of homeopathic medicines, which is an even greater enigma than any yet considered, for it must explain them if the law is a true one. And here is the real test of the truth of any law; it must explain, because it produces, all the varied phenomena of its class. Gravitation, standing alone as a pure theory, appeared indeed to be far-fetched and fanciful, but once it gave a solution to innumerable problems that could not be otherwise explained, the proof of its truth became irresistible. Life's Great Law shall explain the effects of homeopathic dilutions and triturations. Notwithstanding their infinite dilution and subdivision, their effects are real and not imaginary, as thousands of intelligent practitioners can testify, and tens of thousands of equally intelligent patients have confirmed. A deadly poison so diluted that it is doubtful if Lake Erie has water enough to dissolve a single drop if all were saved, produces immediate effects when administered in accordance with the homeopathic law. What better proof can we have that it is not the medicine which acts. Infinite dilution has totally destroyed its poisonous qualities; all power of action, if it ever had any, has disappeared. At least only a slight taint is left, but this is enough to induce vital recognition and action, just as surely as will the deadly drug. A hint to a sensitive organism is often more effective for good than a knock-down blow could be. But we must hasten. The problems have not all been solved, but the key to the solution is found. Vital organs act because they think, and when danger threatens or injury is suffered, disease follows, not from action on the part of extraneous things, but because it is itself action, induced by injury or fright, and the process of cure involves repair of the injury and removal of the fear, Vital power, the same which made the organism, repairs its injuries, while the physician may calm the fears, soothe the excitement, encourage the vital processes, and greatly aid in bringing about normal conditions. Are drug-medicines the only agencies to be employed? That great medical author, Dunglison, suggests numerous other ways of curing diseases than by medicines. Take the thermometer-cure of Sir Humphry Davy. This discoverer of laughing-gas, says Dunglison, thought to test its virtues as a healing agent, and in company with Dr. Beddoes, proceeded to try its virtues upon a poor man suffering with palsy. Before administering the gas it was decided to take the man's temperature, for which purpose a thermometer was placed in his mouth. On its removal the patient said he felt better. It was then decided not to give the gas at all, but to rely upon the thermometer, which was repeated every day for a fortnight, and the patient was cured. The Sympathetic ointment of Sir Kenelm Digby is another case in point. "It is constantly received and avouched," says Bacon, "that the anointing of the weapon that made the wound will heal the wound itself." The ointment was a wonderful mixture, and King James is said to have performed astonishing cures with it. But, says Dunglison, its composition finally transpired, its virtues were lost and it fell into disuse. Do we have in these historical facts any suggestions as to the value of mind-cure, faith-cure, Christian Science, Suggestive Therapeutics, pow-wowing, incantations, amulets, relics of the saints and shrines of the virgin? Have they not all cured their patients? Who ever practised pow-wowing more successfully than does every loving, faithful mother over the little hurts and bruises of her children? And is every invalid not a child in the dark? Human life is shrouded in mystery; "fears encompass and foes affright." Removing the fear banishes the foe. Disease, as Bennett well says, is a friend indeed because it is a friend in need. The homeopath removes the fear by studying the symptoms and administering medicines calculated to produce similar ones, thus diverting attention from the threatened injury to one closely allied. The powwower by his passes and mummery soothes and encourages. A certain Elder among a peculiar religious people, the Dunkards, in my State, tells me that his father gained a wonderful reputation for the cures he performed through powwowing, bringing invalids even from the gates of death, and that with a promptness nowhere else exceeded. The people ascribed his success to divine power, for he was a godly man; but the Elder is sure that this is not the explanation, for the sister, his aunt, could do the same, and she could swear like a trooper. In most cases the patient is suffering more from fright than from injury; if we can relieve the fright we can cure the patient. Organic panic is not a fiction of the imagination; the repeated scares of the past about cholera, yellow fever, etc., and in the present of smallpox do more to spread the disease than is generally believed. The power that produced is the power that preserves; the power that preserves is the same which heals. What reason is there to doubt that repair, which is a form of production, is as inherent as is reproduction-the reproduction of the cell? Wear and tear are the inevitable consequences of work done, and repair is thus provided for as a necessity to continued existence. If one would have a piece of man-made machinery repaired he would preferably take it to its manufacturer for that purpose; how much more necessary that the delicate and intricate machinery of organic life, which no man can make, should also be returned to its author for repairs? The power that made is the force within; the producing power is the only healing force in Nature. Mind-cure, faith-cure, Christian Science, powwowing, or incantations as well as regular medicine, all produce their results upon the same principles; they all distract the patient's attention while Nature "cuts in" and effects the cure. But all, at times, fail of success, and there is no more reason for persecuting the one because his patient dies, than for prosecuting the other. One word more and we are done. The instinct of repair, we have seen, is inherent in every living thing; but the power of repair is often deficient. What we need in order to recover is not greater desire to live, but more power with which to live. Patients frequently fail of recovery no matter what the treatment. Whether we certify that they have died for want of breath or failure of heart, or because they couldn't survive, it matters not, they all die for want. of power to live. The power of life is the first essential of life, and how to secure it represents the highest medical wisdom. Walter's Park, Pa. THE GENERAL POISONOUS FECTS AND THERAPEUTIC USES OF TOBACCO. BY FRANK D. MAINE, M.D. IN a recent paper on "Tobacco Heart, what is it and what its Treatment," I discussed exclusively the toxic effect of "nicotine"-the active principle of Tobacco-on this "Fountain of Life;" but in this article I propose to discuss briefly its general toxic effect upon the human organism, deducing therefrom the basis of its therapeutic value as a remedial agent. The leaf only is officinal. Without entering into the history or the habitual uses of tobacco, will say, in passing, that it is indigenous to tropical America and "was early adopted by the Spaniards from the American Indians; was introduced into France by Nicot in 1560, and Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have introduced the practice of smoking ‘of the weed' into England." It is frequently remarked that nothing exists in the vegetable world that does not, if properly understood and applied, serve a remedial purpose to mankind.. Be that as it may, it is a fact that some of the most virulent poisons are known to be of great therapeutic value. Tobacco is no exception. Great caution, however, should be observed both as to the dose and mode of administration. It is also truly said, "what's one man's meat is another man's poison." The great susceptibility on the part of some, and especially of the young, to the deleterious effects of tobacco, while upon others a similar dose acting kindly, yea, and even beneficially, is, at once, a pat illustration of the truthfulness of the above proposition. To get at the medical properties of this drug, it were well to know its effects upon the organism if immoderately administered. Its toxic effect upon the pneumogastric nerve and medulla oblongata is that of complete relaxation and paralysis of the involuntary muscular system. Through the "vagi" also, the digestive apparatus is powerfully affected. According to Bartholow, "the emetic effect of tobacco is doubtless the product of three factors: its cerebral action, its local irritation of the gastric mucous membrane, and its specific emetic property. The secretions of the intestinal mucous membrane are increased, and the muscular layer is thrown into tetanic contraction, whence the catharsis which follows its administration." Its chief characteristic is a deathly nausea, accompanied by pallor, vertigo, cold sweat and intermittent pulse. From these toxic effects the medical properties of tobacco only can be made. known, viz. from the viewpoint of the "law of similars." Thus considered we find it to be sedative, narcotic, anti-nauseant, antispasmodic, and it is also known to be diuretic. The therapeutic range therefore of this drug, as a deduction from the above recorded toxic effects, is as follows: Diseases originating in cerebral irritation, followed by marked gastric symptoms, nervous disease and heart affections, accompanied by deathly nausea; sea-sickness; cholera; cholera infantum; asthma; incarcerated hernia; asphyxia; angina pectoris and even lockjaw. Notwithstanding this wide scope of its medical application, tobacco, because of its irritating, and indeed, dangerous effects, is practically abandoned by the "Old School" as a medicine. It would be, truly, a great rarity to-day to find this drug as an ingredi ent in the composition of a physician's prescription. Occasionally, though very seldom, it is given as an emetic. Thus administered its "modus operandi" is largely mechanical, and only indirectly remedial, as would be indicated, for instance, in the removal from the stomach a poison to save life. Dose-Its Preparation and Mode of Administration. An infusion reduced to but barely the taste, as a maximum, to an infinitesimal attenuation, as a minimum, the water previously having been brought to the boiling point, should constitute the varying dose. It may be administered either by the mouth, or, preferably, hyperdermically, as is "antitoxin." The judgment of the physician to determine from the age, susceptibility, etc., the size and frequency of the potion. Thus given, according to the indications. within the above-mentioned therapeutic range, the curative, or ameliorative action may be expected of tobacco for the conditions therein enumerated. It is alleged that a discovery has been made of a method by which bodily sensations of pain may be prevented from reaching the brain, doing away with the necessity of anesthetics in surgery. The plan may be called "short-circuiting" the nerves. The discovery of the wave theory of electric transmission permitted the discovery of the possibility of short-circuiting a nerve. It was found that the rate of oscillation along a nerve is 300,000 per second, approximately. mal which leads to disease. All of this is of supreme interest to medicine; for if it be true that morbid nutrition is a mere matter of chemistry, a thing to be altered and set right by the addition or subtraction of a molecule, and if it be true that febrile diseases represent a contest between microbes producing poisons and cells producing antidotes-chemical products capable of analysis and in the future it is to be hoped capable of neutralization-a time must come when we shall not have to stand by with folded hands but shall be able to intervene with a confidence born of knowledge. A PHYSICIAN SAYS MODERN MILLING IS RE- CHANGES in milling processes are responsible for appendicitis, according to a physician who has been in the practice of medicine for fifty years and who has observed the spread of the disease. This physician, Dr. H. C. Howard of Champaign, Ill., asserts that until the trade demand for exceedingly white flour changed the methods of grinding wheat there was no appendicitis. the early efforts of the physiological chemists have concerned themselves chiefly with the composition of the blood, which is an easily accessible fluid, and with problems touching upon digestion which of all physiological processes seems the most purely chemical. But the light which is being thrown upon the composition of the blood in various conditions, upon the nature and causes of its various reactions, upon the chemical constitution of the bacterioly- FINE FLOUR AND APPENDICITIS. sins and antitoxins found therein, and of the "immune body" and its "complement" of which each of these substances is shown to consist, all tends to illuminate many dark fields having to do with the nutrition of the tissues whether in health or disease, while the investigations which have lately been made in regard to the varying nature of the digestive secretions seem to suggest that, much which has hitherto been regarded as due to reflex action is really a question of biological chemistry, the varying results being due to variations in the chemical stimuli present at different times. The extent and variety of the lesions set up by the ingestion of a gross poison such as arsenic have lately given startling evidence of the degree to which degenerations of tissue may be due to well recognizable chemical poisoning; and the investigations which have given a chemical value to the toxins found in certain diseases have put many of the pathological changes found in these diseases in the same category. Thus, both in physiology and path ology, the progress of the immediate future seems to depend greatly upon the biological chemist, by whose labors we hope to ascertain the nature of those more intimate protoplasmic changes which are concerned in nutrition, whether that be the normal nutrition which is health, or the abnor To prove this assertion the physician points to the fact that where coarse breads are used the disease is unknown, but that as soon as the fine breadstuffs are introduced appendicitis comes along as a sequence. By this reasoning it is shown that the people of agricultural communities who secured their flour from small mills did not have the disease until the small mills were crowded out by the large ones and fine white flour supplanted the coarse. Then the negroes of the South so long as they ate corn bread were free from this disease, but when the new process flour began to be used the disease came among them. The same results attended the departure of the German folks from their coarse bread to the refined flour. "I can remember that prior to about 1875," said Dr. Howard, "there was little or none of the ailment among the people. In twenty-five years' of practice among the people before that time I do not think I saw more than forty cases of appendicitis. Now they are common. "Large and extended change in the diet of people has contributed to this. For example, about the date mentioned there began to be a general change from the old method of grinding grain to the present method of roller mills and excessively fine bolting cloths. This plan of milling began first in the large cities, and appendicitis began to increase first there. Later the new process crowded out the small mills in the country, and the people could not get flour made by the old processes. They bought products of the large milling establishments, and then the farmers began to have appendicitis. "Still the negroes of the South did not have it, but in time they began to get away from their plain corn bread, and they, too, began to have appendicitis. So it goes. They did not have appendicitis in Germany until they began to eat our fine white flour and put in the new process of milling after our fashion. Now they have appendicitis in Germany just as we do. "Experienced millers will tell you that the fine flour is a less desirable flour than that made by the old process, but the trade demands it chiefly on account of its whiteness. On account of its indigestibility the disarrangement of the digestive organs of the people eating it has greatly increased. The prime cause of appendicitis is found in this disarrangement. "Quite small children have it. I know one boy who has had thirteen well-defined attacks of the disease and came out of all of them without surgical operations. He changed his food to corn bread and mush, with coarse breads in general, vegetables, little meat and some fruit, and he has taken on flesh and has not had a symptom of the disease for three years."-Chicago Tribune. THE FEEDING OF CHILDREN IN THE SECOND YEAR. Ar a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, T. S. Southworth (Pediatrics, June 15, 1902) read a paper on this subject. He said that the real change. from breast to other food nowadays occurs considerably before the end of the first year. If it can be avoided weaning should not be attempted during the summer, and if the need for such change arises from the failing quantity of breast milk, the infant can often be carried over the hot weather by supplementing the breast feeding by the use of the bottle. The first addition to the food should be a gruel made from oatmeal, barley, or wheat. If diarrhea, eczema, or intestinal indigestion is present oatmeal is undesirable, but ordinarily it is to be preferred. It is most important that whatever cereal is selected should be very thoroughly cooked, strained, and salted, and should be served with sugar and milk or cream. Cow's milk should be the basis of the child's food during the second year, and the bottle should be continued, because in this way the child would take more milk than from a cup. Many people seem to think that the ordinary size of nursing bottle should be used; yet it is possible to find in the market nursing bottles holding twelve ounces, and these should be used during the second year. Dr. Southworth outlined the following general plan of feeding as appropriate to children of this age: 7.30 A. M., breakfast, including a bottle of milk; II A. M., bottle of milk with a crust of stale bread or a piece of zwieback; 2 P.M., dinner, with less milk as other food is increased; 6 P. M., supper, including a bottle of milk; 10 P. M., a bottle of milk. About the middle of the second year the bottle should be replaced by the cup except at the ten o'clock feeding at night. Soft-boiled eggs might be allowed every second day for breakfast, and the diet should be varied by mixing bread crumbs with egg, or with milk, or by giving crackers, broths, and meat juices. Orange juice, if carefully freed from the pulp, and two |