hygienic measures and other individual fads and fancies; and no amount of recorded experience will induce them to test the new-any more than they are disposed to place their confidence in the old.

The Insurgent in medicine partakes of the progressive spirit of the twentieth century and is always scanning the medical horizon to grasp and appropriate any new or advanced idea from whatever direction or whatever source it may

come.

The Insurgent does not condemn all systems of practice with old remedies, because of their antiquity, but he investigates their claims and appropriates what is good in them with the same clearness of perception as would be given to the claims of new or rare remedial agents brought to his attention.

The Insurgent in medicine is liberal, broad-minded and opposed to that tendency on the part of a large number of physicians, many of them of great prominence in the profession, who arrogate to themselves the ability and the right not only to select remedies and curative methods for their own guidance but assume to establish laws and regulations, limiting the profession generally to those remedies only which have passed their censorship and have received the sign of their approbation.

THE DAILY VACATION.

F. W. Fitzpatrick is a queer kind of a man, says the Healthy Home. He is convinced that the common method of tearing one's self to pieces with hard work during eleven months of the year in order to get time and opportunity for a vacation the twelfth month is all wrong. He declares that he never goes for a protracted vacation, and yet he is always fresh, unwearied and in the pink of condition. His method is to take a vacation two hours every day. His vacation is as regular as eating and sleeping, and as much a part of his daily

life. Then, one day in seven, he makes a break and gets away for a change of

scene.

This is how he tells of his method: "Now, circumstances are such that my life generally is most enjoyable. I live in the country. My daily two hours are spent on a fine saddle-horse or in playing tennis. My business takes me into other cities at times and gives me all the change necessary; occasionally I go on a long motor tour or indulge in other expensive amusements. But all that has been secured by hard work and years of thrift. I went through pretty nearly all the struggle and grind and up-hill work that usually fall to the lot of a young man while I was 'getting there.' That work seemed easier by reason of the daily vacation. My hours were so long that I had to get up earlier to enjoy it— a habit that has stuck; for I am still up with the sun. I could not afford a saddlehorse, but I could go on a good, quick walk, or chop wood, or do something that was not expensive and yet absolutely different from my regular work, physical exercise the while completely throwing off all thought of business or of anything unpleasant-another habit. that has stuck, and has given a brighter complexion to life generally.

"Then, wherever I was, I always organized a bit of a walking club. Off we would go once a week, four or five of us, rain or shine, for a good tramp. If we lived in a large city, we would 'car' it to the outskirts, then get into the country, into the green fields, enjoy a frolic, then home, a good dinner and a jolly evening with the family. We would vary the trips by occasionally getting the wives and babies together, hiring a 'bus, or otherwise getting off for a picnic in the country, for a ball game, a weekly vacation, or something to look forward to-not for a whole year, but for only six days, further shortened by the two hours' vacation every day. There's nothing like it. Try it."

THE ESSENTIALS OF SERVICE. There are at least two things that we must be possessed of in order to be of service, and one of them is the Spirit of Enthusiasm. An enthusiasm that is born of a deep-seated confidence, and directed. by faith and good common sense, for the men, in every walk of life, who have gained the good opinion of humanity in general, are the men who have been enthusiastic in their work. I believe that we should carry our enthusiasm into our thoughts, and into our work, no matter what we are working at, if a drayman or carrying the hod, carry that enthusiasm into your work, into your life, into your patriotism, into the age in which you live, and you will see that it will tend to drive out of your life all trace of a pessimistic feeling.

The next thought and idea that must possess our minds is a positive faith in something. A negative faith in a negative creed will never bring a man character. Every man must believe in something that is going to amount to anything in business or in any vocation in life. The men and women who are building up the world today are the ones who believe in something, and because of that positive faith they are ready to lend a helping hand, to stand by and give that encouragement that their fellowmen need.

Just one other thought: If we are to be best fitted to help our fellowmen we must understand the value of an ideal. When you come to consider the difference between the noble and the ignoble career, you will find that the success of one man is due to his faith in his ideal, and the failure of the other is his lack of faith, and that if you keep up your faith and work towards your ideal you will never have time to be pessimistic.

HIS FUNERAL SERMON. One of the hardest things a minister is called upon to do is to deliver an ad

dress at the funeral of a man for whom there is really nothing good to be said. Such moments of embarrassment do occasionally arise. How one parson tactfully coped with the situation is thus reported:

The very worst man in a mining camp not notorious for its piety died. The fellow had been terribly bad. If he lacked anything of total depravity, none could recall any evidence of it. He had corrupted the camp in every way possibie, had been brutal and debauched and debased in every way known to mankind. When he died there was a quandary as to what to do at his funeral. He had been shot down in his boots in defense of the very decency of the camp. A nonresident minister was sent for, and was told the awful truth about the deceased. "Didn't he have any good point?" asked the minister.

"Not one."

"Wasn't he even kind to a child some time?"

"Never."

The minister was lost in thought a while. Then he asked:

"When is the funeral to be?" "Tomorrow at 3. Will you preach?" "Oh, yes!"

"What in the world will you talk about?"

"I shall talk," said the minister, "on the glorious age in which this man lived."

THE OLDEST PRESCRIPTION.

Written on a chunk of Egyptian stone 3,500 years ago, what is probably the oldest prescription in the world, says the New York Herald, is on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Scholars agree that fully 3,500 years have elapsed since the wise physician who wrote it drove up in his chariot and inquired as to the state of health of Mrs. Amenpthah, or whatever her name was, for which this medicant was directed. She was suffering from hysteria, so what

did the physician do but prescribe that the lady have a kind of precious green stone, presumably an emerald, ground and mixed with a resinous powder and burned, so that she could inhale the smoke that came from the costly remedy. Such prescriptions would induce hysteria in these days if the drains on the jewelry casket were especially heavy. The prescription was written on a chunk of limestone about the size of a human fist, by means of a brush and ink. It has been well preserved all these years.

It is well to note the fact that in the eighteenth dynasty women had nerves. Also, a physician must have had nerve to make a woman smoke up her best ornaments for medicinal purposes. The prescription in this case seems to have been an emerald; at any rate, it was very expensive, and betokens the wealth of the patient. Less precious stones, chrysophrase, were used for the middle classes, and plain malachite, which was cheap, sufficed for the poor. From which one is led to remark that humanity has not changed much in the last thirty-five centuries.

A STORY AND ITS MORAL. In the September number of the Ladies' Home Journal, David Belasco, the playright and producer, gives some of his experiences. He attributes much of his success in his chosen work to the fact that he has always given painstaking attention to details and little things so often regarded as inconsequential. In one popular pastoral play, instead of the actors dining (?) on the usual papier maché, he conceived the idea of giving the meal and its sittings a realistic touch by substituting real turkey, real potatoes and real other food. These were served piping hot, and the drafts were so arranged as to waft the aroma of the dinner down to the olfactories of the audience. In order to add to the domesticity and "hominess" of the scene, a cat was

trained to walk out before a grate fire, stretch itself, and then meander across the stage in full view of the audience. Pussy was trained to do this stunt by being cramped up in a box somewhat too short for her all day, and this favored her disposition to stretch herself when released from her close quarters. Many other little details relative to stage craft were set forth.

All of which emphasizes the value of thoroughness and attention to details. Belasco states that, when a child, his mother taught him in such a manner as was best calculated to arouse his perception and spontaneities. When she read him a poem or story he was taught to visualize the thing described, to shut his eyes and distinctly see the word-picture presented to him. There was a strong appeal made to his wnole gamut of entions and conceptions. From a psychological standpoint this is interesting when we contemplate how all this as at a subsequent period projected into his life work.

ters.

But the moral which in this connection we desire to adorn this tale is that no physician can be successful in the truest sense of the word unless he in like manner gives attention to many small matLack of it, coupled with carelessness, accounts for almost daily blunders. So many sponges and instruments are constantly sewed up after laporotomies that the lay press has given wide publicity to the joke about the advisability of using buttons on the abdomen in order to facilitate the removal of imprisoned articles.

Carelessness and haste in making diagnosis have often caused embarrassment to the doctor. Too many are disposed to look lightly upon subjective symptoms and the patient's own version of his case. It usually pays to take time to hear his story; the patient will feel better for having told it, and he may make disclosures that will illumine his case to you.

Little things relative to the doctor's personality, his dress, speech and deportment, are of immense importance. The condition of his instruments and paraphernalia is calculated to either woo patients or drive them away. The neat, clean and attractive, office is especially calculated to appeal favorably to the feminine clientele. An unkempt and uncouth office and physician repel patients. A woman can see a cobweb in the northwest corner of the ceiling farther than a mere man can see a horse.

ETHICS.

D. L. Field, in a communication to the Medical Fortnightly, complains that there are irregularities existing among those styling themselves regular practitioners, which may be called mild quackery.

The Principles of Ethics, he says, contains rules for our guidance which, stripped of all superfluous verbiage, might read: "All doctors of medicine are hereby required to be gentlemen." This may be considered as asking too much by some, but it is the law, boiled down! We should observe it, even if it does require a sacrifice.

Another article of the Code, which says physicians should not make gloomy prognostications so as to magnify the importance of their treatment and cure of disease. Are there not too many who habitually hang out the danger signal, where none exists?

Another article: "Consultations should be prompted in difficult or protracted cases, as they give rise to confidence, energy and enlarged views in practice." This is violated too often. When a council is finally acceded to, the competent home doctor is passed by, and no better one from another place is chosen. It is done because of a fear that it may boost a home rival in his reputation! It is a spirit of selfishness and jealousy! Too many doctors will attempt to undermine a professional brother. The older one will

say the younger one may make a good doctor when he has had experience, while the younger one will assert that the older may have been a good doctor in his time, but he is behind the times!

Our whole ethical law should be construed as an amplification of the Golden Rule! We have no right, by jest or look, or by silence even, to injure our professional brother.

What a glorious thing it is to hark back to those old worthiest of the past who were too high minded and honorable to criticise a younger brother, but would lend him a helping hand and put their protecting arms about him. I remember such grand, unselfish men! In this age of greed, commercialism and mad rush to crowd others out of the way, the ethics of the profession are virtually a dead letter!

QUININE AND EUQUININE. Astruc and Courtin (Journ. Pharm et Chim.) compare the chemical properties of quinine and euquinine. Of the characters common to both are:-Neutrality to phenolphthalein; they are basic to helianthin and litmus; precipitated in solution by the usual alkaloidal reagents; solutions with oxygenated acids are fluorescent; they give the thalleioquin reaction; are precipitated from their salts by alkali carbonates and bicarbonates; their aqueous solutions become yellow on exposure to light; they give salts by direct action of acids. Among the characters in which they differ are:-Quinine gives the herepathite reaction; euquinine does not; 0.97 molecule of HC neutralises (with helianthin), one molecule of quinine; 1.05 molecule of HCl neutralises (with helianthin) one molecule of euquinine; 0.99 molecule HC neutralises (with rosolic acid or litmus) one molecule of quinine; euquinine is freely alkaline to litmus; quinine gives two series of salts, neutral and basic; euquinine gives only neutral salts.-Pharm. Journ.

VERTICAL IMBALANCES OF THE EYE MUSCLES.

H

YPERPHORIA, remarks the Optical Journal and Review, is the tendency of one eye to turn higher than the other, a tendency which is overcome by the stimulus to single binocular vision, but there are two varieties of 'phorias of which there is seldom any mention and which, when they are mentioned, are not clearly understood. These are anaphoria and cataphoria. Anaphoria is defined by Stevens as the tendency of the eye to turn up when in the primary position; that is, when it is looking straight ahead, with the head perfectly erect. There is no right or left in anaphoria. If such a case is tested for muscle imbalance with the Maddox rod, the head being forced to stay in the primary position, then the eye which has the rod before it will turn up while the other is fixing the light, such upward movement occurring no matter over which eye the rod is placed; whereas in hyperphoria one eye will show an upward movement behind the Maddox rod, while the other will show a downward movement when the rod is placed over it. The opposite condition to anaphoria is cataphoria, in which the eye with the rod before it, with the head in the primary position, will turn downward, no matter over which eye the rod is placed. The difference between these two conditions and hyperphoria will be noted, and, in fact, either anaphoria or cataphoria may be accompanied by hyperphoria. In anaphoria the head is turned downward more or less so that both eyes may roll upward into a comfortable position, while in cataphoria the head is held high or thrown back, so that both eyes may roll down to a comfortable position. A study of the carriage of the head as compared with the direction of

the gaze of people as they pass along the street, and as they sit reading in cars and boats, will show cases of more or less marked anaphoria and cataphoria. These two conditions can be relieved by glasses, by decentering both lenses up or down, as the case requires, provided the power of the lenses is sufficient to make this practicable; otherwise, prisms in the lenses, bases up or down, as required, must be used. In cataphoria the prisms would have to have their bases up, and in anaphoria the bases would have to be down.

THE VISUAL HANDICAP.

Ellice M. Alger, in The Physician, points out that every defect of the eyes which makes vision either imperfect or a matter of effort is a direct handicap.

Some of these eye conditions are irremediable and shall be alluded to only to urge the vast importance of their prevention. Even the smallest corneal scar may cause serious and permanent reduction of sight, and yet we see day after day conditions which commonly result in scars treated as trivial by parents, and even physicians, because they seldom result in either death or a glass eye. In this class are to be included all the childhood inflammations of the eye, and especially the very dangerous phlyctenular conditions so commcn after measles and the other infectious diseases of childhood.

Hardly less disastrous are some of the developmental defects of the eyes, though some of them we can happily overcome almost entirely.

In this class of developmental defects come the so-called errors of refraction, far sight, near sight, and astigmatism, every one of which is a handicap to the learning child in direct proportion to its

amount.