lar affections, or general, as lymphocytosis. It is therefore a great mistake to consider scrofula as a general disease, totius substantia—as a dyscrasia or a diathesis.

"However, in order that these microbes which normally live inactive in the tegument may acquire a pathogenic character, they need a favorable condition; this condition is the local asphyxia of the skin.

"It is known that the skin performs a respiratory function, and that there is a cutaneous respiratory hematosis; it is in this 'poumon cutané,' cutaneous lung, that the offending micro-organisms live, and their virulence is there attenuated by the oxygenized medium in which they are placed; oxygenized intus in the blood; oxygenized extra in the atmospheric air. But in order that this location become vitiated by the presence of oxide of carbon, carbonic acid must be present, and then the microbes immediately become virulent. That is especially the case in winter, from want of exercise in the open air. This situation explains why the conditions favorable to scrofula are observed especially in cold regions and during a prolonged period of cold and severe weather.

"It follows that the treatment of scrofula requires the resolute employment and the systematic use of oxygen in summer as in winter. Against reflex conditions two medicines are useful, iodine and tannin."

TUBERCULOSIS AND NUTRITION.-M. Monfet has exposed to the Académie de Médecine et de Chirurgie Pratiques (“Gazette Hebdomadaire," May 5, 1901) the deplorable consequences of the heavy tax imposed by the Government on articles of food in France.

"If the deaths from tuberculosis in France and England be compared, it is found that England, with a damp, cold climate, loses every year but 50,000 people from tuberculosis, while France, with a much healthier climate, loses 150,000 every year in an equal population.

"To what cause can this enormous difference be attributed?

"In a journey through England I was impressed with the quantity and the nutritive value of the food used at each meal by the Englishman, no matter to what class or condition he belonged. Wishing to establish the amount of their nutrition, I analyzed the urine of ten workmen of medium size, makers of mirrors in England. On my return to Paris I made the same investigation of ten French workmen, also makers of mirrors. The record of my analysis shows that the quantity of the matter eliminated by the

English was much the greater. In the French the difference was principally in the phosphates and the sulphates. The relation of the nitrogen to the mineral elements shows for the French a deficit of the mineral elements. But it is known that the tubercular constitution is a system demineralized.

"Then, the English workman is well nourished, the Frenchman is insufficiently and badly nourished; he craves alcohol to give him a fictitious strength. The wages paid in both countries are about the same, but in England the necessaries of life are incomparably cheaper, because the Government duties on the necessaries of life in England are moderate and principally on luxuries, while in France they are excessive on the necessaries of existence.

"Of all the nations of the world France holds the first place for deaths from tuberculosis, for the use of alcoholic drinks and for depopulation, and that, in my opinion, is because the Government duties are murderous.

"Under such conditions, of what use would sanatoriums be to the people? Even if all the tuberculous subjects were dismissed. cured-perfectly cured from the health establishments, they would be again liable to contract tuberculosis from the same cause.

"The only remedy is to remove the duties now on the necessaries of life, and place higher duties on superfluous articles. This is the duty of our legislators; it is worth a trial."

I.

TO PREVENT TUBERCULOSIS.-MM. Lemoine and Carriere, of Lille, discussed before the Académie de Médecine the different means proposed for its destruction ("Le Progrés Médical," May 4, 1901). They attach a much greater importance to prophylactic measures than to direct personal treatment, particularly to treatment in sanatoriums. However, they warmly encourage the methods proposed recently by M. Brunon, to organize in every neighborhood small establishments of moderate cost, selecting such places as can be readily made available for these purposes: the application and proper enforcement of all the laws which have for their object the health of cities, the sanitary condition of houses in the city as in the country, the supervision of factories, of articles of food, and, as regards health, the regulation of labor; 2. the effective intervention of the State in the struggle against alcoholism which is so frequently the cause of tuberculosis, by the enactment and enforcement of proper corrective measures; 3. the isolation · in hospitals of patients affected with pulmonary tuberculosis; 4. the efficiency of sanatoriums being in no way demonstrated,

the necessity of employing the money which we might desire to devote to their support to the organization of other hygienic measures and the improvement and extension of measures already in existence, as the formation of benevolent societies for the granting of medical aid for the suffering poor, who should be cared for the moment they become helpless; 5. a proper provision for the sick, so arranged as to accommodate those who have some means at their disposal as well as the indigent poor.

MYOCARDIAL RHEUMATISM.-M. Merklen stated to the Société Médicale des Hôpitaux that at the time of convalescence from acute articular rheumatism ("Le Progrés Médical," April 27, 1901) there exist very frequently signs of insufficiency in the heart (dyspnea, palpitation, etc.) These signs are manifested when the patient arises and begins to make some exertion. Even during the course of the disease a systolic interruption is frequently observed.

AUTOMATIC SAFETY-VALVE STOPPER-A DEVICE PREVENTING THE BURSTING OF PEROXIDE OF HYDROGEN BOTTLES.-The great trouble with peroxide preparations is that, if the containers are tightly corked, the oxygen which separates and is set free, slowly but constantly as time passes, accumulates, until the bottles can no longer stand the pressure and burst, or the corks are driven out. Of the two alternatives, the bursting of the bottles is the more objectionable feature on account of the danger attached to it.

a

(a) Puncture. Cut No. 1. Illustrates the cross section of the safety valve rubber cork, showing the wooden top and the puncture at bottom. A thin strip of paraffined paper is insertserted into the puncture.

Containers of the hydrogen peroxide, U. S. P., which is a comparatively weak solution of H2O2, yielding but 10 volumes of oxygen, may be closed with a wooden stopper, which, by the porous nature of the material, permits the escape of the gas almost as soon as it is set free, thus avoiding explosion and rupture of the bottles or the driving out of the corks.

While these wooden stoppers answer very well for solutions of HO, responding to 10 volumes of oxygen or less, with stronger solutions, such, for instance as Marchand's peroxide of hydrogen medicinal (15 volumes), or his hydrozone (30 volumes of oxygen), they are quickly attacked by the solutions, as are also the ordinary corks, and within four months are completely oxidized, not merely bleached, but rendered so soft that they cut like

pot-cheese. From that time the goods are unfit for sale.

In order to prevent these difficulties, and especially to obviate the bursting of the bottles containing hydrozone, Mr. Marchand, the manufacturer of that article and other well-known brands of peroxide of hydrogen, has devised an ingenious stopper, which he calls the "automatic safety valve rubber cork," and which is shown in the illustration.

Cut No. 2. Illustrates the cross section of a bottle corked and capped with vegetable parchment and paraffined muslin; no wire.

The material of the stopper is vulcanized rubber. The beveled end is punctured through in such a manner that when the pressure in the bottle rises above 5 to 8 pounds to the square inch (according to the thickness of the rubber at the bottom, which may vary slightly), the excess of free oxygen finds free egress and thus relieves the

tension.

This device is first inserted, and a plug of porous wood is then driven in, thus stiffening the rubber and completing the operation of "corking."

The capping consists of vegetable parchment covered with paraffined muslin, no wiring being used or needed.

It is easily seen that this style of closing the bottle obviates the possibility of bursting. Assuming even that, through some imperfection of the stopper, the puncture should close, as soon as the pressure rises to a point far within that required for rupture of the bottle, the stopper, not being wired down, will yield and be forced

out.

Retail druggists, who have for so many years been the chief sufferers and losers from the bursting of the peroxide containers, and the deterioration of the substance otherwise from the causes indicated above, will welcome Mr. Marchand's invention as a happy solution of what has to them been a very serious problem in the

past, since it will enable them to supply their trade with the higher solutions of hydrogen peroxide, and especially that preparation of Marchand's for which the stopper was particularly designed, "hydrozone," which carries 30 volumes of oxygen.

The device described above-the automatic safety-valve stopper -having entirely obviated the danger arising from the explosion of bottles in handling, there is certain to be a largely increased demand for Marchand's concentrated solutions of the peroxide of hydrogen (which alone will be corked with the patented stopper), since physicians anxious to obtain quick results will never prescribe anything but the most active solutions, or those richest in active oxygen, and since druggists will be protected absolutely against loss by deterioration or explosion. The medical profession is being thoroughly advised of Mr. Marchand's new method of closing his bottles of "peroxide of hydrogen medicinal" and "hydrozone," and will be certain to avail themselves of the advantages thus guaranteed them.-April, 1901, issue of "National Druggist of St. Louis."

NOTE.

Remember there is no popping when corks are removed.

GOUT AND ARTHRITISM.-M. Morel-Lavallée has ("Progrés Médical"), contrary to the general opinion, found in gouty subjects a hyperacidity of the fluids-12 times in 13 cases. This fact, indicating the usual alkaline medication, is of great therapeutic importance.

LEPROSY AND ICHTHYOL.-M. de Buin ("Progrés Médical," April 27, 1901) has obtained excellent results from the use of ichthyol internally in tubercular leprosy. The effects are much less efficient in nervous leprosy. In the former the dose, one gram a day, is sufficient. In the latter five grams may be given with safety. A patient afflicted with anesthesic leprosy took this latter dose from the beginning of treatment without the slightest incon venience.

AN OLD-TIME PHYSICIAN ON THE PROPERTIES OF COFFEE.

M. Louis Lemery, "Regent Doctor of the Faculty of Physick at Paris," who lived in the first years of the eighteenth century, in a treatise he wrote upon foods, the "Medical Record" says, has this to say of the properties of coffee: "It fortifies the stomach and brain, promotes digestion, allays the headache, suppresses the