180 THE PRESCRIPTION CASE. We hope that our readers will take special interest in this department of THE HERALD. We solicit practitioners to furnish us for publication, with one or more of their favorite prescriptions. Only such as your personal experience has convinced you to be of practical use should be submitted. Formulæ plainly written on a postal card is a convenient way for sending. Always give them in this order, please: 1. Name of the disease. 2. The formula and directions. 3. Your name, town and state. Doctor, let us hear from you in time for the next issue of THE HERALD. Sodii salicylate.......grs. xv M. ft. chart No. iii. Sig. One powder every one-half hour until relieved. With best wishes to the HERald, I am, Yours truly, M. M. DAVIS, M. D., Indiana, Pa. Nitro-Glycerin in Vomiting. I have used nitro-glycerin systematically for the last three years in every form of vomiting. In vomiting of gastric catarrh, whether adult or infantile, acute or chronic, alcoholic or anemic, it acts almost a specific -the vomiting ceases at once. In vomiting of advanced pregnancy it is of the greatest service; and in many cerebral cases it also markedly checked the sickness. In peritonitis alone it increases the vomiting, not, however, to a distressing extent, and tne effect soon passes off. In vomiting in connection with pulmonary phthisis it is of little value; atropine is better. In combination with catechu it acts very well in lienteric diarrhea. The vomiting of influenza is often relieved by it, though not to the same extent as by atropine-Dr. Humphreys in British Medical Journal. Catarrhal Affections. In the remedial treatment, the following has proven of service, used with the atomizer twice or thrice daily. If used as a douche, dilute with two or three parts water. Note: The iodine is decolorized in preparation, a clear solution of light amber color resulting: B Sodii boras.... 3 ss i Cod-liver oil..... Dose: 3j Ovaritis. B Sulphate of soda.. 3 iv Sulphur 3j Sugar...... 3 Y Physicians have always shown an unselfish interest in regard to the health of the public in general, and have urged to importunity those sanitary measures, both private and public, which science and experience have demonstrated to be useful, if not absolutely necessary to both the individual and the community. Even untidiness in dress is not in line with hygienic. principles, and is not without its significance as an index to a more personal untidiness. If the germ theory of diseases has done no other good, it has led not only to a greater cleanliness in surgical and medical practice, but also to an avoidance of every kind of personal contamination, and from every possible source. We have seen hostlers of such neatness and pronounced sense of cleanliness in their special work, descend to minutiæ, it might be regarded, in their care of horses. When this is done, the effect is clearly perceptible in every part of the horse. His eyes are washed with a wet cloth; his face is well brushed and washed; his body is so well groomed. as to make his hair smooth and clean; his fetlocks are kept trimmed; his feet well cleaned, and hoofs and bottom of the feet well oiled. Contrast such a horse with one of an untidy farmer, and one will readily appreciate the value. If such toilet care were given to the human organism, we would have the whole body in a hygienic condition. Men are sadly neglectful of these small matters, and do not reflect that it is the small things that are the source of filth. Micro-organisms require a microscope to be seen; yet small though they be, they are large factors in the production of unsanitary conditions. Many are careful to cleanse the oral extremity of the alimentary canal, but wholly neglect the anal; and yet there is as much use there of cleanliness as elsewhere, if not, indeed, much more. 182 A contributor to one of the medical journals has thought so much of the importance of this last feature of hygienic cleanlinesss as to print the possible diseases that may arise from its neglect. "The unseemly parts" should receive the corresponding care that, in these respects, there should be but little difference between the seemly and the unseemly. We have known of ladies who would not eat strawberries for fear of appendicitis, and others for fear of germs, and yet there is not so much danger from that source as from unneatness of person. Better "strain out the gnat." DEONTOLOGY. Dr. William Goodell, in his Introductory to Clinical Gynecology, edited by Drs. Keating and Coe, gives very wholesome advice in regard to the diseases from which women suffer; and among the many good things there said we note what he says as respects the developing female. They are matters which practitioners should endeavor to impress on the minds and hearts of mothers, as of prime importance to the welfare of the maturing daughters. "The causes of ill-health in women from functional injuries are so well known that it would be a thankless task to enumerate them. One cause is, unquestionably, a faulty mode of education. The chief strain of reproducing the species falls on woman; she bears the burdens of gestation, of parturition, of lactation, and of maternity. For this great end she needs utmost perfection of physical development. Therefore, the growth and well-being of her body should be at least as carefully looked after as the growth and well-being of her mind. It should be a co-education of body and mind, the one helpful to the other. But this essential concordat in female education is not sufficiently well maintained. From the age of eight to that of fourteen, our daughters spend too much of their time in the unwholesome air of the recitation room, or in poring over their books when they should be at play. Then just as the menstrual period is beginning; just as puberty is struggling to assert itself, comes the series of examinations which selects the most ambitious girls and promotes them to the complex curriculum of the high schools. Four years of hard study and intellectual rivalry now follow,-four precious years, very needful for the perfect development of the reproductive organs, and for the full establishment of their functions, but spent in endless antagonism between braingrowth and body-growth. As a result, the chief skill of the dress-maker seems to be directed toward concealing the lack of organs needful alike to beauty and maternity, and the highly cultured girl of today becomes the barren wife or the invalid mother of tomorrow, or she has all the natural human instincts partly, or, indeed, wholly, educated out of her. So com 183 monly do I find ill-health associated with brilliant scholarship; so often is it the case that she who wins an honor is a "victor who hath lost in gain," that one of the first questions I put to a young lady seeking my advice for shattered health is, "Did you stand high at school?" This break-down in school-girls comes from a combination of causes. It is due to the mode and quality of their education, to long confinement in impure air, to the closefitting dress, and to an unwholesome diet of cakes and candies. It is, perhaps, especially due to an utter disregard, in most educational institutions, of the catamenial week, when, by their own sensations and feelings, women are, as they call themselves, "unwell." They are then by their own showing literally unwell, and are, therefore, as unfit for brain-work as for fatiguing body-work. Released from her school-desk, this weary, worn-out, rest-needing-girl launches into the dissipations of society. Within a few years, it may be she weds some unwary youth to find that "fair by defect, and delicately weak," she has brought him a dower of ill-health, and that she has dared to assume the duties and responsibilities of a married life with undeveloped reproductive organs, and with a large outfit of back-aches and spine-aches and head-aches. Should pregnancy ensue, a big-headed child and a narrow pelvis endanger her life and that of her off-spring. To the present cramming process, I attribute much of the menstrual derangements, the sterility, and the infecundity of our women, the absence of sexual feeling, the aversion to maternity, the too often lingering convalescence from a first labor, which is frequently the only one, and the very common inability to suckle their offspring. From this cause come most of my unmarried patients with nerve prostration, with their protean mimicry of uterine symptoms, unmarried often because they are not well enough to wed." The want of repose he gives as another potent cause. "Fashion compels its votaries to be on the go day and night, without cessation. To keep up with her social and domestic duties, every ambitious mother must live more or less at high pressure. Younger women exhaust their vitality on fads and cults and literary clubs and on a mania to be omniscient. So ingrained in our women has the lack of repose become-this hustle and bustle of American life-that one notes it in their voice, in their manners, and in their carriage." Other causes of disease in women are given, for which we refer the reader to the volume named. These causes are by no means diminishing. The present generation of women present ten cases of diseases peculiar to them, where the former generation presented one. But how to change the current of events, who can tell? 184 ALL HONOR TO GOVERNOR STONE. In our last issue, we took occasion to comment upon the recent action of the Missouri Legislature, in passing the "Osteopathy Practice Bill," but we are pleased to announce to our readers that the Governor has saved our State from disgrace, by disapproving the action of the country legislators. Following are some of the very logical reasons advanced by Governor Stone, in placing his veto upon the bill: "Medicine and surgery are sciences. A judicious or successful practice of them requires a good general education, and a thorough knowledge of anatomy, chemistry, physiology, the obstetric art, the use of surgical instruments, and the like. The people would have been greatly imposed on by ignorant physicians, as well as by empirics and charlatans who play upon the fears and credulity of suffering humanity. "The enlightened and learned men of the profession-those who despise deception and accept as true only those things that are demonstrated before the world-have labored assiduously for years to elevate the profession and to exclude from its ranks those who do not possess the knowledge necessary to qualify them to deal intelligently with matters directly affecting human life. "By the force of public opinion and legal enactment much has been accomplished in this direction. The law is undoubtedly imperfect, and I think it safe to say that men are today licensed to practice medicine who are not qualified to properly discharge the delicate and important duties imposed upon a physician. This, of course, should be corrected. "We now have a statute which forbids any itinerant vender of any drug, nostrum, ointment or appliance of any kind, intended for the treatment of disease or injury, to use the same in the treatment of diseases, whether by prescription, manipulation or other expedient, without paying a heavy license, which is practically prohibitory, and subjecting him to heavy penalties for a violation thereof. "The effect of this bill would be to practically repeal that statute. Any person licensed to practice osteopathy, whatever that may be, could, anywhere in the State, treat any disease, injury or deformity by any appliance, manipulation or process not requiring the use of drugs or surgical instruments and call it the practice of the science of osteopathy. else? "Who would know whether he was practicing osteopathy or something "Osteopathy, whether called a science, an art, or by some other name, is a secret. Only those initiated into its mysteries know what it is or whether any person professing to practice it was acting in good faith or otherwise. Under this bill any licentiate would be authorized to establish a school of osteopathy and to issue diplomas. "What would prevent the filling of the State with people practicing any secret art under the pretense of osteopathy and under the protection of their diplomas? "The bill does not require any course of instruction in anatomy or physiology or knowledge of any science, or knowledge of anything except |