virtues. The first 22 pages are devoted to the physiological action of drugs. The next 240 are devoted to drugs. The name of

each drug with its synonym, source, physiological action, therapeutics, dose, etc., is given, then follow remedial measures other than drugs: Applied Therapeutics, Incompatibility in Prescriptions, Table of Doses, Index of Drugs, Index of Diseases. In all 415 pages, 12mo.

A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL OBSTETRICS. BY EDWARD P. DAVIS, A. M., M. D., Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Infancy in the Philadelphia Polyclinic; Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Woman's Medical College; Clinical Lecturer on Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Jefferson Medical College. Second edition. Revised and enlarged, with 134 illustrations and 16 full plates, several of which are colored. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 1894. Price $2.50. For sale by Popular Book Store, 10 Post street, S. F.

This second edition is a careful revision with considerable new matter added. Symphyseotomy has so forced itself upon the attention of the accoucheur of late that a new chapter on the subject was necessarily called for. Much new matter has also been added to this edition on the practice of palpitation and the diagnosis of position. Additional illustrations have been incorporated, some of these based upon original photographs taken under the supervision of the author. In comparing this with the first edition we find it a great improvement. As the first met with a ready sale this should commend itself to the student and busy practitioner as well.

A MANUAL OF MINOR SURGERY AND BANDAGING, for the use of House Surgeons, Dressers and Junior Practitioners. By CHRISTOPHER NEATH, F. R. C. S., Surgeon to University Hospital and Home Professor of Clinical Surgery in the University College, London; Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, England. Tenth edition. Philadelphia: Blakiston, Son & Co., 10 and 12 Walnut street. Price, $2.00. For sale by Popular Book Store, 10 Post street, S. F.

It is seldom that a tenth edition of a medical book is called for. Tenth edition tells its own story; it means that the first edition was found unusually useful, and that the several editions have been kept abreast of the times. We see no reason why the concise and handy little volume will not continue to be a favorite.

NURSE'S DICTIONARY OF MEDICAL TERMS AND NURSING TREATMENT. By HONNOR MORTEN. W. B. Saunders & Co. 1894. Price, $1.00 For sale by Popular Book Store, 10 Post street, S. F.

CHOLERA is again raging in Russia.

DR. GROSSER, formerly Professor in the University of Breslau, is dead.

THE eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography will be held August 1st to 8th, in Buda-Pesth.

LADY FORRESTER, of Shropshire has left $1,000,000 to build and endow a home at the seaside for convalescents. The building is to cost $150,000.

THE St. Louis Clinique has passed into the hands of Dr. Emory Lanphear, Professor of Surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Lanphear will conduct the journal in the interests of that school, and of the medical profession of the West.

A REDUCING SUBSTANCE IN THE URINE OF ENURESIS.-F. Rohde almost always found in the urine of children suffering from enuresis a reducing substance which is not sugar and which he takes to be lactic acid. The same was also noted in the urine of adults who complained of excessive micturition.—Berlin. Klin. Woch.

RESECTION OF LUNG.-Tuffier has resected the apex of the lung for tuberculosis; the affected portion was first ligated, then removed, and found to contain tuberculous deposits, in which were the characteristic bacilli. The wound healed by first intention and the patient made a speedy recovery; has resumed work, increased in weight, and is free from cough.Medical Times.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., March 1, 1894.

DIOS CHEMICAL Co., ST. LOUIS, MO.

GENTLEMEN:-I received your Sennine and have been treating catarrh of long standing. The benefit I have derived is simply immense. I believe it will cure any catarrh.

Respectfully,

T. B. MOCLURE, M. D.

THE multiplicity and excellence of other magazines, far from lessening the usefulness of the Review of Reviews, makes this unique periodical more and more a necessity. Its indices, condensations of leading articles, classified lists of new books, and general survey of things written, things said and things done during the month preceding its issue, would suffice to keep the busy reader in touch with the current of life and thought, even if he were able to read nothing else. The July number is as full of variety and freshness as its predecessors have regularly been; and to those who know the Review of Reviews this is a sufficient commendation.

By S. C. GIBSON, M. D., Alturas, Modoc Co., Cal.

(Clinical reports of cases occurring in the practice of S. C. and A. GIBSON.) The country doctors should be more fearless in the use of surgical measures after having diagnosed a case, or if surgical means will enable them to ascertain the malady, they should without hesitancy use them. No one can deny that surgical cases are too long treated under the expectant plan, when radical surgical treatment would be rewarded with prompt relief. There are several reasons for this. The rural population are not taught the necessity of surgical interference, and they are slow, or entirely refuse any surgical measures offered. To use their own expressions, they don't want "to be cut up by the doctors," or "doctor, we want you to treat this case without doing any cutting." I have been told of families that would not employ me because they were afraid I would do some "cutting." And again, the rural doctors are usually not possessed with proper instruments and appliances to do successful surgical work. Their surgical fees are usually too small and the number of their charity cases too large, and like the majority of the patients, they are always financially embarrassed.

Often the doctor's ingenuity is taxed to its utmost. I have been called thirty or forty miles, the messenger being a boy or some one who knew nothing of the nature of the case. Once I was compelled to tap the bladder above the pubis for retention of the urine, with a trocar which luckily I had with me, all because the messenger could not inform me of the patient's trouble. On two occasions I have used the bent handle of a large kitchen spoon for a speculum and curetted the uterus with a bended piece of bailing wire as a curette for retained placenta after abortions. I have used a female "catheter" cut from the small VOL. XXXVII-34.

end of a cane fishing rod. At another time I successfully used the tubing from my fountain syringe as a stomach siphon and relieved an intended suicide of the strychnine taken. My gauze I prepare from house-lining and my cat-gut ligatures are often prepared from violin strings. The truth is, that the country doctors need to be more industrious, heroic and fearless in the exercise of their duties and their patrons would cease going to the cities for surgical treatment. To them I would say: Act heroically, promptly and determinedly. Why should not we be surgeons as well as our city brethren? The days of quackery and ignorant country physicians are gone, and as all doctors are now forced to qualify equally, the country doctors are often better practitioners than their city brethren. Why not his equal in surgery?

I trust that a brief recitation of a few of the surgical cases in my practice will be interesting to the readers. It will be noticed that I have reported the unsuccessful as well as the successful cases. One does not treat the profession fair who reports only bis successes. My brother, A. Gibson, M. D., now of Cedarville, California, was associated with me during the time some of these cases were treated, and now our practices are more or less blended.

CASE I. Acute suppuration of knee joint; multiple incision, with drainage; perfect recovery, with free, active use of joint. January, 1889. Miss Mary G.; age 17 years; German; with a good family history; was taken sick a few days before my first visit with chills, high fever and a painful swollen right knee. On my first and second visits I made the mistake of diagnosing her trouble as acute inflammatory rheumatism. On my third visit I easily recognized the nature and gravity of the case. I urged immediate surgical interference, which was approved by the family. The next day I visited my patient and made multiple incisions into the cavity, irrigated with a weak solution of bichloride of mercury, inserted drainage tubes and applied an antiseptic moist dressing. Fixed joint with a posterior splint. After several weeks treatment patient was cured as above stated.

CASE II. Empyema, pleurotomy, death. James C.; age 28; a stranger; family history not known. Consulted me and my brother, Nov. 28th, 1889. While traveling in an open conveyance contracted a cold which "settled on his chest.' His phy

"

sician had diagnosed and treated this case as quick consump tion during the six or seven weeks previous to consulting me. I found him very weak, greatly emaciated, and with a high fever, sweats, etc. He coughed incessantly with a muco-purulent expectoration. On examination I found the usual physical signs of empyema of right side, which was duly confirmed by an exploring trocar. After giving a very unfavorable prognosis I performed on Dec. 3rd pleurotomy with the assistance of Dr. A. Gibson, making the incision between the sixth and seventh ribs on the posterior axillary line. A great discharge of pus followed the incision, drainage tube was inserted guarded with safety pins and cavity washed with an antiseptic solution with the usual external dressing. The reaction after the operation was very bad. The daily discharge of pus from the pleural cavity was very great, necessitating the change of dressings several times a day, and at each change the cavity was well washed with an antiseptic solution. The fever and cough still continued till death, which occurred on the evening of the 10th day from exhaustion.

CASE II. Fracture of skull; trephining; death. I was called in the country the latter part of November, 1890, to see Master H., age about 6 years, who was kicked above the left ear by a horse, fracturing the parietal and frontal bones. On arrival I found the little patient unconscious with the fracture above described together with a contused wound of the scalp. Patient was given chloroform and wound thoroughly disinfected; after dissecting flaps from skull found fracture comminuted and greatly depressed. By the use of trephine, chisel and elevator the comminuted portion was removed and the depressed portion of the bone elevated. Considerable amount of brain matter came away and there was profuse hemorrhage, the coverings and brain substance being torn.

Having finished the operation and all hemorrhage checked, a dry dressing of iodoform gauze and bichloride cotton was applied and confined with a roller and crinoline bandages. The little fellow recovered from the anesthesia with mental faculties as bright as ever. Prescribed potassii bromidi and fld. ext. ergot every four hours. On the fifth day my brother visited the patient and found him doing nicely; no fever nor headache, and on changing the dressing found wound looking well. Dressing replaced with all due aseptic precautions. At the re