stration failed. It has been employed after abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies, plastic cases, appendectomies, adnexal lesions of all kinds, minor cases, and after ether during labor. The nursing staff, unsolicited by me, has commented on the easy recovery of the oil cases as contrasted with the other surgical cases in which oil was not used.

Its very simplicity and ease of administration, and the positive results obtained, welcome it as an important adjunct to our postoperative treatment.-New York State Journal of Medicine.

NOTES ON RECENT PROGRESS.

From the Banquet Table, in Critic and Guide.
VAN BIBBER'S GYRATIONS.

If the sigmoid flexure of the colon be exposed with a sigmoidoscope, and the mucosa suddenly and strongly galvanized, the subject will execute a characteristic series of movements the so-called gyrations of Van Bibber. The term "acrobat sign" is perhaps a preferable one. It is simple, sufficiently descriptive, and avoids. the reprehensible practice of employing eponymic appellations for so many phenomena. This sign is absent in traumatic or pathologic loss of the cord's integrity due to extensive changes in the posterolateral columns. It is a sign of great value, despite the objections of captious critics who argue that in the absence of certain obvious. evidences of such degeneration in the cord its employment is wholly unnecessary, while in the presence of such evidences its use would be supererogatory.

OUCHTERLONEY'S SIGN.

In point of value we must range Ouchterloney's recently described "Gunshot Sign" with Kernig's, Graefe's, and the many other diagnostic criteria upon which we depend. It consists in this, that if a pistol be held near the suspect's head, he being unaware of its presence and proximity, and be suddenly fired, he will exhibit a more or less characteristic sign, namely, a peculiar facies expressive of perturbation. Perhaps the lay term "startled" may be taken as fairly descriptive of the expression, though a more exact one, suggested by Billekinn, would be "transiently anxious." This sign is positively absent in all the comas. Theoretical objections have also been urged against the employment of this sign, as of Van Bibber's, but they are not well founded.

PXCHWENKA'S METHOD.

Pxchwenka's method of treating retroversion has greatly interested the medical world and is somewhat ingenious. A soft iron bar is passed into the uterus, and externally, over the abdomen, is placed a powerful electro-magnet. Whether the uterus is bound. down or not it will "rise" to the seductive magnet. Gink has adopted the idea to an extent in the treatment of impotence in the male, and reports successful cases, notably one in which paternity was conferred upon a gentleman eighty-three years of age, who at this rather advanced age had contracted a marriage with a young woman and found himself the victim of involuntary continence. (It is reported on good authority that this man, who is a physician, was one of the signers of the manifesto recently issued in which the signers declared it to be their conviction that continence is not injurious.)

SEQUELE OF PUBIOTOMY.

Dusenbury has called attention to some newly observed sequelæ of pubiotomy, which, while not exactly causative of disability, are yet worthy of special note. Among these are slight pain referred to the old site of section during fast running. A similar symptom has been noted by Scratchsky during the climbing of trees, and Binks has reported the same thing as occurring when the patient, on all fours, descends a plane inclined at thirty degrees. Snooks has called attention to the effect of heightened atmospheric pressure in this connection, averring that the symptom is elicited if the patient be taken into caisson. On the other hand, lessened pressure, as shown in balloon ascensions, produces no discomfort.

KITE FLYING IN PARALYSIS.

Kite flying is recommended by Btiklitz, of Vienna, in the late management of certain paralytic lesions involving the muscles of the shoulder girdle, as after apoplectic seizures, cerebral embolisms, and local traumatisms. As function returns, hoop-rolling may be substituted.

THE INVERSION TREATMENT OF VISCERAL PTOSES.

Favorable reports are reaching us from Dinkelspiel's clinic with respect to the inversion treatment of the visceral ptoses. Dinkelspiel's practice is to invert the patient in his special apparatus,

which is then caused rapidly to ascend a distance of several hundred feet in a kind of elevator shaft. This, of course, tends to "throw" the organs concerned toward the diaphragm with some degree of force. Emerging at the top of the shaft, the apparatus is directed by an appropriate mechanism down a second shaft, the patient this time traveling feet downward. The double maneuver is repeated several times. The treatment is carried out daily, and a cure generally results in one month or less.

A NEW METHOD OF TREATING DROPSY.

By far the most novel advance in recent therapeutics is Teddebare's method of treating dropsy of the lower extremities by centrifugalizing the patient. In much the same fashion as we centrifuge specimens in the laboratory, so is the subject of dropsy subjected to the centrifugal influence of Teddebare's apparatus, in which he is whirled around, head outward, for half-minute periods. It has been found that the head symptoms of these patients, when due to cerebral anemia, are greatly mitigated. Moreover, there is a certain permanency in the results. If faithfully persisted in, the circulation is wonderfully improved, the cardiac burden seemingly lessened, and the edema disappears.

RAUSMITEM'S DISEASE.

Rausmitem, working in Rathskeller's clinic, describes a disease not heretofore recognized as a true nosological entity. There are three cardinal symptoms: a. A special type of inco-ordination action is exhibited, e. g., the patient can not ascend a fire-escape backward; b. Massage of the abdomen with ice occasions no objective reaction to the cold-there is no shivering. Neither is there any subjective discomfort. In short, there is a special, distinctly localized, thermal anesthesia. c. Prolonged and vigorous choking of the patient with Rausmitem's special devised neck clamp (with scale) produces no injection of the eyes nor exophthalmos. A striking point is that the resulting asphyxia is rapidly recovered from. No great distress follows the application of the test, i. e., in those afflicted with Rausmitem's disease; others, it is conceivable, might be unfavorably affected.

When present in toto the above symptom-complex is pathognomonic.

The disease is a pure neurosis, so far as known, there being no discoverable lesions.

The treatment of the condition is rather unsatisfactory. Happily, it is rarely met with. Rausmitem fancies that he has seen some amelioration follow the administration of large doses of pulverized egg shells, alternated with the scale of common gold fish.

FAKRE'S RECENT RESEARCHES IN PROSTATIC HYPERTROPHY.

Fakre's recent researches into the true nature of prostatic hypertrophy have attracted the attention of the whole medical world. He has also securely established certain diagnostic and operative criteria which constitute valuable additions to our art.

Regarding diagnosis, the so-called postulates of Fakre have passed into the terminology of genito-urinary science, and are as important in this branch as are the postulates of Koch in bacteriology. They are as follows:

a. The subject must be a male.

b. The prostate must be present.
c. It must be enlarged.

Fakre points out that prostatic hypertrophy, with symptoms calling for operative interference, has almost a selective affinity for old men whose special relations to the economics of their time have resulted in the acquisition of large properties and capital. They have been more than ordinarily successful in the world of commerce. Just how and why this fact stands in a special etiological relation Fakre does not elucidate. But it has this practical element of value in it. Given a case in which the surgeon is doubtful as to the condition being sufficiently pronounced to call, apparently, for an operation, simply let the patient's antecedent social history determine the issue, for it is to be constantly borne in mind that these individuals are predestined, as it were, to become, ultimately, great sufferers, whereas the ordinary patient may be given the benefit of the doubt. The surgeon's prophylactic functions here assume that aspect of sublime beneficence which, whenever it is brought into play, becomes indeed the crowning glory of his art and life.

Fakre himself, indeed, goes so far as to advise the performance of prostatectomy whenever a patient of the above class consults the surgeon for any condition, irrespective of the presence or absence of local indications. This is no less epoch-making a pro

nouncement than that which counsels the performance of intestinal drainage and irrigation in all bad cases of typhoid. It startles the conservative mind, but the progressives may be trusted to take full advantage, sooner or later, of all great truths, especially when presented with its convincing and brilliant savoirfaire of a Fakre.

THE STIGMATA OF DEADBEATISM.

The profession is indebted to Professor Freakly, the noted criminologist and disciple of Bertillon, for his attempt to elucidate certain phenomena heretofore apparently not susceptible of scientific study and classification. The doctor's brilliant monograph upon the "Stigmata of Deadbeatism" is a masterly contribution to exact science. It is a singular fact that this province has until now escaped the searchlight of scientific method, although one so peculiarly significant to the practitioner. It is to be hoped that we shall no longer be so entirely at the mercy of that large class of "criminaloids” who have for so long mulcted the profession with impunity, for thanks to the labors of Freakly, few of these persons should pass undetected, and, better still, we understand that the Professor is working with what promises to be the elaboration of a therapia sterilisans magna which is expected to change the entire nature of the dead-beat in a few days.

Hudge and Gudge offer a new hypothesis to account for the epileptic paroxysm, and report the attainment of cures by the institution of certain surgical measures founded upon the hypothesis. They reason that certain bodily asymmetries are at the bottom of the epileptic phenomena. There must be a kind of somatic balance, else special cortical areas are insulted and resent such insult in the clinically familiar manner. Hudge and Gudge, by restoring lost aural or scrotal (testicular) symmetry, have apparently cured a number of cases.-Critic and Guide.

MEDICAL AUTHORITY-THE EVIDENCE.

BY A. F. STEPHENS, M. D., ST. LOUIS, MO.
President of the National Eclectic Medical Association.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by the same intolerant attitude toward all advance in medical knowledge. The mental atmosphere of medical authority was pregnant with poisonous exhalations which resulted in venomous language