These new facts corroborate very well what has been known for some time. The facts which we did know were that the muscular tissues were the chief generators of animal heat,, and that quite apart from their function of contraction and relaxation was their function of oxydation, and for this reason the blood collected frm the veins of a large muscle like the glutaeus, even though the muscle was at perfect rest, yet contains less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than the blood of the right ventricle itself. This shows the extent of the combustion of the blood contents when the blood is coursing through the muscular tissue; and as the chief material for such oxydation consists of carbodydrates, any failure in this muscular function might have much to do with the pathological failure of sugar oxydation in diabetes. Lacto-globulin has been used in diabetes with much advantage. SANMETTO NOT A PATENT MEDICINE. (Copy of a Letter.) The following has been sent with the request for its publication:- C. J. Fagan, M.D., Victoria, B.C., Canada. Dear Doctor, We advertise our preparation, Sanmetto, in the Canada Lancet, published in Toronto. In glancing through the pages of this January issue our eyes happened to light upon an article entitled "Patent Medicines," "By C. J. Fagan, M.D., Victoria," purporting to have been read at the Vancouver meeting of the Canadian Medical Association, August, 1904. Towards the close of the article the following language is published: "Recently it has been stated in the daily papers that alcohol is present in large quantities in patent medicines. I have thought it my duty to inquire into this and therefore looked over the advertisements in several papers and picked out some of the best known mixtures. I have taken from local advertisements the following and examined same for alcohol and found the following percentages." Among the list we notice Sanmetto mentioned. Now, inasmuch as Sanmetto is not a patent medicine and has never appeared in any local advertisements, or in any papers intended for the lay public, but, on the contrary, is a strictly ethical preparation intended for use under the directions and prescriptions of physicians, and exclusively advertised to the medical profession, we are led to believe that in the original paper which you read before the Canadian Medical Association our preparation, Sanmetto, was not mentioned, because a preparation that is so extensively and favorably known and prescribed by physicians throughout Canada and the States as a preparation intended exclusively for use in their practice, and placed upon the market in packages without a scintilla of information as to its purposes, or how to be used, could not have been classified by you among what are known as "patent" medicines. We believe that no manufacturing chemists have ever taken more pains in confining any preparation, its therapeutic virtues and methods of use, strictly to the medical profession than ourselves with Sanmetto. Indeed, we know of no other preparation of an eth-pharmal character that is marketed without a scrap or word as to its indications or dosage or purposes whatever. This policy we adopted from the beginning and against the advices of some of our friends and experts in the drug business, and for our persistency in which, we have met with objections from many of our retail drug friends. With Sanmetto so long and so favorably known and used by the medical profession, and with its unprecedented endorsements from thousands of the most respectable physicians, and peers with any, we can hardly believe that you would have done us this gross injustice, and have come to 'he conclusion that it was maliciously inserted by some one else after the aper left your possession. However, if for any reason you have done this, then we believe you will have the maniness to tell us so and your reasons for doing it. Very truly yours, OD CHEM. CO. (Sgd.) IN PROMOTING NUTRITION M. HAMAN, Pres Angier's Petroleum Emulsion has a most positive value in the treatment of cases associated with progressive loss of flesh, either as an accompaniment of organic or infectious disease, or existing without discoverable cause. Its value is these cases is due to its reinforceing influence upon the normal processes of digestion, assimilation, and nutrition, whereby the system is enabled to utilise to the full extent all froms of nutriment. THE ANTIPHLOGISTINE BOOKLET. The Denver Chemical Company have just issued an extremely attrac tive little pamphlet on the uses of antiphlogistine in the treatment of inflammations. The pamphlet is got out in very fine form. The paper is excellent and the numerous illustrations in three colors are perfect. The Canada Lancet VOL. XXXVIII. MAY. 1905 FEVER IN PUERPERIUM. By KENNEDY C. MCILWRAITH, M, B., No. 9 OST equitem sedet atra cura. The physician carries many a care on his rounds, but none that is more wearing than the consciousness of a febrile puerperium in his practice. I have chosen a wider subject than puerperal sepsis, because, though much has been written on different causes of post-partum fever, sufficient attention has not been paid to the diagnosis of one from another. The first question that arises is not, "What is the best treatment for puerperal sepsis?" but, "Is this sepsis, and, if not, what is it?" I cannot pretend to offer a solution for all the knotty problems which arise in this connection, but hope that the readers of THE LANCET may find something of interest in these few observations. When the temperature rises post-partum, endeavor to arrive at a diagnosis by a process of exclusion. What may the cause be? Let me give a list, placing the graver causes last: "Reaction," intestinal, bladder, emotion, nipples, breasts, intercurrent diseases, stitches, first getting up, post-eclamptic, crowded wards, sapræmia, septicaemia. "Reaction."—In a large percentage of cases there is a rise of temperature to 99 degrees or even to 100 degrees within the first 24 hours after labor. If the labor has been very severe, the "reaction" may be correspondingly severe, and the temperature may rise to 101 degrees or even more. The points about this are that it occurs within the first 24 hours, and is not prolonged beyond that period. Intestinal.—The whole duty of the physician has not been performed when a laxative has been prescribed and the bowels have been moved two or three times. The bowels may be repeatedly moved and yet not emptied. I have on many occasions, when trouble had arisen, found masses in the colon either by percussion or palpation, upon the elimination of which the trouble abruptly ceased. The hepatic and splenic flexures of the colon on the usual sites at which such collections form. Let me cite a case. |