In Class II, he places antithyroidin, thyroidectin, serum for exophthalmic goitre, hay fever, serum, tuberculin, antianthrax serum, and serum for relapsing fever.

In Class III (sera valueless thus far for therapeutic purposes) there are found antipneumococcic, antidysenteric, antityphoid, antivarioloid, anticancer, antierysipelas, antirabic, antimalarial, antirheumatic, antisyphilitic, and antigonorrheal sera, and leprolin.

During the past year notable efforts have been made to develop sera applicable to the treating of exophthalmic goitre, gonorrhea, and syphilis. Success, however, has not yet attended these efforts.

Of ideal specific sera antidiphtheric serum is easily first. Among its points of merit are the following: It is harmless, its use is not beset with contraindications, it protects as well as relieves, and is always efficacious if administered early and in sufficient quantity.

Antitetanic serum both for immunizing and curative purposes, Doctor Larned thinks, is as capable of producing as good results as antidiphtheric serum. But owing to the fact that much has yet to be learned about tetanus, especially by the general practitioner, and also that the dosage of the remedy is still unsettled, we are not able to get from this serum all the benefits it is capable of yielding.

Antistreptococcic serum can be counted on to give good results in all cases of single infection. In all cases in which the agent is used properly, but with indifferent results, it is altogether probable that the sepsis is caused by a mixed infection, other organisms acting with the streptococci.

Antiplague serum in large and frequently repeated doses is of positive value. This agent, and the effects it may produce, is of great importance to the physicians of the United States because of the large number of soldiers and travelers continually coming to this country from the east, the home of plague.

Hay fever serum as a therapeutic agent is still under judgment, but Doctor Larned thinks its standing will soon be determined.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

DISINFECTING POSSIBILITIES OF BACTERIA PECULIAR TO THE INTESTINAL TRACT.

THAT the intestinal bacteria are essential to the physiologic economy of the human organism has long been determined, and that they functionate as scavengers and destroyers of pathogenic germs that gain access to the enteron is a theory generally accepted. The introduction into the intestines of germicidal and antiseptic agents for the disinfection of the tract results not only in the destruction of the pathogenic invader, but likewise effects the extermination of the natural intestinal flora and bacteria.

How, then, can an aseptic condition of the intestinal canal be gained without deleteriously affecting physiologic function? Moro discussed this question at the recent Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians. He contended that the best method of remedying a pathogenic condition of the intestines was the infusion of the natural nonpathogenic organisms, or the creation of a condition wherein their growth was best facilitated. Administration of cultures per orem was not recommended, but the injection of agar cultures of bacillus coli, bifidus and other organisms peculiar to the tract per rectum was advised. The colon bacillus is known to retard the growth of both typhoid and dysentery bacilli, and if human milk be injected into the intestinal canal as a medium, practical demonstration has disclosed the fact that bacillus bifidus inhibits the development not only of pathogenic bacteria but also of the normal intestinal organisms. While the development of one intestinal organism to the exclusion of others cannot be commended in the normal economy, still, recourse to the discovery in disease conditions would undoubtedly prove advantageous. Plain milk of the bovine variety is an excellent culture medium for most species of bacteria, but probability obtains that some constituent in the human lacteal fluid is responsible for the ready growth of bacillus bifidus, and the isolation of this product will throw much light on the subject of intestinal disinfection.

ANNOTATIONS.

A NEW TRYPANOSOME PECULIAR TO TROPICAL AFRICA. THE latest contribution to the field of bacteriology is that of Broden who describes a new trypanosome peculiar to the Congo region. The organism is small-ten to sixteen and five-tenths by one to two microns. It is almost devoid of undulatory membrane, motility being facilitated by wave-like movements of the protoplasmic body. Staining discloses the characteristics of the known varieties of trypanosomes-protoplasmic body, nucleus, centrosome, flagellum, and a very slight undulatory membrane, in which later structure it differs from the other types. The centrosome is situate at the posterior extremity of the parasite and invariably against one of the body walls. The flagellum is not free in any part, terminating in the protoplasmic body. The new trypanosome is pathogenic to rats, guinea pigs and goats, in which it induces an acute infection, and to sheep and certain species of monkey, which are chronically affected. The symptoms are hypertrophy of the lymph nodes, and, in animals of high resistance, hypertrophy of the spleen. An organism simulating the new discovery has been isolated from the blood of dromedaries, and since the lesions produced from infection with either bear strong resemblance the discoverer considers the organisms practically identical.

LEAD COLIC RESULTANT FROM CARBONIZED WATER. BALDWIN records two cases of lead poisoning incident to the consumption of water drawn through lead mains. The community in which the cases occurred suffered from quite a severe epidemic of the disorder, and investigation disclosed the fact that contamination was due to the presence in the water of carbonic acid, which attacked the pipes. The disorder may occur in any locality where lead pipes are employed, and may persist or subside according to the presence or absence of the acid product in water. Waters which issue from the depths of the earth contain more carbonic acid than do surface waters, but the inconstancy of parity is apparent from the fact that the presence of the acid varies in the same water.

A NOVEL METHOD OF REDUCING INFANT MORTALITY. AN ingenious but apparently effective method of reducing infant mortality has been devised in England. Upon the accession of Alderman Broadbent, brother of the King's physician, to the mayoralty of Huddersfield, he offered a guinea to the parents of children born within a certain district during the twelve months of his term and living at its expiration. For ten years the infant mortality of the precinct had been one hundred twenty-two to every one thousand. At the termination of the period of award the records disclosed a diminution of the deathrate from one hundred twenty-two to forty-four per one thousand. The significance of these figures is referred to the reader for solution.

DECREES AFFECTING NASAL DEFORMITY.

INDEMNITY for damage to the nose is accorded different estimation. in different countries. Occupation, sex, and motive of the malefactor, if malice enter into the case, have much to do with the amount of the award. A young English woman who sustained a broken nose was recently granted a verdict of five hundred pounds, while an electrical engineer received only fifteen pounds. In France the nasal adornment is less highly valued. A man whose nose came in contact with the fist of an enemy received only eight hundred francs, the courts, however, awarding a young woman, an artist's model, three thousand francs for a slight nasal injury sustained in an omnibus accident. The equity of the latter judgment is apparent.

BACTERICIDAL ACTION OF PROPERLY BREWED TEA.

MCNAUGHT, an English army surgeon, has made some interesting observations bearing on the bactericidal action of tea, with especial reference to the bacillus typhosus. The organism, in pure culture, becomes greatly attenuated after four hours exposure of the beverage, twenty hours being sufficient for its complete destruction. From a

military standpoint the discovery is certainly fraught with great significance, since the substitution of properly brewed tea for water would tend to dissipate the possibility of typhoidal infection of army camps and stations. The employment of sterilized water in soldiers' canteens is indeed commendable, but infection after sterilization is no uncommon occurrence, and the finding of a bactericidal fluid possessing all the attributes of water is worthy of consideration as a prophylactic against typhoid.

CONTEMPORARY.

HYPNOTISM: ITS HISTORY, NATURE, AND USE.

[HAROLD M. HAYS, OF THE college of phYSICIANS AND surgeons, neW YORK CITY, IN THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.] (Continued from page 422)

THE NATURE OF HYPNOTISM.

EACH individual has a separate state of consciousness which changes as do the thoughts therein. It is in the waking state that we have separate individualities. Now let us see the gradations of this consciousness. At this present moment we shall say we are listening intently to a sermon. That is the thing uppermost in our minds, and as long as our minds are upon it we are exercising acute consciousness. But, even if our attention to this sermon is the central thing, in the fringe of our mental picture a number of other thoughts are jumping around, any one of which may be powerful enough to force its way into the middle of the picture and to usurp its place. For example, all the while we are listening to this sermon we are more or less conscious that the seats we are in are hard, that somebody is talking next to us, et cetera. Our seats may become so uncomfortable that it may occupy our whole attention, or something outside may seem of more interest. If our attention jumps from one thing to another, it is called diffused consciousness. The next step to diffused consciousness is the dreamy state where the mind is half way between waking and sleep. Anything may come into the mind while in this state and be the predominant idea, to be chased out again by a next idea. It is for this reason that dreams usually present such a chaos and jumble. Our thoughts tumble over one another to get from the fringe of consciousness to the foreground. Any external sensation will be greatly exaggerated and may turn the trend of our thought. A warm bed might feel like the fire of hell, a heavy dinner with indigestion like the battles of heroes using our poor bodies as the fighting ground. As dreams gradually fade away we approach our first hypnosis or sleep, which, in the beginning, is slight, but gradually deepens, finally consciousness being entirely lost. Thus we have traced the process of natural sleep to which hypnotic sleep is closely akin. The person at first has a diffused attention, he

then confines his attention to sleep, he next passes into a dreaming state, then into a light sleep, and lastly into a deep sleep.

The differences between it and natural sleep are as follows: first, the state ordinarily is produced by another; secondly, the person must have faith; and thirdly, the phenomena in the sleep must be produced by suggestion. The two latter were fully recognized years ago and have formed the basis of all psychical cures ever since. How the sleep. can be produced by another was seen in the experiments of Braid, where one appreciates fully that the person really hypnotizes himself by gazing at an object. The full understanding between hypnotized and hypnotist has never been really understood, and so here we are stopped short.

The theory of Doctor Hudson may put us on the right track. Because it is so convenient a theory and tends to make plausible a number of things which otherwise could not be understood, I am going to take the liberty of detailing it here. Doctor Hudson claims that every normal person is possessed of two minds, a subjective one and an objective one. The objective mind is the one we use every day, a mind fully capable of forgetting and the only one of which we are ordinarily cognizant. The subjective mind is the perfect mind wherein are stored up all the numerous thoughts that have ever come into it, there lying dormant, only to be reawakened when a new set of associations brings them forth.

It is this mind which we may say is used in hypnotism, in somnambulism, the one which shows itself in altered personality and in various other abnormalities. Some authors consider this the subliminal or subconscious mind.*

That there is another mind far more perfect and which brings to our recollection many things forgotten, seems to be an undisputed fact. When a drug like cannabis indica is used or when a person is drowning, there come before his mind's eye, in a single moment, the doings of years. And so in some recorded cases of trance states the same thing is proved. A highly interesting case is given by Mr. Coleridge in his "Biographica Literaria."

Mr. Coleridge says:

"It occurred in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Göttingen, and had not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which, according to the asservations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became possessed, and as it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, and with a most distinct enunciation. This possession was rendered more probable by the known fact

*One cannot help realizing that this theory will never be fully accepted. Most psychologists are still quarreling over concepts, and no two will agree as to what is meant by a subjective or an objective mind.