THE GET-RICH-QUICK DISEASE.

THE many instances of the fleecing and killing of innocent lambs in Wall Street seem to have no deterring effect upon the oncoming crop of people. This, the present scheme, is so novel, and so sure to reap a rich harvest soon and certain! All it needs is the additional selling of some fifty thousand preferred, paid-up, non-assessable shares of its treasury stock at from fifteen to thirty cents a share, in order that the proper machinery may be hauled to the ground, via muleback, to crush the ore and handle it, in its various stages of transformation from the crude and earth-incrusted product until it reaches the pockets of the shareholders in real golden gold dollars worth a hundred cents each on the nail.

Why do so many of our doctors take such interest in mines and other speculative enterprises? There is scarcely a mail that does not bring to us a scheme with halftone illustrations, signed, or, at least, fathered by some heretofore level-headed medical man, promising fabulous results in a few months-if, etc., etc.

There seems to be a very conspiracy to make us rich, whether we would or no. Chicago has sent us repeated circulars concerning gold mines of AI order and double A2 profits. Philadelphia sends us coppermining literature to burn. And that is the way it usually goes.

Why insist so strenuously on drawing us out of our parish practice with its poverty and honesty? Why not leave us poor, but respectable? We have no money to invest in gold bricks or copper lodes. What little we have laid aside, and are in the Saturdayevening habit of laying aside, we hope some day to put into a gasolene automobile, with red wheels, with a large locomotive noise, so that the whole neighborhood, where we may have an isolated case, shall hear us as we approach and depart with our leather cap and chauffeur, and comment suitably, from front porch to front porch, on our wonderful skill and ability, and our large practice; while, during the Grand Army

Encampment week, when everybody else. all over the city, the poorest as well as the wealthiest, are patriotic, and adding bunting and mottoes and flags to the front of the house, we will exploit our enthusiasm and our patriotism by throwing lovingly to the breeze from our second-story window a cheap, 35-cent, printed American flag! Selah.

No, really, if we wanted to get rich quick, we would borrow enough money to "grub-stake" our family and ourself for a few months, meanwhile hie us to Chicago or New York, take a post-graduate course, and come back with a tailor-made suit of clothes, a motherhubbard Raglan, a large Latin diploma, and, thereafter, hang out as a specialist.

Please, doctors and and specialists, don't tempt us beyond human endurance with your gold bricks and coppered aces. The flesh is weak. Our wealth and our ability have not yet reached such proportions that we must take contract practice at so much per family per year, or put our ill-gotten. gains in our wife's name.

We enjoy being poor and insignificant.Am. Homeopathist.

CONCERNING BURNS.

DR. GRIFFITH, in an able and authoritative paper in the Medical News, on the subject of burns, thus summarizes his analysis. and treatment of these painful'accidents:

Burns are the commonest of injuries, and of all wounds they are treated least in accordance with now universally taught and accepted surgical principles.

Burns may be divided into two degrees of severity: burns of the first degree involve the skin only, those of the second degree include all others.

The pathology of burns is the pathology of inflammation of the part locally affected with almost all the morbid changes possible in the complications which result.

Early death and internal complications

after burns are due to direct action of heat, with fragmentation and vital change in the blood corpuscles; later effects are due to infection taking place from the burned area.

The condition of the granulations during the healing of burns is the determining factor in the amount of contraction and subsequent deformity which takes place. The greater the friction caused by irritation from whatever source, the larger will be the granulations, the greater the amount of connective tissue and the greater will be the contraction.

The local treatment of burns from the earliest times has been along the lines of prevention of irritation, but the late ad vances made in wound treatment have not been followed out in these.

The burn wound should be cleansed of as much dead, burned tissues as possible; the thoroughness with which this clearing away of the eschar is done will determine in a great measure the amount of future discharge, and the presence or absence of infecting organisms.

Hydrogen dioxid to wash away the débris and render aseptic the denuded parts is the best antiseptic at our command; rubber tissue in strips should be laid on the wound to prevent contact with the absorbent dressing.

The use of splints to secure relaxation and retention in obtaining rest for a burned part is of great importance and is as much indicated in this form of injury as in fractures of the contiguous bones.

The internal treatment of burns is stimu:lative until reaction from shock has taken place, when it becomes supportive.

DEATH STATISTICS OF THE

UNITED STATES.

THE Census Bureau, on August 21st, made public the mortality statistics for the year 1901. W. A. King, chief of the Vital Statistics Division, says:

"The most important feature of the results presented is found in the decrease in the general death-rate in the registration area of 1.8 per 1,000 of population, a decrease of nearly 10 per cent., and the decrease in the rates from the particular diseases to which the general decrease is due.

"The effect of the advances made in medical science and sanitation and in the preventive and restrictive measures enforced by the health authorities is still more strikingly shown in the comparative rate for the registration cities of the countries taken together. In 1890 the death-rate in 271 registration cities of 5,000 or more population was 21 per 1,000; in 1900 the rate was 18.6 per 1,000; in 341 cities of 8,000 population and upward, a reduction of 2.4 per 1,000. The gross population of the cities comprehended was 14,958,254 in 1890, and 21,660,631 in 1900.

"The entire significance of these figures can be properly weighed only when the rates for the individual cities are considered in connection with known conditions of local improvement in sanitation and health regulations-factors which are not of a statistical nature and which were not developed by the inquiries in the schedules.

"The decrease in the general death-rate, and in the rates due to diseases frequent in the early years of life, on one hand, and the increase in the rates due to those diseases

The bowels and kidneys must be continuously kept open, but enemas only should be employed.

Watchful attention must be paid for early signs of internal complications of viscera.

[All good and sensible, except the opium. Certainly the astute physician or surgeon will avoid this bête noir of routine practice.-ED. GAZETTE.]

the other, mean also increased longevity. "The average age at death in 1890 was 31.1 years; in 1900 it was 35.2 years.

"The total number of deaths reported in 1900 was 1,039.094; in 1890 it was 841,419. The increase was, therefore, 197,675, or 23.5 per cent. As the percentage of increase in the population was but 20.7, this indicates a more complete return of deaths than in 1890.

"The total deaths in the various States and Territories for 1900 are as follows: Alabama, 25,699; Arizona, 1,223; Arkansas, 22,518; California, 22,506; Colorado, 7,428; Connecticut, 15,422; Delaware, 3,075; District of Columbia, 6,304; Florida, 6,482; Georgia, 26,941; Idaho, 1,242; Illinois, 61,229; Indiana, 33,586; Indian Territory, 6,286; Iowa, 19,573; Kansas, 16,261; Kentucky, 27,091; Louisiana, 20,955; Maine, 12,148; Maryland, 20,422; Massachusetts, 49,756; Michigan, 33,572; Minnesota, 17,005; Mississippi, 20,251; Missouri, 38,084; Montana, 2,188; Nebraska, 8,264; Nevada, 438; New Hampshire, 7,400; New Jersey, 32,735; New Mexico, 2,674; New York, 130,268; North Carolina, 21,068; North Dakota, 2,287; Ohio, 53,362; Oklahoma, 3,181; Oregon, 3,396; Pennsylvania, 90,199; Rhode Island, 8,176; South Carolina, 17,166; South Dakota, 3,088; Tennessee, 30,572; Texas, 34,160; Utah, 3,079; Vermont, 5,829; Virginia, 25,252; Washington, 4,910; West Virginia, 9,588; Wisconsin, 24,928; Wyoming, 767.

"In the registration area the fifteen principal causes of death, with the rate per 100,000, was as follows:

"Pneumonia, 191.9; consumption, 190.5; heart disease, 134; diarrheal diseases, 85.1; kidney diseases, 83.7; apoplexy, 66.6; cancer, 60; old age, 54; bronchitis, 48.3; cholera infantum, 47.8; debility, 45.5; inflammation of brain and meningitis, 41.8; diphtheria, 34.4; typhoid, 33.8; and premature birth, 33.7. Death from all the principal diseases shows a decrease since 1890, the most notable being in consumption, which decreased 54.9 per 100,000."

THE New York Central Railroad employs 30,000 men. About I per cent. are dismissed yearly for spirit drinking. Twenty years ago nearly 20 per cent. were discharged yearly for this cause. The demand for temperate men grows steadily every year, and the supervision of the habits of all persons engaged on the road and train service is more and more exact.

WE notice that the uncleanly custom of "kissing the book" continues to be a topic of protest in some of the English medical journals. In this country there does not seem to be so much occasion for protest, because in some of our States the act apparently is no longer obligatory. We recently observed in one of our Philadelphia courts that the witness who was willing to be sworn was simply required to lay his hand on the Bible. The book was laid open before him, and he, laying his hand on its pages, took the oath. Another expedient which the witness has, is to take the "Scotch oath," or to "swear with the uplifted hand." This is a particularly dramatic and soul-thrilling ceremonial, and ought to satisfy anybody's conscience. At the same time it has the advantage of being aseptic.

The adjuration which requires to be sealed by pressing the lips on the dirty cover of an old book, had indeed better be abolished. The countless lips that have been

there before have most of them not been eloquent with piety or redolent with the perfume of a holy life.

The truth is that the whole ceremony is a relic of an obsolete form of thought. To the scientific mind it would seem that a man should be accepted as truthful until he is proved to be a liar, and that no antiquated rite will convert a liar into an honest man. The physician should be above the necessity of taking an oath, and might safely be allowed to follow the injunction to swear not at all. Certainly all physicians should protest against the custom of "kising the book" if for no other reason than that it is unhygienic.

THE GAZETTE says amen to every word of the above, from the Philadelphia Medical Journal. Kissing the book is a relic of the Dark Ages. The oath has in all ordinary cases lost its sacredness, and in the other or extraordinary cases it is wholly unneccessary. Every honest man's word is as sacred as his oath, and the dishonest man's oach isn't worth the time it takes to mumble it over. It is a dead form and ought to be

cremated.

WEAK EYES.

RECENT investigations by a German doctor show that only one person in fifteen has both eyes in good condition, and that in seven cases out of ten one eye, generally the right, is stronger than the other. It is also true that just as people are right or lefthanded, so are they right or left-sightedthat is to say, while they are apparently looking with both eyes they often really use only one, and out of twenty persons whose eyes were tested, two only were found to be left-sighted.

The reason of the greater strength possessed by the right eye is not clearly known, but it is suggested that the greater use of the right side of the body-which seems a natural tendency-has something to do with it. In using weapons, for instance,

mankind have been taught for ages to assume attitudes in which the right hand and side have most exercise-a discipline which has doubtless had its effect on the eye itself.

Gunsmiths now carefully allow for right or left-sightedness in making firearms to order. Old sea captains, after long use of the telescope and other instruments used in making calculations at sea, often find their right eye much stronger than the left-the direct effect, evidently, of exercise drawing the sight, as it were, into the eye most used.

THE EYES.

LOOKING into the fire is very injurious to the eyes, particularly by a coal fire. The stimulus of light and heat united soon destroys the eyes. Looking at molten iron will soon destroy the sight. Reading in the twilight is injurious to the eyes, as they are obliged to make great exertions. Reading or sewing with a side light injures the eyes, as both eyes should be exposed to an equal degree of light. The reason is the sympathy between the eyes is so great that if the pupil of one is dilated by being kept partially in the shade, the one that is most exposed cannot contract itself sufficiently for protection, and will ultimately be injured. Those who wish to preserve their sight should preserve their general health by correct habits of living, and give their eyes just work enough, with a due degree. of light.

"LET your digestion be but sound,
Your side unwrung by spasm or stitch,
Your foot unconscious of a twitch,
And could you be more truly blest,
Though of the wealth of kings possessed?"
-Theodore Martin.

HAIR TONICS.

MANY times scalp and hair diseases are caused by depraved conditions of nutrition, lack of exercise, gastric and intestinal derangements. Sometimes in men the excessive use of tobacco (smoking) is a prolific cause. These, of course, should be looked to and remedied.

The continual irritation of the scalp by harsh brushes and combs is to be discour

aged, and the toilet made only once daily, using a blunt-toothed comb or a soft brush. Some cases seem to progress best by dry brushing; others by bathing the scalp in clear, cold water, and massage with the finger tips; once a week having a good, thorough shampoo, by a barber who understands it. The rose shampoo found in nearly all shops is excellent, and should be used with. cold water. This brings all the scales and dirt to the surface, and facilitates their removal. The head should be fanned for at least half or three-quarters of an hour, until quite dry-not left damp.

When there is a deficiency of the natural oil on the hair, leaving it with a harsh feel and a loss of its natural glossy appearance, a little cocoanut oil, perfumed with oil of rose, may be applied once or twice weekly, and will be found to surpass almost anything

in the way of oils and tonics.

For the follicular eruptions, eczema of the scalp, etc. I find nothing equal to the U. S. P. ointment of chrysarobin applied once or twice daily, well rubbed in.

When the hair splits, singeing is good, or the static current applied from a head. breeze. Alkaloidal Clinic.

A CAUSE FOR AMERICAN CA

TARRH.

THE Medical Record thus reiterates what the GAZETTE has so often urged:

It is a well-known fact that modern changes of temperature induce catarrhal afections, and it is also evident that the best prevention of a "cold" is a ready adaptation to the varying conditions of an uncertain climate. The latter implies a certain resisting quality of the respiratory mucous membranes which must be necessarily developed along rational lines. The hardening proc

esses thus become questions of vitality, habit and environment.

The old Indian explained his immunity against low temperature by explaining that lie was "all face." It was with him the habit of exposure to inclemencies and its reactive protecting tendency. The other extreme is seen in the coddling process which our modern methods of civilization encourage. "When houses were made of willow, the men were made of oak." Our superheated houses reverse these old-time conditions.

The dry-hot air of the modern dwelling is undoubtedly the most prolific of all the predisposing causes of catarrhal troubles. The mucous membranes are thus placed in the worst possible condition for resisting the impression of the outside atmosphere. Their natural protective secretions are not only decreased, but the blood supply of the air passages becomes relatively superabundant, congested and sluggish, and the beginning of the end is evident enough.

Persons who are luckily unaccustomed to these high temperatures often experience a sense of oppression from the same cause. It is the protest of healthy resistance against artificial enfeeblement. Foreigners say with truth that Americans literally bake themselves in their houses, and there is in this

sentiments:

"I've had command of a ship-of-the-line and I've tried to command one woman, but give me the ship-of-the-line."

ion as to the cause of the American catarrh.