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Worley, of St. Augustine, Fla., told me he had three cases recover under the use of chloroform till effect, and then enema of chloral, gr. 120; fl. ext. cannabis ind. and hyoscyamus aã m 20 p.r.n. He also thinks unfavorably of opium.

You will understand that when I finish reading July WORLD or any other journal or article today, I'll write the date of filing it away, "July 9, 1903 on corner, easily seen. Then I'll index everything in it that I want: say, Malaria, which is in the July WORLD, p. 301. I find my record has malaria on p. 7, where I now write "July 9, 1903, p. 301. Atlanta, Ga.

E. C. CARTLEDGE.

A Lion in the Way. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Some brother in Mississippi wants to know why the doctors of his state make such poor collections. Especially is this the case with the village and country practicians. The greatest drawback to the people of Mississippi is their unthinking habits. Therefore allow me to make some propositions in the way of stimulating thought that may make this subject quite plain. We not only of Mississippi, but of the South generally, depend almost solely upon people who do business on credit. They are our patrons except in the larger cities. We will not miss it far in saying that four-fifths of the people of Mississippi are credit people; that is, they depend in some way or other upon advances by moneyed men, but these advances are seldom in money. No such a thing as borrowing of money in sums to suit the laboring classes and farmers, who only need small sums.

It is claimed by thinking men that a young man, a farmer for instance, may start out in business for himself well equipt: a home, horse, cow, and everything but money and supplies, and nine cases in ten he will have lost his right to his home, stock, and everything of value in a few years, he having made and marketed good crops and received the usual fair prices for same. As proof of this and its results, cast an imaginary ring around ten or a dozen of your country patrons, and ten to one you will not find a man who can give a clear title to his home and stock. The land is no longer owned by the farmers. The man who can look back over the progress of the credit victims for the last twenty years can not locate 2 percent who have gotten out of the credit rut and are now financially independent. Now, we have only to look over the ground intelligently, and without prejudice to substantiate this statement. This being the case, how can the Mississippi M.D. expect to do more than eke out a poor living? The lion that is so much in the way of financial progress is described by some writers as follows: "Croucht

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Lived Nine Hours after Bullet Passed Thru His Heart.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-On June 9th, about 3 o'clock p.m., one James Mortimer, age 35 years, iron moulder by trade, who was at the time on a leave of absence, while in an intoxicated condition got into some trouble with some "pards" who were also “spirited,” one of whom shot him in the region of the heart with a 32-caliber pistol. He fell as if dead, was taken to the hospital where he revived and became conscious and conversed, but the doctors said he could not live. gradually weakened and at 12.30 a.m. he died, having lived nine hours. Upon postmortem it was found that he had been shot directly thru the left ventricle of the heart, the bullet entering about one inch above the apex of the heart and making its exit about two inches above apex, having passed thru the center of the ventricle.

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Will some of the family please explain how it is possible for one to live so long in that condition? A. D. MAHAFFAY, D.O., M.D. Cheyenne, Wyo.

A Point in Ethics.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD :-Is it courtesy for a physician or physicians to examin a case during the absence of the attending physician in order to become witnesses in an injury case, where a man of 40 years of age kickt and beat a 13-year-old boy? the physicians having been hired by defendant to do so, with instructions to not call the attending physician, who had absolutely no interest in the case except as is due from physician to patient. Similar incidents have occurred in my practise twice within the last two years. I believe it is a plain case of ignorance on the part of the outside physicians. What says the family? INDIANA.

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Nearly all of my professional life has been spent in malarial communities, and experience has taught me that calomel, quinin, iron, strychnin, and arsenic are the best medicins in any case of malarial fever. My treatment of chronic malaria is as follows: From one to ten grains of calomel every ten days to two weeks. I prefer calomel and soda bicarb. tablets, one grain each, and if I give two or more, I prefer to give them all at one dose just at bed time. I also give strych. gr. arsenic, gr.; iron, carb., or some other good preparation of iron, grs., I to 2. dose can be given in pill, tablet, or solution, but I prefer P. D. & Co.'s tablet, and give one tablet three times daily. In addition to the above, quinin sulf. should be given, from fifteen to thirty grains every 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 20th, 21st, 28th, and 29th days. Any good mineral water that acts well on the kidneys should be given. Vegetables, apples, plums, pears, unless baked, should not be eaten. Melons and cantaloupes should not be allowed. The above treatment should be kept up from thirty to ninety days or you will have a return of the malaria. Vapor baths from three to six times a week are very beneficial in chronic malaria. As to the mosquito theory, I do not believe in it much as some of the brethren. My opinion is, when conditions are suitable for mosquitos to appear and multiply rapidly, the atmosphere is full of malaria. Well and spring water is full of the poison as well as branch, creek, river, and mudhole water.

Greenville, Ga. J. C. MATHEWS, M.D.

A Profitable Speculating Experience. Editor MEDICAL WORLD-I notice in the columns of THE WORLD that physicians have been swindled by collection agencies. While I probably have been fortunate in not joining any collecting agency, I have been unfortunate in patronizing a commission house in St. Louis, Mo., that has flooded the country with their literature, advertising that by their methods of doing business the loss is reduced to a minimum. They will make a sale or two for a customer and send a bill of sale showing probably that they have made you a nice profit, and run along this way until you begin to write them to send you your profits, when after writing three or four times they will notify you they owe you nothing, and you are in their debt so and I sent them thirty dollars about two months ago to

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invest in July corn. They bought and sold twice for me, according to their statement, making me a profit of $59.50. Then I notified them to send me my profits and reinvest the principal. The next time I heard from them they had invested both profits and principal in 2,600 bushels July corn at 48c.; and on June 23, the day they claimed they sold the corn at 44% c. losing 3%c. per bushel-on that very day the Chicago market, which governs prices, sold corn for 50% c. per bushel, making a profit of 2% c. per bushel, or $68.25, which added to $59.50 would make my profits, according to any honest commission house, $127.75. After I wrote three times demanding a settlement and return of my money, together with the profits, they notified me I had lost everything and owed the company $11.25.

If there is any other brother practician who has been caught in such a swindling firm, I would like to know who he is. I have generally tried to avoid speculations along these lines, and in mining and oil stocks, etc., but this is once I have been completely taken in. I thought I would give my experience to the readers of THE WORLD. If there is any brother practician who cannot make a living by the practise of his profession and wants to go into the commission business, don't. V. L. C., M.D.'

West Va.

[Well! Shall we take a long breath? or shall we all join in a hearty laugh? We have headed this "A Profitable Speculating Experience," because, while the speculation was not profitable, the experience wasand by publishing it to the profession it may at the same time become profitable to many thousands without the heavy cost that it was to our West Virginia brother.

We

Hum-drum life sometimes becomes too tame. sometimes get tired of earning money, and then we look around for some easy and rapid way to make it. Then is the time to look out. Vultures are always watching for men who are in that frame of mind, and they always have some tempting bait ready. A medical course does not make a wise man out of a fool, just as it does not make an angel out of a rogue. So we find in the medical profession both fools and rogues. The latter class we will not deal with now. A man becomes a fool (a financial fool) usually when he least suspects it. He gets a fact or two, or an idea or two on finance, and he thinks he can go in and become Gould or Morgan. Then his savings go, and while he is building air castles he is becoming a pauper unawares. His dreams dissolve into nothingness, and his savings never return, or change into a debt, as in the above instance. When will doctors learn to take care of their hard-earned savings?

In this connection, let me tell the following story: A few years ago a subscriber (from West Virginia, by the way) wrote asking me to look up a certain "investment firm and give my opinion of the same, as he had sent said firm some money to invest in speculativ stocks, and was getting uneasy about it. I called and saw the head of the firm, showed him the doctor's letter and began to ask questions. The business was purely speculativ-on margins. He talkt wisely about the leading railroad securities, and said he felt entirely safe; that he took no step unless he knew just what he was doing. He had elaborate tables of stock variations during every month of the year for many years. I wrote the doctor the facts, and advised him to take his money out. I don't know whether he did or not, but as I was passing that way a few months after I noticed that the place was closed, and I read in the papers that the firm" had mysteriously disappeared, leaving debts, but no assets. How many doctors' savings went at the same time?

If you must court chance, bet on the weather with some equally foolish neighbor. Then you will have some chance of winning, or keeping even at least, but when you put your funds in the hands of professional speculators, or in any other way "bite at the bait" so temptingly put out for you by professional "financiers," you have no chance at all. You are as a trusting child, while they are experts, and they will "do" you every time, and so easily that it will scarcely be interesting to them. If you were a fool yesterday, be

wiser to-day. Remember that it is easier to make money than to keep it; so give the latter some attention.-ED.]

Comstock Collection Agency.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-For some months I have read the complaints against the Comstock Collection Agency of Oswego, N. Y. It seems to be quite the general opinion that they are swindlers. I am not certain that they are not. Still I like fair treatment on both sides, and it is always fair and right to be just, and to carry out our part of a contract before we complain of others. I am in no way interested in the Comstock concern, tho I have had some business with them upon the same contract your readers are complaining of, and I have no reason to believe they are not ready to carry out their part of the contract except the agreement to prosecute claims after sending their five letters.

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Their contract is clear and distinct-nothing hidden or obscure, no queer wording to mean more or less than it seems. Each member agrees to send the required number of accounts, and to report at intervals of not more than twenty days the name of each who has not paid. If John Jones owes the doctor $28.00, the company's letters drive him to see the doctor. He agrees to pay a small amount each week or month. The doctor's prevailing sin is that he is satisfied with promises; or, if not that, he has not the business ability to say pay or get out." The doctor does not report Jones with the others at the next report. What is the company to infer? He agreed to report unless paid. He does not report, hence the account of $28.00 has been paid. That is the rational inference. You would infer the same thing. Any one would. Now, provided you reported the others on time the company will expect and are justified in expecting you to forward to them the $28.00 collected or satisfactorily arranged, because what you are satisfied with you should pay for.

If the company collect money beyond the amount of contract fee and fail to turn it over to the doctor on the plea that they were too busy, or forgot, or could not afford the rate or any other plea, there is not a man of you who would not bring suit to recover your money. If they violate their contract, deal with them according to law-show them no mercy. Could the company blame you? Could any one blame you? The fact is, you give them a lot of names of debtors, some of whose whereabouts you have been ignorant these ten years. Then you promptly forget all about it, forget to report in twenty days, forget to report in forty daysforget it all and expect the company to forget your agreement to pay should you neglect to report in each twenty days. By not reporting you put it out of the power of the company to help you. By violating the contract yourself you have prevented the company from carrying out their part, and you agreed to remunerate them if you failed. Get your contract and read it over. Put yourself in the company's position and see where they could do anything else than ask you to pay. I shall not make claim that the company will or intend to keep the part of the contract concerning the prosecutions, and they may therein be dishonest; but you have no right to complain of them while you were the first to violate the contract.

I said you put it entirely out of their power to carry out their contract when you failed to report, because they have no other means of knowing how much you collect, or who pays. Each name you omit shows that amount collected. If you do not wish it so understood you must report. It costs you nothing if you report and make no collections. If partial payments are made, report the amount collected and the balance due.

I know of no case where a doctor did his part that he did not collect more than the fee.

Now, gentlemen, pay your forfeit like men, as you agreed to do. Then make your reports and keep your agreement and the company will yet help you. If you will follow the arrangement of the company you will find it profitable. They will stay by you yet and you will feel better. Swindle or not, the fault here is your

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[We have been careful to publish everything favorable to the Comstock Company that has come to us, and not near all the unfavorable communications. The above apology seems to us to be very weak. You say you "know of no case," etc. This indicates that you are, to some extent, familiar with their affairs. You also say, Now, gentlemen, pay your forfeit," etc. It seems, according to the abundant evidence that has come to this office, that it is the "forfeit" that the company is after, rather than to give service to the profession and receive reasonable return therefor. You say, 'Their contract is clear and distinct," etc. (For copy of contract note, see April WORLD, p. 163.) Yes, it was gotten up with consummate skill, but not in the interest of the doctor-quite the reverse. Take the illustration that you give: Jones owes $28.00. The letters drive Jones to see the doctor, and an arrangement is made for Jones to pay a specified amount each week until the bill is paid. Is it not reasonable then to let Jones alone and give him a chance to do as he agreed? But no. This clear and distinct " contract will not permit it! It is a fine contract-for the company. Doctors are foolish for signing such a contract, but it seems that they are wheedled into it by the persuasions and promises of agents. After the signature is gotten, then the hard and rigid conditions are insisted on relentlessly, and the promises of agents go for naught. You say that the doctor "agreed to remunerate them." Remunerate them for what? For mailing thirty letters when the doctor furnisht double postage for each? Thirty-six dollars is pretty steep

remuneration" for such service. No, it is not "remuneration" that they claim, but it is because the doctor has been foolish enuf to sign an agreement that it was almost impossible to live up to; then when broken they have his signature to an agreement which he has broken, under which they have a claim on him, and it is this claim that they go for, not “ remuneration." They might calculate this way: Say an agent gets 100 contract notes from responsible doctors in one month. The doctors pay double postage for all the letters sent out, and the $36.00 for each doctor comes either from the collections made or from the doctor's pocket-usually from the latter, it seems, judging from the communications we have received; 100 X $36.00 $3,600.00-a pretty good monthly income from one agent. The agent's salary or commission must be deducted, and also office-clerk hire, which, however, is trifling, for each $36.00 fee involves sending out only thirty letters several times, and the doctor pays double postage each time, and the extra postage about pays for paper and clerk hire. Don't you think the agency has been having quite a "snap?" Just because doctors are not business men; because they will sign anything that is poked at them, tho it sometimes requires the persuasion and promises of a smooth-tongued agent. It is all right for any agency or anybody to have a good thing if he earns it-if he renders equivalent service. But this company seems to be chiefly after the forfeit." This is clearly shown by their own correspondence, which we have publisht in previous issues. Let them leave the forfeit" out, not have any intricate and ironclad note, and charge a percentage on collections actually made, and it will be all right.-ED.]

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Allow me to thank you for finding room in your valuable journal to show up the Comstock Collection Agency. I was one of their victims. Their agent, with devil's purpose and angel's face," came to me during busy office hours with "only a few minutes of your valuable time to show you our system, the greatest and best of all for physicians." In scanning over the contract I noticed that names must be sent every twenty days or the contract was void, and I would be in for the whole $36.00 I called his attention to this point, that twenty days was too short a time. His reply was: "Don't let this stand in your way. We are the physicians' friend, and are here to do you good. Any time

at once.

within four or six weeks will do. It is the spirit and not the letter of the agreement. You take your time in sending and it will be all right." To this "spider and the fly" contract I attacht my signature. From the first letter they sent out I received $3.00, which I promptly sent off, not waiting even for the twenty days. From the next letter some little more came which I sent off as before. With the third letter I received enuf to make $19.00 in all. This was sent likewise.

Being busy, and remembering the nice words of the agent, I did not get my fourth set of names off until twenty-eight or thirty days. When lo and behold a letter came: "You have broken your contract; you owe us a balance of $17.00, and must insist on its being paid before we can do any more for you."

I did not send the list, but wrote them what their agent had said, explaining it fully. Sometime after a letter came similar to some you publisht. To this I paid no attention. In course of time a man came around. He said he was a lawyer, displayed the square and compass, at the same time commenting on my charm, on one side of which was cross and crown, and on the other the eagles and 32; said he hoped to be able to wear one of the same kind some time. He spoke in very nice tones, calling me "brother," etc., and that these accounts had been placed in his hands by the Comstock Company for collection; that if I would pay him the $17.00 he had orders from the company to extend the time four years longer. I hesitated whether I would pay him. Well, I must enter suit against you tomorrow morning." To avoid law I paid him. Did he extend the time? No. You do well to show them up. T. B. WILLIAMS, M.D.

145 Quincy street, C'eve'and, Ohio.

Needle in Body.-A Satisfactory Collection Agency. Feticide.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Supposing that the experiences of a vast majority of our physicians, and especially of the country doctors (of which I am one) to be about the same, I have, in my time, written but little for the journals, and now I am at a loss to know whether I am able to write anything worthy of the time and space required for even a little squib. A while back THE WORLD gave us several stories about needles being found in peoples' bodies. I read these articles with interest, but at that time I. did not know that I was carrying one of these little wanderers myself. Shortly after reading of the incidents mentioned, and while taking a bath one evening, I found one in the cellular tissue of the back part of my left thigh. This was in February last. It caused me but little trouble, except when its locality came in contact with a chair. On the eighth of June last my son, John J. McIntosh, arrived at home from the North Western University Medical School, Chicago, and I had him take it out, and now I have it in a bottle. By that time it had traveled nearly one-third of the way around my thigh. It was almost black, as tho it had lingered long in some field of sulfureted hydrogen. It was broken off thru the eye, and also at the point. Just when, where, or under what circumstances that needle got into my physique, the man in the moon knows as well as I. No doubt it has been traveling about in my anatomy for years. I suppose it has seen

all the sights and was about to knock for exit. I can only imagin that I swallowed it when a child. I could say more about needles, but THE WORLD has, perhaps, said enuf to demonstrate the fact that such accidents are far more common than has been generally supposed.

I have had experience with but two collecting agencies. The first I took to be a fake. They got a few dollars out of me, and that settled the matter with them. Then on receiving_circulars, I tried the United States and Canada Mercantile Agency of Chicago. First and last I sent them accounts amounting to between $900 and $1,000. I would have taken $125 for the whole lot and thought it a good bargain. I acted honestly with them and tried to keep up my end of the singletree all the way thru. They When collected close to $6co of the amount. money was sent to me I sent them their share, and when it was paid to them, they sent me my share, so the matter went smoothly along with no complaints to make on either side. No man was sued, but they talkt the money out of these hard tacks, and left them in fairly good humor. I can commend them to any one needing their service.

While I

The case of "perplext" naturally directs our minds to the consideration of the question and practise of feticide or criminal abortion. Hugh L. Hodge, fifty years ago, said it would endanger the population of the United States if not controled, and it is surely doing it. The balance of power is being gradually thrown into the hands of the ignorant poor and worthless foreign element of our country. am not prepared to bring railing accusations against any special one, we all know or believe that this heinous crime against nature and nature's God is being practised on all sides of us, and especially among the better (?)-no, the financially abler classes, the elite, the hypocritical Christians of the country. The lecture of Hugh L. Hodge should be added to the curriculum of studies in all educational institutions and a copy prefixt to the fly leaves of our Bibles. "Ye Editor" is just the man to run THE WORLD, and I would much like to see the whole world run by such men. Allendale, Ills.

A. J. MCINTOSH.

Confessions of a Morphin Slave of Thirtythree Years.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I have read with much interest the articles in THE WORLD ON the treatment of the opium habit by the hyoscin treatment, and as experience at short tow is probably worth more than theory at long range, I have concluded to tell you what I know of the hyoscin treatment. I have been a morphin addict for a third of a century lacking a few months. During that time there was never a

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day that I did not take morphin. I would take it hypodermically, sometimes otherwise. I could switch from syringe to mouth without any difficulty, something very few syringe men can do. I have taken a good many socalled "opium cures," and as I always found them the slow reduction method, they all failed, and I would find myself taking more at the end of a cure than at the beginning. I remember the despair I felt when I found the celebrated "Keeley cure" had failed on me. This was at the Soldiers' Home, Leavenworth. There was a number of us taking the opium or morphin cure there. Some had already gone thru and were "cured," or claimed to be, and some, like myself, were just taking it. But we made a bargain among ourselves that no matter what we told other people, we would tell each other the truth. We did so. Not one was cured. Yet Mr. Keeley publisht from some of these men the most glowing accounts of how they had been cured. myself I can say that no man could have tried harder to live up to the rules and be cured than I did. They promist us we should suffer no pain. Well, probably those lost souls that went into Dante's Inferno and saw written above the door "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" suffered no physical pain. But, horror of horrors, how we should have liked to have "swapt our feelings for a nice little pain that would have hurt no worse than burning a hand off. That we could have stood.. That we could have called up our will power to endure.

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But the very first thing in taking away a morphin habitue's daily dose is to absolutely unman him and leave him with no will power whatever. As well you might say to the fever patient who cannot lift hand nor foot, "Call up your manhood and strength and get up and walk around," as to tell the suffering morphin addict to call up his will power and stand it. I must say I never understood the meaning of Young's lines, or thought them overdrawn, where he makes one of his characters say:

"All the bliss I pant for is to gain In hell a refuge from severer pain," until I took the "Keeley cure." As I said before, no man could have tried harder to live up to the rules and get cured than I did. But there is a limit to the suffering which a man will voluntarily endure. When you are freezing one minute and burning up the next, when the rigors chase themselves both ways over your body and you feel your flesh turning to snakes, when the marrow of your bones has turned to molten lead, when the position you are in you find the worst and most tiresome and you change it and find that worse still, when every minute seems an hour, when the mind suffers

more than the body, nothing but horror and unalleviated wretchedness,-such was I on the fourth or fifth day of my "cure" when I struck out for Leavenworth. I wrote myself a prescription and visited a drug store. When I commenced the "cure" I was taking thirty grains per os daily; but it now took fully sixty grains before I was in a normal condition. When I got back I played billiards and checkers with the boys, read books and smoked, and when anyone would remark on the changed condition, I would tell them I was "cured.” Finally, one of my comrades in misery came to me and said: "Look here! You can fool these whiskey fiends, but you can't fool me. You have morphin and if you don't give me some I will cut my throat with this knife from ear to ear." At first I tried to deny it; but when I saw the man was in dead earnest and would do as he said, I quickly divided with him. I made a few half-hearted attempts after that to live up to the rules, but at the end of four weeks I found I was taking double the amount I was when I commenced, and I gave it up in despair. I then decided I would take no more "cures." I reasoned thus: "This morphin does not hurt me. It does not injure my health. It does not keep me from business. am free from bad colds. I am in better health than I was before I took it. I do not suffer a particle so long as I have morphin. What is the use of taking these cursed cures that do not cure? These cures are nothing but swindling instruments of torture. By the shade of my father, I will massacre any man who ever says 'cure' to me again."

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So, when about four years ago I first heard of the quick cure I paid no attention to it. I thought it a swindle like the others. I received a number of letters from a certain sanatorium offering to cure me of the morphin habit on the fairest terms that could be offered, claiming they could cure the worst case, no matter how long standing, in forty-eight hours. I paid no attention to their offers or testimonials, for Dr. Howe, of Cincinnati, after a thoro investigation, declared there was no such a thing as a cure or an antidote for the opium habit; that a man once getting into the opium habit was there for life. Also that eminent chemist, J. U. Lloyd, after analyzing a celebrated cure, found it full of morphin. But, finally, I received undoubted evidence that they did cure; evidence that I could not doubt. And, as "hope springs eternal in the human breast, I decided to try it again. While I was arranging my affairs so I could leave for a couple of weeks, I received a call from a young man, an M.D. whom I slightly knew, but knew the family well, and knew that the family was highly respectable. He told me he had been

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