was in two pieces. The lower piece was fixed and had a semi-circular opening for the back of the neck. The upper piece was movable. It had a semi-circular opening for the front of the neck. This piece slid down upon the neck like a guillotine. Cotton was placed between the edges of the openings and the skin. A hole of about 2 cm. in diameter was made in each of the two sides of the box. Cotton was placed in these holes to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide and air. The carbon dioxide entered one of these holes. It came from a cylinder provided with a regulating valve. On its way DR. BLAKE IN NEW AMERICAN HOSPITAL IN PARIS. A scene in the laboratory of the new American Red Cross Hospital in Paris, formally it bubbled thru a water bottle. The volume of gas employed was judged by the number of bubbles per minute. Enough gas was used to double the respiration. The patient was in the inclined position, the feet 30 cm. higher than the head. The writer believes it would be of advantage to use carbon dioxide during operations. Great care should be taken to discontinue the carbon dioxide very gradually. Carbon dioxide breathing may also be given without any apparatus except the box. In that case the patient produces his own carbon dioxide. in the fight against this scourge the important part held by dogs as innocent carriers has never received the attention that it deserves. Moisture and warmth are the natural breeding conditions of tubercular bacilli, and the dog furnishes these conditions to perfection. He is lavish in his scattering of them and is immune himself. Every dog in a community is a living menace of tuberculous infection. Diagnostic Teeth. The typical Hutchinson tooth with which we are all familiar, is but one of many types of dental deformity produced by inherited syphilis. The very nature of the disease, most active as it is during the period of tooth formation, may produce an infinite variety of abnormal dental shapes and arrangements, the presence of any one of which when associated with disease in other parts of the body should arouse suspicion as to the pathology of the active process where positive evidence of its non-syphilitic origin is lacking. To ignore these signals of hereditary taint which nature has placed so conspicuously before us in from the neck to the ends of the toes and finger tips on three or four successive nights. A bath should then be given and wait three or four days to see if the treatment has been successful and to avoid producing a dermatitis.International Clinics. To Keep Ants Out of Cupboards.-A strip of ordinary tape or other fabric, an inch wide, smeared with castor oil, tied neatly two or three inches from the floor, around the legs of safes, tables, etc., where ants are troublesome, IN DOCTOR BLAKE'S AMERICAN HOSPITAL AT RIS-ORANGIS NEAR PARIS. A scene in the American Hospital of Dr. Blake at Ris-Orangis, twenty miles from Paris where the former well known American physician Dr. Blake and his wife are devoting their lives to alleviating the sufferings of the sick and wounded French soldiers. Mrs. Blake was the former Mrs. Katherine Duer Mackay, and volunteered her services in the Military Hospital at Neuilly. The famous "Blake Splint" is shown in both pictures at the left. It is now in use in all of the Allied Hospitals. Mrs. Blake spends her days reading to wounded soldiers and writing letters for those who are unable to use their arms. is to invite diagnostic disaster.-New York Medical Journal. Scabies. Ten or twelve per cent. sulphuric ointment is an efficient remedy, but is too irritating for infants and young children. Hartzell recommends for the latter equal parts of styrax and olive oil, or one or two drams of balsam of Peru to the ounce of vaseline. Whichever remedy is used, it should be rubbed will prevent, it is said, any ant from crossing the tape. The oil must be renewed every month or so, and care taken to prevent the tape becoming dusty.-Bulletin of Phar. Book Mold.-According to the Scientific American mold can be prevented from forming on books in damp weather by placing a few drops of oil of lavender and Canada balsam in the back corner of each book-shelf. American Medicine H. EDWIN LEWIS, M. D., Managing Editor IRA S. WILE, M. D., Associate Editor PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE AMERICAN MEDICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. Vitalizing Statistics.-Vital statistics. were for years regarded as dry-as-dust compilations of figures brought together for reasons more or less obscure, or for determining the numerical status of some particular problem. The vital characteristics of statistics have only recently been appreciated. The socialization process which is at work thruout the country has transformed statistics into a dynamic science, the usefulness of which is increasing daily. In America statistical analysis has been neglected, possibly because of a lack of interest and cooperation on the part of those whose duty it has been to gather the essential data for statistical purposes. Even such important figures as those relating to the birth rates and death rates are not available for every state in the Union, and an official publication upon birth statistics only recently has made its appearance for the first time in the history of this country. Guilfoy and Kopf (New York Medical Journal, October 6th, 1917) present a progress report of the Committee on Relation of 1920 Census to Vital Statistics prepared for the Section in Vital Statistics of the American Public Health Association. The significant feature of their report is the breadth of their recommendations and the evidence of a sense of responsibility in suggesting more accurate and inclusive records of statistics in practically every branch of human activity. The numerous discussions concerning social insurance have indicated the lack of satisfactory data concerning morbidity, and the value of institutional returns of morbidity and mortality in civil and military life for future opinion and guidance should be fully recognized. The enumeration of sickness among selected populations secured thru a sickness survey is of immense importance in determining methods of municipal attack upon health problems. Insurance societies have assembled masses of valuable data much of which has not been analyzed or published. A cooperative study of insurance experience would be exceedingly useful in connection with projected legislation involving employers' liability or workman's compensation. The study of vital statistics of industry with relation to occupational mortality and disease merits due recognition by the United States Census Bureau. The relation between society and the individual is so close that single factors affecting health can be picked out with difficulty save in connection with some particular affliction, such as caisson disease. A widened scope of interest in the social and economic affairs of society makes it imperative that statistical inquiries into morbidity and mortality take cognizance of the social and economic items recognizedly influencing public health or personal welfare. |