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The visitor was informed that Illinois is the only state in the Union furnishing diphtheria antitoxin free to the rich and poor alike, ready for immediate use.

The destructive effect of tuberculosis on the various organs of the human body was shown by a fine collection of diseased organs and tissues, exhibiting tuberculosis in its various stages and varieties, of the lungs and of the spine showing also how it may be spread through the body to other organs: the stomach and intestine-by swallowing, and to remote organs by the blood. JOHN DILL ROBERTSON.

Chicago, Ill.

POETRY ABOUT THE HUMAN BODY

A reader of CLINICAL MEDICINE, Dr. S. A. Orwig, of Mansfield, O., sends the poem which we print below. It is clipped from a newspaper published in 1860, and the authorship is unknown. The verse is beautiful enough to deserve preservation in the doctor's scrap-book. And, by the way, every doctor who likes poetry, especially that dealing with the profession and with medicine, should have a scrap-book to preserve things like these:

THE ANATOMIST TO HIS DULCINEA

I list as thy heart and ascending aorta
Their volumes of valvular harmony pour;
And my soul from that muscular music has caught a
New life 'mid its anatomical lore.

Oh, rare is the sound when thy ventricles throb In a systolic symphony measured and slow, When the auricles answer with rhythmical sob, As they murmur a melody wondrously low!

Oh, thy cornea, love, has the radiant light

Of the sparkle that laughs in the icicle's sheen, And thy crystalline lens, like a diamond bright, Through the quivering frame of thine iris is seen!

And thy retina spreading its lustre of pearl,
Like the far-away nebula, distantly gleams
From a vault of black cellular mirrors that hurl
From their hexagon angles the silvery beams.

Ah! the flash of those orbs is enslaving me still, As they roll 'neath the palpebræ, dimly translucent,

Obeying, in silence, the magical will

Of the oculomotor-pathetic-abducent.

Oh, sweet is thy voice, as it sighingly swells From the daintily quivering chordæ vocales, Or rings in clear tones through the echoing cells On the antrum, the ethmoid and sinus frontales! The preceding verse reminds me of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's beautiful "anatomist's hymn," well known to to every reader of the genial "Autocrat of the

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Home of Dr. F. R. Stoddard, Shelburne, Vt.

Breakfast Table." Although, of course, every member of the "family" is familiar with it, we shall all be the better for reading it over occasionally. I love to turn to it again and again. It follows:

THE LIVING TEMPLE

Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet along in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame-
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then kindling each decaying part
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame,
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,

And linked to reason's guiding reins By myriad rings in trembling chains, Each graven with the threaded zone Which claims it as the master's own.

See, how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light;
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark, how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds,
That feels sensation's faintest thrill
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples Thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust Thy mercy warms
And mold it into heavenly forms!

There is no poetry that can surpass that of the Bible, and there is no poetical description of our wonderful body that can excell that marvellous picture of the waning of the vital powers, as "the evil days draw nigh," given in the sermon to youth

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In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,

And the strong men shall bow themselves,
And the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look out of the windows be darkened,
And the doors shall be shut in the street;

When the sound of the grinding is low,
And one shall rise up at the voice of the bird,
And all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

Yea, they shall be afraid of that which is high,
And terrors shall be in the way;

And the almond tree shall blossom,
And the grasshopper shall be a burden,
And the caper-berry shall burst;

Because man goeth to his long home, And the mourners go about the streets;

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From Puck by permiss on Copyright, 1911

THE ANIMAL OR HUMANITY?

In a series of powerful cartoons Puck is answering the arguments of the anti-vivisectionists

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To maintain the confidence and respect of the laity, the physician must be able to do more than was reported to me by a victim of minor mushroom poisoning, who wrote: "The physician summoned looked at me during each of three visits he made, offered nothing by way of relief, but afterward sent me a bill for $10 which I paid with poor grace."

The poisonous mushrooms, or toadstools as they are often called, are of two classes: (1) the minor, or irritant, (2) the major, or deadly, poisons. The first act locally on the intestinal tract. Of these may be mentioned lepiota, morgani and clitocybe illudens. While the eating of such will cause the person to be more or less ill for a few hours or a day, vomiting and purging being common symptoms, unless great quantities have been eaten recovery takes place.

Of the major, or toxic, class, little has been learned. The poisonous properties are due to certain principles which have been isolated. The two best known are muscarine and phallin. Both exist in one family of mushrooms, the amanita. Muscarine is most abundant in amanita muscaria, and in a less degree in amanita pantherina and also in bolitus luridus.

The action of muscarine is so violent that 0.06 gr. is a dangerous dose for a man. It is used by the inhabitants of northern Russia as a means of inducing intoxication.

Some research has been attempted to determine the nature of the amanita

poisons and to discover an antidote. W. S. Carter, Professor of Physiology of the University of Texas, has made over 1000 experiments with the four deadly varieties of amanita, with definite results. He calls attention to the fact that in mushroom poisoning in man no knowledge of the species can be obtained. For sometimes a number of varieties have been gathered and cooked together, some of which may be of the edible and some of the poisonous kind, with corresponding degree of poisoning; or one may be of an irritating and another of the deadly variety. Cooked together, these would produce the symptoms of both kinds. The most reliable study of the amanita poisons has been gained from experiments on the lower animals.

In The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Nov., 1879, are recorded the results of experiments by Dr. Ott, once a demonstrator of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, as follows:

"Frog sternum removed. At 3:55 p. m., heartbeat, 36 per minute. At 3:58, injected 0.0005 Gram muscarine subcutaneously. At 4:00, heart stopped in diastole; on pricking, makes contraction; the ventricle is distended with blood, bulbous. At 4:03, gave 0.001 Gram atropine subcutaneously. At 4:05, heart spontaneously began to beat 28 per minute. It continued beating until next morning, and the animal had completely recovered from the paralysis induced by the muscarine."

A repetition of the experiment gave about the same result. Since then the frequent use of atropine by physicians, in muscarine poisoning, has in some cases been followed by good results.

Chas. McIlvain, in "One Thousand. American Mushrooms," publishes at length the history of a family of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, who were poisoned by eating amanita vernus. Dr. J. H. Shadle treated the family and reported the history of the cases at length to the author. He began the use of atropine with gr. 1-180+gr. 1-90 +gr. 1-90+ gr. 1-90 (total, 7-180 grain), at intervals of six to eight hours. Of five poisoned two died, which the doctor attributed to not using atropine earlier

and the fact that so much had been ingested that the poison had become too virulent to be counteracted.

Dr. F. F. Wood has also successfully administered daturine and hyoscyamine in such cases. Prof. Schniff of Italy advocated the use of stramonium.

Unfortunately there is little medical literature on the symptoms and treatment of poisoning from amanita poisons. Most. of that at our command is to be found in writings of authors on the study of fungi. From Chas. McIlvain, in "One Thousand American Fungi", I quote the following:

"Symptoms of muscarine poisoning do not usually appear for eight to twelve hours. after eaten, unless a large quantity has been eaten, when they may appear in onehalf hour. Usually the first symptoms are cramp-like pains in the extremities. Later, colicky pains in abdomen, burning thirst, vomiting and purging. The pulse may be slow and strong at first, but later becomes rapid, small and feeble. The blood pressure is low, and as a result faintness is a common early symptom. Extreme pallor is often noticed. The secretions are increased. Sweat and saliva may be secreted in abnormal quantities. The pupils are much contracted. Dulness of vision or double vision may be an early symptom. The respirations are slow, becoming shallow and stertorous when poisoning is severe. The mental state may be clear at first, but becomes dull, deepening into unconsciousness and deep coma, if much has been taken."

V. K. Chestnut, Department of Agriculture (Circular No. 13, Division of Botany), after observing two cases of poisoning in Washington, reported symptoms as follows:

"They appeared in from one-half to two hours. Vomiting and diarrhea, with almost always a pronounced flow of saliva, suppression of urine, and various cerebral phenomena, beginning with giddiness, loss of confidence in one's ability to make ordinary movements, and derangement of vision."

Treatment. If called early, before the ingested mushrooms have had time to be absorbed from the alimentary canal, evacu

ants are generally advised, but some authors discourage their use. Full doses of zinc sulphate or apomorphine are recommended, though in cases where profound stupor exists these may be inactive.

Atropine is the best-known remedy. It relieves by removing inhibition of the heart, which occurs as an early symptom. If eight or twelve hours have elapsed, as soon as called administer, hypodermically, gr. 1-100 to gr. 1-50 of the antidote, repeating every half hour until 1-20 grain in all has been given or recovery assured.

If purgatives are used, the oleaginous are preferred. The intestines should be cleansed and washed out with an enema of warm water and oil of turpentine, after first giving the atropine hypodermatically.

Treat symptoms as they arise. Strychnine and suprarenal extract can be used to advantage in restoring the circulation, especially late in the poisoning. Apply external heat if the temperature is subnormal. The subcutaneous injection of a 0.6- to 0.7percent solution of sodium chloride should be tried in severe cases seen late in the poisoning. Atropine is of little value if not used in the early stage of poisoning with this substance.

Tobacco is mentioned as an antidote. In New Ulm, Minnesota, two young men were poisoned by eating amanita. One died, the other recovered. In conversation with the latter he stated that he attributed his recovery to the fact that he had used tobacco freely.

Phallin.-Its exact chemical nature is not known. not known. It is a very deadly poison, 0.0015 Gram per 2 pounds weight of the animal being a fatal dose for dog or cat. It is the active principle of the most deadly of all mushrooms, the amanita phalloides, or death-cup fungus.

Of its effects, and so forth, I again quote Chestnut:

"The fundamental injury is not due, as in the case of muscarius, to a paralysis of the nerves controlling the action of the heart, but to a direct effect on the bloodcorpuscles. These are quickly dissolved by phallin, the blood-serum escaping from the blood-vessels into the alimentary canal and the whole system being rapidly drained

of its vitality. No bad taste warns the victim, nor do preliminary symptoms begin until nine or fourteen hours after the poisonous mushrooms are eaten. There is then considerable abdominal pain, and there may be cramps in the legs and other nervous phenomena such as convulsions and even lockjaw or other kinds of tetanic spasms. The pulse is weak. The abdominal pain is rapidly followed by nausea, vomiting, and extreme diarrhea; the intestinal discharges assume the rice-water condition characteristic of cholera. The latter symptoms are persistently maintained generally without loss of consciousness, until death ensues, which happens in from two to four days. There is no known antidote by which the effects of phallin can be counteracted.

"Treatment should be to remove the undigested material, if not already vomited, by methods suggested for cases of poisoning by muscarine. If the amount of phallin taken up by the system is not too large, it may wear itself out on the blood, and the patient may recover. This may be assisted by transfusion into the veins of blood freshly taken from some warm-blooded animal, or a 0.6- to 0.7-percent salt waterinfusion is the most rational treatment. At least a quart should be injected. It restores the blood pressure by increasing the fluid in the vessels, and aids the organs of excretion; and relieves the intense thirst. The use of large doses of suprarenal capsule is reported to afford more permanent relief."

In The Medical Press, Sept. 30, 1899, is reported the case of a man 52 years of age who ate amanita phalloides, with the usual symptoms, and treatment without benefit. Pulse dropped to 22 per minute. One quart of saline solution administered was followed by immediate improvement. In an hour the pulse was 60, temperature normal. Next day he resumed his work.

Helvelic acid is another deadly poison, one which is sometimes found in gyometra esculenta, particularly in old or decaying specimens. The young and fresh are considered free from the poison. The symptoms are similar to those of the deadly phallin. There is no known antidote.

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For the last few years the writer has been observing the effects of diplococcus pneumoniæ upon the human system, other than upon the respiratory organs. Attention has been called several times to the fact that these germs, when once in the system, enter the blood and may become pathogenic in any part of the body where for any cause there is a lesion.

In my own person I found that diplococcus arthritis resulted from a bruised knee. In another case a bruised prostate, the result of riding a faulty bicycle saddle, set up diplococcus prostatitis. Several times in my routine laboratory work these germs have been found in the urine. The results of treating such a case with what I have found to be specific for these bacteria is what is reported below.

Mrs. R., 64 years old, is the patient. At the time of her first illness her daughter was in school in Chicago, but was called home to

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