The form it usually assumes is that of intestinal tuberculosis; the pulmonary symptoms are but little marked. The disease seems to be more generally transmitted through the dejections from the bowels than through the sputum. The disinfection of the clothing thus soiled becomes extremely important. The prophylaxis of tuberculosis in insane asylums is of real importance, for there are 10 cases in 300 insane; there is the extraordinary increase in proportion of 3 in 40 among the religious in the infirmaries.

GELATINE IN ALIMENTATION.-M. Lombard has presented to the Société de Pathologie ("Progrès Médical"), in his own name and in that of M. Laffont, an article on the therapeutic employment of gelatine in alimentation and its effects on the plasticity of the blood and the pathological phenomena induced by this plaxity.

According to these authors, diabetes albuminuria and hemophilia have always, if not the same etiological effect, at least the same origin; a variation in the cryoscopic properties of the blood. These variations cause in time hepatic changes, and also renal and capillary; this in the same way that different solutions change the filtered products that have not been compounded properly for the specific object for which they were united. Even when a lesion is anatomically, these authors think that by restoring the plasticity of the blood to its normal condition, satisfactory results may be obtained.

To do this they have experimented with gelatine, and in its administration have substituted for the hypodermic injection its absorption through the stomach by giving to their patients a daily allowance of 15 grams of gelatine in water.

TREATMENT OF IMPALUDISM.-M. Gautier experimented in Algeria on nine patients suffering with impaludism or marsh fever of a virulent character that proved rebellious to quinine in large doses, even extremely large. He employed a new derivative of the cacodylate, the methylarseniate disodic, which was entirely free from toxic properties. The results obtained surpassed all his hopes. The nine patients so treated were all impervious to the action of quinine in large doses, but were rapidly cured by the use of the new remedy. In two of the cases there was a slight relapse, but the disease vielded to large doses of the cacodylate derivative.

It will be observed that in these cases of fever the disease was contracted and treated on African soil, a location which imprints generally on the disease an unusual degree of severity.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE ANTAGONISM OF MEDICINES.-M. Morel has presented to the Société de Thérapeutique ("Le Progrès Médical," February 8th, 1902), a report of his experiments on the antagonism that may exist between two medical substances, and has arrived at the following conclusions:

Leucocytes in 100 grams of blood are killed by 26 milligrams of atropine, or by 50 milligrams of pilocarpine, when the experiment is made with each of these substances separately. But the leucocytes remain active when the two substances are united in one dose.

If experiments are made on an animal, the following results are obtained: Thirty centigrams of atropine will kill a frog weighing one kilogram; 2 centigrams of pilocarpine will kill a frog weighing 1 kilogram. But if 25 milligrams of pilocarpine be united with 40 centigrams of atropine, the animal survives.

This antagonistic action becomes a curative action when the two poisons are employed, not simultaneously, but one after the other.

If, for instance, 30 centigrams of atropine be given to a frog weighing one kilogram, then, when the animal is largely under the influence of the dose, three centigrams of pilocarpine are given, the animal survives.

Ergotine and atropine are equally antagonistic.

SMALLPOX THERAPY.-The prevalence of a mild type of smallpox throughout the country gives the therapy of that disease especial interest at the present time. Vaccination is, of course, unquestionably not to be overlooked as a preventive measure; but in addition, infection may be made much more unlikely, and, where infection has taken place, the course of the disease considerably shortened and shorn of its terrors, by the administration of the valuable anti-purulent ecthol. The Battle Company has just issued a pamphlet dealing with the use of ecthol in this disease. The pamphlet should be in the hands of every physician who may be called upon to treat smallpox. It will be sent to any physician who makes the request.-"Medical Fortnightly."

THE SCHERING DISINFECTION METHOD of houses, rooms and furniture, by means of the solid formalin pastils to be vaporized in the Schering lamp and the Schering disinfector, is conceded by eminent authorities to be the most effective and practical that can be employed.

For the thorough disinfection of buildings and sick-rooms the rapid production of large quantities of formaldehyde gas should

be effected. Full directions for its employment accompany the apparatus. An important point to be observed is that a temperature about that of ordinary living rooms (71° F.) is required for the development of the full efficacy of the gas. Professor E. Grawitz, Director of the City Hospital at Charlottenburg, Berlin, calls especial attention to this point in the "Hygienische Rundschau," Berlin, April 15th, 1901, which enabled him to reduce the time for disinfection to eight hours. He has employed the Schering method with this precaution for the last three years in rooms that have contained cases of scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria, and which were mostly used for other patients immediately after disinfection, without a single case of infection from this source.

SCIATIC PAIN-PROMPT RELIEF.-In reporting his experience in the treatment of sciatica, Fred. E. Davis, M.D., of Brookside, Ala., writes as follows in "Annals of Gynecology": "I have been giving anti-kamnia and heroin tablets a thorough trial in the treatment of sciatica and I must say that my success has been phenomenal indeed. I have also induced two other physicians to give them a trial, and their success equals or surpasses my own. I meet with many cases of sciatica and until anti-kamnia and heroin tablets were introduced I was compelled to use a great deal of opium and morphine to relieve the pain. Since then, though, I have not given either. One of my patients had been confined to bed for three weeks during her last attack of sciatica. I prescribed one anti-kamnia and heroin tablet every four hours and in forty-eight hours she was up and about and has not felt the pain since. I thank you for the introduction of this most excellent remedy and assure you of my willingness to report the results of still further investigation."

SOME NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY IN TUBERCULOSIS AND THE SANATORIUM TREATMENT.

E. R. Baldwin ("Yale Medical Journal") calls attention. to the fact that patients may inherit a certain weak place in the body, as, for instance, in the lung, so that the disease in the child breaks out in the same place as in the parent. Certain statistics of patients under his own observation reveal the following facts: In about sixty-three families con

taining one hundred and sixty-six tuberculous persons, 70 per cent. first developed the disease in the corresponding lung. Ninetyfour of these patients came under his observation. In the remainder, the history was obtained from their relatives. In twentyeight families where parental tuberculosis existed, 78 per cent. had children with corresponding disease. In one family the father and four children had the same lung first affected. In thirty-five families with one or more tuberculous brothers or sisters (parents not affected), 63 per cent. had corresponding disease. These proportions are large enough to suggest, incidentally, a practical point in diagnosis. The family physician, knowing the location of the disease in one member of a family, should be alert in seeking for signs in the corresponding lung of others in the same family. Again, it has long been known that small hearts were characteristic of tuberculous individuals, and this also may be an inherited condition. It is probable that the inheritance of vulnerability in a point of least resistance in the lungs belongs to the same category. The fact that the inherited characteristics are not necessarily the product of tuberculous disease in the parent, of course, does not contradict the observation that where the mother suffers i1om tuberculosis before the birth of offspring, the infants will probably have a very weak constitution as a direct result of the poisons produced in the tissues of the mother. It is not so clear that this occurs in the case of the father, but such children die of marasmus or of indefinite diseases, and usually survive but a short If, however, the tuberculous mother has no acute symptoms, and has good nutrition, there are many instances of very healthy children being produced, and were it not for the presence of infection after their birth, more might grow to strong maturity.

time.

NERVOUSNESS GAVE HIS WORDS A TWIST.

Everything was in readiness. The groom, best man and the minister were gathered in the vestry. The organist began to play and the minister started for the door.

"Wait one moment, doctor," called the nervous groom. "Is it the right or left hand the ring goes on?"

"The left," hurriedly replied the minister.

"And, doctor, is-is it kisstermary to cuss the bride?"-"Philadelphia Times."

EDITOR'S TABLE.

SANITARIAN, APRIL, 1902.

All correspondence and exchanges, and all publications for review, should be addressed to the editor, Dr. A. N. Bell, 337 Clinton St., Brooklyn, N. Y.

BROOKLYN WATER AGAIN NOT FIT TO DRINK.

No reader of THE SANITARIAN is ignorant of the constant liability of the Brooklyn water supply to pollution for at least twenty years past. For, for this length of time at least, the engineers in charge have ignored protection and storage. Instead of their duty, they have devoted their energies to a denial of the sufficiency of the Long Island source of supply and urgency of Lake George, or oher far-away sources, requiring extensive engineering. Meanwhile, on all occasions of extraordinary rainfall or melting of snow, such as occurred during the latter part of February and first of March, the barn-yard and privy-vault drains of Hempstead and other places round about have been subject to overflow, and to become tributary to the storage reservoirs. Had proper attention been given to the protection of the reservoirs and making them hold water, such sources of pollution, as well as sometimes scarcity of supply, would have been wholly obviated, and can be so in future with forceful attention to the requirements.

The record of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases in Brooklyn, for the five weeks ending March 15th, was nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, seven-the latest record at hand on closing this number-for the week next following Dr. Raymond's announcement in substance: "Brooklyn water, raw, is not fit to drink. Boil it!"

MORE PUBLIC BATHS NEEDED.

A mass meeting was held two weeks ago for the purpose of urging the erection of more public baths in the crowded districts of New York City, in accordance with the pledge of the Citizens' Union platform. Robert Fulton Cutting presided at the meeting, and was the first speaker. He was followed by Charles Sprague Smith, who, among other things, said:

"Liverpool, with a population of 668,000 (ours is 3,500,000), has