MEDICINE IN AMERICA 421 



Mitchell, of Philadelphia, determined, as early as 1831, the con- 

 nection between disease of the spinal cord and joint disease. 



In the line of nervous diseases the life and work of Dr. 

 S. Weir Mitchell are well worth close study. He not only 

 originated the famous rest treatment, but his early observations 

 in connection with injuries to nerves have been pregnant of 

 great results. In the same line of original research the work 

 of Dr. Wm. A. Hammond has been of great benefit. He was 

 one of the first to ascribe normal sleep to an anemia of the 

 brain, and his investigations of the physiological action of 

 alcohol, colchicum, juniper, digitalis, squills and a host of 

 other remedies, entitle him to a high place among the elect. 



In the way of new remedies and the better application 

 of old ones, America has been in the van. Dr. Charles E. 

 Morgan did much to unravel the mysteries of electro-thera- 

 peutics, wliile Dr. Stearns recalled ergot to the knowledge 

 of medical men the world over, and gave it many new uses. 

 Chloroform was discovered by Samuel Guthrie, of Sacketts 

 Harbor, New York, in 1831. 



Beginning in 1630, with the discovery of cinchona in 

 South America, the materia medica has been enriched by the 

 addition of podophyllum, wild cherry, veratrum viride, san- 

 guineria canadenses, spigelia, apocynum cannabinum, senega, 

 serpentaria, eupatorium, lobelia, sassafras, gaultheria and a 

 host of other remedies, whose use is as wide as the world. 



In the line of original research Professor James Law, of 

 Ithaca, demonstrated the existence of the fungus of actino- 

 mycosis and in 1884 W. T. Belfield and J. B. Murphy, of Chi- 

 cago, demonstrated the disease in the human subject, and the 

 specific microbe was identified by Christian Fenger of the same 

 city. Relapsing fever was thoroughly studied in 1869 by E. 

 Rhoads and William Pepper in Philadelphia. As early as 

 1848 North maintained that both yellow fever and malaria were 

 transported by mosquitos. The proof of this statement 

 required nearly a half century of toil on the part of the world 

 of science. W. G. MacCallum, of Baltimore, in 1897, first de- 

 scribed the significance of the crescented and flagellated bodies 

 of the Plasmodium malariae. The remarkable series of ex- 

 periments reported by the yellow fever commission of the 



