces. "Some one MORITS MEYER: Die Electricitat in ihrer Anwendug auf practische Medicin. Aufl. 1868, p. 406, 407. † Op. cit., p. 441.

(may have) blundered." Be that as it may have been, the publica tion is before us, and is what it is.

The first paper in order is the President's address. Subject: "THE TROUBLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION."

The subject is trite, and the matter "commonplace" to an extreme. It has never been our privilege to enjoy an acquaintance with the worthy President, and we beg his pardon in all due humility while dissenting from the view which he has taken of the profession in this formal repetition of the chronic grumble of men who have failed to receive, because they have failed to merit, that exalted appreciation which the intelligent, educated, generous, manly and sincere lover and practitioner of medicine never fails to receive from whatever people he may labor for and amongst.

We confess to a weakness on this subject-a weakness amounting to weariness, of this self-pitying complaining on the part of "regular" practitioners, of the hardships, abuses, ingratitudes, indignities and want of appreciation to which they are constantly subjected. For ourself, we desire no "high protective tariff," to prohibit "old women" from overruling our opinions, or suspending our prescriptions; or to protect us from the humiliation of being superceded by quacks of whatever denomination. The people, however ignorant, in this country of free institutions, measure men, public and professional, much more accurately than we are willing to acknowledge. Sheer quackery, unless it be harmless, (as Homœopathy,) is short-lived in any community. That it is encouraged, temporarily, and often repeated experimentally, is a suggestive commentary upon the merits or success of the "regular practice."

The worthy President closes his address with a few sentences cheerful, inspiring and full of truth, contrasting agreeably with the general burden of his speech-asserting in one sentence that which should stand in the place of all which precedes it; a brief summary of the whole matter, to-wit: "If his course (the physician's) has been upright and honorable, he will have the approval of his own conscience, and the praise of all good men!"

What more can any man desire?

"WHY DOCTORS DISAGREE,"

Is a paper by Dr. Kersey, of Richmond, who is well known to the profession as a gentleman of more than ordinary ability and research.

The paper is written in vindication of the rule of ethics "prohibiting intercourse at the bedside with doctors of other so-called systems"and is intended to remove the impressions "that the rule is founded in arrogance and works cruelty toward the sick." It contrasts the "broad basis," with its "boundless wealth of appliances," of the "Regalar" with every other "so-called system" of medicine, declared to be "partial, distorted, dogmatic or unscientific." It indulges in the usual ridicule of Homeopathy, stating some of the most absurd of Hahnemann's speculations, as constituting the body of the system, and asserting "dogmatically" that the "system amounts to absolute expectancy in every condition of disease." The design and spirit of the paper are undoubtedly excellent. The intelligent reader, not himself "partial, distorted, dogmatical or unscientific," can not but feel the limitation of the author's thought, and regret the weakness common to us all, which disqualifies us for seeing beyond the narrow orbit of our own intellectual motions. Is it not time, and were it not better, more impartial, symmetrical, philsophical and scientific, to look at these schools of medicine, which we deem "irregular," yet which have so far found favor in the public estimation as to be recognized as "Systems," commanding and enforcing respect, in the light of what they suggest; accepting and appropriating whatever may be significant to us, by way of criticism of our errors, or of improvement made manifest by experiment and demonstration? We may laugh at our leisure, with our heels complacently elevated on our office tables, at the "little pill doctors," and facetiously quote until we grow gray witty illustrations of the "lunacies," and "infinitesimal nonsense" of Hahnemann's doctrines, yet we can not by any possibility defend our own practice as it was, even as it is, to a great extent, to-day, from the "huge criticism," the unsparing commentary which the result of this system of "Expectancy in all cases" has passed upon it; an indubitable benefaction to the human race. The true physician-the man whose mission it is to alleviate and to heal the woes and wounds inficted upon his fellow-mortals, from whatever circumstance of life, should be so broad and high in love and wisdom, in charity and truth, as to embrace and comprehend not only his own more cherished "system," but, also, all that is valuable in all other "systems of cure." This does not imply "fellowship with a vast herd of doctors, specially trained in prejudice, error and credulity;" for we agree with Dr. Kersey in the assertion with which he closes his paper, that it were "far better to pursue an upward bearing, compelling incompetent and un

worthy graduates and natural charlatans, foisted into nominal fellowship by mercenary teachers, to fall out of the ranks, where a high grade of positive merit should alone secure a permanent place." But it does imply that in our investigation of, and reference to, the "systems" of medicine, professed by, no matter whom, if so dignified by success as to compel recognition as a "system," we should not reverse our glasses so as to see things remotely and in diminutive proportions; but we should look at them brought closely, and so magnified, if need be, as to expose their most intimate structure to our observation and comprehension.

GENERAL ANASARCA.

The next paper in this collection bears the above title, and was presented for the consideration of the Society by Dr. John Moffitt of Rushville. It is the history of "a case, with remarks."

"case

No better illustration of the propriety of understanding and appropriating whatever is valuable in other "systems" of medicine, especially the Hahnemannic, could be found than is presented in this of Dr. Moffitt's. Uncertain of the pathological condition manifested by very slight symptoms in the beginning of the "case;" doubtful respecting the treatment to be adopted, as the Doctor evidently was, we can not but think and believe, from experience and observation, that it would have been infinitely better for both doctor and patient, to have accepted the suggestion of safety in pure "expectancy," and have left this case to the "rational" efforts of nature, rather than to have subjected it to the "irrational" and "unscientific," because doubtful and purely experimental treatment, which was adopted and persisted in to the "closing scene." In this light, and this only, we regard this as an important paper.

We are here presented with " a case" of a young man, a farmer, who had "never had much sickness," well developed and muscular. Nothing wrong in general health could be detected. There had been for several days some tumefication of the integuments of the neck. Appetite good, bowels regular, nervous system unimpaired, &c., &c., &c. He was put upon a course of "alteratives," to-wit: Calomel and Dover's powder; three doses each day. Five days of this treatment did not impair the general functions of the body to a noticeable degree, but there was no improvement of the local condition, and so the medicine was renewed, and the size of the dose so increased as to exhibit the violence of the drug upon the bowels. For a time, not sta