Chronic Cystitis. In the Therapeutic Gazette for May, H. M. Christian considers the treatment of chronic cystitis in the male, and believes that under the most favorable conditions its treatment, in the majority of cases, is accompanied by results far from satisfactory. The laboratory has shown very conclusively in recent years the rôle played by micro-organisms in this affection, but the results unfortunately have not contributed in any great degree to the therapeutics of the disease. The first feature of importance is the removal of the cause, by surgical means if possible, as in calculus, tumor, or urethral stricture. He is rather pessimistic as to the value of drugs internally in chronic cystitis, and the haphazard way in which drugs are prescribed, without any regard to the state of the urine, can be productive of no good results. It is very evident that the same drug will not answer in an acid and an alkaline cystitis. The cystitis produced by the colon bacillus alone, without mixed infection, is an acid cystitis and requires internally the use of alkaline diuretics, as citrate and acetate of potash, with infusion of buchu and the free use of alkaline mineral waters. When, however, the urine is alkaline the internal use of one of the genitourinary antiseptics is indicated. In their order of value he mentions urotropin, sodium salicylate, or benzoate, oil gaultheria, oil eucalyptus, salol, and boric acid. His favorite prescription in such conditions is a combination in capsule form of five grains each of urotropin and salol, four times daily. It will be found to act most happily in cases in which there is ammoniacal urine with marked phosphatic deposit. It is well to bear in mind in employing urotropin that it occasionally causes strangury and hematuria. By far the most important feature in the treatment of chronic cystitis is the local treatment in the shape of vesical irrigation with medicated fluids. He employs a combination of drugs; the bladder having been emptied, a soft rubber catheter or a Mercier is introduced until its eye lies just within the bladder, the irrigator having been previously filled with one pint of warm distilled water to which is added one grain of potassium permanganate and one. grain of nitrate of silver. There is no chemical change, each drug apparently acting on its own initiative. This solution is introduced through the catheter into the bladder until the viscus is comfortably distended, not painfully. The solution is allowed to pass out and the maneuver is repeated, after which half an ounce of some one of the salts is injected through the catheter and al

lowed to remain. He calls attention to the great value of the tied-in catheter in giving comfort and relief to many otherwise miserable.-The Cleveland Medical Journal.

Cholera Infantum.-Fifteen years' experience with tenement house babies has taught me that the main cause of cholera infantum is the overfeeding and too frequent feeding of improper food by careless mothers; it is also certain that careless medical advice, consisting usually of prescriptions of all kinds of mixtures containing opium in some form, is the main cause of the high percentage of mortality; the druggist who has no conscience, but who has a ten-cent panacea for every disease, is also a very serious menace in the poorer districts of the city.-DR. JOSEPH BAUM, in Medical Standard.

CONCERNING BOOKS.

H. W. FELTER, M. D.

Modern Urinology.-A System of Urine Analysis and Diagnosis. Illustrated. By Clifford Mitchell, A. B., M. D., Professor of Chemistry, Clinical Urinology, and Renal Diseases, Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, Ill. 636 pages. Cloth, $3 net. Postage, 27

cents. Philadelphia. Boericke & Tafel. 1912.

We do not hesitate to pronounce this work as, in our opinion, the most complete and most useful manual of unrinology for the general practitioner as well as for the expert urologist. The great value of the work lies in its complete exposition of every step and the association of findings with the diseased condition. Every little detail that the practitioner would know, but which is so often left out of such treatises, is to be found herein. It is an admirable production.

A Compend of Human Physiology. Especially adapted for the use of medical students. By Albert P. Brubaker, A. M., M. D., Professor of Physiology and Medical Jurisprudence in Jefferson Medical College. 13th edition, with 36 illustrations. Philadelphia, P. Blakeston's Sons & Co., 1012 Walnut Street. 1912. Price, $1.25 net.

For freedom from extremes of theory and excess of abstruse technicalities, and containing just the kind and amount of physiological knowledge that will interest and instruct the average student of medicine, this book fully meets the demands of the times. It is so directly expressive and absorbable that the student who fails to get the essentials from this book must be dull indeed. Yet it covers the ground well and is altogether an exception, even among useful compends.

THE ECLECTIC

MEDICAL GLEANER.

New Series. Vol. VIII.

JULY, 1912.

No. 4.

Edited by HARVEY WICKES FELTER, M. D., Chase and Pitts Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio, to whom all communications in reference to articles and matters for publication should be addressed.

Published at THE LLOYD LIBRARY, 224 West Court Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, to which all subscriptions, advertisements, and matters of business should be addressed. Subscription price, 81.25 per year.

EDITORIAL.

WILLIAM WITHERING, M. D., F. R. S.-No medicine of the present day is more conspicuous nor more widely employed than digitalis. Though known since very early times, to-day, with all its therapeutic history back of it and the contentions of chemists. concerning its supposed constituents, we are still far from knowing the life history of this single plant drug. Indeed, the same may be said concerning many of our most important drugs.

The records of the past show unmistakably that many of the most valued of our vegetable drugs were known and used by the common people from time immemorial. As exact records of time, place, and persons have not always been available, we can not say just when was the exact beginning of the therapeutic life of a drug or who was the individual who first employed it. Little does it matter, however, unless his connection with it had a close relation to its progress from early times to the present. Of our American indigenous drugs we know that long before the white man set foot on our shores the native Indians recognized the value of many medicinal plants, and in their crude ways employed them in domestic medication. It is also interesting to note that practically every vegetable drug now official in the United States Pharmacopoeia was used first in domestic practice, and most of them came into prominence through their exploitation by some person who would now be ranked (by some) as an arrant quack. In witness of this recall the history of ipecac, quassia, cinchona, and numerous other agents. Going outside of vegetable agents, we would probably find