pentine. Mild counter irritation of the entire chest is a rational procedure; crude petroleum, oil of nutmeg, turpentine in some fatty base, camphor in lard, iodin, or mustard, may be used. We have had temporary results from poultices of sliced onions fried in lard, applied as hot as the child can stand them, and changed frequently. If such poulticing give relief, we follow it with the cotton jacket. Diet need not be mentioned; the child will not often take even water. In cases where it is possible to administer medicin with any regularity or in quantity, one may follow the theoretical indications for alcohol in some form; carbonate of ammonium; mild emetics; strychnin or quinin. In a few cases, tepid sponging lowers the temperature, but without appreciable benefit.

Our experience has been distressingly monotonous, and our prognosis in every case is now a fatal one. Any such disease having the power to silence forever a healthy infant in the course of a few hours, is deserving of more study than has ever been devoted to it. We want WORLD readers to take it up. Carefully exclude every form of pneumonia and bronchitis, but if you have had a single case, please write its history briefly and to the point. Do it now, for the season is at hand. We particularly wish new suggestions. What have our eclectic and homeopathic friends to offer against this malady?

A Persistent Fraud.

Most medical mountebanks subside when they have once been publicly and completely turned down, but the energy and devotion of the promoters of the notorious "Crotte Cure" for consumption seem limitless, and would certainly bring results in a nobler cause. It will be remembered that a strenuous effort was made to have the American Medical Association endorse this scheme at its meeting in Columbus; the Association refusing to recognize or endorse the promoter, he flooded the country with circulars in which he claimed to have been enthusiastically received, banqueted, and fully commended and endorst. The journal of the Association took up the publication of a denial, which annulled the false representations of the schemer, at least along that particular line. Recently, however, they have induced St. Luke's Hospital in New York to experiment with their "cure" (?). The Medical News of December 15, 1900, details the

reports, which were unanimous from all who observed the tests to the effect that "there is nothing in the treatment." The hospital has issued circulars, which are sent to all inquirers, stating that the treatment was given regularly and systematically. Not only were the bacteriological examinations and blood counts made at the hospital, but the sputum was sent to the New York City Board of Health, where experiments were made upon guinea pigs with the supposedly attenuated virus to see whether there was any actual lessening of virulence of the tubercle bacillus. These experiments were carried on carefully, exactly, and hopefully for three months with absolutely negati results. None of the changes that were claimed would take place eventuated, from the bacteriological standpoint. The effect of placing the patient in front of the static machine was as ineffectual as placing him before a mirror. None of the patients of the experiment improved any more than did others of like degree of infection on the same good food, regular hours, and rest."

The instigators of the scheme have proceeded to claim that they have been endorsed by St. Luke's Hospital, despite the above avowal. It is said they have made such claims before medical societies and thru the medical press.

We do not understand that the report condemns the static machine in any way except in so far as it was used in the mummeries and incantations of these schemers. We hope no WORLD reader will be caught in the plotters' net, and the sooner the entire matter is ignored by the profession the better it will be for us and our patients.

A New Medical Journal.

Every physician interested in the dignity of medical journalism has probably heard of the forced retirement of Dr. George M. Gould from the position of editorship of the Philadelphia Medical Journal. The maner in which this was brought about has aroused profound indignation thruout the medical world. With characteristic pluck Dr. Gould is endeavoring to secure from the profession the financial guarantees necessary to establish a new weekly upon the same lines as the journal he has made so successful during the past three years. hope he may successfully establish the new

We

Telephone Takes the Place of Nurse. The telephone is now used in some of the larger cities by persons who are required to take medicin thruout the night, but who are able to sleep between times. The subscriber has his 'phone rung at stated intervals and rises to take the medicin and again sleeps till again "rung up."

Since December 11, 1898, 1429 cases of small-pox have occurred in Pennsylvania, with but 18 deaths. (State Board of Health's Report.)

Treatment of Drug Neuroses.

The New York School of Clinical Medicin has opened up a new department of teaching in the field of neurology, a study of the neuroses and psychoses of spirit and drug diseases. Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Conn., has been elected professor, and will deliver a course of clinical lectures on inebriety, alcoholism, morphinism, cocain and chloral addictions, and other narcotic diseases. These lectures will begin February 18, 1901, and continue weekly thru the winter and spring months. This is the first systematic attempt to teach the symptomatology, pathology and treatment of these drug neuroses, and is a new departure in medicin that will be warmly welcomed by the general practitioner who is so often appealed to for help in these cases. Further information concerning this course can be had by addressing Dr. Crothers or Dr. Kenyon, the secretary of the school, New York.

Chlorine for Bad Breath and Colds.—The Art of Prolonging Life.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In an English journal I noticed an article recommending chlorine water as an internal, antiseptic. It was stated that the chlorine soon permeated the whole body. I had on hand two cases of bad breath. One was a lady in whom had been unable to detect the cause. She had neither catarrh, antral disease nor decayed teeth. There were no other symptoms of gastric catarrh, and when all albuminous foods were excluded from her diet there was no improvement in the breath, which was very offensive in the mornings, but bad all day. She had chronic constipation, but this was carefully seen to as neglect was certain to occasion headache not controllable by any known means. I mit a dram each of powdered potassium chlorate and hydrochloric acid c p., and added 8 ounces of water as the bottle filled with the yellowish-green gas. Of this she took a teaspoonful six times a day. In two days the breath was as sweet as a baby's, and remained so for a week. After that a few doses occasionally kept away all offensiv odor.

This lady had that singular defect in renal elimination of which I have written before, the total solids in twenty-four hours' urin falling below 300 grains, whereas there should have been about 1,000 grains for a woman weighing 98 pounds. The chlorine has evidently increast the elimination, and there is less headache. This matter of defectiv renal elimination is so important, and so very common, that I never allow a patient to get an opinion from me until I have at least taken the specific gravity of the

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twenty-four hours' urin. This gives a ruf approximation of the excretion, for if you multiply the last two figures of the specific gravity by two you have the per millage of solids, assuming that each grain of solids displaces a grain of water, so that a specific gravity of 1,020 indicates 4 per cent. of solids. May well be that this is off 100 grains from the truth, but that doesn't matter much. You can tell if the excretion is nearer 300 grains than 1,000, and if it is rising or falling under your treatment; and if it is up to 900 you may feel easy. Busy doctors are compelled to learn to be satisfied with approximations, for want of time to perform tedious laboratory methods and calculations.

The other case was a lady with chronic constipation also; the breath becoming almost stercoraceous in its fetor. Chlorine water, prepared as above, relieved this feature of her case likewise. Her case presents another problem as yet unsolved. She is forty-five, an invalid for thirty years, her bowels kept regular for the last five years by the most unremitting care. She has torpor amounting to paralysis of the muscular intestinal coats, and any attempt to stimulate them results in great distress, fever, tenderness, continuing until they are allowed to fall into their old paretic quiescence and fill up, when shortly the fecal breath and symptoms of autotoxemia develop. She is sallow, developShe is sallow, developing many moles recently, subject to fainting spells and highly hysterical. Within the last six months she has developt tenderness and continuous pain in the region of the sigmoid flexure, with increasing obstruction. When a Wales' bougie is introduced it strikes a very sore place, passes this and strikes another; the injections are generally productiv of much pain, coming on at once, bringing away dark, offensiv masses with some mucus but never a sign of blood or pus. Her temperature is subnormal.

Now here are the elements for a very pretty study in diagnosis. In favor of cancer are the age, cachexia, steady progress of the obstruction and downward course, and the location. Against cancer are the subnormal temperature, the immediate development of pain and the tender

ness.

I have had two cases of cancer of the sigmoid flexure, and in neither was there any pain or tenderness, but simply a dirty pallor of the skin, and constantly increasing constipation that finally brought

them to me for complete obstruction. In all my cases of gastric cancer I have observed fever of about one degree; in the sigmoid cases the temperature was not noted.

In favor of intestinal ulcer are the tenderness, constant pain, increast immediately by palpation or the introduction of the bougie or of water; also the improvement following injections of orthoform in oil, attenuated with argonin. The lower spot has apparently healed after six weeks of these applications, as it is no longer tender. But against the hypothesis of ulcer is the complete absence of blood and pus from the stools, tho carefully examined by a thoroly efficient graduate nurse, and the doctor as well.

The anemia, moles, and fainting fits remind me strongly of two cases that presented every symptom of Addison's disease, except that they dragged along for ten years instead of completing the classical course in eighteen months. Both died of pulmonary tuberculosis at last. Has this woman intestinal tuberculosis? I have had several cases, in which I could feel and handle a tubercular mass, jagged and nodular, without causing the patient pain. Well, Tait used to say: "If you don't know what's the matter with a woman, cut her open and find out!" I suppose this will be the end-it surely will be the end of the patient, if my premonitions do not err for the first time in thirty years.

Still another use of the chlorine mixture: I am very liable to colds and coryzas of the most exasperating description. They begin in the soft palate in an itching spot, and spread up into the nose, and forward, involving a week's wretchedness and leaving me weak. The remedies that enable me to jugulate colds in others are useless for my own. Petroleum limits the spread wherever I can apply it, but the enemy inflicts great distress on me even when repulsed. The other evening I was lying on bed, clad in my pajamas reading (the Infallible Oracle of the household says that's how I catch cold), when I felt the itching in my soft palate, the inevitable forerunner of the calamity. I got up and took a small mouthful of the chlorine mixture, which burnt like fire when it toucht the itching spot and a tonsil, and that was the end of that cold. It was simply jugulated. Now wasn't there some pesky brood of micro-organisms at work there?

And was it not the insensitive tonsil (I was not aware of any trouble there till the chlorine bit it) in which the invasion was first fixt? There is no more dangerous, ill-guarded spot in the human body than that same tonsil-not even the appendix. Many times I have stopt a "sorethroat," a pharyngitis, that might have developt into a diphtheria, or at least held the door open to it, with a few doses of that chlorine mixture. It is a mighty handy thing to have about the house, especially in winter time. It is surely cheap and easy to make. It must be kept well corkt, away from light, and is best taken undiluted and no water after it. I call it a chlorine mixture, but really oxygen is given off also. Pure chlorine could

be evolved by adding sulfuric acid to sodium chlorid and manganese dioxid.

Why does not some brilliant genius announce that he makes a specialty of "The Millionaire's Heart"? Too many great men are dying of heart failure. This organ has been studied too much from the side of therapeutics and pathology. It should be considered from the point of view of physiology; its condition determined, its powers of work and probable endurance gauged, and its task so arranged as to secure from it the best possible results to its possessor. But among all our specialties the Art of Prolonging Life remains still without a solitary representative. The development of the vital principle, the conservation of the vitality, remains for the physician of this new century a virgin field. Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM F. WAUGH, M.D.

Bad Breath.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In the case of bad breath (January WORLD, page 25). permit me to answer A Constant Reader." When the point in view is the overcoming of a special symptom without due regard to the cause, we read, "I get most of my information from the husband, who, by the way," etc., we must expect to meet with failures. Many of our weaknesses are due to the fact that we won't investigate. as the following case will prove. An old lady, a sufferer from bad breath for a long time, consulted a physician "for a bronchitis;" he treated her for six months without relief. This lady was rapidly cured by the removal of matter, an elongated square about one and a half inch thru its greatest length, of the most hor

rible odor, from one of the nasal passages, the lady being a subject of atrophic catarrh. The dentist will say, "attend to the teeth." The odor, at times, from. the lungs, is as powerful as musk, altho not of the same kind. In advanced cases of diabetes the breath is quite disagreeable. The most common cause of the symptom in question, is, without a particle of doubt, putrefactive changes within the 'duodenum. In again reading the letter we find, "appetite good, digestion perfect, bowels regular." For a putrefactive condition in the alimentary canal, the sulfocarbolates act well. Calomel often gives relief. I have removed great quantities of fecal and other matter with the galvanic current and salt water injections in the knee-chest position. This matter was found to have such a stench that it required the opening of doors and windows. I am now trying tincture of echinacea one part, baptisia two parts and panax three parts, in thirty drop doses. I find this an easy remedy, does not cause much trouble, and so far it has charmed the bad breath away. The time, however, is so short that I am in no condition to state as to

its permanency. I do entertain a strong belief that the diet wants overhauling by the Doctor, and not the husband; and when this cannot be done in the right way, there is possibly no remedy that can be depended upon for permanency for the condition in question. condition in question. I had a lady under my care during the past year that complained of having a diarrhea for which she sought treatment. After a few days the amount of matter removed from her bowels was almost beyond belief. Doctor, see to the passages and conclude from what you see with your own eyes. Cincinnati, O.

A. W. RINGER.

Bad Breath.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Tell "Constant Reader" (see January WORLD) that I think the vile fumes from the stomach of his patient are caused by the bile entering the stomach and mixing with partially digested food. In the recumbent position such a condition often occurs. Have had three such cases as he describes during my fifty years of practise. My remedy was fluid extract taraxacum, dram doses, three or four times daily. The improvement begins at once, but the treatment must sometimes be continued for several weeks. Springfield, Mo. "JAWTHORNE."

Bad Breath. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Bad Breath, page 25, January WORLD. -To "A Constant Reader," I would say that the cause lies in the tonsils. Do not reject this suggestion, but test it and let us know. This is a condition which I have seen described in print but once. Many doctors know of it, and very many do not in a practical way. It is a caseous condition of the posttonsilar crypts. Expand these folds and examin carefully with an ear-spoon, or dull probe. One case, a man of 25 years, heavy proportions physically, every organ and function apparently normal, complained a little of his throat; walking along the street he coughed out two or three worms as large as a shoe-peg. Was almost frightened into illness for fear of lung trouble, until better informed. Another case occasionally coughs out a caseous pill the size of a pea. This might often escape notice if it were not for the disgustingly foul smell. It is a rather trivial condition after the diagnosis is made. Treatment: Dip a wrapt cotton carrier in a weak permanganate solution and wipe out the folds a few times.

Those of the "family" from whom we have not heard, and from whom we would like to hear, will find this little notice marked with blue pencil. Our "household expenses" have to be kept up, you know, and it is because the "family" is so large, that the share of each ($1 per year) can be so small.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-You will please find inclosed check for two dollars to renew my subscription for 1901 and to pay for one year in arrears. I don't think a more useful or practical journal is publisht: nothing suits the busy practitioner so well. It is a bridge over all the difficult places in the pathway of the busy doctor. Capron, Va.

J. H. M. SYKES.

"Cuban Itch" is Small Pox. Dear MEDICAL WORLD:-We have had an eruptiv contagious disease prevailing in many localities in Indiana during the last two years, which corresponds closely to the description given by Dr J. R. Vaughan, of Sledd, Mo., page 24, January WORLD. It differs from an ordinary epidemic of small pox in that it is milder and gets well sooner. In many of the cases the pustular stage is not developt. The symptoms more generally conform to those of varioloid. It differs from "chicken pox" in that it attacks adults and children alike. The eruption appears on the portions of the body that are measurably exempt from it in chicken pox, and the same portions as are subject to the same in small pox. Notwithstanding these and many other differences, there are many cases that require the closest scrutiny, even on the part of experts, to make a satisfactory diagnosis of the case in hand. While a large per cent. of the cases in Indiana scarcely thought it necessary to go to bed on account of the malady, other cases would present all the virulent symptoms of old time small pox. I venture the prediction that before the so-called "Cuban itch" shall have run its course in Missouri (especially if unquarantined), there will be no question as to whether it is small pox or not; for the entire profession will admit it. The physician and health officer who takes his stand in accordance with this opinion, and sounds no uncertain note of alarm to the people, thereby assisting them to stamp out this loathsome disease, will be a benefactor to the state and nation. W. J. HOADLEY, M.D. Danville, Ind. [County Health Officer.]

Small Pox.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I notice an article in the January WORLD by Dr. J. R. Vaughan, asking about the socalled "Cuban itch," which is So prevalent in some of the central and southern States. Within the past year I have treated some 250 cases of this disease and will state some facts about it which may enlighten some of the WORLD'S readIn the first place, the disease is certainly infectious and contagious. The period of incubation is about fourteen to eighteen days. The first symptoms are malaise, fever, and sometimes chilly feelings, in a few cases a well-developt chill. Headache and backache are prominent

ers.