

MEDICINE, ADVANCES IN. 



379 



The liquids he found to be especially useful were 

 (a) a 1-per-cent. solution of potassium perman- 

 ganate, (6) a weak solution of iodin with gla- 

 cial acetic acid, and (c) pure carbolic acid. Ac- 

 cording to Dr. G. G. S. Taylor, the application 

 of pyrogallol greatly enhances the effect of Fin- 

 sen treatment. 



Frequent descriptions of cases of tubercular or 

 cancerous skin diseases successfully treated by 

 one of the several forms of therapeutic rays 

 have appeared in the medical journals during the 

 year. Among the most striking of these is a 

 series of 50 cases reported by Dr. C. W. Allen 

 (Medical Record, New York, Nov. 15, 1902, p. 

 762), Professor of Dermatology at the New York 

 Post-Graduate Hospital. Of 33 epitheliomas and 

 10 mammary cancers, 52 per cent, were discharged 

 AS clinically cured, and 10 per cent, were still 

 under treatment. 



Smallpox. The serious and wide-spread epi- 

 demic of smallpox which occurred last year on 

 both sides of the Atlantic led to renewed discus- 

 .sion of compulsory vaccination and the methods 



(by which the disease is spread. 

 In the section on State medicine at the last 

 meeting of the British Medical Association the 

 following resolution regarding vaccination was 

 adopted : 



That inasmuch as there is strong evidence to 

 show that the effect of infant vaccination has 

 very largely lost its effect after ten or twelve 

 years, it is desirable that all children should be 

 vaccinated at the age of twelve. The president 

 expressed his opinion that compulsory vaccina- 

 tion was an absolute necessity, as the recent 

 serious epidemics had demonstrated. " No one 

 would object to the compulsory squelching of a 

 man who persisted in haunting theaters and con- 

 cert-halls with his pockets full of dynamite, yet 

 many of those who refused to be vaccinated 

 were quite as dangerous to the public." 



The question of the aerial transmission of 

 smallpox was again raised by a paper in the 

 Lancet (London, Feb. 22, 1902) regarding the 

 effect of the hospital ships anchored near the 

 villages of Purfleet. The statistics given in this 

 article seemed to indicate that those portions 

 of the town over which the prevailing winds 

 blew after passing across the ships suffered 

 more severely from smallpox than other sections 

 of the town. 



While it is true that any contagious disease 

 may be transmitted from person to person by 

 an actual transference of material particles of 

 coiitagium, and that wind may be, and undoubt- 

 edly is, in certain diseases in tuberculosis, to 

 cite a common example the carrier of the mor- 

 bific agent, the popular conception of the aerial 

 transmission of a subtle gaseous poison, is en- 

 tirely opposed to the results of modern research. 

 'The modern scientific view being that without an 

 actual material transference of the poisonous 

 agent there can be no infection. 



A rather striking illustration of the value of 

 vaccination has occurred during the last two 

 years in Porto Rico. Soon after the Spaniards 

 left the island in 1898 smallpox became epi- 

 demic, and by January, 1899, says Major Ames, 

 the Director of Vaccination for Porto Rico, the 

 disease had " honeycombed " the island, and in 

 February " was spreading at a gallop." In Feb- 

 ruary compulsory vaccination was begun. By 

 July 1 860,000 vaccinations had been performed 

 among a total population of 960,000. During the 

 two and a half years since then the mortality 

 has been 2 per year, against a previous smallpox 

 death-rate of over 600. 



Intraspinal Anesthesia. Dr. H. Little- 

 wood, F. R. C., surgeon at the Leeds General In- 

 firmary, gives the following account of his expe- 

 rience with this method of anesthesia. 



" I do not think that I have ever been more 

 impressed in my life than I was with my first 

 case, and I believe that all who saw the opera- 

 tion were equally impressed. It was difficult to 

 realize that within a few minutes of introdu- 

 cing a third of a grain of cocain into the spinal 

 canal one could deliberately amputate through 

 the knee-joint, the patient being conscious all 

 the time, and yet not feeling any pain." 



In all but one of Dr. Littlewood's cases " it 

 acted admirably." This was a very nervous 

 man who cried out apparently more from fear 

 than pain. Among his cases were foot and leg 

 amputations, and several " radical cures " for 

 femoral and inguinal hernia. 



The Germ of Syphilis. Prof. Max Schut- 

 ler, whose work in connection with the cancer 

 germ has been rather freely criticized, and who in 

 1900 stated that he had found certain characteris- 

 tic bodies in the lesions of all stages of syphilis, 

 publishes further researches on the subject in the 

 Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie (Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 

 9, Bd. xxxii, 1902). In all his syphilitic prepara- 

 tions he has found certain capsulated bodies, some 

 with protoplasmic contents, some empty, which he 

 considers one stage in the life history of the para- 

 site. Another peculiar form with a characteris- 

 tically striated wall he thinks a young form of 

 the germ. He states that he succeeded in culti- 

 vating this bacterium in closed flasks at 37 to 

 38 C. Inoculation experiments with the- culti- 

 vated germ on rabbits seem to have been unsuc- 

 cessful. Prof. Schutler considers the parasite as 

 belonging to a class about which little is as yet 

 known, but which, he thinks, includes the form 

 already described by him as characteristic of can- 

 cer growth. 



Examination of Blood. During recent years 

 the examination of the blood has come to be 

 more or less of a routine operation in diagnostic 

 work. 



The four methods in general use are: (1) The 

 estimation of the number of red and white cor- 

 puscles. (2) The examination of stained blood 

 films. (3) The determination of the agglutina- 

 ting power of the blood. (4) Its bacteriological 

 examination. 



In many diseases the information obtained 

 from the use of one or more of these methods 

 is of the utmost value, both in determining treat- 

 ment and in prognosis. 



Dr. William Savage, of Cardiff, calls attention 

 in a recent issue of the Lancet (London, Sept. 

 27, 1902, p. 866) to an improved method for 

 counting the white blood-corpuscles. It is based 

 on that of Stengel. 



The blood is collected by means of a Thoma-' 

 Zeiss small pipette, such as is ordinarily used in 

 determining the red corpuscles (the pipette 

 should always be filled up to the 1.0 mark). The 

 blood is then diluted with some colored fluid, 

 such as Toisson's solution, or Sherrington's fluid. 

 The red corpuscles are first counted in the ordi- 

 nary way. To count the leucocytes the eyepiece 

 is drawn out until a diameter of the field of 

 vision is just spanned by an exact number of 

 squares; this number is called x i.e., equals 

 the number of squares which exactly stretch 

 across a diameter of the field of vision. The 

 ruled squares need no longer be taken into ac- 

 count. The number of leucocytes in any record- 

 ed number of fields of vision is now counted, 

 care being taken that the fields do not in any 



