Gelsemium Red I We consider the Crowning Pharmaceutical Success in the line of a Gelsemium preparation to be the elegant Specific Medicine, Gelsemium Red. Characteristics. This preparation has the following characteristics. It is of a rich crimson color, and can not be mistaken for a common fluid. It has no unpleasant odor, being practically odorless. It does not change in quality from age, neither precipitating nor undergoing other alteration. In medicinal proportions it mixes without precipitation with water, glycerin, syrup, simple elixir, dilute alcohol, or other ordinary prescription diluents. It possesses the full therapeutic properties of fresh Gelsemium, without such objectionable products and by-products as may be found in ordinary preparations of the drug. The dose is the same as that of the old style Specific Medicine Gelsemium, that stood for decades as a standard. However, its cleanness and clearness, its perfect dilution without precipitation, and its ready assimilation, makes Gelsemium Red exceptionally attractive, effective, and pleasing to the patient. A Beautiful Experiment. To a half tumbler of clear water, add one fluid drachm (or less) of Specific Medicine Gelsemium Red. There will be no precipitate. Add now half a teaspoonful of baking soda. A beautiful, fluorescent, ultramarine blue color results. Specific Medicine Gelsemium Red is made by means of the recently discovered Lloyd's Reagent, which enables us to exclude the inert coloring matters of the crude root. The preparation carries the full therapeutic qualities of the drug, (alkaloid and otherwise), and it is, in every wise, a perfect pharmaceutical compound. Commendations. In a therapeutical sense, the reports of physicians who have used Gelsemium Red speak for themselves. These reports will be printed soon and mailed on request. They are of exceptional value, because of the great experience of their authors in the direction of the clinical use of Gelsemium in disease. Within a year thousands of physicians, in even stronger terms, will commend Gelsemium Red to their brother practitioners. The stocks of all jobbers are now being supplied with "Gelsemium Red," at the usual list price of Specific Medicine Gelsemium. (Send for descriptive pamphlet). December 1, 1914. LLOYD BROTHERS, GEORGE W. BOSKOWITZ, M. D., Editor. Subscription, $1.00; To Foreign Countries, $1.24 Per Annum. Contributions, Exchanges, Books for Review and all other communications should be addressed to "The Eclectic Review," 260 West 86th Street, New York City, N. Y. Original Articles of interest to the profession are solicited. All rejected manuscripts will be returned to writers. No anonymous letters or discourteous communications will be printed. The editor is not responsible for the views of contributors. VOL. XVIII. NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 15, 1915 No. 9 Hints and Winnowings. An alliance with the Homeopathic school of medicine of a character likely to assure concerted action against the attempts of the retail druggists to deprive physicians of their ancient right to dispense the remedies they prescribe, has for a long time to me seemed desirable. It is possible that separate action of the two schools would be equally effective in convincing legislators of the viciousness of the class legislation constantly being demanded by the retail druggists throughout the United States-legislation equally ruinous to Eclectic and Homeopathic physicians and beneficial only to the financial interests of the druggists-but, on the contrary, I believe that a united action of the two schools would exert a far more powerful influence along this line. In my opinion it is absolutely necessary for the Homeopaths and Eclectics to combine against the retail druggist in a fight for their rights, and that now is the time to prepare for it. Shall we unite and make an effective fight, or shall we continue to act on the principle of "letting George do it," and waken some fine morning to find that the only means of treating the sick allowed in our medicine cases is a prescription pad? Preparedness and eternal vigilance are the prices we must pay in order to retain our rights. This is a cleancut fight and sooner or later it will have to be fought to a finish. Doctor, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to vote for a member of your legislature without knowing just how he stands on this vital question? Of course you are not. The coalition of the Eclectic and Homeopathic schools of medicine, which has been suggested by some writers, has nothing whatever to do with the foregoing. Coalition is another story, and in my opinion an impossible proposition. So far as I know, Dr. T. H. Carmichael, a prominent homeopathic writer of Philadelphia, was the first to suggest merging the two schools. His recent article on the subject, published in a late issue of the New England Medical Gazette, evidences sincerity and the fact that the author believes that a union of the two schools would be eminently wise and practicalthat such action would redound to the credit and welfare of the healing art, but in my opinion he is wrong. While the two schools are especially schools of materia medica, their methods of study and investigation of drugs are essentially different, as are also their methods of practice. Apparently Dr. Carmichael is not well versed in Eclectic literature. Had he been it is more than probable that he would not have suggested this merger. Now, let us see how Dr. Carmichael understands the two elements he proposes to unite in one school of medicine. In speaking of the homeopathic law of similars he says: "It is a law (some prefer to call it a method) for the administration of remedies-whose pathogenesis have been found through their administration to healthy human beings-to patients who present similar conditions to those produced in the drug pathogenesis. This necessarily requires a small, safe dose and the administration of the single remedy. "To this great law, principle or method of similars, the Homeopathic school stands pledged, and prominent Eclectics admit that it is the basis upon which their specific prescribing rests." It will be observed that in this proposed new school of medicine the homeopathic part of it is to "stand pledged to this great law, principle or method of similars." There is to be no modification of this "great law of similars," and therefore the Eclectic part of the new organization is expected to accept it in its entirety, because, according to Dr. Carmichael's statement, certain prominent Eclectics admit "it is the basis upon which their specific prescribing rests," or, in other words, for the reason that certain so-called Eclectics have confessed that, as a matter of fact, they are good. homeopaths. Dr. Carmichael, in planning the new school, does not seem to think it necessary to take into consideration the fact that the average Eclectic is not only not likely to become "pledged to the great. law of similars," but he is very likely to continue to select his remedial agents according to entirely different methods. As an illustration of such methods I will briefly quote from the writings of Dr. John M. Scudder, the most eminent of Eclectic authorities, who said: "If we want to know the curative action of drugs we are obliged to test them in disease. * * We find that certain drugs will prove curative in diseases presenting peculiar symptoms which these drugs will not produce. These symptoms may be absent or present in any disease without seemingly affecting the origin, progress or duration -or, indeed, seeming to have no relation to the pathological processes. Here the physiological proving gives no information; and our knowledge must come from experimentation in disease." The Eclectic and Homeopathic schools of medicine are now doing good work along their own special lines, and I do not believe that either their efficiency or prosperity would be increased by coalition, Uterine fibroids, in many cases, are successfully treated with roentgen therapy, and Dr. J. D. Gibson, in the Medical Times, says that Dr. Pfahler, of Philadelphia, who has treated many cases of uterine fibroma with roentgen therapy, considers it the method of choice for the control of hemorrhage in patients approaching the menopause in whom carcinoma can be eliminated. He does not consider it the method of choice under forty years of age. It should be resorted to in any age where there is serious organic lesions of the heart, kidneys, anemia, etc., barring surgical interference. Then again, there are some patients who positively will not submit to the knife and then its use is admissible. It is very evident at the present time that the men who have treated the most cases and have had the most experience with the method, are the most enthusiastic, and some of them have even gone so far as to claim that all uterine fibroids should be treated by deep roentgen therapy, and that only certain exceptions should be treated by the knife, an entire reversal of the edict of one and two years ago when the knife, it was thought, should be the general rule of procedure. and the x-ray the exception. Pulsus alternans is the subject of an interesting article by Dr. J. B. Herrick, and published in the Journal of the A. M. A. In his article Dr. Herrick suggests a method of determining the variations of strength of pulse by increasing or decreasing the pressure of the cuff of the sphygmomanometer, a method which so far as he knows, has not been described by others. As an illustration he says, in a case of symptoms indicating high blood pressure but where no irregular rhythm or difference in strength of pulse beats can be made out by palpation of the radial artery, when the pressure of the manometer reaches 195 mm. of mercury, the radial pulse which had been 80 drops to 40, and remains at that rate till 210. mm. is reached, then disappearing, testing in the reverse order and watching the changes in the added beats, it can be seen that the pulse is clearly of the alternating character. Sometimes other instruments may be required, but this will serve in most cases; and while the information given is not always essential, it is a help in making the prognosis, the pulsus alternans being rightly regarded as often indicating a serious impairment of the muscular efficiency of the heart. A stone impacted in the lower two inches of the ureter may be felt by a finger introduced into the rectum in the male, or the vagina in the female, the fingers of the other hand making counter pressure above the pubes. A stone traveling from the kidney to the bladder may be arrested in any part of the ureter, but the positions in which it is most likely to get impacted are: at a point two inches from the upper end of the ureter; at the brim of the pelvis ; and at the vesical end of the canal. In pruritus ani, says Dr. Murray, skin infection is the most important factor. There are two varieties of this condition, one which may be coincident with some diseases of the rectum, in which the skin infection is not present; the other, which is chronic in character, and in which the skin infection is present. He believes that, in cases of rectal disease associated with moisture upon the anal skin in which pruritis is a symptom, the pruritus is coincident with, rather than caused by, these discharges. Neglect of the temperature may result in grave errors. Think how pyrexia coupled with headache and general seediness suggests typhoid fever instead of some trivial disorder; how the same feature allied to a cough, weakness, malaise, and indigestion builds up a strong suspicion of phthisis; how the temperature aids in the diagnosis of that obscure condition, pain in the side-whether neuralgia, herpes, muscular rheumatism, splenic infarct, abscess of the chestwall or pleurisy, may be present. Albuminarria of a purely functional character has often been treated as a grave form of kidney disease and the patient thereby given undue anxiety. Here a history of the wrong and a thoughtful examination would often make this unnecessary. Chest wrongs should be carefully examined, for it is common enough to be in doubt as to which is the healthy and which is the diseased side. In numerous cases only the most thorough use of the stethoscope has been able to remove the doubt. Scabies is frequently not suspected in a cleanly person, but while such a person may not be as liable to be affected as some others are, it will not do to allow that fact to influence the diagnosis. FYFE. Cholera in Austria-Hungary.-A cable report early this week stated that an epidemic of cholera was prevailing in Vienna, over 500 new cases occurring each day in that city, and that the ravages of the disease were even greater in Budapest. The epidemic is said to be spreading also in the eastern provinces, especially among the troops in Galicia.-Record. |