For a generally weakened digestion or simple indigestion the author gives the following

DIET TABLE.

Take every two hours from a wineglassful to a gobletful of peptonized milk, matzoon or whey; or a teacupful of clam broth, beef tea, or any meat broth slightly seasoned and with the fat all skimmed off; or the. same quantity of rice water, barley water, toast water, gum arabic water or white of one egg beaten with water, using each alternately so the patient does not tire of any. Broths and bouillons are mainly stimulants and not nutriments so do not require digestion.

In hyperacidity the author uses the following diet: Broiled lean beefsteak or mutton chop scraped so as to obtain the pulp and juice, avoiding the fibre and fat; finely chopped or three times ground lean beef after the removal of all the fat and gristle and then broiled over the coals, not over 31 ounces at once; eggs soft-boiled, poached or scrambled in milk with a little butter; eggs and milk made into a baked custard without sugar; stale white wheaten bread (the best home made bread is preferable) well toasted as a rule, and a very little butter; good fresh gluten wafers; water crackers; zweiback, unsweetened; puree of celery, or peas, or beans, white potatoes or tomatoes prepared in the same delicate manner that is, first thoroughly cooked, then rubbed through a colander and made into a thin, smooth puree with water, the whole being seasoned lightly with salt.

At the close of the meal a small cup of hot water may be taken, or ozonate lithia water, vichy water, milk with lime water, peptonized milk, buttermilk, kumyss, matzoon, infusion of cocoa shells or anti-coffee, a good cereal preparation intended to imitate the flavor of coffee.

This course should continue six weeks. For excess of acid causing discomfort, carbonate of sodium is administered. In difficiency of acids and inability to digest solids with anorexia, eructation and vomiting no solid food should be taken until the more active symptoms have subsided. The following should be used.

DIET TABLE.

The expressed juice of a half pound of lightly broiled lean beef every three hours; two tablespoonfuls of bovinine lightly seasoned with salt or celery salt; beef extract in half cup of hot water sipped slowly; beef, mutton or chicken broth and clam boullion; each in alteration. Later--thoroughly cooked meats, except pork or veal, with dry toast or crackers or stale bread may be allowed with cream instead of milk. After four weeks the ordinary wholesome mixed diet is resumed.

The effect of the diet and medication is enhanced by the use of electricity, massage and hydrotherapeutics, which seem well nigh indispensible in many cases. In the cases of an exhausted nervous system the patient must often change the entire course of life, even his habits and occupation.

Rest, recreation, out-door life, mountain climbing, a water voyage or a different residence all in turn are at times more successful than adherance to diet or medication.

DISCUSSION.

DR. HAZLEWOOD, Grand Rapids: Mr. President; The paper before us is one that I wish there were a large number present here to discuss, because the points brought out have been evidently thought of by one who had the opportunity of large experience. The ordinary practitioner is greatly bothered with diseases of the stomach, and of course this paper refers only to those in which there is no organic change. I should like very much had there been an opportunity for him to give in detail the diet tables, so that some questions might be asked as to the advisability of this, that and the other food in the special classes of functional dyspepsia, because in my experience I find it absolutely necessary to discriminate between the meat, vegetable and grain diets and I should like to have had an opportunity of discovering, it it is a possible thing, where to make the line of dieting with some assurance of success. The writer of the paper makes the discrimination somewhat by the old principle, that what is one man's meat is another man's pɔison, and that is so evident in all functional diseases of the stomach that I hoped his diet tables would prove of value, that we could demonstrate something more than haphazard direction. I thank the gentleman for his exposition of the functional diseases and differentiating from the regular organic diseases.

DR. PETTYJOHN, Alma: I would like to suggest that in my experience it does very little good to tell a patient what to eat, and furthermore, very little service to give the patient a diet to be used for any length of time. I think the patient should have written diet cards for each meal of the day and keep to that until re-examination indicates the necessity for a change in the diet, and then another card should be written. and the patient held strictly to that. I think the greatest difficulty to be encountered in the treatment of functional dis

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eases of this sort is in not keeping the patient strictly to the diet indicated.

In some cases it might be necessary for them to employ a good cook, or to purchase some of the food products on the markets to which their stomachs have been utterly unaccustomed. I do not think that as practitioners we take enough pains to make this thing definite or else we would get better results from the dietary alone, without the administration of remedies.

SECTION ON GYNECOLOGY AND ABDOMINAL

SURGERY.

OFFICERS.

WM T DODGE, Big Rapids, Chairman.

JOSEPH B. WHINERY, Grand Rapids, Secretary

JOHN H. CARSTENS, Detroit, Orator.

SECRETARY'S MINUTES.

FIRST DAY, THURSDAY MAY 13th.

2 O'CLOCK P. M.

The section was called to order by the chairman, who announced the stated subject for discussion to be

The Treatment of Backward and Downward Displacements of the

Uterus.

The following papers were read and discussed; Ventro-fixation, James G Lynds, Ann Arbor.

A Certain and Successful Method of Shortening the Round Ligaments, John H. Kellogg, Battle Creek.

SECOND DAY, FRIDAY, MAY 14th.

9 O'CLOCK A. M.

The following papers were read and discussed:

Report of a Case of Ovariotomy with Slipping of Ligature from Pedicle; Secondary Laparotomy Eight Hours After Operation; Ligature of the Ovarian Artery; Recovery, Lafayette Swanton, Reed City

Appendicitis, John Henry Carstens, Detroit.

Reports of Two Cases of Appendicitis with Complications, Arthur S. Austin, Fowlerville.

1

AFTERNOON SESSION-2 O'CLOCK.

The first order of business was the election of officers for the ensuing year, which resulted as follows:

Chairman-A W. Alvord, Battle Creek

Secretary-W. F. Metcalf, Detroit.

Orator-H W. Longyear, Detroit