Habit training is the backbone of psychotherapy. No organism can exist apart, separate and distinct from its habits. Tell me the habits of any living organism and, provided I am biologist enough, I can tell you what the organism is. What you are, what you stand for in your profession, or in any other department of life, depends upon your habits. In the application of psychotherapeutic tigue better than untrained individuals; principles for the purpose of heightening their bodies have elaborated antitoxins. the resistive powers of the cells of the human organization, we are acting in perfect accord with the discoveries of such men as Jenner, Pasteur, Ehrlich, Metchnikoff, and other investigators of the theories which have resulted from their work. While utilizing the principles involved in Ehrlich's "side chain" theory, the tetanus and diphtheria antitoxin; the Widal reaction in the diagnosis of typhoid fever; the tuberculin of Koch, Wolf-Eisner Calmette von Pirquet and others for diagnostic and curative purposes; Flexner's serum for the treatment of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis; as well as the utilization of Sir A. E. Wright's discoveries of opsonins by which vaccine therapy has been introduced; the employment of the principles of hemoclysis in the diagnosis of syphilis according to Wasserman, Neiser and Bruck; and other contributions to our present knowledge resulting from a thorough investigation of the subject of immunity to disease, we must not fail to recognize that in psychotherapy as we understand it today, we are employing the same principles as are involved in these epoch-making sero-therapeutic and diagnostic measures. Besides the selection, according to the requirements of the individual patient, of these agencies which act by their presence, the enzymes, antitoxins, vaccines and animal extracts, by which we endeavor to heighten the fighting capacity or life-power of the cells of the entire human organism, we are not losing sight of the fact today that in work and exercise and other normal mental and physical habits the individual is taught to use his entire psychophysical mechanism as a selfgenerating means of producing in his own organism those very enzymes, antitoxins and antigens which are so essential to normal functional activity. These powers do not develop to complete utility except through training. It is education that makes the complete man. Investigations have shown that when the work capacity of the body or mind is taxed, fatigue products are elaborated and that these toxins circulated in the blood and acting upon the brain and muscles are responsible for that "tired feeling." When the blood of a fatigued animal is injected into a healthy one, the latter soon becomes fatigued. The theory is also advanced that these fatigued toxins act like diphtheria toxin and that the body overcomes them by an antitoxin. This is why athletes, mental and physical, withstand fa But here is the point. The mental and physical condition of your patient, matters not what be the pathology of presenting symptoms, except in diseases of infectious origin, is the logical outcome of individual and ancestral habits. If you would change the type of any living organism, change its habits and the new type will grow, true to the law of evolution in general. And if the new species is fit, it will survive. It will grow and multiply and reproduce forever, always higher and higher, provided its habits are in harmony with the law of evolution, and not devolution. The medical profession is not yet adapted to this new viewpoint. The tyranny of ignorance, of orthodoxy" and of superstition, has many of us still in its clutches. We need yet to be liberated from ignorance and fear. We still need the antidote for idleness and cruelty. These psychic microbes are just as much a menace to professional character as are the treponema palladium, the typhoid or hookworm parasite, the gonococcus, the meningococcus, the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus, or any form of staphylococci or streptococci are to our patients. (To be continued.) Study of Alcohol and Narcotics. The forty-second annual meeting of the American Society for the Study of Alcohol and Other Narcotics was held in Washington on December 10 and 11, 1911. Dr. Lewis D. Mason of Brooklyn, president of the society, in his opening address reviewed the results of the study of alcohol in its relation to medicine, and this was followed by a long and interesting series of papers covering almost all phases of the sociological, pathological, and psychological effects of indulgence in alcohol and narcotic drugs upon the animal organism. The annual address was delivered by Dr. Henry O. Marcy of Boston, who took for his subject: "Dr. Benjamin Rush, the pioneer investigator of the effects of alcohol and tobacco on man." This society, organized in 1870, was the first association in the world to take up from a scientific viewpoint the study of alcohol and the diseases which follow its use. The Doctors' Library "Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books."-C. C. Colton. Diseases of the Stomach, Intestines and Pancreas. By Robert Coleman Kemp, M. D., Professor of Gastro-intestinal Diseases, New York School of Clinical Medicine. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Octavo of 1021 pages, with 388 illustrations. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1913. (Cloth. $.50 net; half morocco, $8.00 net.) This second edition is placed before the medical profession not merely to fill the gap left by an exhausted first edition, but to call attention to real advances made in gastro-intestinal medicine during the past two or three years. This department of medicine is making such rapid strides toward an exact science that opinions become obsolete in very few years. Particular attention is given the consideration of visceral displacement, its diagnosis and mechanical treatment. Nine chapters are devoted to pancreatic conditions, fully covering the medical and surgical aspects. The section on duodenal ulcer has been rewritten, and a chapter has been added upon colon bacillus infection. The author is coming to Russell Chittenden's views in the danger of excessive protein diet, and from clinical experience is becoming convinced of its soundness. The author believes pure gastric neuroses are very rare. He devotes a great deal of space to reflexes of the gall-bladder, appendix and other organs. Typhoid fever is included in the volume because of its intestinal complications. The book is written for the general practitioner rather than the specialist. J.M.B. The Archives of Diagnosis. A quarterly journal devoted to the Study of Diagnosis and Prognosis. Founded and edited by Heinrich Stern, M. D, New York. ($1.00 per year.) This is a journal with a mission which it fulfills. It is refreshing and helpful to have the Archives reach the editor's table on its quarterly rounds. Diagnosis has always been and perhaps always will be the stumbling block of the medical profession. No one realizes this fact more than the advance guard, made up of those who franky admit the inefficiency of present day medicine to determine in all cases the cause of disease. This shortcoming has been made. more patent after the able, frank, unbiased paper of Cabo of Boston, read at the American Medical Association, which showed the large percentage of mistakes, proved by autopsy, made at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 3,000 cases. These mistakes occurred, not as a result of neglia result of negligence; they were made by well qualified men, and were exhibited to call attention to the gulf yet existing betweeen the diagnoses and pathologic truth. Dr. Stern is to be commended for his energy in attempt ing to strengthen a deficiency unpleasantly patent. A good journal on diagnosis has a reason for existing and should be gener ally supported. J.M.B. The Practitioner's Visiting List for 1913. An invaluable pocket-sized book containing memoranda and data important for every physician, and ruled blanks for recording every detail of practice. The Weekly, Monthly and 20-Patient Perpetual contain 32 pages of data and 180 pages of classified blanks. The 60-Patient Perpetual consists of 256 pages of blanks alone. Each in one walletshaped book, bound in flexible leather, with flap and pocket, with flap and pocket, pencil with rubber, and calendar for two years. Descriptive circular showing the several styles sent on request. Philadelphia and New York: Lea & Febiger, Publishers. (Price by mail, postpoid, to any address, $1.25. Thumb-letter index, 25 cents extra.) This valuable visiting list has 105 pages to be used in recording daily work, seven pages for general memoranda, eleven pages for obstetrical practice, three pages for vaccinations, three pages for deaths, three pages for addresses of patients, one page for addresses of nurses and eighteen pages for cash account. It also contains brief but common information on periods of dentition, thermometer scales, weights and measures, incompatibles, artificial respiration, table of eruptive fevers, poisons and antidotes, table of doses and therapeutic remedies. We have used one of these visiting lists for eight years and find it eminently satisfactory. The Fortunes of the Landrays. By Vaughan Kester, author of The Prodigal Judge. Illustrated by M. Leone Bracker. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. ($1.35 net.) A few years ago Vaughan Kester wrote a novel entitled "The Fortunes of the Landrays." Owing to a series of unfortunate circumstances the book was inadequately published, and consequently it was not given the circulation it so richly deserved. Now it has been republished in an edition which is uniform with "The Prodigal Judge" and "The Just and the Unjust," and, like these books, it is splendidly illustrated by M. Leone Bracker. It is representative of Mr. Kester's mature work, and those who learned to know and love this great American author will find "The Fortunes of the Landrays" possessing the same charm and merit that marked his previous books. Most of the scene is laid in that part of Ohio which Vaughan Kester knew as a boy, but at times the locale shifts to the great west and shows this country as it was during the California rush when the plains were dotted with the caravans of the gold seekers who encountered every danger and hardship and were the prey of contagion, hostile Indians and dangerous white men. It is a vivid picture Mr. Kester has drawn and for the present generation it serves a two-fold purpose, furnishing an entertaining story as well as a glimpse of life as it was lived in this country during a time which is fast becoming but a hazy memory. It is well deserving of serious attention from all admirers of powerful fiction. Medical Progress The Infant and Its Food. It Mellins Food Co. has issued a very concise card for ready reference in determining the food value and caloric percentage of the feeding. It is a very commendable move. Mellins food has been before the profession for years and has established its value. must not be forgotten, however, that in presenting to the baby a perfect foodstuff, the problem is only partly solved. There is yet to be considered the ability of the child's digestive tube to appropriate it. Bearing this factor in mind we must not be too hasty in changing diet. If digestion be below par the most perfect food will still be unable to maintain life and health. The only proper test is an examination of rejected food (vomtius) and stools. This should be done before a change is made in the diet. The alimentary tract may need a tonic in aiding peristalsis or a sedative to suppress an exaggerated peristaltic wave. We owe it to the family and our reputation, as well as in justice to food manufacturers to see to it that the digestive tract is normal and deficiencies corrected, before rejecting any such well balanced food product. J.M.B. New Biological Laboratory. The handsome building we are illustrating has recently been added to the group of biological laboratories of H. K. Mulford Company at Glenolden, Pa. The building is constructed entirely from basement to roof of hollow tile and con. crete, making it a fireproof structure throughout. It is divided into departments, each department being a unit, and complete in itself. The east end of the building is devoted to the handling of serum and globulin products. On the first floor bleedings are received from the bleeding room, serum or plasma is removed from the clot or from the corpuscles, as the case may be, and the product stored immediately in cold-storage rooms belonging to this group. When the serum or globulin has been tested and is ready to be finished, it is delivered to the group of antitoxin and serum filling rooms. The bulk stock is kept in cold-storage rooms connected with this Each of the twenty filling and serum rooms is supplied with washed and filtered air. The special apparatus used for this purpose is guaranteed to remove 98 per cent of suspended matter from the air supplied to these rooms. Not only is the air filtered but its humidity and temperature are controlled, thus giving the employes the benefit of the best possible working conditions. On each floor glass partitions between the halls and rooms remit the demonstration of the work to visitors without their entering the rooms themselves. The laboratory floors are of asbestolith. The advantage of this material is that there are no seams or cracks and is impervious to fluids. It partakes more of the nature of wood than of cement and because of a cushiony layer beneath the surface crust, is more acceptable to employes than cement floors. On the lower floor are the stock rooms. The sterilizing rooms are in a separate building well supplied with ventilatig skylights. On the third floor are found the lectureroom, library and museum. The entire plant is arranged and managed under the unit system. A separate building or group of buildings, or in some cases portions of larger buildings, are devoted to the preparation, standardization, packing and shipping of each product. Each unit is in charge of scientific experts in their particular branch of bacteriology. Cold storage rooms supplied with cold air from a central refrigeration plant form part of each individual unit arrangement. This makes it possible to keep on hand a large stock of biologicals without danger of deterioration, so that the company is prepared at all times to supply these products and to cope with the enormous demands often treated by epidemics of the various infectious diseases. A Possible Revolution in the Treatment of Infectious Diseases. Are existing methods of treating bacterial diseases to be fundamentally changed? Do the phylacogens furnish the key to a new and enlightened therapy? Medical and other scientific men are beginning to ask these questions. Less than one year ago the name phylacogen had not been injected into the language. Today you can scarcely pick up an American medical journal that does not contain some reference to the remarkable group of products for which it stands. What are phylacogens? Briefly, they are sterile aqueous solutions of metabolic substances generated by bacteria grown in artificial media. The name phylacogen (from the Greek) means phylaxinproducer"-literally, "a guard" and "to produce." The initial phylacogens were originated by Dr. A. F. Schafer in 1908, the method of preparation and technique of application being first presented to the San Joaquin Medical Society in Fresno, California, in October, 1910, and later to the San Francisco Medical Society (January 14, 1911). Subsequently the preparation of the phylacogens was entrusted to Parke, Davis & Co., the work of manufacture being carried on at the company's biological laboratories in Detroit, Michigan. The principle upon which the use of the phylacogens is founded is the theory of multiple infections. Three facts are set forth as the basis of the new therapy: 1. Practically all acute and many chronic diseases are caused by the metabolic products of bacteria. 2. The human subject is the host of micro-organisms that are pathologically latent, but capable of setting up a disease process under certain conditions. 3. The growth of infecting micro-organisms can be arrested and their effects neutralized by products derived from their development in artificial culture media. Five phylacogens are now available: Rheumatism phylacogen, erysipelas phylacogen, gonorrhea phylacogen, pneumonia phylacogen and mixed infection phylaco Dr. Jabez N. Jackson, of Kansas City, was elected president of the Western Surgical Association at its meeting in Cincinnati, December 21. The Hot Wells Hotel, San Antonio, Texas, has reopened under the management of Mr. T. A. Franker, of Chicago, a hotel man of experience. The season began January 1, a large number of guests being present at the opening. Dr. G. C. Crandall, of St. Louis, a graduate of the University of Michigan, professor of medicine in the St. Louis University, president of the consulting staff of the St. Louis City Hospital, and medical director of the St. Louis Society of the Prevention of Tuberculosis, died at his home of Bright's disease, December 5, aged 47 years. Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, successor to Dr. Wiley, as chief of the U. S. Bureau of Chemistry, is but 35 years of age. He was graduated in medicine from the P. and S. New York, and did post-graduate work in Germany. Dr. Alsberg, like his illustrious father, is a chemist of marked ability, and his training in biology will make him a valuable man in the department he will direct. The after-effect of castor oil is not sufficiently considered in practice. Castor oil is a remedy for acute diarrhea, not for chronic constipation. Literary Lore "Literature exists to please and instruct; and those men of letters are the best loved who have best performed literature's truest office." Some Men who pretend to be clothed in righteousness should be arrested for indecent exposure. -Lippincott's. Hallie Erminie Rives, author of "The Valiants of Virginia," is the wife of Post Wheeler, secretary of the American Embassy at Rome. Mrs. Burnett's New Novel. - Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy" was first publisheed in 1886. Her new novel, "T. Tembarom," which will begin serially in the January Century, traces the story of a boy with all the charming detail and fidelity to type which gave her success so many years ago. "T. Tembarom," however, is a life story. Its hero began life as a New York newsboy, worked himself up to the position of Harlem reporrter for a newspaper and later became a landed proprietor in England. The Gospel of Courage.-Ralph Waldo Trine states his belief thus in Harper's Bazar for January: "To get up each morning determined to be happy, determined to be master of the events of the day instead of being mastered by them; to take anew this attitude of mind when the doleful thought presents itself or the bogy-man attempts to show his face; to look always on the bright side of things, rather than in the shadow-this it is that makes life with its daily round and its knotty problems continually easier. This hopeful, optimistic, courage-always-up attitude of mind and heart is to set into operation subtle, silent forces that are continually working along the lines we are going and that opens the way for us to arrive." Hallie Ermine Rives.-Though born in Kentucky, Hallie Erminie Rives is a Virginian of Virginians, and is, therefore, never more at home than when writing of the Old Dominion. This fact is manifested in her latest novel, "The Valiants of Virginia," which has just been published (Bobbs-Merrill Co.). The entire locale of this story, with the exception of the first chapter, is laid in that part of Virginia which is still under the spell of those romantic days the South knew before the reconstruction period, and knowing these places and these conditions as she does, Miss Rives has painted a picture which is filled with interest and reality. The Rives family has been closely identified with the history of Virginia, the first of them having been among the cavaliers who emigrated to the colony from England in 1654. William Rives, of Damory Court, Dorcetshire, was the first of the family to emigrate, and his great grandsons, Robert and Thomas, were in the colonial ranks when Yorktown fell. "It has always been my ambition," she said recently, "to write a book of modern Virginia as I see it. There is no denying the fact that in no state in the Union have old customs been preserved as they are in Virginia. These cast a glamor over the state and make it an ideal spot for romance. Every place I depict in "The Valiants of Virginia' exists in reality, and the characters I have introduced are all drawn from real life." St. Nicholas for January has two of Arthur Rackham's Mother Goose pictures in color, and several in black and white, picturing with that famous English artist's whimsical humor, little Miss Muffet, the Man in the Wilderness and other Mother Goose characters dear to children's hearts. The Good Ways of Other Days.-Not by a great deal are all the old-fashioned things admirable, but by no means are they all inferior and out of date because they are old-fashioned. The best of them we may strain all our modern resources to equal, and not do it. The best products of oldfashioned training and education are still models for contemporary seminaries. As far back as we can reach into the history of mankind we find great people, easily the equals, and often the superiors, of our very best in mental and moral qualities. Our good luck is not that we are superior to them in our human material, but that we have at our service an immensely greater accumulation of knowledge, mostly about material things. Thanks to that, we understand the laws of nature much bettter than our fathers did, and that has helped us to make wonderful machines, and put them to doing, after their fashion, what used to be done by fingers, brains and brawn. But spiritually we got our highest inspiration two hundred years ago, and have been trying ever since to reach up to it; and mentally, though we use better tools, we are no better, surely, than Pythagoras or Aristotle or the author of the Book of Job and hundreds of thinkers who must have long preceded any of them.-E. S. Martin, in Harper's Magazine for January. |