and a little simple elixir can be added to make the pill mass. Give one capsule every four hours. I gave these to the patient, whom I saw about four o'clock in the afternoon. I told him to take one at once and another before he went to bed. I inquired of his wife about him the next day, and she told me that he got up and went away ten or twelve miles to work. He was gone for three days. He had his medicine with him and took a capsule every four hours. He had had no trouble with the lumbago, felt rather tired, but said he was all right.

I have had quite a number of cases come to me with this trouble, and they have all been benefited by this same prescription. One man, who had been afflicted for some time, came to me for treatment. He had been under the care of another doctor without any benefit. I gave him the same prescription, and saw him two or three months afterwards, and he told me he had had no trouble with his rheumatism since he took my medicine. Another patient came with the same trouble, and he was given the same treatment, which he began to take on Friday night. He had been unable to work for a week or two. On the following Monday he ploughed a neighbor's garden. Tuesday he did not work, as there was nothing doing. I met him down town on Wednesday. He told me my medicine was "no good." I inquired why, and received for the answer: "It cures too quick," and he gave me the above history. I see him every few days and I have heard no complaint of the trouble returning. It is about six months since I gave him the treatment.

Now it would seem as if this same prescription would prove of benefit in rheumatism generally, but I have never used it in such cases. When patients complain that they cannot sleep, not on account of pain -but simply can't sleep, I give the Fl. Ext. Sceutellaria Comp., Parke Davis Co.'s preparation. It certainly does act wonderfully well in such cases, and one fine thing about it is, that it is not a habit-forming drug. A patient may take it for some time, and then leave it off without any ill effect.

I have mentioned giving a liniment to bathe the back. I only gave that in the first case, as I thought that was a desperate one, and did not want to omit anything that might help. I cannot say that this prescription of mine is a specific for Lumbago, but it has been so remarkably successful that I feel somewhat enthusiastic about it. I have had eight or ten cases within the past year, and all have been benefited.

Dr. John Perrins, in discussing the paper, said that lumbago frequently bothered more than the patient-it bothered the doctor. He wished to say a word for the macrotys, as it was a grand good remedy in many of these cases. There was one point that he wished to make in the differentiating between the macrotys and the bryonia. When the pain is below the waist line, use macrotys, and if above that line the bryonia was the needed remedy. There were cases, however, that needed the combination of both remedies. He thought that when external applications were used they should be such as would stimulate the capillary circulation. Those that so acted often relieved the pain. Dr. Poor called to the attention of the Society a case he had recently seen that was brought on by working in the wet. When called he found that all the man had done was to drink large quantities of hard cider. He gave 10 minims each of aconite, belladonna and bryonia in four ounces of water, and directed that one drachm be given every two hours. He also gave 4 grains of calomel, to be followed by a tablespoonful of salts. One H. M. C. tablet, full strength, produced sleep, and the man was at his work the next day.

Dr. Perrins also called the attention of the Society to the hypodermic injection of 1-4 gr. morphine in attacks of sciatica The injection should be made as near the outlet of the sciatic nerve as possible, without injuring the nerve fiber. A few drops of gelsemium will render a smaller amount of morphine equally efficacious. His results with this method had been very remarkable.

*AN ADVANCE IN MEDICINE.

By Pitts Edwin Howes, M. D., Boston, Mass.

The Massachusetts Eclectic Medical Society has always been very chary in conferring its Honorary Membership during the half century and more of its existence. It was this fact that led Prof. A. J. Howe to write as follows in accepting the diploma conferred upon him:

"This mark of friendly consideration on the part of the Society is formally accepted, highly appreciated, and thankfully received.

"The diploma is the more feelingly prized from the fact that the Society has not been suspiciously lavish in bestowing such honors.”

The last Honorary degree conferred by this Society was twelve years ago last June, and our youngest Honorary Member has well *Read at Boston District Eclectic Medical Society, Sept. 29, 1913.

proved himself to be worthy of all the honor that our Society could confer. I refer to John Uri Lloyd, Ph.M., of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Many improvements in our system of medication, due to more reliable medicines, are traceable to his indefatigable efforts in the realms of chemistry as evidenced in the Specific Medicines of which he may well be styled the Father.

It is with much satisfaction and no inconsiderable degree of pride that I have the honor of presenting to you the result of his latest achievement, and one that will redound to the honor of Eclecticism, for Prof. John Uri Lloyd is known everywhere as one of the strongest adherents of the Eclectic School of Medicine. I refer to his discovery of a product that he has named "Alcresta." This is the result of several years of patient experimentation, and for the past year or more has been the object of patient investigations along medical and pharmaceutical lines. These results having been uniformly successful, the product "Alcresta," has recently been given to the Medical and Pharmaceutical professions.

Alcresta is a substance which, when united with the bitter alkaloids, such as strychnine, morphine and berberine, renders them tasteless. These are, as you well know, among the bitterest of all the alkaloids. So far as Prof. Lloyd has yet investigated, and so far as others have been able to discover, there is not one alkaloid that is not completely freed from aqueous or slightly acid solution by means of this new reagent, the action being practically instantaneous.

Physiological testings of this new product have been made by Dr. Felter of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Dr. Fantus of Chicago, Ills. Such experimental work as has been done by these two men renders the position of this new agent absolutely secure.

The following description of Prof. Lloyd is so pat and to the point that we are glad to reproduce it at this time for those who may not have seen it before. It first appeared in the "Courier Journal," Louisville, Ky., June 22, 1911, and was printed in the July number of the Journal of Therapeutics and Dietetics for the year 1911.

"He's an alert, quick-moving little man, bearing his sixty-two years as does a school boy. When you meet him he grips your hand hard-all attention in a second. His head cocked a little to one side, his blue eyes sparkling from beneath his old-fashioned glasses, his left hand raised, fore-finger pointing ceilingward-just as it used to point years ago in the class-room, as he tried to catch a part of some chemistry student's halting recitation,-he'll say: 'Yes, yes. Pleased to see you. And-what was the name.'

“Then he'll talk. Talk of anything, and as he talks you wonder where you have met him before, if he's not some old friend of whom you lost track.

"That's John Uri Lloyd, Chemist, Scientist, Student-but greater than all, author of 'Stringtown on the Pike.' He is in Louisville, attending the convention of the National Eclectic Medical Association, of which he is a member. He is still 'Professor Lloyd' to more than half of the members, for most of them, at some time or another, listened to his lectures, quaked before his frowns, and looked up to him as their mentor.

"Professor Lloyd prefers to be known in the world as a scientist, not as an author. That's the reason that of late years he has written practically nothing but weighty, technical books on scientific subjects -ones that are as far removed from 'Etidorpha,' 'Red Head,' 'Warrick of the Knobs,' 'Scroggins,' and the rest of his stories, as Latin is from slang. It was because publishers wanted him to give them more like 'Stringtown on the Pike,' and because that book gave promise of giving him more prominence than years of research along scientific lines, that he stopped writing novels.

Novelist-Never!

"He won't even admit that he ever was a noveltist. He declares that his pictures of old times in Boone County, Kentucky, were as much works of science as any thesis written for the United States Pharmacopeia. The picturing of a people or of an era, he says, is work for a scientist, and when he tells how 'Stringtown on the Pike' was written, one believes him.

"To start with fiction writing, he says, was with him an avocation. He wrote for mental recreation-rest from long hours of constant study in chemistry and pharmacy.

'He was born in Boone County, reared there, and his wife, likewise, is a native of northern Kentucky. So, as he tells it, the scenes for his books came to his hand naturally, the ones he knew best. In the writing of 'Stringtown on the Pike,' he was actuated by something like the spirit which has kept him working two years, giving the history of every drug known to science-he wanted to portray things that existed, accurately and finally.

"His description of Boone County people, the negroes and his version of the dialect, are considered by critics and the National Dialect Society as highly authentic for that place, and the period during which the narrative is supposed to have been enacted.