confinement to bed, Kelsey adopted the method of punctate cauterization by means of the galvanocautery. His technique is, briefly: Ten or fifteen minims of a weak eucain solution are injected into the most prominent part of the tumor through the Kelsey speculum until distension is produced. After waiting for a few minutes to allow the anesthetic to take effect, a fine platinum cautery needle, heated to redness, is plunged into the substance of the tumor. Not over two applications are made at a sitting, and these not oftener than twice a week. If much pain and soreness results it is well to wait a week for healing. This treatment takes several weeks to effect a cure, and the patient can attend to his usual vocation. Kelsey reports cures of as long as ten years standing in prolapsing and bleeding hemorrhoids, and has never had an unpleasant complication or sequela.

DERMATOLOGY.

BY WILLIAM FLEMING BREAKEY, M. D., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.

CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF DERMATOLOGY AND SYPHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

AND

JAMES FLEMING BREAKEY, M. D., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.

ASSISTANT IN DERMATOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

INFLUENCE OF PATERNAL INHERITANCE ON HEREDITARY SYPHILIS.

AUGUST RAVOGLI (American Journal of Dermatology, October, 1905) discusses inherent syphilis, paternal, maternal and both.

In many cases Colles' law is but a proof of latent infection, and a woman married to a syphilitic man, may, during pregnancy, be infected by her own syphilitic child. This maternal infection may be severe, scarcely perceptible or remain latent and after years appear as gummous or ulcerative processes.

Syphilitic infection may be carried through the sperma as well as through the placenta. In spermatic infections, the fetus, saturated with lues, may infect the mother or the infection may remain latent in the fetal system. In the latter case the mother remains healthy.

Hereditary syphilis must be divided into early hereditary and retarded hereditary syphilis, dependent upon the amount of syphilitic virus, the infection of both parents, the time elapsing from infection and the morbid intensity of the virus.

In cases of paternal syphilis alone we more frequently find syphilis hereditaria tarda manifesting itself even as late as the thirtieth year. The symptoms are then of the tertiary type.

Manifestations of hereditary syphilis are more frequently found at birth and during childhood.

Among the various evidences of hereditary syphilis are: peculiar corneal inflammations often preceded by articular troubles; Hutchinson teeth; retinal and choroidal troubles; modifications in the auditory

apparatus; various cerebral changes, as Jacksonian epilepsy or general convulsions, softening from endoarteritis, infantile hemiplegia, hydrocephalus and idiocy; various pathological conditions of the skin, mucous membranes, bones and other organs.

The prophylactic treatment should be directed through both parents supplementary to treatment already taken. This consists of six months of mercurial and iodic treatment before procreating and the same treatment would better be continued to the mother through her gestation. J. F. B.

NEUROLOGY.

BY DAVID INGLIS, M. D., DETROIT, MICHIGAN.

PROFESSOR OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL diseases IN THE DETROIT COLLEGE OF MEDICINE.

AND

IRWIN HOFFMAN NEFF, M. D., PONTIAC, MICHIGAN.

ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN AT THE EASTERN MICHIGAN ASYLUM.

THE EARLY OCULAR SIGNS OF DEMENTIA PARALYTICA. HOLDEN (Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, November, 1905, Volume XXXII, Number XI). The writer's conclusions are founded on seventy cases of paretic dementia which he believed to be uncomplicated, that is, without cord involvement. The writer believes that by selecting these early cases, unattended with tabes, he has more nearly arrived at the condition of the pupillary reflex in paretic dementia. It is interesting to note that optic nerve atrophy was not found in one of the seventy cases reported, the author stating that he has found pallor of the optic disc only when symptoms of tabes or of nicotin poisoning complicate the cases of paretic dementia.

The writer's recapitulation is as follows: "As this table shows, in true, uncomplicated paresis there is early in the disease almost constant absence of the sensory reflex, in half the cases irregularity of the pupils, in nearly half inequality of the pupils, in more than half abnormally small pupils, in a fifth of the cases loss of light reaction, in another fifth marked sluggishness of light reaction, and in a few of those with diminished light reaction a diminution of convergence reaction also."

I. H. N.

PSYCHASTHENIA: ITS CLINICAL ENTITY

ILLUSTRATED BY A CASE.

SCHWAB (Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, November, 1905, Volume XXXII, Number XI). The writer quotes Janet, and while corroborating his views, is inclined to think that Janet's ideas of combining many symptoms and giving it one name is not to be at present commended. He, however, believes that there is a disease. which can be distinguished from hysteria and neurasthenia, and as illustrative of this publishes his case, with the detailed clinical history.

I. H. N.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

BALDNESS ASCRIBED TO IMPROPER BREATHING. DOCTOR DELOS L. PARKER, of Detroit, who has been experimenting to determine, if possible, the factors leading to baldness, deduces some very interesting conclusions. To summarize, the entire theory is based on the contention that air, deposited in the alveoli of the lungs which are not utilized in the process of respiration, develops, in the presence of warmth and moisture, a poison which the investigator, in a series of preliminary studies, designated trichotoxin. The substance gaining entrance to the circulatory system, attacks the hair (1) by toxic effect, and (2) by depositing a crust-dandruff-upon the cranial cutis. In experimentation, Doctor Parker has been able to manufacture the poison artificially by gathering exhaled air in bottles-partially filled with water-and subjecting it to body temperature. By shaking the flasks occasionally the proper degree of moisture is maintained. In the course of four or five days the water is evaporated to dryness over a water-bath, and a residual deposit, closely resembling frost on a window pane, is observed. Microscopic examination discloses a crystalline structure closely resembling uric acid, but tests demonstrate the absence of this product. The deposit is composed of two substances, one of which is readily soluble in absolute alcohol. By allowing the alcohol, in which have been dissolved some of the crystals, to evaporate, the fact was ascertained that the insoluble crystals are larger than the soluble. Animal experimentation developed some interesting features. Injections of the insoluble crystals resulted in loss of hair, while the effect. of treatment, with the soluble crystals was merely a crust or scaly deposit on the skin, with no destruction of hair. Doctor Parker concludes that the insoluble product is the direct cause of baldness, while the soluble product is the cause of dandruff. To the insoluble substance the term trichotoxin-hair poison-still applies, but since the other substance does not affect the hair, but does affect the secretion of the sebaceous glands, the sebum, the term stearotoxin (meaning sebum poison) has been originated to represent it.

In order to have the alveoli of all parts of the lungs utilized for breathing purposes, and the conditions that permit the poison of baldness to form prevented from being developed, the upper ribs must rise. and fall with each respiratory act. In persons not bald this always occurs. In persons affected with baldness it does not occur. If this form of breathing is practiced, baldness will not develop, and if it is re-established and carried on continuously after being lost, baldness that may have resulted from its absence will be repaired.

Doctor Parker intends to publish an extended account of his work in the near future.

MEDICINE IN POPULAR MAGAZINES.

THE importance of diffusing sound ideas of physiology and pathology among thinking people is generally accepted among those who know. How difficult it is to secure reception for truth, and how easy to spread error, are both only too well known.

A recent number of Current Literature illustrates these facts. It contains two medical articles. One is on the subject of "Pneumonia, Mice, and the Cold Cure," and will probably do no harm. The other is entitled "Extraction of Gastric Juice from the Live Hog." This opens with the somewhat illogical statement that "Natural gastric juice is so essential to the development of therapeutic science that the supply of the fluid threatens to be inadequate to meet the demand." Just what this means the writer may know, but how well qualified he is for taking up such a subject can be gathered from the next sentence, about as absurd and groundless as can be imagined: "In pulmonary tuberculosis the use of the natural gastric juice from an extraneous source has been held a condition precedent to cure." Put in simple language this can hardly mean anything else than that gastric juice must be given to patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, if they are to be healed. Perhaps some may have "held" this view, but how remote it is from modern medicine needs no remark. The article then quotes a newspaperese account of gastric fistula operations on pigs, with side-tracking of the stomach, ending: "When gastric juice is to be extracted, the hogs are raised into the air." If true, the animals would be in the same element as the abstracter's ideas.

The question naturally arises, If the editorial omniscience is as faulty in matters of literature, politics, and art, what sort of an authority or guide is the periodical?

A RECORD OF THE HEAT INTENSITY OF RADIUM. THE investigations of the Swedish scientist, Angström, to determine the amount of heat evoluted by the product radium, are of sufficient importance to arouse medical interest. The research of this worker demonstrates that the heat evolutions remain practically constant for a year, regardless of the nature of the surrounding medium, and accordingly the conclusion is reached that the beta and gamma rays form but an insignificant part of the total energy of the metal. The apparatus and method of determining the amount of heat evoluted. were indeed simple. Radium bromid-86.5 milligrams-was encased in a small metal cylinder, in close proximity to a second cylinder of similar construction, which contained a small manganine coil charged with an electrical current. Accurate measurement of the heat evolutions of the two cylinders was recorded by means of thermoelements. The cylinder containing the coil was kept at a temperature identical with that containing the radium, by varying the current traversing the

manganine coil, and in order to obviate error in measurement due to a possible metallic difference in the cylinders alternation was resorted to. The character of the metal employed in the cylinders apparently exerted little influence in the result obtained since the amount of heat was found to be 1.136 small calories per minute for each gram of the metal employed, whether lead, copper, or aluminium cylinders were utilized. The radium product investigated by Angström from September, 1903, to January, 1905, evidenced no apparent alteration in the amount of heat evoluted. The heat effect of the metal would therefore seem to be due to the internal activity of the alpha particles, or to some agent which is decidedly different in character from the trio of rays. mentioned.

ANNOTATIONS.

OCCULT THERAPY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.

EVEN Somnolent and superstitious Turkey is awakening to a realization of the fraud that is perpetrated by unscrupulous medical practitioners, and a crusade against quackery of all kinds is now being agitated. Although the people in general are vastly too ignorant to appreciate skilled medical attendance, reputable practitioners are at last aroused to action. As elsewhere, the quacks of the Empire flourish by grossly deceiving the masses, most diseases being ascribed to the malefactions of an evil eye, while occult therapy largely constitutes the system of practice.

INSECTS AS SPREADERS OF INFECTION.

MEYER, a German physician, has conducted experiments with ants to determine the alacrity with which the insects carry disease germs. Some mice infected with typhoid were placed in a cage to which a colony of ants had ready access. A second cage containing uninoculated mice was placed so that the ants could gain entrance. Shortly the uninfected mice were perceived to develop all the symptoms of the disease. Plates of media over which the ants ran developed mouse typhoid in pure culture, and the fact that the insects can carry infection effectively was evidenced when the investigator himself became ill with the disease.

LIVE BABES FROM PREGNANT SUBJECTS OF LUES.

GAUCHER announces a treatment for syphilitic pregnant women which is calculated to insure a live, well-developed infant at full term. Essentially, an important factor is the establishment of treatment during the early stages of pregnancy. Mercury, the old specific sheetanchor, is the remedy, but especial stress is placed on the fact that a