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MEN AND THINGS.

Medical Experiences in the Balkan War1-While to the great majority of those who live in America, the war in the Balkans is quite unreal, we occasionally get word from correspondents or returning travellers which leaves no doubt that to a great many the existing conditions have all the reality of warfare in its most fearful and terrifying phases. As in every war of modern time the medical service has undoubtedly been put to a severe test, and according to the London Lancet (Nov. 23, 1912) interesting information is forthcoming as to the work which is being accomplished by the surgeons attached to the contingents of the Red Cross Society and the Knights of Malta in the Balkan war. From this country there have gone to Bulgaria, to Montenegro, and to Servia 50 surgeons, who are in charge of about 2,000 beds. One of them, Dr. Fedlicka, states that he has had an opportunity of observing 670 cases of severe wounds in Servian soldiers, and expresses his surprise at the rapidity of healing and the aseptic condition of even the most dangerous injuries. Men shot through the body by bullets which penetrated the liver, the lung, the spleen, and the intestines recovered after a fortnight or so without much evidence of ultimate harm. The modern bullet is rendered aseptic by the enormous heat of the burning powder, and it hardly ever shatters long bones, so that there were very few amputations-only two in 670 cases-and only 20 instances in which plaster of Paris bandages were necessary. A large number of fractures of the bones at the base of the nose were seen in

Turkish soldiers who were not accustomed to use rifles, and in consequence of the recoil received blows in the face from the stock when the weapons were fired. Dr. von Oettingen says that he has found that the use of masticol, a resinous, very sticky substance, for the first treatment of wounds gave him excellent results, as it hindered the entrance of micro-organisms and prevented their multiplication. The forces of the Slavonic nations carry in their outfit a first-aid package arranged after the Norwegian or Russian pattern, and about 95% of the wounded were found to have made use of this package. The severest

1 Nov. 23, 1912.

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wounds were those inflicted by the bayonet, and they also healed with more difficulty than bullet wounds. projectiles fired from heavy guns did great Shrapnel and other damage, mostly killing the victims. sanitary precautions in the allied armies seem to be excellent, but not so on the Turkish side. But in Montenegro, where there is a sad lack of all medical requisites for the war, the Austrian Red Cross Society has undertaken an immense amount of work. As a rule the wounded recover sufficiently to be able to return to the front after a fortnight, but those with wounds of the abdomen or skull are not in this category. Up to now it has been possible to prevent any serious outbreak of cholera, plague, or smallpox amongst the prisoners, captured by the Balkan armies.

It is not in a man's creed but in his deeds, not in his knowledge but in his wisdom, not in his power, but in his sympathy, that there lies the essence of what is good and what will last in human life.

F. YORKE POWELL.

The Discovery of Chloroform. It has long been known that there still remain some gaps in the history of the discovery of chloroform and the introduction of anesthesia, says an editorial writer in Medical Press and Circular, (Jan. 1, 1913). This fact is once more brought to the front by the appeal that has been issued for funds to erect a memorial to the late Mr. David Waldie in his native town of Linlithgrow in celebration of the centenary of his birth. It is claimed that Waldie, who was born in Simpson the anesthetic properties of chloro1813, brought to the notice of Sir James form. It is said that Waldie, after numerous experiments, suggested to Professor Simpson that he should use chloroform as an anesthetic, and undertook to prepare some for him. After his first experiment, Simpson wrote as follows to Waldie: "I am the good results of our hasty conversasure you will be delighted to see part of

tion. I had the chloroform for several days in the house before trying it, as, after seeing it such a heavy unvolatile-like substance, I despaired of it and went on dreaming of other things. The first night we took it, Dr. Duncan, Dr. Keith, and I all tried it simultaneously, and were all under the

table in a minute or two." That Waldie played some part in the introduction of chloroform there seems no doubt, but there is some controversy over the question whether it was an important part. In any case, the proposed memorial is a very modest one, the intention being to place a bronze tablet suitably inscribed in the house in which he lived.

Give what you have to some one, it may be better than you dare to think.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Illegitimate Children in France.1 France.1 According to the latest statistics, there are in France, year in, year out, 75,000 illegitimate births, of which 15,000 were for Paris alone. Hence 11 per cent of the annual births are outside the marriage union. On the other hand, the mortality of illegitimate children is double, at the same age, that of the others, while each year 600 infanticides are committed and 150 children abandoned or left to exposure.

This deplorable condition of things has stimulated an honorable member of the Senate. M. Rivet, to present a bill abrogating two articles of the Civil Code which refuse to recognise the rights of an illegitimate child to the protection of its father, declared irresponsible. Under those circumstances the mother has no redress, as the law does not allow her to make any claim on her seducer, who generally abandons her, leaving her to bear the burden of her fault alone.

Similar bills had been presented in years gone by to the French Parliament, but were always read out. However, this time, through the persuasive eloquence of M. Rivet, the Senate passed the first reading, and there is every hope that the bill will in due time receive legal sanction.

Murder Will Out.-Every day some strange, unusual event occurs to emphasize anew the triteness of the old saying that "truth is stranger that fiction." One of the latest incidents of this character concerns a woman belonging to the unfortunate class

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1 Medical Press and Circular.

who was found strangled in a retired spot of the Bois de Boulogne. The doctor charged with the autopsy remarked, besides the ordinary signs of strangulation, a piece of skin held firmly between the teeth of the victim. He laid it aside carefully wondering where it had come from.

The following day, according to a correspondent in the Medical Press and Circular (Dec. 18, 1912) commotion was excited in a fashionable quarter of Paris by the suicide of a gentleman, over 50 years of age, of noble extraction. A note in the handwriting of the suicide was left in evidence on the table stating that he committed suicide on November 2nd. This unusual declaration led the family doctor, who was called in, to carefully examine the body, and he came to the conclusion that the suicide took place on November 3rd and not the previous day as pretended. Why this false statement? But the inquiry reserved other surprises.

More minute examination of the body revealed the existence of a wound of curious form on the penis; a part of the prepuce was missing! The extraordinary discovery was brought to the attention of the police authorities, and the following day the Press mentioned the fact in covered terms. When the doctor who had made the autopsy of the woman read the report, he remembered the piece of skin he had found in the mouth of the corpse and brought it to the police who found that it exactly adapted itself to the solution of continuity found on the genital organ of the count; thus, the whole mystery was cleared up. The count, by anticipating his suicide, wanted to create a posthumous alibi, so as to leave this world with his reputation intact, but it was evident that he was the assassin. The fact was still further confirmed by a witness, who stated that the count was in the habit of frequenting a certain class of girls in the Bois de Boulogne for the purpose of practising unnatural acts.

Here is an instance of how legal medicine can reveal facts which would easily have passed the notice of a superficial observer, and seem incredible, if they were not founded on positive evidence.

May we so live, we dread not here to die; So die, we dread not afterward to live.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

Complete Series, Vol. XIX.

Sex Emotions in Their Relation to Colors and Sounds. A percentage of human beings and birds have in common an inherited emotional factor which finds its expression in musical sounds, says George Henry Taylor, L. R. C. S., Edin. in a communication to the Lancet (Jan. 4, 1913). In bird life the musician is a male, excepting the rare cases where a caged female bird exhibits the emotion of song. The inherited emotion in each variety of singing bird is expressed in a sequence of notes peculiar to itself, although the quality of note may vary a little in different birds. By the selective breeding of caged birds the quality of note can be improved. For example, by mating finches of different varieties the offspring acquire a song which is a blend of the notes in the song of the male bird in each variety. Such birds are not fertile. No doubt the female bird admires with a keen appreciation the colour or song of her mate, but it is doubtful whether the colour or song of a male bird is a delight to others of his sex. A bird in a cage when singing appears to be in a state of rapture, and does not then give an observer the suggestion of intelligence as it does when, with head aslant, it is alert and observant.

"The period of sexual activity in singing birds alternates with a longer period of sexual calm, when male and female are associated in what is practically an asexual state. The sex song, therefore, of a singing bird is an emotional expression on the part of the male, sung under similar conditions season after season. There is an absence of the persistent sex-brooding of the human male and female, which extends throughout the sexual period of their life. The environment of the bird may change, but so slowly that it is practically the same year after year. The environment of the human unit, on the other hand, is comparatively unstable. The human male also appeals to the female through the emotions. of song and colour, though he is more promiscuous in his loves than is the singing bird. The non-creative musical male interprets the appeal of musical sounds according to his degree of emotional appreciation and expression. The development of mind in human beings places male and female frequently on the same intellectual plane, and association on that plane may simulate a feminine element in the male,

New Series, Vol. VIII, No. 1.

or a male element in the female, and occasionally the latter creates new manifestations of emotion in colour and music. But as a rule the female is appreciative of the emotion of music, and not creative of music itself. It is further to be noted that in birds colour and music are usually apart. The bird of brilliant plumage is nearly always songless, whilst the smaller singing bird is more frequently associated with sombre feathers. The description I have given in former notes of the expression of emotion in a colour-blind person, shown in his face and voice, was drawn from an extensive experience of men who, from a colour and musical standard, might be termed primitive persons. (The Lancet, March 9th, 1912, p. 683). A much less extensive experience apart from this class suggests to me that when a person is blind to red and green, and also indifferent to musical sounds, the condition I then described in regard to the voice is accentuated. I infer, therefore, that when a person with a keen appreciation of musical sounds is blind to red and green, there still may be a degree of colour recognition through sound. When a person blind to red and green is in contrast to a person with a keen colour sense, immediately prior to examination by Holmgren's wools, the condition commo. to each mind is a degree of expectancy. The face and attitude of the red green blind is suggestive of a person who is listening; the face and attitude in the other of a person who is watching. In my small experience of musicians I recognise two types. colour type which is bright and joyous to instance Mozart, and a type which is introspective and gloomy with a comparative indifference to external objects, of which Beethoven may be taken as an example."

A

To-day is your day and mine, the only day we have; the day in which we play our part; what our part may signify in the great world we may not understand; but we are here to play it, and now is our time.

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

A thought, good or evil, an act, in time a habit, so runs life's law; what you live in your thought-world, that sooner or later you will find objectified in your life.

RALPH WALDO TRINE.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES.

DE SENECTUTE.1

BY

H. SEYMOUR HOUGHTON, M. D.,
New York City.

This is

On a recent evening at the Academy of Medicine a paper was read on "Geriatrics" which the reader, Dr. Nascher, explained was a name given to cover diseases of old age, the opposite of Pediatrics, for diseases of infancy and childhood. the final meeting of this Society for the year and soon many of us will be putting to serious thought the question of how to devote to holiday and recuperative purposes the sixty consecutive days which belong to us, to make up, as Dr. Crandall once explained to a patient who said he never took a vacation, for the fifty-two Sundays and eight holidays which the doc

It is the endlessness, the hopeless continuity of a doctor's work, the day in and day out, with a night out thrown in to punctuate the fact, if not actually busy, the rankling expectation of that truly astral bell, the telephone, which grieves the soul of the practitioner of medicine. The ordinary business man thinks he knows our sorrows, and says he is sorry for us, but I seriously doubt if he has the real keen appreciation of the actualities that we who are in the ranks are so familiar with. It is this type of a merry life that brings its occasional qualm, and makes us wonder if we can keep it up until something cracks.

As a

What is old age for a doctor? man he may be old at sixty or young at seventy or even eighty-two, as Dr. Jacobi, but as a doctor he is old simply at the time modern fashion may decree it, and I think at the present time fashion says that a doctor is old at a period in his life much earlier than was so considered by the past

tor never gets. It is because of the ap- generation. Sometimes it seems as if old, proach of summer, with its pleasing call to the woods, the camp and streams, to the ocean and rivers, to our little farms or country places, that I do not want to inflict upon you a formal paper on a medical subject of a truly scientific nature, but rather preach a little on the subject of old age from a point of view rather at variance with what would be acceptable from the rostrum of the Academy. Our colleague, Dr. Painter, is responsible for the following rather irreverent verselet:

"Kings Solomon and David led very merry lives,

The one with his concubines, the other with his wives.

But as old age crept on apace, they began to feel some qualms,

So Solomon wrote the proverbs, and David wrote the Psalms."

1 Read before the West End Medical Society.

experienced Dr. Jones would have to give way to the young progressive Dr. Smith, and the very fact of the existence of young progressive Dr. Smith forces old experienced Dr. Jones to sit up and take notice that his younger brother, unlike in the old. days, is to be reckoned with. I can understand the feeling the parent has watching with me the querulous touch, the double pair of eyeglasses, the slow feeling hist way through the mastoid of his child by one of our distinguished aural surgeons who is over seventy, as compared with the master hand of a Whiting or a McKernon. I cannot blame him for preferring the clear eye and brain of fewer years. A doctor is old at just that period of his life when his patients begin to think that a man younger than he can do his work

Complete Series, Vol. XIX.

Sex Emotions in Their Relation to Colors and Sounds. A percentage of human beings and birds have in common an inherited emotional factor which finds its expression in musical sounds, says George Henry Taylor, L. R. C. S., Edin. in a communication to the Lancet (Jan. 4, 1913). In bird life the musician is a male, excepting the rare cases where a caged female bird exhibits the emotion of song. The inherited emotion in each variety of singing bird is expressed in a sequence of notes peculiar to itself, although the quality of note may vary a little in different birds. By the selective breeding of caged birds the quality of note can be improved. For example, by mating finches of different varieties the offspring acquire a song which is a blend of the notes in the song of the male bird in each variety. Such birds are not fertile. No doubt the female bird admires with a keen appreciation the colour or song of her mate, but it is doubtful whether the colour or song of a male bird is a delight to others of his sex. A bird in a cage when singing appears to be in a state of rapture, and does not then give an observer the suggestion of intelligence as it does when, with head aslant, it is alert and observant.

"The period of sexual activity in singing birds alternates with a longer period of sexual calm, when male and female are associated in what is practically an asexual state. The sex song, therefore, of a singing bird is an emotional expression on the part of the male, sung under similar conditions season after season. There is an absence of the persistent sex-brooding of the human male and female, which extends throughout the sexual period of their life. The environment of the bird may change, but so slowly that it is practically the same year after year. The environment of the human unit, on the other hand, is comparatively unstable. The human male also appeals to the female through the emotions of song and colour, though he is more promiscuous in his loves than is the singing bird. The non-creative musical male interprets the appeal of musical sounds according to his degree of emotional appreciation and expression. The development of mind in human beings places male and female frequently on the same intellectual plane, and association on that plane may simulate a feminine element in the male,

New Series, Vol. VIII, No.

or a male element in the female, and casionally the latter creates new manife tions of emotion in colour and music. as a rule the female is appreciative of emotion of music, and not creative of m itself. It is further to be noted that in colour and music are usually apart. bird of brilliant plumage is nearly al songless, whilst the smaller singing b more frequently associated with s feathers. The description I have giv former notes of the expression of e in a colour-blind person, shown in h and voice, was drawn from an extens perience of men who, from a colo musical standard, might be termed tive persons. (The Lancet, Mar 1912, p. 683). A much less exten perience apart from this class sug me that when a person is blind to green, and also indifferent to sounds, the condition I then descri1 gard to the voice is accentuated therefore, that when a person wi appreciation of musical sounds i red and green, there still may be a colour recognition through soun person blind to red and green is to a person with a keen colour mediately prior to examination gren's wools, the condition com mind is a degree of expectanc and attitude of the red green gestive of a person who is 1 face and attitude in the other who is watching. In my sma of musicians I recognise tw colour type which is bright instance Mozart, and a type spective and gloomy with a c difference to external obje Beethoven may be taken as

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