AS will be seen by referring to the publisher's

announcement, the SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY has recently undergone a new birth. Its business and editorial departments have been divorced, the former has been moved to New Orleans-the proper home of a Southern journal -and I have been called upon to resume control of the editorial helm.

No formal salutatory nor special outline of editorial policy is thought to be necessary in this connection. Profiting by past experience, rested by more than a year of repose from the labors of journalism and now relieved from the JOURNAL'S business cares by the separation of the business from the editorial department, it will be my earnest endeavor, by the aid and hearty co-operation of its readers, which I hope will be freely extended, to give to the profession a more welcome and practical journal than ever before. in the past, its policy will be liberal, broadguaged, catholic. While "Southern" in name, home, and immediateness of interests, it is desired by publisher and editor alike to make it a journal of, for, and by the entire Homœopathic profession,

A8

and to this end contributions to its pages are cordially invited from every quarter of the globe. The SOUTHERN JOURNAL is in no sense a personal organ. It has no axes to grind, no friends to reward, no enemies to punish. It will be bold and fearless in its defense of the interests it aims to represent and will contend with vigor against all attacks, whether open or covert, denying Homœopathy's right to a place in the field of honorable medicine. At the same time it will be ever willing to accept from or extend to courteous contemporaries of the opposite school the olive branch of peace and will labor zealously for the common weal as occasion offers.

Bound by no cliques, yielding to no one the right to dictate its conduct, independent, yet sufficiently elastic to admit the fallibility of human effort, the JOURNAL Courts favorable consideration at the hands of the profession and will ever labor for its best interests as they are understood.

This promises to be a red letter year for Homoopathy in the South. Old things are being put aside and many things are being made new, and recent victories and successes should encourage us all to better effort than ever before. A journal is a necessity, and if properly sustained will prove a valuable aid to the profession. Help us to make this one all that it should be, and we feel sure the substantial interests of our school will be materially enhanced through its efforts.

With cordial greetings to all the friends of the JOURNAL, whether old or new, its tripod is again mounted, its banner is flung to the breeze from its new home on the banks of the Mississippi, and a new era of journalism in the South is begun under an order of things which cannot but redound to the success of the undertaking. May it prove to be all that its publisher and editor may desire and all that the profession ean with reason demand. C. E. FISHER.

been announced in the journals as having taken up his abiding place in more than one of our large cities.

These announcements have been premature although the journals are in no wise to blame. Ever since the terribly sad home-coming it was our very great misfortune to experience last fall we have been in such a condition of unrest of mind and body, as hardly to know our own wish and to our own indecision are these errors ascribable.

Finally, after several months of wandering and uncertainty we have located and our new home is in the place of our first Texas home, the historic city of the Alamo. Fifteen years ago last month we climbed down from the top of the stage coach in front of the Menger Hotel on Alamo Plaza at midnight, and for several years this city, then a quaint Mexican town of ten thousand souls, was our abiding place. Here we married and here our first born saw the light of day. The little mound on the hill in the eastern part of the city tells of a strong tie to bind us to San Antonio, and 'tis perhaps fitting that after our wanderings of more than a year the old city should again become our home.

At any rate here we are, and from this live, bustling, actively growing metropolis of sixty thousand inhabitants our editorial utterances will hereafter emanate. San Antonio is full of historic associations, it is an energetic and pushing City with a great and immediate future before it, and, situated in the greatest sanitary belt of the United States will eventually assume an important position in relation to the medical profession of this country. Stimulated by the activity of everything around us and invigorated and supported by the most salubrious climate on earth, we hope to be able to do a great deal for the JOURNAL from our new home, and sincerely do we hope that time will demonstrate that our decision not to remove from the South was a wise one.

The Southern Association.

IF the friends of the Southern Homoeopathic

Medical Association have ever doubted the ultimate success of that organization their doubts were effectually dispelled by the importance and

complete success of the meeting at Memphis in November last. It was the largest meeting yet held. There were more willing and energetic workers present than have ever before attended. There were more and better papers than have ever before been read at a meeting. A general feeling of confidence and good cheer pervaded its sessions. The reports in the newspapers were full and interesting and attracted much favorable comment. The new men were present in force, and the intimation that the association is the pet of a few was given a black eye, as nearly every one present seemed to feel it was his meeting.

The meeting was, however, weak where it should have been strong. We did not have half enough on Homœopathic materia medica and therapeutics. There was an abundance of surgery, gynecology and orificiality, if we may coin a word, but in the matter of Homeopathic therapeutics we were delinquent. With this error corrected the Southern Association has a great future before it.

The next meeting will be in Birmingham, Alabama, in November. It is right in the heart of the enemy's country. We must show that we are posted in all that the "regulars" know, but especially must we give evidence of the faith that is in us by a strong showing in our special fields, Materia Medica and the Practice of Medicine. Let us tell them and each other what Homeopathy does and how she does it. Let us demonstrate to the people of Alabama by facts and figures and reports of treatments of all the diseases of the South that ours is indeed a superior system and worthy of their warmest support, and we will have sown seed that will bear good fruit and an abun. daut harvest.

We shall have a grand meeting at Birmingham. Krupp guns will be there from many Northern and Southern cities, and it will do your very soul good to hear the heavy cannonading and the rattling of the light infantry in front as we charge our foe in his den of dens.

Begin now to prepare your papers. Make them short and thoroughly practical and, above all, see to it that they abound in the gems of Homoopathy. What say you, members, to a genuine, old-fashioned, practical medical meeting, full of Homœopathic therapeutics?

The Texas State Meeting.

THE next meeting of the Texas Homeopathic Medical Association will convene in Austin on Tuesday, the thirteenth of May, and continue in session two days.

There are many reasons why a successful meeting should be had and a prosperous society sustained in Texas, and the JOURNAL honestly and conscientiously believes it to be the duty and to the direct interest of every Homœopath in the State to be present at the sessions of the association in Austin. The association was organized in 1884, and its existence had much to do with the defeat of the iniquitous medical bill that was brought before the Legislature the following winter. The old school is now organizing all over the State into county, district and sectional societies and the bourbon element of that school, right sore over their defeat of five years ago, is hard though quietly at work laying plans for a raid on the Legislature in the near future, with a bill that will give them exclusive privileges in the matter of legislative control of the affairs of medicine in Texas.

We must ever be on the alert. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. If we go to sleep the enemy will succeed in hampering us and in further retarding our progress as certainly as they have done in some other States where our fellows were not always on guard. Thus far a few of us have done it all, have laid the plans and executed the work, have spent our time and money from year to year guarding the portals of our castle while others equally able, but lacking in spirit, have stayed at home resting easy in a knowledge that they were safe through the labors of their colleagues. This is all wrong. Every practitioner of Homoeopathy in Texas owes it to himself to do his share, Many hands make the burdens light. A large attendance insures a profitable meeting and an enjoyable time. In multitude of counsel there is wisdom.

The Medical Department of the University of Texas is under way. Shall Homœopathy have representation therein? A new insane aylum is to be built at San Antonio this year. Shall Homœopathy make an effort to secure it? and therein demonstrate her ability to cure a larger per cent of

her mentally afflicted than can the old system of practice?

Every Homœopath who can possibly get away should go to Austin in May and help to make our State society a success and a permanency. Let us have a rousing meeting.

"Homoeopathy in the South."

UNDER the above caption appears an article in

January number of the Medical Current from the pen of Dr. Gentry, of Rogers Park, Illinois, calculated to deter the removal of physicians from other sections to the South, and, therefore, deserving of notice at the hands of the JOURNAL.

The writer relates that Greenville, Mississippi, stands in need of a Homœopathic physician badly enough to announce in one of our journals that it is a good opening. The announcement says the town has two railroads, churches of all denominations, public schools, electric lights, street cars, an ice factory, two cotton presses, four banks and a population of about 8000-one half of whom are negroes. It says the lands around the town are rich and productive, and that Greenville handles about fifty thousand bales of cotton per annum. It further avers that some of the best people want a Homœopathic physician to locate there, and also suggests that the negroes would take readily to Homœopathy.

The Current's correspondent follows up the quotation of the announcement with his views upon the question, and to these views in major part we take exception, calculated as they are to retard Homœopathic immigration in our direction.

He says he was "raised" in the South, and having practiced in this section for many years knows that negro practice won't do to tie to; that the "regulars" exist in great numbers; that they, the druggists, and the friends of both, and the "old fogy" element, bitterly oppose the introduction of the new system, and that no matter how compe. tent a practitioner may be, if he is a "new comer" and not to "the manor born" he is frowned upon, his system derided, and he is forced after a gallant fight to abandon the field.

The correspondent then suggests that the people in the South who want to employ Homœopathy should pick up young men of their com

munities, prepare them for college, send them off to learn our system, and upon their return employ them that these have comparatively easy sailing, and thus the new school can be made to grow, and he cites one instance wherein this plan was adopted with success.

Dr. Gentry evidently has two objectionable characteristics in his make up. He "wants the earth," and he lacks courage, if we are to judge from his letter to the journal mentioned. What town is there in the North with four thousand white population, four banks, street railways, electric lights, two railroads, two cotton presses and a rich farming country about that is without a Homœopathic physician? We know nothing whatever of Greenville, but it seems to us that the features mentioned indicate a pretty lively town. What town of four thousand people-we are now talking of whites alone-is there in the North that handles crops to the value of fifty thousand bales of cotton-at forty dollars a bale-ane ven two million dollars from this product alone-that is to-day without a Homeopath? What more can a young man just starting out in the profession want than such a field as this, especially where, as is said, some of the best people there are anxious to have a Homœopath locate in their midst?

But, Dr. Gentry says the Allopaths don't want Homœopaths in the South, nor do the druggists. Does the doctor know of any locality-except in Hades-to which they do invite us? Why oppose the immigration of Homœopaths southward for this reason, when it operates the world over? He says also that the "old fogy" element derides Homœopathy and won't employ it. This is true everywhere; but where you find electric lights, street railways, railroads, public schools, churches of all denominations and some of the best people wanting a Homeopath to locate in their community, "old fogyism" is not very likely to be an over-thriving plant, and we opine it does not prevail to an alarming extent in Greenville.

As to the negro population the doctor is in good part correct. As a rule, they are not desirable patrons. But it is a fact that they take kindly to everything new from the North, and it is possible to get no little cash practice from them as credit is something they are not much accustomed to being granted, and they can usually be

brought to pay moderate fees at the time of ser

vice.

If the young men who are now seeking locations will turn their faces southward they will find plenty of openings in which they can do well if they are not too greedy at first and if they are possessed of courage and adhesiveness. Three out of every four of us now here are of Northern birth, and we are warmly welcomed and properly treated where we behave ourselves and show merit. Homœopathy finds a cordial reception wherever introduced by competent and deserving hands after a few of the tough cases that have been through the Allopathic grist have been cleared up, and the old fogies even are often among the first to fall into line when the newcomer's ability is made manifest in this way.

The South is putting away old prejudices. No courageous Homœopath need fear having to look for another field if he will but make a "gallant fight," and we know of no one of whom this can be said who has left us because of failure to establish Homœopathy in the hearts of the Southern people. On the other hand we know of scores of Homeopaths who have come South, total strangers and without a bank account, who have done remarkably well, some of whom have become really well-to-do in a few years.

Put a little starch in your spinal column, leave your prejudices behind you, cultivate an ability to accommodate yourself to your surroundings, arm yourself with a good stock of Homœopathic knowledge and come South. If you leave us to the plan Dr. Gentry suggests the people will never learn of Homœopathy, for they cannot be expected to spend their surplus wealth in educating carpenters and other mechanics, nor even their own young college graduates, in something about which they know and care nothing. And how are they to be brought to a knowledge of our system of practice if openings like Greenville are to be left vacant because Allopaths and their druggists don't meet us at the depot with brass bands and because the negroes are not rich?

Homœopathy in the South has a move on her just now, and 'tis a good time to come. Study the JOURNAL's list of good location from month to month and fall in line with the moving procession at Birmingham in November, and our, word for it,

the doleful outlook so pitifully portrayed by the Current's correspondent will vanish as do the mists before the Southern sun.

Hematuric Cinchonism.

MALARIAL hematuria has always been looked upon as an idiopathic disease attended by alarming mortality, of strictly malarial origin, and, there fore to be treated by large, even enormous doses of quinine. But this theory has recently been vigorously and with success, we think, attacked by two Southern physicians, Dr. R. S. Williams, of Mt. Meigs, Ala., and Dr. W. B. Barton, of Malone's Landing, Miss., who hold that there is no such disease per se, but that it is, in case of nonpuerperic origin, the result of toxic effects of quinine. They assert emphatically that no case of it is known, except in subjects who have previously taken largely of the salts of cinchona for malarial disorders.

In the March number of The Memphis Journal of the Medical Sciences Dr. Barton discusses the subject at some length in a well written article illustrated by cases. He says: "I am of the opinion that the disease is very largely on the increase, and that as the price of quinine diminishes and the doses increase to an absurd and criminal quantity (italics ours) the climax will be reached, and a reaction will set in very much to the prejudice of a most excellent drug." He reports himself as fresh from the teachings of Flint and Loomis, but avers that he had to unlearn a great deal, because he soon found that quinine was not only useless, but harmful in this condition. Admitting its usefulness in pernicious intermittent, he draws the line at malarial hematuria. So firmly convinced is he of the correctness of his position that his article is titled "Hematuric Cinchonism, commonly called Malarial Hematuria."

Dr. Barton tells an interesting story as to how he was brought to do away with cinchona in this affection. He had two cases eight miles apart Prescribing calomel and eight grains of quinine every hour, in an exceedingly severe case, he went to the other with whom he remained for two days, 'he case resulting fatally. Then looking up the first mentioned one, who was partly comatose when last seen, he was surprised to find him convales

cent, his ignorant nurse not having given the quinine, having forgotten the directions. From this he took his cue and subsequent cases met with all recovered, but one of them getting quinine and this one making a slower recovery than the rest, the salt having been given on account of a tendency to congestion.

His treatment consists of purgation, by Calomel, Rochelle Salts, Magnesium Sulph., Hyposulphite of Soda, or other cathartics not too weakening, hydragogue cathartics being preferred in order to rapidly eliminate the quinine taken for malarial conditions present prior to the appearance of the hematuria, the quinine being looked upon as the exciting cause.

The following paragraph from the article referred to is especially instructive and interesting to us as Homœopaths:

"In all these cases, I consider the patient cured as soon as the urine clears up and flows naturally, for there will be no relapse if quinine is withheld. There is generally an extreme weakness that continues for several days after an attack of hematuria. Therefore I prefer not to use calomel. Many interesting facts, both in the symptoms and treatment of these cases, might be noted but for want of space. Enough, however, has been said for my purpose. The facts deduced are these: That I never saw a case of so-called malarial hematuria where quinine or some preparation of cinchona had not been previously taken, usually in large quantities. The patient is generally under the influence of the drug when the characteristic rigor comes on. That the rigor is not a chill, and is not followed by a rise of temperature if the quinine is withheld and rapidly eliminated from the system. That the rigor can be produced at irregular intervals "ad libitum" by a dose of quinine exceeding the amount eliminated. That the treatment of the disease by quinine is purely Homœopathic, hence, must fail in a majority of cases."

The italics are ours.

There is much substantial food in the above quotation for us,

Malarial hematuria has been heretofore consid. ered one of the most alarming and fatal diseases of the malarious districts of the South, and large doses of quinine have been considered its sine qua non. It is undoubtedly true that almost every case in