Association. The Secretary, Dr. R. S. Knode, Omaha, Nebraska, will furnish any information to physicians desiring to become members. As the date of the first session is three days earlier than that of the meeting of the Mississippi Valley Medical Association, it will be feasible, for those who so desire, to attend both Societies, as the meetings of both are to be held in Louisville. * * SEVEN HUNDRED PAPERS.-This is the reported number of papers submitted at the Berlin Congress. The paper presented by Professor Bouchard of Paris required two hours for its delivery. At that rate, it is difficult to conceive how justice could be done to each contributor, or at what dates discussions would be in order. * THE second annual meeting of the Tri-State Medical Association of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee will convene in Chattanooga, Tuesday, October 14, and continue in session for three days. The meeting will be held in Turner Hall. A fare of one and one-third rate will be given those who may wish to attend. Applications for space in exhibit hall must be made to Dr. W. L. Gahagan, Secretary of the executive committee, P. O. box 542, Chattanooga, Tenn. * * "WYETH'S Beef Juice" is the modest name of a new Concentrated Extract of Beef just placed on the market by the well known house of John Wyeth & Bro. If it is on a par with the other products of this firm, it will only be necessary for them to inform the trade and medical men that they are ready to supply it; their advertisement page reads as if they meant all they say. * * AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION.-The next meeting will be held at Charleston, S. C. It will convene December 16. The sessions will be continued for four days. Among the topics announced are those of sanitary house construction in its various details, the disposal of sewerage, isolation of hospitals for infectious and contagious diseases, maritime sanitation at ports of entry, the restriction of tuberculosis, etc. We anticipate the presentation of a valuable series of papers in connection with this meeting. PARTURITION." Dioviburnia" (Dios) given in teaspoonful doses every two hours after parturition will prevent convulsions, it controls hemorrhage and relieves afterpains. By its direct tonic action on the uterus, expels blood clots and closes the uterine sinuses, causing the womb to contract. In severe cases one oz. fluid extract ergot may be used in combination. with two oz. "Dioviburnia." It is the experience of some of our most eminent gynecologists in all cases where ergot is indicated, that its action is rendered much more effectual by combining it with "Dioviburnia" in the above proportions. * THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.--We desire again to refer to the annual meeting of this Association, which will convene Oct. 8 at Louisville, and continue in session for three days. The city of Louisville can afford ample accommodations for any number of guests, and the profession of that city, whatsoever they undertake, are never found wanting. We not only anticipate a large attendance, but also the presentation of an unusual number of valuable papers. Pleasure and profit will conspire to render this meeting a notable success. * A SUCCESSFUL NEW DRUG.—An efficient emollient and sedative is one of the chief indications in the treatment of the urinary tract. Among the remedies employed for this purpose Pichi (Fabiana Imbricata), has through long clinical testing won an enviable place. The demand for this drug and the difficulties of obtaining proper supplies has led to the appearance in the market of much Pichi of inferior and therapeutically useless quality. Parke, Davis & Co. state that they employ a special agent in the habitat of this drug to collect supplies, and guarantee its quality. They will also on request supply samples to those physicians who desire to clinically test it in their practice. * The idea that Jews are as a class healthier people and have a lower death-rate than others will receive a violent shock from recent London statistics. There are 46,000 Jews in London, and during last year one-third of them received poor-relief; one-half the Jews belong to the regular pauper class, and one-half of all the Jewish funerals occurring in the metropolitan area were pauper funerals. Children under ten years of age made up 81 per cent. of the total deaths registered by metropolitan synagogues, while the proportion of deaths under ten among residents of the country at large is only 41 per cent.- Weekly Med. Review. * A REMEDY FOR BRAIN FAG.-The statement has been made that more business and professional men are breaking down from overwork and exhausted nerve power than from any other known cause. The high pressure of the times, and the sharpness of the struggle for wealth or position lead men to overestimate and overtax their powers of endurance, and in spite of warnings they persist in keeping up the self-imposed delusion until there comes either physical or mental breakdown, or both. Every physician has knowledge of such cases. We have in mind the case of a professor of music in this city who has a national reputation. One especially distressing feature of his case was "paroxysms of fright" with which he awakened each morning at four, and the dread of which haunted and depressed him during the day. Complete relief from all responsibility was insisted upon, and the usual remedies for nerve exhaustion were given regularly and persistently, but they seemed to give only negative results. He gained in flesh but not in nervous force and steadiness. At length he was ordered Freligh's tonic in ten drop doses three times in the day, and in a very brief time marked improvement was apparent. He now regards himself as fully restored and has gone away for a month, much against his will, as he protested that the continued rest was needless. We have used this remdy-the formula of which is freely given-in a variety of nervous disorders with great satisfaction, and should still esteem it highly were it only for its well nigh marvelous effect in the above case.-Mass. Med. Journal, April, 1890. Samples of Sander & Sons' Eucalypti Extract (Eucalyptol) gratis, through Dr. Sander, Dillon, Iowa. Eucalyptol stands foremost as a disinfectant and antiseptic. Meyer Bros. Drug Co., St. Louis, Mo., sole agents. Look for the genuine product. SAMPLE COPIES OF THE MONTHLY.-In reply to our request many subscribers send the names of their brother practitioners whom they think most likely to desire this journal. A number of these names are selected each mouth, and a sample copy," so MARKED, is mailed to each address. It has never been our policy to send, consecutively, copies of the MONTHLY to any not having subscribed, so that we never present a bill and under the protection of the postal laws insist on its payment by one who has received the MONTHLY for a year or more without ever having solicited it. In his recent novel, the Kreutzer Sonata, Count Tolstoi travels out of his way to say many disagreeable things of doctors. There are weak points in all characters, and sins and shams in all professions, that are the legitimate objects of jest and denunciation, but only a very unfair man would denounce a profession for the sins of some of its disreputable members. As Tolstoi has chosen to denounce marriage because some pairs are ill-assorted, some wives untrue and some husbands jealous, so he denounces the medical profession because in it he has found some charlatans and knaves. He charges the profession with crimes which have never been so vehemently condemned as by doctors. He charges it with favoring practices which every honorable physician is daily denouncing. His criticism springs not from knowledge but from ignorance; it is neither wise nor humorous; one is impressed equally with its stupidity and its falseness. Only once the bitterness of abuse is lightened by a clumsy effort at jesting, when he says a certain fact stated is "so evident even a doctor might see it." Among the charges he lays at the door of the physician are these: Alienating wives' affection, proscribing nursing of VOL. X-28 433 infants by their mothers, prescribing sexual intercourse for the unmarried, prevention of conception, and the practice of abortion. "A man is laughed at if he objects to see his wife careering round a ball room in the arms of a fop, or objects to their secret confidences with their physicians *** yet, everybody is aware that these harmless associations lead to others not quite so innocent."-p. 87. Naming the intimacy of the ball room with the intimacy of the consultation room shows the point of view and the unfairness of the author's ideas. There may be danger in each, but in the latter the motive and the trust of the consultation are its safeguards. "One thing only can interrupt this tendency (man-pleasing and man-seeking) —children; and then only when the mother is not a monster-that is to say, when she does not devolve the highest privilege of maternity upon a servant—and here again the doctor steps in. My poor wife wished to nurse her own children, and did so at first; but unluckily it happened that our first infant took sick. The doctor stripped the little thing, punched his poor little body all over, and discovered that my wife was in danger if she continued to nurse it; so she was deprived of the only sure remedy for coquetry. And I was to be grateful and to pay them for undermining my honor!" It is so well known that the concensus of respectable medical opinion is, that except in rare cases and for abundant hygienic reasons, women should nurse their children, that it is idle to put these opinions in evidence. Prostitution must be combated, not in its public haunts, but at home; or else with the help of some unscrupulous quacks, women will strive to prevent conception and will sink, not to the level of brutes, but to the level of a wretch, who for the most part, is sickly, miserable and hysterical, without hope, without self-respect.”—p. 48. This is the least objectionable of his criticisms, since he designates "unscrupulous quacks," and does not charge the entire profession with this mild crime. Elsewhere he says: "My wife was delicate, and the rascally doctor persuaded her that the birth of another child would endanger her health and showed her how to avoid it. *** |