quate cause for the depression which the patient will often not recognize the presence of, and about the treatment of which he or she is so often utterly indifferent, if, indeed, he or she be not obstinately opposed to any treatment. A eertain dulness of mental reflex, shown by slower responsive acts or words than is usual in a healthy mind.

The insomnia is usually one of the earliest symptoms of the disease, but has no especial characteristics.

The post-cervical ache is an aching pain in the back of the neck, head, and sometimes into the shoulders. It is usually described as a distress or ache, although it may occasionally be, neuralgic in its character, and not infrequently passes into neuralgic paroxysms which will last for a day or two. In true melancholia the suicidal and homocido-suicidal tendencies are so organic a part of the disease that the mildest ease is not to be trusted, and valuable lives may be saved by some method of prompt recognition.-The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

THE PROPAGATION OF DISEASE BY BOOKS.-When preventive medicine is searching out and checking all possible means by which infectious and contagious maladies are spread, the part which books may play in the propagation of disease should not be overlooked. There can be no doubt that the specific contagia of many zymotic disorders, and especially of scarlatina, smallpox, and typhoid fever, in the form of particles of material emanations from the bodies of patients, may attach themselves to the covers and pages of books, and so be carried from the sick to the healthy. In private families, all books and periodicals used by a patient during his illness from a zymotic disease had best be burned upon his convalescence. In general hospitals in which zymotie diseases are treated, scrupulous care should be taken that all literature used by patients suffering from contagious and infectious maladies shall be reserved exclusively for use in the special wards devoted to such disorders. We are afraid zymotic diseases are sometimes spread by books through the agency of lending libraries and second-hand book-shops; and it would be well if the literature of such establishments were occasionally subjected to efficient disinfection. Persons recovering from zymotic diseases should remember that it is one of their duties to take care to avoid their infection to the healthy, and they should be taught to refrain from handing to others the books they have used during their illness.— British Medical Journal.

FRUIT AS FOOD.-The British Medical Journal has published some remarks on this subject, which, though devoid of novelty, nevertheless bear repetition. It says that, taken in the morning, fruit is as helpful to digestion as it is refreshing. The newly awakened function finds in it an object of such light labor as will exercise without seriously taxing its energies, and the tissues of the stomach acquire at little cost, a gain of nourishment which will sustain those energies in later and more serious operations. It is an excellent plan, with this object in view to, to add a little bread to the fruit eaten. While admitting its possession of these valuable qualities, however, and while also agreeing with those who maintain that in summer, when the body is, at all events in many cases, less actively employed than usual, meat may be less and fruit or vegetables more freely used

as a food, we are not prepared to allow that even then an exclusively vegetarian regimen is that most generally advisable. Meat provides us with a means of obtaining albuminoid material, which is indispensable, in its most easily assimilable form. It affords us in this material not only an important constituent of tissue growth, but a potent excitant of the whole process of nutrition. It has, therefore, a real, definite and great value in the ordinary diet of man, and the wholesomeness of fruit, combined with farinaceous food as an alternative dietary, is not so much an argument in favor of the vegetarian principle as a proof that seasonable changes in food supply are helpful to the digestive processes and to nutritive changes in the tissues generally.

A NEW TREATMENT AND POSSIBLE CURE FOR CANCER.-The anonymous correspondent of the Lancet, whose suggestion of the combined use of papain and thallin in cancer was noticed in a recent number of the London Medical Recorder, turns out to be Dr. J. Mortimer Granville. He has since supplemented his first statement by a further communication, in which he says that if the solvent or digestive power of the papain is to be brought to bear on the morbid growth, it must not be exhausted by being first mixed with food. He recommends very frequent administration of the papain and thallin, and their combination in the form of pills. The aim is to get absorption of the drug, not local action on the stomach. In cancer of that organ, Dr. Mortimer Granville gives, besides the pills, papain suspended in water with thallin and an alkali. With the view of further preventing exhaustion of the papain, he directs that the patient shall be fed as exclusively as possible on a vegetable diet, and that the pills shall be taken before meals or in the interval between them. He has not found that the thallin given as described exerts any injuriously depressing effect on the organism as a whole. The vitality of the morbid growth seems (the italics are Dr. Mortimer Granville's) to be depressed by saturation with the thallin and papain locally; this is effected by applying a strong paste of the two drugs in combination, or, where practicable, by their injunction. The results obtained so far are said to be encouraging, and "make it clear that the method will deserve a full and fair trial by the profession.-London Medical Recorder.

IS THE BATH WHOLESOME?—Nothing in human affairs has a reputation so fixed that it may not be called in question by some one in a moment of originality. This has happened repeatedly in the case of the daily bath. Some critics, for example, suggest that the bather, in consequence of his very cleanliness, lives too fast, is functionally too active, and that delayed and more gradual excretion would better accord with health. Others appear to think that by daily ablution the skin loses a part, or all, of the protection against weather, derived from its own effete products. Yet the bath not only continues to hold its own, but its popularity increases year by year. As regards amenity, both personal and relative, to one's neighbors, there can be no doubt that this is usually much assisted by a habit of regular bathing. Other advantages are not lacking. Among these are, when cold water is used, the invigorating exercise of the nervous and circulating systems, the resistance to weather changes, and the tonicity of skin engendered by immersion. Further, it is undeniable that the nonremoval of effete matters from the body imposes a most unwholesome check upon waste excretion in deeper tis

sues. It is said that some savage races maintain a robust life in spite of personal uncleanliness; but these tribes, it must be remembered, are exceptionally favored in regard to fresh air and exercise. It is probable, also, that even they do not thrive as they should, and would, under purer conditions. For civilized men of sedentary habits, the advantage of possessing a clean and freely active skin is a virtual necessity of healthy existence.-Lancet.

LIGHT AND LIFE.-It has been proved by recent researches in France, that the red rays of the spectrum are those to which the important physiological function exercised by the sun on plants is exclusively to be ascribed.

The leaves act as analyzers of the white light which falls upon them; they reject and reflect the green rays, and thus get their natural color. If plants were exposed to green illumination only, they would be virtually in the dark. The light which the vegetable world thus refuses to absorb is precisely that which is coveted by animals. Red, the complementary color of green, is that which, owing to the blood, tinges the skin of the healthy human subject, just as the green color of plants is the complement of that which they absorb.

These facts have been fully stated and illustrated in a paper read by M. Dubrunfant before the French Academy of Seience; and from them he deduces certain practical suggestions. All kinds of red should be avoided in our furniture except curtains. Our clothes which play the part of screens should never be green. This color should predominate in our furniture, while the complementary red should be reserved for our raiment. He also dwells upon the salubrious influences of sunshine. He mentions cases of patients whose broken constitutions were restored by continued exposure to the sun in gardens where there were no trees; and gives an account of four children that bad become weak and sickly by living in a narrow street in Paris, but regained their health under the influence of the solar rays on a sandy sea coast.-Boston Journal of Chemistry.

REFLEX UTERINE VOMITING.-Dr. Graily Hewitt (The Lancet, Jan. 5, 1884), in a lecture upon this subject delivered at the University College Hospital, says: According to my experience, reflex uterine vomiting, when of an obstinate character, is frequently associated with great weakness and want of tonicity of the uterus, and a flexed condition of this organ is almost invariably also present. There are undoubtedly cases of reflex uterine vomiting in which the cause is a different one, but they are exceptional and occur rarely. The unduly soft uterus readily bends, and any temporary increase in the degree of the flexion is attended with aggravation of the reflex disturbance, viz.: the vomiting. The several factors concerned in the production of this grave disorder may be enumerated as follows: 1. A general enfeeblement of the body, the result of a low condition of the nutritive process in which the uterus participates. 2. The physical weakness and pliability, with which the uterus is affected. 3. The flexed condition of the uterus, liable to be intensified by certain movements or positions of the patient. The sickness and vomiting appear to result from the irritation of the uterine nerves consequent on the temporary or permanent compression of the uterine tissues. It is almost certainly removed, or for the time at least, relieved by the maintenance of the uterus in a normal position and shape, by the use of the Hodge pessary. There is no doubt that many cases of this affection escape true recogni

tion, many cases of so-called "bilious" vomiting, and not a few of supposed gastric ulcer turning out on investigation to be cases of uterine vomiting. One symptom especially indicative of the uterus as the cause of the sickness is the exaggeration of the sickness, which is liable to occur when the patient exercises. It must be added also, that in cases of reflex uterine vomiting, where the malady has been of long continuance, the stomach is liable to become affected; and it is no longer capable of producing gastric juice to any amount. Hence a quasi paralysis of the gastric mucous membrane, such cases requiring the extremest care to prevent a fatal issue, even after the tendency to vomit has been obviated by the appropriate treatment.

USE OF SALT.-Among other follies of the day, some indiscreet persons are objecting to the use of salt, and propose to do without it. Nothing could be more absurd. Common salt is the most widely distributed substance in the body; it exists in every fluid and in every solid; and not only is it every where present, but in almost every part it constitutes the largest portion of the ash when any tissue is burned. In particular, it is a constant constituent of the blood, and it maintains in it a proportion that is almost wholly independent of the quantity that is consumed with the food. The blood will take up so much and no more, however much we may take with our food; and, on the other hand, if none be given, the blood parts with its natural quantity slowly and unwillingly. Under ordinary circumstances, a healthy man loses daily about twelve grains by one channel or the other, and, if he is to maintain his health, that quantity must be introduced. Common salt is of immense importance in the processes ministering to the nutrition of the body, for not only is it the chief salt in the gastric juice, and essential for the formation of bile, and may hence be reasonably regarded as of high value in digestion, but it is an important agent in promoting the processes of diffusion, and therefore of absorption. Direct experiment has shown that it promotes the decomposition of albumen in the body, acting, probably, by increasing the activity of the transmission of fluids from cell to cell. Nothing can demonstrate its value better than the fact that, if albumen without salt is introduced into the intestine of an animal, no portion of it is absorbed, while it all quickly disappears if salt be added. If any further evidence were required, it would be found in the powerful instinct which impels animals to obtain salt. Buffaloes will travel for miles to reach a "salt lick"; and the value of salt in improving the nutrition and the aspect of horses and cattle is well known to every farmer. The popular notion that the use of salt prevents the development of worms in the intestine has a foundation in fact, for salt is fatal to the small thread worms, and prevents their reproduction by improving the general tone and the character of the secretions of the alimentary canal. The conclusion, therefore, is obvious that salt, being wholesome, and indeed necessary, should be taken in moderate quantities, and that abstention from it is likely to be injurious.—Lancet.

TREATMENT FOR LUPUS.-The British Medical Journal recommends for lupis, liquor sodii ethylatis, which is made by dissolving metallic sodium in absolute alcohol. The application is made daily for three days, with a small glass tube. Two or three days, on removing the crust, the healthy surface is discovered.

The Medical Tribune.

VOL. VI.

ROBERT A. GUNN, M.D., EDITOR.

APRIL 15, 1890.

No. 2.

THE OUTLOOK AND RETROSPECT.*

ANOTHER year has completed its round, and we find ourselves again at Albany to consider the necessary problems of our existence as a body, created for the purpose of looking after the welfare of the institutions of eclecticism in the State of New York.

The first question that naturally comes up is, what is the outlook as regards our legal rights, and what legislation is there likely to interfere with the increase in our numbers and the maintenance of our system of medicine? We are all well aware of the compact made some three years ago, by which the allopaths specifically agreed to present no further legislation if we would agree to permit the free passage of the Codification Bill. Evidently this compact has been broken, as we see legislation of every kind cropping out where there is any possibility of a gain being made by the old school. It is evident that the eclectics must begin to "fight the devil with his own weapons;" and there is no question but bills to place eclectics upon the same footing as old-school physicians should be pushed. We would right a very grievous wrong, and it is a question whether we should not endeavor to make it necessary that an eclectic should be appointed either to the board of managers or upon the staff of every insane asylum in the State. There is no doubt that such appointment would work to the interest and advantage of the insane confined in such institutions. As it is now, we have no voice. matter how talented an alienist an eclectic may be, he cannot receive an appointment to a State asylum. Let us make our school eligible, and then secure for some good man an appointment in a State institution.

No

* An address delivered before the New York State Eclectic Medical Society at its annual meeting, held at Albany, March 26th, 1890, by Lee H. Smith, M.D., President of the Society.