OINTMENTS AND THEIR USES. Corbett, in the Cleveland Medical Journal, considers this subject. He says that as diseases of the skin were the first to be recognized and treated, we naturally infer that the use of external applications was in vogue at a very early time. We know that medicinal ointments were used in China and India many centuries before the Christian era and with the rise and development of the Arabian school of medicine, external medication by means of ointments came into more general demand. Emerging from the dark ages at the time of the Renaissance, vague theories prevailed in the healing art which continued more or less dominant until the last century. Thus the color of the ointment was considered of highest importance. The first to ascribe therapeutic effect to color was Averoes (1198 A. D.), who said: "White is refrigerant, and red is hot, from the fiery particles with which it manifestly abounds." This theory to a certain extent has survived and with a more intimate knowledge of the effect of the different rays of the solar spectrum on the human organism it still may be demonstrated that this empirical assumption is founded on a demonstrable fact. During the sixteenth and eighteenth

centuries polypharmacy was at its height and the composition of ointments partook of the general custom. Even in comparatively modern times the ointments which bear the names of Vigo and Wilkinson may be mentioned as examples. The present age of medicine is characterized by an effort to attain scientific accuracy and while many things remain obscure, yet the number of demonstrable facts is gradually increasing.

For the modern use of ointments to their full extent we are indebted to Ferdinand Hebra (d. 1880), who first successfully combatted humoral pathology as applied to diseases of the skin. This investigator and great clinical teacher demonstrated that many diseases of the skin, supposed to be due to some peccant humor in the blood or vague dyscrasia of the system, were caused by local conditions and remedied by local measures. These he employed with consummate skill.

In composition, ointments consist of a base or vehicle and certain medicinal substances incorporated therein. Both the base and ingredients vary according to the therapeutic object to be attained. From the clinician's point of view, ointments may be considered under the following general varieties: First, protective, emollient or soothing, sometimes known as simple ointments; second, astringent; third, stimulating, formerly called alterative; fourth, antiseptic; fifth, absorbent, for introducing medicine deeply into the follicles of the skin or through the absorbents into the general system.

FATAL ERROR IN POPULAR MEDICAL BOOK.

A fatality due to a misprint in a work known as "The People's Doctor" had its sequel in the Paris Law Courts last Saturday. According to the evidence, a cabinet-maker named Tourneux went home one day the worse for drink and asked his wife to send to a

pharmacist for an antidote, as he had some work to terminate. The wife looked up a prescription in a book from the family library, which was "The People's Doctor" in question, and copied the following formula: Water 100 grammes, peppermint water 15 grammes, ammonia 15 grammes. To be taken in two or three doses. She copied this recipe carefully and sent it to M. Ravault, pharmacien, 52 rue de Folie Regnault, who duly dispensed the preparation, which the cabinet-maker took and died, poisoned. Why and how remained to be proved. Inquiry showed that the author of the medical book in question is Dr. Georges Migot, a Parisian practitioner, but who used the name Dr. Dayaud for it. The work was originally published at Ghent, and only issued later in Paris. But in the later edition a grave error crept in, and the formula that contained the indication 15 grammes of ammonia should have read 15 drops. Under the guidance of her legal advisers, Mme. Tournieux prosecuted Dr. Migot and M. Ravault for homicide by imprudence, the latter being also charged with supplying a remedy without a doctor's prescription, which is an infraction of the Pharmacy Law. The doctor was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and the pharmacist to one month, but the sentences were rescinded under the First Offenders Act. They were further condemned to pay jointly 1,200 fr. damages and an annual pension of 300 fr. to the widow, as well as an annual pension of 200 fr. to each of the children until the age of eighteen years.

Heat the cottonseed oil and stearic acid until the acid is completely dissolved. Then add the sodium hydroxide. dissolved in a litre of distilled water, and heat for fifteen minutes with constant stirring. Next add the alcohol and stir until saponification is effected, which will be apparent in a few minutes by the homogeneous appearance of the mixture. Then add one litre of 20 per cent solution of sodium chloride and stir vigorously. Allow to stand until the soap is hardened; the alkaline liquid which remains at the bottom of the container is then dried out by punching a hole in the soapy mass on one side. The soap is then washed two or three times with distilled water, melted, and while still on the fire the powdered pumice is added and the whole thoroughly incorporated. The hot soap is then poured into suitable moulds, and allowed to remain for twenty-four hours to set.

SCARLET RED OINTMENT. Scarlet red is sometimes recommended in the form of an ointment for diseases

of the eye. The dye should always be finely divided and intimately mixed with the base before it is dispensed. The Prescriber suggests that it be dissolved in chloroform before incorporation with the base, or that the base be melted, which will dissolve the scarlet red if the latter be not in too large quantity. The ointment may be 4, 5, 8 or 10 per cent, although in eye practice weaker ointments are preferable, of which the following is an example:

The prescriber on the day following that on which the medicine was dispensed brought the bottle to the pharmacist saying he meant to give his patient syrup of chloral, but was afraid spirit of chloroform had been put in instead. Experiment made it evident that chloroform had resulted from reaction between the chloral hydrate and the magnesia, chloroform and magnesium formate being among the products.

When the prescriber was informed of this he omitted the magnesia. Mr. McEwan further pointed out that the magnesia also liberates alkaloid from the belladonna and ipecacuanha preparations, and that each dose of the mixture contained 3 minims of chloroform and 21⁄2 grains of magnesium formate.

Messrs, Dott, Duncan, Merson, and Hill discussed the paper, the first named remarking that medical men should have added to their curriculum a course of 200 lectures on incompatabilities.

The Chairman thought Mr. Dott's suggestion probably a good one though the medical curriculum is rather overloaded,

and he was afraid that not even 200 lectures would exhaust the subject; they were always learning something new in the way of incompatibility.

out.

STORY OF A NEW HAT.
(From Brush and Pail.)

A business man had purchased a new stiff hat, and he went into a saloon with half a dozen friends to fit the hat on his head. They all took beer and passed the hat around so all could see it. One of the meanest men that ever held a county office went to the bartender and had a thin slice of Limburger cheese cut off, and when the party were looking at the frescoed ceiling through their beer glasses, the wicked person slipped the cheese under the sweat-leather of the hat, and the man put it on and walked The man who owned the hat is one of your nervous people who is always complaining of being sick, and who feels as though some dreadful disease was going to take possession of him and carry him off. He went back to his place of business, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and proceeded to answer some letters. He thought he detected a smell, and when his partner asked him if he didn't feel sick, he believed he did. He then turned pale and said he guessed he would go home. He met a man on the sidewalk who said the air was full of miasma, and in the street car a man who sat next to him moved to the end of the car, and asked him if he had just come from Chicago. The man with the hat said he had not, when the stranger said they were having a great deal of small-pox there and he guessed he would get out and walk, and he pulled the bell and jumped off. The cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the man with the new hat, and he took it off to wipe his forehead, when the whole piece of cheese seemed to roll over and breathe, and the man got the full benefit of it, and he came near fainting away.

HILE the value of X-ray examin

WHILE

ations in cases of suspected urinary calculus is being generally appreciated, there are conditions which the presence of calculi often so strongly simulate that the writer will attempt to emphasize some of the most important, and at the same time point out some of the difficulties that confront the X-ray specialist in arriving at his diagnosis.

The roentgenologist is too frequently called upon only as a last resort, after all other means of ascertaining the trouble have been exhausted, whereas had the roentgen examination been made earlier the patient could have been saved much time, suffering and expense.

The condition most commonly confused with renal calculus is pyelitis due to other causes. It has been considered more or less essential by the general profession that attacks of "kidney colic" shall have been a part of the patient's previous history.. This, however, is not at all necessary, for cases often present themselves with calculi of very large size, that have never caused colic of sufficient severity for the patient to recall it The stone may or may not give rise to pain or tenderness, even its passage through the ureter may be painless, as has been conclusively demonstrated by Drs. Bevan and Potter, of Chicago.

A persistent pyelitis, especially if the urine contains blood, microscopic or otherwise, should call at once for a roentgen examination.

*Read before the forty-first annual meeting of the Medical Society of Virginia, at Norfolk, October 25-28, 1910.

It is impossible by symptoms and clinical findings to determine whether a calculus, if present at all, is in the kidney or the ureter. It is not rare for the symptoms to point to a calculus on one side, when it is really present on the other.

Of eighty consecutive cases examined for calculus, reported by Dr. Eastmond, of Brooklyn, twenty-three were positive, and fifty-seven, negative. Fiftyeight of these cases presented typical symptoms, and of this number fourteen, or 24 per cent., were positive. Of the remaining twenty-two, with vague symptoms, calculi were found in nine, or 41 per cent.

Dr. Eastmond has compiled the following table: