maintain sedation, and without interference with other medicines or effect upon digestion or the excretions. It should be added that exceptions are likely to occur in cases with mesenteric complication and colliquative diarrhoea, and while not contraindicated, it may sometimes disappoint expectations.

MOUTH-TO MOUTH INSUFFLATION. —There still remains another-perhaps least often adopted-mea sure, yet possibly of equal importance with any mentioned, viz., mouth-to-mouth insufflation. This may be mediate or immediate. The first by the introduction of a flexible tube into the larynx, the second by applying the mouth to the mouth of the infant. In the reported proceedings of the N. Y. Obst. Soc., in the last number of this journal, Dr. Garrigues has recorded the case of an infant born in a state of profound asphyxia, and presenting but a few slow and feeble heart-beats, which was kept living seven hours by insufflation through a flexible catheter passed into the trachea, whilst the child was kept enveloped in hot cloths. Two and a half hours elapsed before the child gave the first respiratory gasp." His commentary on this case was, "that if only the heart beats, the life of the child may be saved, even if spontaneous respiration does not occur for hours." Insufflation may readily be accomplished, as suggested by Dr. Jewett, "through the intervention of a coarse towel; passage of air into the stomach being prevented either by pressure upon the epigastrium or by gently forcing the larynx back against the œsophagus." This plan was resorted to in only eight of the tabulated cases, but furnished gratifying results in all. In one case-number twenty-when it had been omitted, and the child died on the seventh day of atelectasis, the operator advanced the criticism that, "had mouth-to-mouth inflation of the lungs been substituted for artificial respiration, possibly the child might have been saved." M. Depaul recommends that from ten to twelve insufflations should be made in a minute. It is not impossible that, after the removal of mucus from the fauces, this measure may prove a most valuable adjunct to artificial respiration, by fully distending all the pulmonary tubes, and freely opening the way for admittance of air to all the vesicles by artificial respiration.— Amer. Jour. of Obstetrics.

MEDICINAL EFFECTS OF ONIONS. A mother writes to an English agricultural journal as follows: "Twice a week—and it was generally when we had cold meat minced-I gave the children a dinner which was hailed with delight and looked forward to. This was a dish of boiled onions. The little things knew not that they were taking the best of medicine for expelling what most children suffer from-worms. Mine were kept free by this remedy alone. It was a medical man who taught me to eat boiled onions as a specific for a cold in the chest. He did not know at the time, till I told him, that

7

they were good for anything else." The editor of the journal adds: A case is now under our own observation in which a rheumatic patient, an extreme sufferer, finds great relief from eating onions freely either cooked or raw. He asserts that it is by no means a fancy, and he says so after having persist ently tried Turkish baths, galvanism and nearly al the potions and plasters that are advertised as certain alleviatives or cures."

Dr. G. W. Balfour, in the Edinburgh Medical Jour nal, records three cases in which much benefit wa afforded patients by the eating of raw onions in large quantities. They acted as a diuretic in each instance. Case first was a woman who had suffere from a large white kidney and constriction of th mitral valve of the heart. Her abdomen and leg had been tapped several times, but after using onion as above she had been free from dropsy for tw years, athough still suffering from albuminuria Case second suffered from heart disease, cirrhoti liver and dropsy. Case third had dropsy depending on tumor of the liver. In both of them the remed had been used with good results. Both had beer previously tapped, purgatives and diuretics alike hav ing failed to give relief. All other treatment having failed, recourse was had to onions. Under their use the amount passed steadily rose from 10 or 15 ounces to 78 or 100.-Boston Journal of Chemistry.

HOW TO COUGH.-To some persons, coughing is harmless, but to others it is fraught with many dangers. It is, therefore, important to teach those liable to be injured by too severe or prolonged efforts at coughing how they may accomplish their purpose easily, safely and quickly. Dr. J. M. Fothergill (Phil. Med. Times) says; "It must be insisted upon that the chest be well filled with air before the cough is let loose; that is, the reflex act must be inhibited by the exercise of the will, until the chest be well filled with air before the cough is let loose. full inspiration is effective not only in removing the source of the irritation, but it usually causes other masses of mucus and charcoal to slide from their seat, and thus to set up further cough for their removal. But, if the full inspiration plan be followed, these masses are readily and quickly expelled." Of course these directions are of use only in such coughs as are for the purpose of removing some offending matter from the air passage.

Such

and 99o. In some of the cases, carbolic acid acted as an irritant, giving rise to considerable spasmodic effects, and in these cases salicylic acid was substituted. The latter agent did not produce such a decided effect on the temperature. but its action on the fetor was equally marked.

ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT OF EMPYEMA IN CHILDREN. Dr. Göschel relates in the Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, for December 23, four cases of empyema in children aged respectively 1, 3, 34 and 4 years, in which he treated empyema by making incisions 3 centimètres (1.2 inches) long in an inter. costal space (generally the sixth), under the carbolic acid spray, allowing the pus to escape, and then introducing drainage tubes and applying Lister's antiseptic dressing. Chloroform was given to all except the youngest child. Dr. Göschel sums up as follows: 1. In slight cases of empyema in children, incision under Lister's antiseptic precautions is quite as quickly performed and as free from danger as paracentesis, while it is also less productive of trouble and more likely to lead to recovery. 2. In advanced cases, incision alone is indicated; and performed under Lister's method, it is free from danger and from all trouble to the children. As washing out the pleural cavity with disinfectant solutions is unnecessary, there is no danger of poisoning with carbolic acid. 3. Fever is more surely avoided by employing Lister's method in the after-treatment than by the open dressing with washing out of the pleura. The general condition improves rapidly. 4. When washing out of the cavity is avoided, the secretion diminishes more rapidly. 5. The introduction of ordinary drainage tubes is sufficient; metallic canule and resections of portions of the ribs are surperfluous.-Brit. Med. Journal.

WINTER COUGH RAPIDLY CURED BY ATOMIZED CHLORAL HYDRATE.-The form of chronic bronchi

tis in elderly persons, known as "winter cough," is a source of so much discomfort to the sufferers and those around them, and is so frequently the precursor of serious complications, that an additional remedy of apparent promise is worthy of being made known.

A lady of about fifty years of age, who has been troubled with a chronic cough for three or four winters past, upon returning from the seaside in September was attacked with subacute bronchitis complicated with gastric disorder. This soon yielded to treatment, but left a rasping cough, which destroyed her rest at night and seemed likely to continue throughout the approaching winter. After administering various remedies, in atomized form and otherwise, for several weeks, it occurred to me to try a spray of chloral hydrate. A solution of ten grains in an ounce of water was inhaled through a steam atomizer each morning and evening. Improvement was soon observed, and after two weeks' use

SYNOPSIS OF 173 CASES OF CARCINOMA MAMMÆ. One hundred and seventy-three cases of cancer of the breast-170 of women and 3 of men—were treated at Prof. Billroth's clinics from 1868 to 1875.

Of the 170 cases of women, 27 were regarded as hopeless and therefore no operation. Of these 18 died, 2 are living with carcinoma, and 7 have made no report. Of the 143 who submitted to an opera ration, 34 died in consequence of the operation, 55 died with recurrence, 35 are living with recur rence, and 19 got well or died of other diseases.

IN

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EUCALYPTUS MALARIAL DISORDERS. Dr. Dow, of London, contributes the following experience with this remedy: My patient was a gentleman who had lived many years in India and China, and during his residence abroad had had seven attacks of ague. Recently he experienced a return of his old symptoms, and took quinine, as he had been accustomed to, to check the illness. However, on this occasion it failed to produce the usual effect, so I recommended him to try the eucalyptus. The effect was at once marked, and speedily all his intermittent symptoms left him. The remedy is pleasant to take, and the dose I have prescribed is ten minims of the tincture.-London Lancet.

WARM FOMENTATIONS TO THE HEAD IN CASES OF UTERINE HEMORRHAGE.-Dr. Koehler (Allg. Med. Central-Zeitung, No. 1, 1879,) states that he has for the last seven years, in cases of uterine hemorrhage, applied warm fomentations to the head to prevent anæmia of the brain, and also to the heart. Hot sand-bags are also very efficient, and the patients often will bear sand which is so hot that it can scarcely be touched by the hand. As soon as the fomentation or bag has been applied, consciousness is restored; the pulse grows stronger; the patient herself states that she feels better, that the ringing in the ears has ceased, and that she likes the appliance. As soon as it becomes cooler, she wishes it to be renewed. Dr. Koehler has, he says, saved patients even in most dangerous cases of hemorrhage by this proceeding, by which the physician never loses time, as the fomentations may be watched and renewed by any one. This method has been found equally efficient in anæmia caused by epistaxis, hemorrhages produced by wounds, etc.

HEALTH RESORTS.-F. J. Bancroft, of Denver, (American Med. Bi-Weekly, Jan. 1879,) claims that consumption is more or less contagious, and hence places where phthisis was comparatively unknown, becoming a resort for such patients, the disease is communicated to the inhabitants and the sanitary condition of the place becomes poor indeed.

The disease may be communicated in various ways. The most obvious are the sputa, which being ejected freely may be carried by the wind and find lodgment in the lungs, and thus induce or intensify the disease; or the hotels or other places which have been long used by the sick and thus become thoroughly impregnated with the exhalations of consumptives, may furnish all the germs requisite to induce the disease in the well. Hence towns and hotels which have long been favorite resorts of consumptives should be avoided.

The places recommended are the small islands in mid-ocean, in the sparsely settled pine regions of the Southern States, and portions of the elevated plains and mountains west of the Mississippi. Where the air is so pure that fresh meat will dry without taint at any season of the year, a phthisical sufferer will improve or get well if the physical condition comes within the range of such possibilities

It is often better not to select too cold a climate as it might very materially interfere with exercise in the open air, and away from the contamination of civilized life.

A SURE AND RAPID CURE FOR HICCOUGH.— Under this title Dr. Grellet, of Vichy, states that he has never failed in immediately relieving simple hiccough, i. e. not dependent upon any appreciable mor bid condition, by administering a lump of sugar imbibed with vinegar.-Révue Méd.

VOL. II.

No. 6

Editorial.

New Remedies and Journalism of California.

An article in the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal for March compels us once more to refer to a subject which we had hoped we should not be obliged again to refer to, and one which those familiar with its history would have thought the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal would wish to have stirred up as little as possible. Certainly, the more that journal refers to it, and the more frantic its efforts to explain, the more unenviable does it make its position in the eyes of the profession.

If the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal has any distinctive features, those features are its intense quackophobia and its pretension to a high-toned and impersonal standard of journalism. It is scarcely possible to open its pages without hitting on an article or paragraph exhorting the faithful to greater zeal or breathing death to "irregulars." Its whole air and demeanor are calculated to impress one with the idea that nothing improper or undignified could have its countenance the occidental champion of professional purity, par excellence the high-toned. With such assumptions, we were naturally not a little surprised on observing in its last October number that it had lent its pages to an ill-natured, if not a malicious, personal attack, by a relation of its editors-a Dr. W. P. Gibbons-on Dr. J. H. Bundy, a rival practitioner, and a gentleman whose name has been to a considerable extent identified with certain new California remedies lately introduced to the profession. Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Bundy are residents of neighboring villages, suburbs of San Francisco, and although doubtless some of that little personal feeling, which unfortunately is too common among country practitioners, was the indirect cause of the attack, the direct instigator of the

screed was, confessedly, a member of a wholesale drug firm in Cincinnati, Lloyd by name. By some very ingenious manœuvering, Lloyd managed to convert Gibbons' attack on Bundy into an indirect assault on the integrity and honorable standing of Messrs. Parke, Davis & Co., manufacturing chemists of this city. In the interests of fair play we found it necessary to review Gibbons' paper, and succeeded, we flatter ourselves, in very effectually exposing the

cloven foot which it endeavored to conceal under the specious claim that it was written in the interests of science. This exposé was followed by such a general condemnation, by the medical press of the country, of Lloyd & Gibbons' tactics, that the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal found it necessary, in its January number, to make a practical retrac

tion of the editorial comments with which it had sought to bolster up the relative's position. In its March number, the demand for edition, it re-publishes the attack on Dr. the October number having exhausted the edition, it re-publishes the attack on Dr. Bundy and the new remedies, and in further editorial comments it makes another desperate effort to "explain." We have a few remarks to offer on these comments.

The Journal says that Dr. W. P. Gibbons' paper, "written and published altogether in the interests of science and truth, unexpectedly impinged on the heads and pockets of a Detroit drug firm engaged in the manufacture of new remedies.' A more absurd assertion was never made. Did space permit

to be seriously considered. The statement that it "impinged on the heads and pockets of the Detroit drug firm " is also very ridiculous. Indeed, it has been privately hinted that Gibbons, the correspondent, and the Journal itself, have been subsidized by the drug firm alluded to to make the attack, with a view to advertising the new remedies introduced by the latter. We have, however, never credited this, and our personal knowledge of the integrity and honor of the firm is sufficient to disarm any such suspicion. The fact, however, remains that so far from impinging on their "heads and pockets,' nothing in the nature of an advertising dodge could have proven more effectual or less expensive.

Leaving the subject of new remedies for the nonce, the Journal takes occasion to give the MICHIGAN MEDICAL NEWS a dab. It says the NEWS is "mainly an advertising journal in the interests of the drug trade.' We acknowledge the soft impeachment that the NEWS is an excellent advertising medium, but it is so purely and simply because of its standing with the profession and its large circulation the latter being at least five times as large as that of the Fournal. The fact that an advertisement appears in the NEWS is a guaranty that the article advertised is at least worthy of a trial, and that the firm advertising it is one which may be trusted. Can the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal say this much? We notice in its advertising department advertisements which have been refused a place in the NEWS for the reason that the "morals" of the advertisers "are not sufficiently scrupulous." The NEWS, moreover, confines itself to legitimate advertising. It is not dependent on bogus jewelry advertisements for its support. We furthermore challenge the Pacific Medical and Surgical Fournal to prove, by either our editorial or excerpt department, that the NEWS is "mainly an advertising journal in the interests of the drug trade," and until it furnishes such proof we shall remain of our present opinion that, notwithstanding its boasted regard for "truth and science," it is a wilful distorter of the truth.

The Journal says that "one or two" (italics ours) "regular professional journals have joined to some extent in the censure which it and its relative have received at our hands. None are so blind as those who will not see, and none so dishonest as those who wilfully prevaricate to get themselves out of a scrape. (Webster defines "scrape" as "a position out of which one cannot get without undergoing, as it were, a painful rubbing or scraping.") The Journal is at liberty to elect its horn of the dilemma. But, perhaps its exchange list is not sufficiently large to enable it to be properly posted on what is transpiring in the medical world. We will, therefore, furnish it with a partial list of the professional journals which have "to some extent " joined us in censuring its position: Detroit Lancet, Louisville Medical News, Chicago Pharmacist, Toledo Medical and Surgical Journal, N. Y. Hospital Gazette, Physician and Surgeon, Southern Practitioner, Ohio Medical Recorder, St. Louis Medical and Surgical Fournal, Southern Clinic, American Medical Bi Weekly. The regular professional standing of any of these will compare favorably, we think, with that of the Journal.

The Journal says "it is worthy of notice that Dr. Bundy has not come to his own defense. Not having any defense to make, he has been wise enough to leave his character in charge of his employers, who are bound to defend him in the way of business." We suppose this eminently benevolent remark is also made "in the interests of truth." We would respectfully refer our truthful contemporary to the January number of the Chicago Medical Times. He will there find a very able defense by Dr. Bundy against the attack made on him by the Gibbonses, a defense, moreover, which shows the writer to be a gentleman, even though he be an odious "eclectic."

Space and inclination prevent us from following this unpleasant subject further. There are points in the Journal's "editorial comments," an impartial review of which would strengthen but little our contemporary's claim that it is conducted altogether "in the interests of science and truth." for the present, q. s.

But