gradual penetration of the porcelain on the one side by the solution of copper sulphate and on the other by the solution of potassium ferrocyanide, a union is effected of the two solutions, the copper sulphate in solution passing through the porcelain wall until it meets the solution of potassium ferrocyanide coming in. Copper ferrocyanide is formed at the point of contact and is revealed by its red color. But what was wanted was a method of measuring the osmotic pressure thus exerted. Working with a solution of cane sugar it was found that a I per cent. solution exerted a pressure of 53 cc., a 2 per cent. solution 106 cc., and so on. It was also found that the osmotic pressure was increased with an increase in temperature, and from this was developed the important theory that the laws applicable to gases (Boyle and Gay-Lussac) possess the same value for solutions. As with gases, the pressure of solutions was proportional to their concentration, and thus was established the first analogy between the osmotic pressure of a gas and the osmotic pressure of a solution. It was determined that all solutions increase about 1-273 of their volume at o degree C. for every rise of I degree in the temperature, just as it had been determined long previously that gases do. The lecturer then pointed out that proceeding from this data we can deal with solutions in a chemical sense just as we do with gases. As to the cause of osmotic pressure, theory after theory had been propounded, but, he said, we are now just as far as ever from knowing the cause.

This concluded the first evening's lecture, and the course will be completed in five additional lectures to be given on consecutive Monday evenings.-Am. Druggist and

Pharmaceutic Record.

WITHOUT ANESTHETICS.

PERHAPS THE OLDEST METHOD OF ALMOST PAINLESS SURGERY.

DR. STEINER, a Dutch physician, recently made a curious study while traveling in Java. He chanced to stop one Sunday at Sourabaya, where the Javanese maintain a large hospital for prisoners. His notice was directed to the fact that in the treatment of such cases as necessitated an anesthetic the natives did not resort to a drug, but instead they were manifestly reducing their patients to a condition of stupor by compressing the carotid artery with the fingers.

The Dutch physician was so much impressed with this primitive method of rendering the patient at least partially insensible to pain that he made a careful study of it. He discovered that this method of anesthesia, although unknown to modern surgery, was, in all probability in vogue among the ancients.

The very name of the carotid artery tends to confirm the belief of Dr. Steiner, for it is frequently referred to as the arteria soporifera, sleep-giving artery. A name very similar to this is still applied to it in Russia. Describing the results noted in the treatment of Javanese prisoners, a writer in a Paris medical journal says:

"Under the influence of this treatment the patient was seen to grow restless; at the same time his respiration became quicker and deeper; then the head fell backward. The compression of the neck was stopped, and the patient, after keeping for some instants the same immovable attitude of a sleeping man, opened his eyes with an expression of astonishment, as if he had been rudely awakened.

"These facts appearing to be worth more careful study, the author made a series of experiments on thirty Javanese, two of whom were women. He first applied the process as it had been taught him by the curer of Sourabaya, but later he was led to modify it so that he could better observe the subject under experiment.

"Of the thirty subjects so treated only five did not respond; with all the others. there suddenly came on a complete loss of sensibility and thought, so that in one case the author lanced an inguinal abscess without the knowledge of the patient.

"To explain these phenomena we evidently cannot have recourse to suggestion, since pressure exerted not on the carotid but in the neighborhood of this artery remains absolutely without effect. On the other hand, cerebral anemia, which the author was at first inclined to regard as the cause of these manifestations, cannot be the only one. It is probable that other factors, such as the compression of the pneumogastric nerve and the ganglions of the sympathetic system, add their part to the effect." -Philadelphia North American.

A DANGEROUS SWINDLER.

FOR nearly a year past, many of the doctors and dentists of this country have been victimized by a very clever swindler who has passed under several aliases, among them, R. G. Stearns, R. L. Nelson, and others. He claims to represent The Success Company, publishers of the Success magazine, and he takes orders for numerous magazines comprised in the Success Clubbing Offers. He works very rapidly, jumping from town to town, and always among doctors and dentists. All the money he obtains is appropriated, and the magazines are never ordered or received. Every effort has been made by the Success Company to apprehend this swindler, but so far without success. The Success Company requests us to notify all doctors and dentists that its representatives always bear a special dated card of introduction, and to patronize no others. It also offers a reward of $50.00 for any information that will lead to the apprehension of the swindler. He is described as follows:

From 23 to 25 years old; 5 ft. 9 in. in height; medium build; weight about 150

lbs.; dark hair (almost black) of medium length, very curly about the temples; dark gray eyes (almost hazel); rather sallow complexion, with scattered dark brown freckles, face unusually round for a man of so light build; clothes not shabby, but far from new and much worn. Black coat and vest, gray trousers (hard twisted goods), with a small stripe; black derby hat, much worn; old style turndown collar, with made tie. General untidy appearance for one in the soliciting business.

DURING the year 1896, twenty-two socalled Keeley gold-cures suspended and dissolved. Twenty-seven gold-cure homes, where specific treatment for alcohol and opium was given, have gone out of business. Five new companies have been formed to sell rights to use secret inebriate cures. Three ex-superintendents of gold-cure establishments have committed suicide. To this we would add that in three years we have made notes of the relapse of nineteen physicians who have been medical directors of gold-cure establishments. Ten of these persons came for treatment in regular asylums, where no specifics were used.-Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.

HER PHENOMENAL MEMORY.

COUSIN HARRY-So you remember when uncle Tom fell through the ice? Let's sec -that was thirty years ago, and you say you are only twenty-four. How do you account for that?

Cousin Harriet-Oh, pshaw! You know well enough, Harry, that I always was a precocious child.-Boston Transcript.

ELECTRICAL EVOLUTION.

Since the publication in the August GAZETTE of an editorial on this daily more and more absorbing topic, numerous inquiries have come to us, all eagerly seeking further details as to the nature and therapeutic possibilities of the "violet" ray, the "X" ray, and the specific diseases in which each is proving successful, with cost of the treatment, etc.

Perhaps our description of the newer forms of apparatus were too general and a trifle enthusiastic.

For the benefit of inquirers* we will add that the X ray is produced by two methods: By means of the ordinary static machine and a modified Crooke's tube, and by a modification of the electric light current (usually the 110 volt direct) as found in all large cities and many of the larger country villages.

Lupus, epithelioma (skin cancer) and old eczemas are among the conditions now almost invariably cured. A few internal cancers have been "cured" and others are being treated with increasing assurance. It is the opinion of the experts that any form of cancer can be cured unless treatment is delayed until the system has become generally infiltrated or infected.

*We cannot undertake to refer patients to particular offices for treatment, and can only reply to general questions. Inquirers enclosing a stamp will receive reply by letter.

Of the "violet" ray it is claimed that it includes many of the possibilities of the X ray and a good many more peculiar to itself. Locomotor ataxia, and all form of paralysis, even congenital cases, are promptly relieved and permanently cured. A host of other ailments heretofore considered inveterate or incurable are now considered curable, including neurasthenia, dyspepsia and general debility.

For example, aided by Dr. Topham's electric detective system the operator applies his tests and says to his patient "your vital capital has been impaired to such an extent that under existing conditions your expectation of life does not exceed years. Now we

will seek out the leak, and if it be not beyond the reach and province of science we will stop it, and then proceed to repair the results following its long neglect."

Heretofore "Hospitals for the Incurable" have been in vogue; hereafter these will give way to "Hospitals for Vital Repair." Dispensaries of Cations,-relay stations for recharging constitutions! We have not yet learned the alphabet of electrical science.

One of these days we shall no doubt be able to fabricate our articles of diet and sources of nutrition with such accuracy that we can produce any desirable results within reason. Thus, to cause a puny child to grow robust, a dwarf to develop to full stature, and a deformed frame to assume symmetrical proportions. We shall be able to make a rudimentary brain and mental capacity normal as to size and activity. We shall be able to develop special faculties of the intellect, to retard and impede the growth of evil propensities and properly stimulate those of the higher class. We shall be able to begin with raw material in infancy and make poets or painters, musicians or mechanics, at will. It will all be through the aid of better understood and thoroughly subjugated electrical forces. The crude elements of food will be transformed into vitalized nutrition. It is the presence of this vivification which at present balks the chemist. He knows no difference between substances which may

more

contain the same chemical elements in like proportions, but which are mingled and compounded, electrified and vitalized by a process that he is utterly unable to detect or imitate. This may sound chimerical, but it is no more difficult or wonderful than have been the accomplishments of the past decade.

By the aid of the wonderful Ray we have been enabled to see the invisible. And, much as has been written of the subject, it is impossible even now for well informed minds to comprehend the meaning of words which recount these developments, without a shadow of exaggeration. When the operator says to the investigator: "Look through this fluoroscope in front of the Crooke's tube and trace the bones in your own arm."

You comply, and it seems easy enough. "Now I will interpose a bit of board, an inch thick."

You still see the bones as plainly as before. "I add a second board or a book, twice as thick; still there is no impediment, you distinctly, through all this opacity, see the bones of your arm."

Now this language is plain enough, but the average man who listens to it may comprehend but does not believe it. It is only when you pass the fluoroscope to the doubting outsider and let him repeat the experiment for himself that it is possible to convince him, and even then he goes away somewhat in doubt as to whether he has or has not been made the subject of an optical illusion. According to all rules of logic and all the laws of physics it is utterly incomprehensible and impossible. We can not believe it, even if we desire to, because our mental calibre does not permit it. We may say we believe, but we do not, because we can not.

If this much has been accomplished, what is there left that can not be done in the future?

This description is cursory and inadequate. In a future number of the GAZETTE we will undertake to give a more exact, scientific and careful account of this newest phase of development in electrotherapeutics.

WANTS CLEAN BED LINEN.

A LADY, Mrs. D. M. D, who is traveling commercial agent for a large Detroit house, writes the State Board of Health as follows: "Is it possible for your board to do anything to compel country hotel managers to furnish clean bed linens, towels and table napkins? All too many neglect this sanitary matter. I happen to positively know in many instances, after the linens are washed and ironed in the usual way, they are put on the bed, and if you are the first man to take the room, why, you get a clean bed, but if you are the second man, you get 'pressed sheets.' What I mean by this is that after the first man sleeps in the bed, no matter in what condition the maid finds the linen in the morning, the sheets are taken, sprinkled, and pressed or ironed again without washing, and then returned to the bed for the second man to sleep in. This is repeated until the linen becomes so soiled it can not be used for transient guests. Then it is sent to the second floor for the boarders' use, who, by the way, never get a clean bed. I have seen sheets and towels that have been sprinkled and pressed many times without washing. Table napkins are treated in the same way. Should you complain and ask for a change of linen on your bed, you probably will meet with a stony stare and always with the denial that the linen has been simply sprinkled and pressed after being used by others. I wish to speak about the blankets also. I really do not think they are ever washed. Some hotel proprietors will tell you they do not press sheets, but send them to the laundry to be washed. No doubt they do send them to the laundry more or less, but you look for the girl in the house who does nothing but press soiled linens. Let me explain how you can tell a pressed sheet or pillowslip from one which has been ironed and washed in the usual way. First, the water fills the cloth with little wrinkles which can be easily ironed out, but the wrinkles from the body are long and will not come out until the sheet has been in water. Second, sheets that have been

pressed always have two folds when they have been folded. In a pressed sheet one can quickly tell if one or two people have occupied the bed."

TOXINS AND ANTITOXINS.

PROF. WELCH, of the Johns Hopkins University, delivered the Huxley memorial lecture in London on the subject of recent studies of immunity with reference to their bearing on pathology. He pointed out that whereas the tetanus and diphtheria bacilli are elaborate toxins which can be separated from the organisms that produce them, such is not the case with other pathogenic bacteria, notably the typhoid bacillus, the toxin of which is believed to be intracellular and intimately associated with the bacterial cells. On this conception the disease symptoms of typhoid fever are assumed to be due, not to the living organisms, but to baIcilli which have died and so have set free their poisons. Prof. Welch doubts whether the theory just stated is established and proposes the following hypothesis. The injection of bacterial cells stimulates certain cells of the host to generate one component of the toxin, the intermediary body, which although itself not poisonous, becomes so by bringing about the union between a previously existing toxophorous substance, the complement and the foreign substance which started the reaction. He further suggests that certain substances derived from the host may stimulate the invading organism and cause it to produce intermediary bodies which have the power to link complements to cellular constituents of the host and thereby to poison the latter. Just as the cells of the organism react toward the invading bacterium, so, it is suggested, does the bacterium react toward the cells of the host.

1

THE VALUE OF NUTS.

BY CONSTANCE FULLER MC INTYRE.

THE various uses and divergences of different kinds of nuts cover a wide field, even apart from their most obvious food values, most apparent of all, perhaps, to the vegetarian whose bleak menu excludes so many nitrogenous foods for which nuts make an admirable-indeed well nigh indispensable -substitute. To judge by the yearly increasing quantities of nuts in our markets, either imported or brought to New York from different States, people are realizing their value more and more, both as a staple article of diet in the vegetarian's case, and as a by no means inconsiderable addition to the more elaborate menus of dinner givers and others.

One reason, perhaps, of the general favor enjoyed by nuts, is that they combine equally well with sweets and savories. In our nursery days and teens, and sometimes later on, we enjoy them best in candies, cakes and desserts, of which they are really the making. Having outgrown our sweet tooth, salted almonds and ground peas, merely browned in the oven with a spoonful of olive oil and plenty of salt, are found very appetizing, no less than in salads and other savories.

The quality of bringing out the flavor of different wines well known as belonging to the olive, has also been ascribed to nuts. In any case they are a tasty and suitable accompaniment to wines; the less oily varieties, such as filberts or hazels, possessing the virtue (not always, unfortunately, superfluous) of balancing the quantity of wine consumed, whereby they may be said to have a sobering tendency. The best varieties of this kind of nut are grown on the British Isles, though hazel nuts are also cultivated in Indiana and others of the United States.

Nearly all nuts are more or less oleaginous, hence their tendency to become rancid. Like other nitrogenous foods, they seem better adapted to a winter than a summer diet. Containing a highly concentrated