gibbering mania! What use would a girl have for a manhoodless man anyhow? The thought maddened him! Like all healthy very young men, his venereal bias was kept stretcht as tight as a fiddle string, and he thought, in the crassness of extreme youth, it was the same with the girls. The lyssic stress of fresh male puberty, with its boar-pig ethics-what shall we do with it?

What should he do? He must have money. He was a salesman in his father's store. Should he adopt the "knock-down" practise of young men of expensiv tastes? Would this be worse than to horrify his father with a confession? The young man almost sweat blood. In a frenzy of despair, he made a dash for the street. He would consult his chum, Dave Stewart. Dave was older than he and had had experience. In fact Dave was a brick.

When the young man told Dave about it, that young man laught consumedly, and told him he was a durn chump. Told him that that was a semi-weekly occurrence with himself. Told him-in the swelling abandon of superiority-that when it occurred, all he did was to get up, wring out the sheet, and go to bed again. Told him that that "eminent physician was a dam catamount who made his living by first scaring and then fleecing ignorant young men, etc. Thus he badgered the young man back to normality.

While this was going on, the young man's sister called at my office (I am their family physician) and told me about the young man's ad-reading experience. She had been a witness to it. Had noted how he suddenly paled and trembled, etc. She was alarmed, but he had refused to explain and had rusht out of the house like he was crazy.

I told her not to worry-that I would see that nothing came of it, etc. Her alarm had been conveyed to the family, and they were having visions of suicide. Alas! how many young men have been scared into suicide by this peculiar brand of quacks? I am glad to inform the reader that the young man has righted up, as evidenced by a recovery of his aforetime aplombness and chicness.

But there is a legitimately pathologic phase of nightly emissions. Pathologic spermatorrhea is no joke. I know that well for I have had much experience with it. We all know how to treat it. At least we think we do. We all know too that there is no drug or other specific for it. If we could remove both the primary and secondary cause, it would be all right. But we can't. The primary cause is erotic assertivness, excessiv assertivness. This depends on heredity, temperament, environment,

etc.

It instigates and fosters masturbation, which irritates and sensitizes the parts con

cerned in the ejaculatory function. There is no helpful intraurethral treatment. Sallamand's portcaustique is a delusion and a snare -it is dangerous. Hot fomentations of the perineum, with counter-irritation over the sacrum, at bed-time, constitute about the only promising local treatment.

Various drugs have a putativ value, but most of them will disappoint. Whatever you do use, don't use the bromids. They injure the stomach, defibrinize the blood, derange the nervous system, etc. They are only temporary palliativs at best. Among the eclectics, staphisagria and salix nigra enjoy quite a reputation. The best single remedy, according to my experience, is nux vomica. Its action is improved by the addition of passiflora. These are all of them to be given in small doses, remember. The patient must take treatment a long time, and to abuse his stomach and general system with over-drugging, is to do him more harm than good.

The patient should sleep on a hard bed, with not too much covering, and he should avoid lying on his back or belly. If he awaken with an erection, he should get up and urinate if possible. He should avoid (but he generally can't and won't) libidinous thoughts and lascivious imaginings. If the patient is so constituted that he can deflect his habitual reflections from female sexuality to higher and nobler things, it will be much in his favor. Almost always he cannot do this, or at least does not do it. Spermatorrhea is a hard thing to manage. W. C. COOPER, M.D.

Cleves, Ohio.

[We wish to emphasize the psychologic treatment noted in the latter part of Dr. Cooper's article, and further suggest that constant and congenial employment of body and mind is important, in order to change the current of the patient's thoughts. A long hunting or fishing trip with congenial companions (male only), and without alcoholic liquors, is a good plan for those who can afford the time and expense. The camping party would better do their own cooking and other work. The patient should not have time to meditate. Those who cannot do that, can ride some innocent hobby which will take the attention during otherwise leisure hours. The psychologic and hygienic treatment of these cases is about ten times as important as the medical treatment. Medically, be sure that you do no harm. Perhaps the best medical treatment is a placebo-which is psychologic instead of medical.-ED.]

Cannabis indica is of service in obstinate cases of gonorrhea, and will sometimes check the discharge where other internal and local measures have signally failed.

This Seems to be a "Straight" Collection Concern.

seems

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Inclosed find P. O. order for $1, subscription for 1906. Please consider me one of the prompt ones. I am in hearty sympathy with our kind Editor in his fruitful efforts toward exterminating professional graft. I can gladly say I have never bitten at the tempting bait sent out to doctors. I recently received a communication from the Sayers Mercantile Agency Co., of St. Louis, Mo., and as this is "a new one on me," and as I have not seen it discust in THE WORLD, I submit their proposition to you. If it is worthy, I would like to know it; but if not reliable, I want to be one of the many to assist our noble Editor in exterminating unethical frauds which exist upon the hard earned dollars of the medical profession. Brownville, Neb. H. C. SMITH, M. D. [Concerning reliability, I know nothing, neither favorable nor unfavorable, about the said company. Their proposition straight; they charge no membership fee, nor retaining fee, and they do not require signature to a contract, nor a "contract-note that is, a contract which becomes, under certain extremely likely circumstances, a note. They charge a straight percentage for the collections made. This is the proper basis for such business. The posters or "stickers," a sample of which is attacht to the lower part of their letter, strike me as being a good thing. I am glad to say this, for I would much rather commend than condemn. They agree to sell these at $1 per 100, and I certainly would advise that you try them. They are inexpensiv, and they may bring you excellent results. Collection agencies, when conducted with fairness to the physician, can serve the interests of the profession very efficiently; and we urge doctors to use the facilities of such concerns. But beware of the methods of the Comstock concern, and its branches under other names, which we have thoroly exposed. By the way, we have heard nothing of these concerns for some time. Have they quit "working" the medical profession, devoting their attention to small merchants instead?-Ed.]

A Doctor's Experience with Various Investments.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I didn't happen to be "just right" when the Comstock agent was here, so I didn't get caught by them. However, I seldom let anything pass. I gave some accounts to the International Law and Collecting Agency, Toledo, Ohio, about one year ago. They collected about $100 for me that I

could not have gotten myself, and fulfilled their contract. However, I fulfilled my part, too. I also scratcht out the $25 penalty before I signed the contract.

Some time ago an agent representing the Crown Mail Order House, Cincinnati, Ohio, came thru here taking orders for furniture, stoves, etc., and just for accommodation was taking measurements for clothes at cost of goods, no charge for tailoring. I deposited $5 as evidence of "good faith." Orders for furniture never filled. Neither did the clothes show up. The postal department reported them "out of business" about eight months later.

About January, 1905, two agents representing the Frisco Lot and Land Company were here selling lots in three towns in Oklahoma, viz., Greenup, Lucien, and Covington.

They represented that their company was a part of, and backt by, the Frisco Railway system. That they were developing and settling a strip of land in the Cimarron River valley, which the Frisco System had lately built a railroad thru, and had reserved the land that these towns were to be laid out on, and had now turned the town sites over to them to be laid out and sold. That these towns were to be the county seats of Pawnee, Noble, and Garfield counties—a statement that could have been contradicted by any school child who could study geography, and could see that these counties have had county seats for 12 years; but the statement was accepted by business men, without investigation. That these towns were situated in, and surrounded by fertil soil, capable of producing all kinds of grain, fruit, and vegetables. If there was anything good to be said about a country that they did not say, it was not an intentional omission. The town sites were to be laid out in lots 25 ft. X140 ft., with suitable streets and alleys. The lots were sold at $30 per lot, and were to be drawn on the day of the opening, in a way that would be just and fair to all. There were to have been 4,400 lots, divided approximately as follows: Greenup, 1,000, Lucien, 1,400; Covington, 2,000. Opening was to have been held in May, but was postponed until July. The lots were to be offered for sale as they were drawn, giving purchaser an opportunity to dispose of them if he so desired-and positive assurance was given that we could get our money back that day.

The opening took place July 20th, at Covington. I was not present, but a representativ from this place was there. He came back full of disappointment and misgivings. He reported that they pitched their tents in East Covington and proceeded to divide the lots; one clerk would call a name, another the num

ber of lot, block, and town-all prearranged. No lots offered for sale. The desirable lots in Lucien and Covington had been sold previous to the opening. A liveryman in Covington A liveryman in Covington told me that he paid $100 for the lot his barn stands on, just previous to the opening. Instead of there being 2,000 lots in Covington, there were about 3,500. They caught more suckers than they anticipated, so they bought a quarter section east of Covington for $9,000, and laid it out in lots, and let us draw from that instead of the main part of town. I drew one lot in West Covington, three in Covington, and five in East Covington, which was about the same allotment to others whom I know about.

As a friend and I had transportation to Covington and return, we decided to go and see for ourselves. We arrived at Greenup, November

9.

It is a very nice situation for a town, but at present there is nothing there but the station and one saloon. The blocks were laid off and a slab driven down at each corner, but some of the slabs have been pulled up by some one who cut the grass, and I predict that if anyone wants to know where his lot is in five years, it will have to be surveyed, as the slabs will all be gone.

Lucien is a town of about 200, and does considerable business, and is building some, but I am satisfied it won't cover in 15 years the territory laid out.

Covington is the best town of the three; and had the company fulfilled its agreement there, our loss would not have been so great. But as it is, they have got a plot laid out a half mile wide and one and a half miles long, which in all probability the town will never cover. is growing some, and the people there say it will grow more when they can learn who owns the lots.

It

The company agreed to furnish a complete list of the owners of each lot, so anyone desiring to purchase a lot would know whom to approach. This they have not done, and in my opinion, will not do, until they can get it in shape to show the company in different light from what it now occupies.

People in Lucien and Covington express the opinion that the company still owns lots in the main part of both towns. We talkt to a real estate agent in Covington. He thinks we will be able to get our money out of the lots in the main part of Covington, but that those in East and West Covington would in all probability be a complete loss.

We saw two other town sites, Sumner and Morrison, that we understand are to be opened soon in the same way. We visited Pawnee, Perry, and Enid, all good towns, surrounded by good country. The people there are pro

gressiv, industrious, prosperous, and satisfied with the country.

I was well pleased with the trip, which I enjoyed very much; but am satisfied that the investment is bad. So I would advise anyone of the "family" to investigate before they invest. If you want to invest in Western lots or land, am satisfied you can make good investments by going to see the country before you invest. If I had done that I would be about $450 better off now. H. M. ARthur.

Hazleton, Ind.

[That's right. Fix the contract to suit you before you sign it. The agent will tell you that he can't make any change in the contract, but you can. Make changes to suit you, and then write a memorandum that you have made the changes (mentioning them) before signing, and then sign (if you want to try the agency). Then they can't hold you except as per terms of the contract, which terms you have modified to suit yourself. In this instance, Doctor, you were equal to the occasion; but the rest of the pullers found you an "easy mark." It is a very risky thing to invest in distant lots; but if you wanted to do so, why didn't you take your trip before instead of after giving up your money? If Mr. Slick, the traveling agent, said that he couldn't give transportation without actual sales, you could have fixt him safe in some way to the effect that if you found everything as he represented you would take and pay for the lots. When can I induce doctors to quit wasting their substance in efforts to get rich by means of apparently alluring distant investments? The far-away hills look green; but go to them and you will find them no more green than your own hills at home. Don't invest your money in far away eldorados. That almost invariably results in loss of your money, loss of time, worry, and loss of sleep. Keep your money at home, and in a safe place. Even without interest, you still have your money, and you are free from worry concerning it. But better, lend it at 5 percent or 6 percent interest, to some good home merchant or farmer, on real estate (mortgage) security, and then you will be drawing as much interest as you ought to get, the principal will be safe, and you will be free from worry and safe from temptation to put it into every scheme that comes along. Yes, every schemer gives "assurance that you can "get your money back" if you want it. But what is a schemer's " assurance worth? Did you ever know of anyone getting his money back from a schemer? When you give your money to a schemer it is gone; and the chances are 1,000 to 1 that it will never return. It is my mission to try to beat this into the heads of doctors. Will I ever succeed?— ED.]

The Physician and His Finances. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-That the financial condition of the majority of physicians is far from being satisfactory is an establisht fact. That it is not as often the result of competition as it is considered to be, is another fact. What is needed in the medical profession is more business tact and better collectors. Dead beats are to be shunned. Contract work for fraternal societies at starvation fees should be promptly refused by every physician. In fact no contract should be accepted from any fraternal or other society. Life insurance fees should be reasonable.

Last but not least is the physician's expenses in cities, especially in large cities. Sometime ago an attempt was made in some cities to abandon down town offices. Altho it was unsuccessful, it was a move in the right direction and should have had the support of the entire medical profession regardless of school.

To illustrate: A physician in a large city. probably pays $35 to $50 a month for house rent; besides this, an office down town at $45 to $60 a month; telefone both at home and down town office; car fare back and forth, and time lost in going back and forth!

Look at the running expense a month. It is enuf to keep many a physician at work the greater part of his life for the landlord. By having office at home, over one half of the monthly expense would be saved. If the physicians in general would agree to this, the public would soon get used to the change. In emergencies response by fone from one place is as quick as another. On account of the low expenses, physicians generally do better in the country. By an understanding among physicians in cities, this change could easily be brought about, and their expenses reduced at least one half. This is worth considering.

Los Olivos, Cal. F. J. PETERSEN, M.D. [Different customs rule in different places. In Philadelphia it is the rule that the physician's office is in his residence-no down town office unless one lives down town. In Chicago, and perhaps other western cities, the reverse is true, down town offices, perhaps miles from where the majority of physicians live, being the rule. This is a problem that has to be workt out (perhaps has been workt out) by each community.-ED.]

An Illinois brother wants to know the experience of the profession with those companies which, for a small fee, insure the doctor against malpractise suits, agreeing to defend such suits, and pay damages when awarded.

Salix nigra acts well in nymphomania and satyriasis, and in spermatorrhea.

Who Is the Grafter?

Editor MEDICAL WORLD: - Inclosed find draft for $3 to pay for THE MEDICAL WORLD for 4 years. I have taken it since the first number was publisht, and have most of them yet.

I inclose a clipping from the Los Angeles Herald one day last week:

THE DOCTOR'S GRAFT.

In a letter to the Herald from one of its lady readers some light is thrown on the relations of physicians with the patent medicin business. The writer of the letter, in visiting a sick neighbor, was told of a patent medicin that had been used by the patient with excellent results. Desiring to obtain a bottle for her own use, the lady askt the price and where it was obtainable, the medicin being imported and bearing a French label. The patient had ordered the preparation on the doctor's prescription, paying seventy-five cents for it. On sending to the drug store for the second bottle, without the prescription, the price was fifty cents. To explain why the first bottle cost seventy-five cents, the druggist was obliged to admit that he added twenty-five cents to be credited to the doctor, justifying the act by saying it was "customary."

It seems, therefore, that some physicians, in addition to their regular charges for service and their percentage on compounded prescriptions, also reap a revenue of one-third on the prices of patent medicins that they recommend. This revenue, in the aggregate, must be immense in Los Angeles, as the practise of recommending proprietary medicins by doctors is quite

common.

It must require considerable nerve, even for a physician, to filch from a patient 33 percent added to the cost of a patent medicin which he recommends. The names of all the persons who figure in the incident related above are in the Herald's possession.

You will see this fellow tries to lay the burden of high price on the doctor. It is true some doctors do take a commission from druggists and even undertakers, for I have had both offer me a commission if I would send them business, but I never accepted their offers, but always refused and usually avoided them thereafter. They are so anxious to get business they go to doctors and make these offers, and then say it is the doctor who causes the graft. I have for this and many other reasons always furnisht my own medicins.

Everyone who has paid any attention to the matter knows that druggists always charge two to three times as much for anything that is furnisht on prescription. If the doctor tells a patient to go to the drug store and call for I oz. spts. nitre without a prescription, he will get it for 5 or 10 cents; when if he writes a prescription and says nothing about what it is, the druggist will charge 25 to 35 cents for the same thing. I have seen a druggist charge $1 for 8 decided to furnish the medicin and save the cents worth of medicin on prescription. So I trouble and time as well as extra expense to patrons. I find they like it better, and I get more than enuf extra to pay for all costs for and trouble of compounding the medicin.

Compton, Cal.

O. T. PRATT, M.D. [There is a legitimate reason for charging more for a prescription than for the ingredients contained therein. Even if it is a single, simple substance, the directions have to be written on; and if compounded, skill and knowledge are involved which ought to be paid for; and always there is the responsibility involved in furnishing to the patient something which, if not right, may involve a human life. Responsibility should be reckoned in making the price of a prescription; but knowledge and responsibility are not involved in "handing down" bottle of ready made, "original package" proprietary. Somebody was to blame for the 75c. charge for the 50c. proprietary; and whether it was the doctor or the druggist, it should be emphatically condemned. If the doctor was to blame for the extra charge by demanding a percentage, his name should be publisht in the community, that he may receive the condemnation deserved for such "grafting."-ED.]

Unconstitutional Laws.

a

Now, my dear Doctor, as a starter you say that New York can grant the right to practise medicin or pharmacy in New York, but in no other part of the United States. I grant you that part of it, but I claim that New York cannot legally say to another man that he shall not practise medicin or pharmacy in New York, provided that, that man was a citizen of the United States and had complied with all the laws of the United States in another state of the United S ates.

If a citizen holds a diploma from the University of Pennsylvania, the Jefferson or the Bellevue, or any other accredited, legal and chartered medical college of the United States, and has passed the New York Board and complied with all the laws of New York and of the United States, then no other state can stop him from practising in it, because the Constitution does the balance-according to the Fourteenth Amendment, which I beg leave to quote:

"No state Shall Make or Enforce Any Law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities

any state deprive any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or Deny to any person within its jurisdiction the Equal Protection of the laws.'

Then again, here comes the other part of the Constitution: ARTICLE IV, SECTION 2.

"The citizens of each state shall be entitled To All the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

These parts of the Constitution were in full force and effect prior to and before any of these state laws were made or enacted, and therefore such laws are clearly unconstitutional from the very fact that these states had no legal right to make such laws, which do discriminate against the citizens of the several states, and do abridge the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States. A citizen is a citizen, no matter whether he carries the hcd, works on a farm, makes pills or practises medicin. We are all supposed to have some way of making a living; as a means of support I cannot see any moral or legal right for such classification or restriction being put upon the physician and the pharmacist. By way of comparison, the butcher, baker, barber, or even milkman can do more harm by dispensing microbes, etc., etc., than either the doctor or the druggist, and there is no such discrimination against them.

I contend that the only province of the state boards is to examin and license those of its citizens who have never been licensed or examined for registration by any state.

State boards have arrogated to themselves powers that they do not legally possess-by the unconstitutional parts, or clauses of the state board laws.

The police power, or the state constabulary, is only to enforce the laws; but these laws must be constitutional laws.

I refer you again to the Fourteenth Amendment-according to which they cannot impose a fine upon, or imprison a citizen of another state for practising medicin or pharmacy in it-if he is a regular college graduate, registered in his own state, and has complied with all the laws of that state.

I fail to find any constitutional law or right to give any power of constabulary or police power concerning medicin or pharmacy, and can find no law or reason for such classification or precedent.

By what authority can any state board claim the power of constabulary or police jurisdiction over physicians or druggists? I would like some one to quote the Constitution covering this point if he can, or give some reason for such interpretation.

If any of the WORLD family (and I know