Among the astringents, I prefer tannic acid, alum, tincture chloride of iron, Kennedy's extract pinus canadensis, with a few of the many vegetable astringents, in such doses as are required to produce the desired result.

For producing an anodyne effect, morphine, tincture of opium, belladonna and hyoscyamus are principally used, and should be administered in such doses as would be given internally. These remedies are not generally used alone, but are combined with others for their soothing influence.

The alteratives and disinfectants comprise a long list of excellent remedies. It is difficult to select the best, but for my own use I prefer carbolic acid, salicylic acid, iodine, the iodide, chlorate and permanganate of potassium and tar.

I have purposely left my choicest remedy to the last, that I may remark more fully upon it. Tar, in my opinion, answers more indications than any other remedy, and is applicable in nearly all forms of this disease, especially in bronchial and pulmonary affections. I prefer the preparation made by the French chemist Guyot, and is called "Goudron-de-Guyot," or "Eau-de-Goudron." It is a strong aqueous solution of this remedy, with its irritating properties entirely removed, and is not in the least unpleasant when largely diluted with water.

Professor J. M. Scudder, M. D., in the November (1876) number of the Eclectic Medical Journal of Cincinnati, in a short article headed "Can Chronic Catarrh be Cured," writes: "It is the common impression with the majority that catarrh cannot be cured, and many physicians will not undertake its treatment. I am willing to say that a large number of cases are curable." He recommends as constitutional treatment, those remedies indicated by special expressions of disease, as you would give in any other case; but adds, "without any internal remedy, if the patient enjoys good health otherwise, we may treat the disease by topical remedies alone. He advises the use of the "Air Spray Apparatus," my original nasal spray before the improvements described by me in the March (1876) number of Dr. Scudder's

I have avoided referring to constitutional treatment, as it is my firm conviction that nine-tenths of the cases of uncomplicated catarrh may be treated successfully with topical applications alone, used in the manner above described. Occasionally we meet with a case of scrofulous or syphilitic character, requiring constitutional as well as local treatment. Having made nasal catarrh a special study for the past ten years, and having treated a very large number of cases successfully during that time, I feel justified in recominending to the profession my views and my modus operandi.

TUBERCULAR PERITONITIS.

BY WILLIAM HITCHMAN, M. D.,

Honorary Member of the National Eclectic Medical Association of U. S. A.; Member of the London College of Surgeons, etc., etc., etc.

Is it always true that hunger and thirst are the best indices physio logically of the condition of the stomach, in particular, and the wants of the body generally?

Although the coagulability of chyle, for example, increases with its progress through the absorbent system, this milky fluid-generated in the intestines by the action of pancreatic and hepatic secretions on chyme which has passed the pylorus-does not coagulate in the lacteal vessels. Nay, even after chyle has traversed the mesenteric glands it has rarely the property of coagulating in a spontaneous

manner.

Now who can wonder that peritonitis is chronic from the commencement, if one may use this solecism, in those numerous subjects of scrofula, tabes mesenterica, phthisis and hydrocephalus, in whose organizations the aqueous part of the blood is uniformly increased in proportion to the solids, while the red corpuscles are especially diminished? Tuberculous matter is deposited in a fluid state from the capillaries just as the lymph itself is; the morbid product then coagulating and forming a foreign body. In point of fact, this form of chronic peritonitis begins in a very insidious way, not as a sequel of the acute inflammation at all, but accompanied in poor weak cachectic children of rich parents-so far as the precious metals are concerned with scrofulous granules external to the membrane. Hence the pertinency of my original interrogatory as to hunger and thirst or fluids and solids in the physiology of digestion and assimilation.

I have seen thousands of these hungry and thirsty juveniles in hospital, dispensary, and private practice, whose wants have never been satiated with port wine, beef tea, gravy soup, cod-liver oil, iron, quinia, or "tonics" innumerable, with frictions of iodyne, soap, or opiate liniments externally, and a frequent ringing of changes the most orthodox" to boot, in respect of hydrargyrum cum creta, Dover's powder, leechings, blisterings, fomentations, poultices and bandages besmeared with ointments, especially mercury or other minerals that benefit "undertakers" probably far more than other industrious citizens. Medical advice and professional cookery notwithstanding, the above strumous degeneration of the mesenteric glands proceeds, till at last the death of each sufferer is duly registered in the official nomenclature of "abdominal phthisis certified!"

Recently I attended the only son of the mayor of a large adjacent

city. He had just attained his ninth year, and was perhaps somewhat hereditarily predisposed to tubercular peritonitis, if one may judge from comparison of facts. Other children had previously died secundum artem; and so far as I could learn, the peritoneum of one patient was found studded with miliary tubercles, while in another example the coils of intestines were said to have been firmly glued together with scrofulous or "vaccine" lymph, and the liver and spleen especially covered with copious effusion, as well as very thick, cheesy membranes.

I have also witnessed, in consultation with other medical practitioners, during the present year, examples of chronic tuberculous inflammation, in which masses of scrofulous matter have softened, ulcerated, and then perforated the intestinal coats resulting either in fistulous openings or fæcal abscess, with the abdominal parietes completely bored through-in short, an artificial anus. Reverting to the child of a neighboring chief magistrate, I may state that no benefit had resulted from iodine paint, iodide of potassium, iodine ointment, and nutritious diet. He had constant internal pain of the nature of severe colic with intermittent fever, obstinate diarrhoea, progressive emaciation; was very anæmnic, with immense abdominal enlargement and effusion of fluid, the fluctuation being pronounced. Although living "like an alderman," his aspect really betokened an existence of severe hardship and scanty food.

My remedies were few and simple; but I could not have adopted them without a feeling of dishonor, did I not claim the membership of a College of Physicians in New York, whose principles are universal (or "eclectic"), and not exclusively homoeopathic, hydropathic, botanic, or old school, but wide, philosophical and catholic, embracing the whole truth as it is in THE SCIENCE OF THERAPEUTICS. I prescribed Nestle's Milk Powder, a sitz-bath thrice daily, friction to the spinal nerves, by means of human electricity or animal magnetism, and small doses of the pulverized root of belladonna occasionally.

The recovery is spoken of by the friends as magical, marvelous, wonderful, and bordering on the miraculous. All this eulogium is completely undeserved; since I am but a servant of science, a lover of wisdom, whose justification is the knowledge of that eclecticism which makes us intellectually free.

The root of belladonna is tonic and sedative. It restores the action of the capillary vessels and sympathetic nerve physiologically; its sphere of usefulness being therefore co-extensive with disease itself. No. 29 ERSKINE STREET, ISLINGTON SQUARE, LIVERPOOL, ENG., July, '76.

QUALIFIED MATERIALISM.

By WILLIAM HITCHMAN, LL. D.,

Member of the London College of Surgeons.

In his recent work on Mind and Body - the Theories of their Relation, Professor Bain, of Aberdeen, states the growing opinion amongst physiologists and metaphysicians, as that of a guarded materialism, saving the contrast of spirit and matter, as follows (p. 140):

1. The soul must partake of the nature and essence of the Deity. 2. The soul has no determinate place in the body.

3. Reason or thought the power of cognizing the universal, is incompatible with matter (Aquinas).

4. The dignity of the soul requires an essence superior to matter. 5. Matter is divisible; mind indivisible.

6. Matter is changeable and corruptible; mind is a pure substance. 7. Mind is active, and possesses force; matter is passive, inert, the thing acted on.

8. The soul is the primary source or principle of life.

9. The mind has a personal identity; the particles of the body are continually changing.

The interesting and elaborate inquiries recently prosecuted with regard to the mental condition and modes of thinking of the lower races of mankind, have now contributed, he says, the first chapter in the history of soul. He alludes more particularly to the writings of Sir John Lubbock, Mr. McLennan and Mr. Tylor, as having thrown a flood of new light on the primitive history of the genus homo, and brought the development of spiritual ideas up to the very poin where the philosophy of Greece took its start, in the materiality and spirituality of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the schoolmen, this classifying the different theories of spirit, soul, mind, or intellet, and the ultimate component elements of a human being not only in cartesianism, but the cruder forms of materialism, and he spendidly majestic pantheistic idealism of Fichte-the cloudess star of Erlangen. In fact Mr. Tylor (Primitive Culture, I, 87) has appropriated the word animism (epos, wind) to express the recognition of soul or spirit as a distinct entity from mortal coil, throughout all the different kinds or races of men-anthroplogically. Surely, the philosophic animist is one who refers al phenomena, of whatever sort or quality, in the animal economy,o the influence of soul, or "psychic force!" What is this, in th year

1876, but the doctrine of anima mundi, as held by Stahl, the eminent homoeopathic physician, at Halle, in 1694? He taught the doctrine. that each phenomenon of spiritual intention, or physical act, was produced by a vital principle, distinct, altogether, from the substance of organic body, matter, atoms, germs, or molecules, and the principles of chemistry. Other professors of natural science- THEN, AS NOW-sought to explain, demonstratively, that physical and psychical existence was due entirely to chemical and mechanical laws, or the process of forming crystals; and that life, health, disease, and death, are the synonyms sole of a constant alternation of waste, or oxydation, and of renewal from fresh molecules, which are eventually reduced to the simpler forms of plant, animal, and man, in water, carbonic acid, and ammonia! And these latter are yet the chief principles of soul, mind, body, in almost all the learned, societies of Europe and America. From the obvious connection of breathing, or respiration with vitality-the scientific terms psyche, pneuma, animus, spiritus, are naturally of this origin - every Spiritualist will agree with Mr. Tylor, not to mention various parallels in the Semitic and other languages.

In the science of spiritualism, however, according to my experience and observation, the prevailing theories in the science of anthropology, as to the shadow, or "shade" of the human spirit, simply illustrate the ambiguities, and confused descriptions of those gratuitous opponents who now pervert the true knowledge and philosophical conceptions of a visible and invisible world. I have examined materialized spirit-forms, recently, and in conditions, as well as terms of physical science, to the unquestionable satisfaction of skeptics, in Liverpool, and elsewhere, some of whom are considered "eminent " in law, physic, or divinity. Spectral illusions, electro-biology, dreams, morbid sensibility, insane delirium, pictures on the retina, conjured up by an effort of will, or imagination, in the black hole of a dark chamber, without corresponding external object, belong entirely to that category which is alone predicated of outraged truth and justice. EHEU! The categories of modern spiritualism are not unlike those of the great founder of the peripatetic school of philosophers whose genius embraced all the sciences of his time at Chalcis, B. C. 322, the magic of whose splendid name, once lost in a period of unjustifiaole neglect, is now recognized and praised as one of the most gigantic ntellects that ever appeared on this planet- the third in order from the chief star. The categories of spiritualism, I say, are logical and sientific, and therefore apply invincibly to THINGS, not less than W RDS. They are reducible to substance and attribute, being and acident, involving the philosophy of Kant likewise, in quantity, qulity, relation, and modality. With these may be arranged substare, place, time, situation, possession, action, suffering, in the logi and metaphysics of Aristotle, and last, but not least, that diligent, patient, loving study of all those multitudinous aspects of nature, whic Tyndall, Huxley, and Williamson glorify, from year to year, as those "physical" results which constitute the exact science of 1876, and justify the SCIENTIFIC IDEA in the established laws of God's