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For More Than a Quarter of a Century

MICAJAH'S WAFERS

have unfailingly aided physicians in the treatment of the genital diseases
of women. Whenever Leucorrhea, Gonorrhea, Vaginitis or Urethritis is
present, or catarrhal, ulcerated or inflamed conditions exist in the vaginal
or uterine tract, MICAJAH'S WAFERS exert a prompt alleviative and
healing influence peculiar to this simple but potent local remedy. Their
gradual, continuous effect upon the mucous membrane is entirely
beneficial, while their tonic properties are absorbed with excellent
systemic effects. Local medication by MICAJAH'S WAFERS at once
arrests the spread of disease, and in many cases effects complete recovery.
Approved and used by physicians all over the world.

GENEROUS TRIAL SAMPLES AND LITERATURE FREE ON REQUEST

MICAJAH & COMPANY

Warren, Pa.

A good typewriter is an almost indispensable part of the equipment of an up-to-date physician. No long course of training is necessary to learn to operate a typewriter, as it can be easily mastered during your leisure moments. Its advantages are many. A good typewriter will quickly pay for itself in the time it will save you in your correspondence, billing, etc. Also if your prescriptions are written with a typewriter, it obviates any possibility of their being misunderstood by the druggists due to illegible handwriting. A No. 5 Oliver is one of the standard machines, and is particularly adapted to the use of physicians on account of its keyboard with medical symbols, and paper fingers for feeding labels. It may be purchased on the partial payment plan. See details on adv. page xxii.

Doctor, what are you doing for the drug addicts who come to you for relief because they are now unable to secure their accustomed drugs? Whenever it is practical you doubtless send them to an institution specializing along this line, as it is conceded that institutional treatment, where there is absolute control over dietetic, hygienic and therapeutical measures, approaches nearest to the ideal. However, many of these unfortunates either cannot or will not take advantage of institutional treatment. Many such cases have been treated successfully by the family physician by the use of the gradual reduction method marketed by Combs Chemical Co. and known as Hyos-sco-phine. This treatment has the great advantage that it may be adjusted to the individual requirements of each case and can be given at the patient's home without interfering with his ordinary duties. Refer to adv. page xxi and send for formula and literature.

The D. A. B. D. Aprons are a very neat conception to add to the comfort, assist in the cure, and prevent spreading of the infection in gonorrhea of the male. Combining a suspensory for the testicles and a cotton-containing pouch for the penis, with a pocket for carrying cotton and a flap for its easy application and removal, it constitutes a real luxury, and is sold at a moderate price. See adv. page xxiv.

Doctor, please refer to the colored insert in this issue of THE MEDICAL WORLD. It represents a typical case of septic infection and is illustrative of the influence of Echitone on the phagocytic function. Strong, Cobb & Co. are the manufacturers of Echitone and they will be pleased to send sample and literature upon request if you mention THE MEDICAL WORLD.

"The Medicinal Trocar in Dropsical Effusion" is the descriptive phrase used by the manufac turers of Anedemin to explain its purpose and aetion in the treatment of all forms of dropsy resulting from the heart, liver and kidneys. Anedemin is indicated in cases of ascites, anasarca, Bright's disease, nephritis, cirrhosis and valvular disturb ances, and those other conditions accompanied by forms of edema. It is a prompt and positive hydragogue, an efficient diuretic and an ideal cardiac tonic. Can be pushed to a finish-is non-toxic and not cumulative. The formula of Anedemin includes apocynum cannibinum, urginea scilla, strophanthus hispidus and sambucus. Samples with interesting reports and literature will be mailed free to WORLD readers. See further details on adv. page ix.

(Continued on page ææli.)

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Valentine's Meat-Juice

In Typhoid Fever Valentine's Meat-Juice demonstrates its Ease of Assimilation and Power of Restoring and Strengthening.

1. Burney Yeo, M. D., Professor of Therapeutics, King's College, London, in the well known work, "Food in Health and Disease": "In a very severe case of Typhoid, under our care in King's College Hospital, with most alarming and profuse hemorrhage, we carried out a rigorous method of feeding with remarkably satisfactory results. The clear indication was to keep the intestines absolutely at rest and to allow no debris of food to pass through to excite peristaltic action. It was necessary therefore to give food which, while adequate to sustain and strengthen the patient, should be wholly absorbed in the stomach and upper part of the small intestines. To give milk might be fatal. For our purpose we selected VALENTINE'S MEAT-JUICE, giving one teaspoonful in a wineglassful of cold water every three hours, with one teaspoonful of brandy. The patient's diet was absolutely limited to these quantities for seven days. The plan answered admirably and the patient made a perfect recovery and fairly rapid convalescence." For Sale by American and European Chemists and Druggists. VALENTINE'S MEAT-JUICE CO., RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, U. S. A.

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PRESSURE

with an instrument you can depend upon to give an accurate reading. Faught's Pocket Aneroid Blood Pres sure Apparatus is the most dependable on the market. Mechanically perfect, accurate, simple, easy to use and can be applied in a moment. May be carried in the pocket. Price, including Faught's Blood Pressure Primer, 120 pages, $22.50 net. May be purchased on partial-payment plan. Money promptly returned if not satisfied after thirty days' trial. Several blood pressure instruments, mechanically perfect, but slightly shopworn, at about one-half usual price.

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THE ALLISON LINE

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PHYSICIANS' EQUIPMENT

Is Complete and Unexcelled

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PRINCIPAL AGENCIES

110 E. 23d St., New York
121 N. Wabash Ave., Chicago

Indianapolis

691 Boylston St., Boston
25 S. 17th St., Phils.
304 Empire Bldg., Pittsburgh
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The knowledge that a man can use is the only real knowledge; the only knowledge that has life and growth in it and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs like dust about the brain, or dries like raindrops off the stones.-FROUDE.

cian in Brooklyn has been arrested for treat

The Medical World ing narcotic addicts because one of his pa

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Philadelphia, Pa.

No. 11

Prescribing for Narcotic Addicts Under the Harrison Law.

We have received many inquiries as to a physician's status under the Harrison act in treating narcotic addicts. It appears that several doctors have been told that the Harrison law prevents them from treating that class of cases. A physician in Virginia writes us that he has been arrested by the internal revenue department for prescribing for a morphin addict on the ground that his prescriptions called for too much morphin, contrary to the Harrison law. A physician in Texas writes us that he has been told by the revenue department that he cannot lawfully treat narcotic addicts under the Harrison law and must cease to do so. A physi

tients was found with morphin in his pocket. The utter foolishness of the statement that physicians shall not treat a particular class of patients does not appear evident to the revenue department, else it would not have been made. No government ever would be so ridiculous as to interfere with the cure of any of its residents. It would no more attempt to prevent the cure of narcotic addicts than it would of the tuberculous or cancerous or, in fact, of those afflicted with any other malady.

If physicians are not to treat them, who are to do so? Just why the internal revenue department presumes to tell physicians that they cannot treat such cases is an enigma to us. There is absolutely nothing in the Harrison law to prevent a physician from treating any number of narcotic addicts. There is no limitation to his prescriptions, nor to his dispensing, if legally required records are made.

However, the prescribing or dispensing of narcotics is a very serious matter. The Harrison law was enacted for the purpose of controlling the handling of such drugs, that they might be kept entirely out of the hands of persons not using them properly. For the protection of both patient and physician the doctor should have a consultant in each case treated. Where two physicians agree as to the treatment, it seems to us there could be no inquisitorial interference. by any government official. In all cases where it can be shown that the patient is undergoing a reduction in the amount of narcotics consumed the physician has nothing to fear.

The duty of physicians toward this pitiful class of patients is to relieve them, and to discourage in every possible way the continuation of the habit. Steady reduction, with use of eliminatives and tonics, can safely reduce the original quantity used to a minimum, which will be only a fraction of the amount originally used. This can be done at home in the course of several weeks,

when the patient should be sent to a hospital or a special institution to complete the cure.

The records which the Harrison law requires to be made make it possible for the proper authorities to trace the drugs to the consumer. If suspiciously large quantities are traced to any physician, it is entirely proper that the authorities should call and inquire into the matter. If any doctor is found guilty of using his professional rights and position to foster the continuance or increase of addiction to narcotic drugs, he should be stopped with a firm hand and punished. Such a man should be driven from the profession in disgrace.

The Origin of Bacterial Infections. The scope of bacteriology is constantly enlarging. As investigators go farther afield seeking the great "first cause" of infectious disease they are led to believe that all germs have a single original parent, an Adam and Eve combined, so to speak. We have on more than one occasion called attention to the work of careful investigators who have found infectious diseases in plants due to germs. The chestnut blight that has swept over North America is a well-known example, in which our American chestnut trees have been and are still being destroyed by an infection brought from Japan.

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Plant Tumors.

Packard' describes parasitic growths on trees bearing resemblances to tumors occurring in human beings. One group of his illustrations shows a series of vegetable tumors caused by a deposit of insect ova upon and among vegetable cells. One picture shows very large masses of carcinoma quercus rubræ, a tree cancer found in great abundance among the red oak trees of Cape Cod and caused by the bacillus phyto-phymato. He also shows pictures of vegetable tumors of bacterial origin upon the daisy caused by bacterium tumefaciens. All these were artifically produced by inoculation. with pure cultures of the germs derived from the plant tumors. Packard, in his article, displays a photograph of multiple melanosarcoma by the side of a picture of the red oak trees affected with the tumors, and the resemblance is striking.

'Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics, February, 1913; MEDICAL WORLD, June, 1913, pages 223 and 224.

Abelmann is endeavoring to learn, by experiments, whether cancer is parasitic or not. He believes it is.

Erwin F. Smith, of the United States Department of Agriculture, says that, so far as known, all overgrowths on plants. such as galls and common knots on forest trees, are caused by parasites.

Bacteria of Trees and Men.

Stephen J. Maher' has been investigating these flora of the woods and studying their effect on man. He divides them into: (1) spore-bearing bacilli, (2) non-spore-bearing bacilli, (3) cocci, and (4) yeasts, molds and the higher forms.

When a spore-bearing bacillus reaches the limit of its power of vegetative growth. either because it has covered the surface of the hard medium on which it has been planted or because it has produced a sufficient amount of toxins in liquid media to inhibit its further development, each little rod (bacterium) transforms itself into ovoidal or round shapes sometimes thicker than the original rods and sometimes thinner. These shapes-the spores-are the resting stage of the bacillus. They undergo no further change as they grow older, except that they thicken their outer capsule, and thus become somewhat more resistant to such harmful influences as heat and acid. As soon as they are transplanted to a favorable environment they grow again into rod shapes and multiply as rods.

When the spore-bearing bacillus finds its life threatened by cold or starvation or by poisoning by its own secretions it becomes a spore or two spores. When its environment is merely difficult, not exactly threatening, the bacillus lengthens out into filaments or develops internal coccal granules.

The only spore-bearing bacilli that cause disease are the bacilli of anthrax, tetanus and gas bacillus. Much attention to these three germs has been given because they produce disease. But the harmless sporebearing bacilli that we often drink with our milk and that we always eat with our salad have received very scant attention by the

Illinois Medical Journal, February, 1915; MEDICAL WORLD, July, 1915, page 244.

"Proceedings of Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine," London, 1913; MEDICAL WORLD, July, 1915, page 244.

The Bacterial Flora of Trees and Men," Presidential Address to the Connecticut State Medical Society, Hartford, Conn., May 20, 1915. Publisht in the Transactions of the Connecticut State Medical Society, 1915.

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