APPENDIX-Introductory Remarks on Report on Texas Quackery,

a respectable report; but, as letter after letter was received, it was demonstrated that there was sufficient material at home.

Texas contains 226 counties, 90 of which are unorganized, and at least 30 have been so recently settled that reports cannot be expected from them. Of the remaining 116, reports have been received from 64, detailing acts of medical impropriety.

The work attached to this has been great, for doctors, as a class, are a tough set to get reports from. Many have suspected "a bug under the chip," and have declined to answer. Others entirely misunderstood the object, and abstained from reporting, for fear some one else might detail their shortcomings.

There has been no desire to procure instances of occasional misjudgment, mishap or mistake of physicians; but, rather, those persistent, glaring shortcomings of men totally unfit to practice medicine.

Over two thousand circulars have been mailed, over one thousand letters written, and every organized county requested to contribute. Our medical journals have cheerfully assisted, by publication of circulars. The amount of information received exceeds belief. Numbers of letters have been unused, as it would make the report too bulky. Similar incidents occurring at various points have been referred to, as far as possible, only once. Facts requiring a medical education to comprehend, have been mostly avoided, preferring to confine

Alex. W. Acheson, Chairman, Denison, Texas.

the report to cases that a man of ordinary common sense can understand.

In aiming at a great wrong, it has not been our desire to injure any individual. To that end, we have abstained from the mention of any names, and, in some cases, have placed the transactions in other counties.

So many contributors requested the withholding of their names, that it was deemed best to withhold alleven the names of postoffices.

More than twice the matter here presented is at the disposal of the Association, to use as they deem proper, and reports from at least a dozen more counties than are here mentioned.

There is no incident credited to Texas in this report, unless of Texas origin. All matter, no odds how suitable to accomplish the purpose aimed at, has been rejected, if it has occurred outside of the State. Texas facts alone were wanted, and they only presented, so far as I know.

Only in a few cases have reports been left in the language of the writer. We have taken the liberty to condense, eliminate, correct, simplify and change, in order to get as much as possible in as small a space as possible, for the reason that doctors, as a rule, object to drinking the whole crock of milk to get what little cream there is on it.

Allusion to opposing schools of medicine has been avoided, because it is not difference of opinion that is

APPENDIX-Introductory Remarks on Report on Texas Quackery.

objected to, but ignorance and incompetency, no matter where found.

In collecting this evidence, reports of mistakes among nurses and druggists have been offered, but declined, as one thing at a time is enough.

Sufficient copies of this report have been published and placed at the disposal of the Committee on Legislation to furnish every Representative and State officer with a copy.

[The Publishing Committee regret that the vast amount of matter on hand, in the way of papers on subjects connected with the several branches of practice, and which will make the present volume of TRANSACTIONS much larger than usual, precludes the possibility of their publishing Dr. Acheson's report on Texas Quackery in the volume.] ·

SECTION ON PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, MATERIA MEDICA AND PATHOLOGY.

REPORT OF THE CHAIRMAN.

BY W. L. BARKER, M. D., WACO, TEXAS.

The year has been fruitful of many valuable advances in every branch of the arts and sciences. This has been true of the special branch to which we confess ourselves the humble votaries. Advances and discoveries have been made which should crown with great honor those unselfish seekers after truths which are designed to ameliorate human suffering and infirmity.

It is true, even at this late day, that after the steady march of progress and improvement, there is much that is received by the profession as doubtful and experimental (for many are never so happy as when they are engaged in knocking down some "theory" industriously set up by some one else); yet "The world is moving rapidly towards perfection in many of the arts and sciences, and none but God can check the spread of man's advancement, or place a limit to the extent of his discoveries." (Starley.) New and valuable remedies are being constantly introduced and submitted to the

APPENDIX-Section on Practice of Medicine, etc.

test of experience; and new and valuable aids to the diagnosis of disease are being constantly added.

The spread and diffusion of a knowledge of these valuable experiments are not confined alone to the scientific journals of the day, but the secular press has, in its efforts to keep abreast of the times, made the experiments and discoveries of Louis Pasteur in the treatment and cure of hydrophobia familiar to every intelligent and reading individual.

Our national Congress, fully alive to the duty it owes to the public in the preservation of health and life, has had under consideration a bill for the appointment of a commission to test the recent theories of inoculation for yellow fever, which, it is claimed, will abate the fatality of this disease in proportion to vaccination in small pox.

NEW TREATMENT IN CONSUMPTION.

Dr. Fillian (in the Therapeutic Review, February 1, 1886, reviewed by Dr. Roberts Bartholow, in the American Review of Medical Sciences) has presented to the Society of Practical Medicine an original treatment in cases of advanced consumption-the treatment by carbolic acid. "He employs two methods for administering carbolic acid in tuberculosis-by hypodermic injection, and by the stomach. He prefers the hypodermic, and thinks it has decided advantages. He uses the pure crystals of carbolic acid diluted in distilled water and glycerine. He claims that the injections are inoffensive, not painful, and that patients do not refuse them