160 
POPULAE SCIENCE NEWS. 
[OcTDBElt, 1S90. 
All accounts, even those from French sources, 
agree as to the heartiness and warmth of the hospi- 
tality of all at Berlin, physicians, citizens, and muni- 
cipal authorities. One correspondent sajs that "the 
mammoth Kneipe at the Uaihhaus, offered by the 
city of Merlin in the harmless guise of a reception, 
will be remembered by the visiting physicians when 
Virchow, Koch, Bergmann, and other great men are 
long forgotten. Certainly, our junketing aldermen 
and councilmen would admit that, in their palmiest 
aind most riotous days, they are but pigmies in 
comparison with the city government of Berlin. A 
fervid imagination could not equal the reality." 
Among eminent men present we have not men- 
tioned above were Von Bergmann, the surgeon who 
attended with Sir Morell Mackenzie upon the late 
Emperor Frederick ; Sir James Paget, a famous 
English surgeon; Bryant, another; MacEwen, of 
Glasgow, who has made hernia a specialty ; Horsley, 
of London, distinguished for operations upon the 
brain and spinal cord ; Dr. John S. Billings, of 
Washington, and Prof. Bacelli, of Italy. 
There was some talk of inviting the next Con- 
gress to meet at Chicago at the time of the World's 
Fair, but this was wisely given up. St. Petersburg 
and Rome were considered, and Rome was chosen. 
I Specially Compiled for Popular Science JN'evrs.J 
MONTHLY SUMMARY OF MEDICAL 
PROGRESS. 
BY MAURICE I). CLARKE, M. D. 
An Epidemic of Lead Poisoning — Dr. Alex- 
andr F. Shimanovsky, of Suraj, says {Meclitzina, 
No. 2, 1890) that during September and October 
of 18S9, a large number of workmen from a saw- 
mill and peasants from an adjacent village sought 
one after another his advice on account of an 
obscure ditease which invariably commenced with 
anorexia and constipation. In a lew days, most 
excruciating abdominal pain with sleeplessness 
would supervene, to be swiftly followed by pain and 
tenderness about the knee and elbow joints. On 
examination, there were always found emaciation 
and general weakness, icteric discoloration of the 
skin with a grayish tint, sunken eyes with yellowish 
sclera;, thickly coated gray tongue, retraction and 
tenderness of the abdomen, tenderness of joints and 
muscles. For some while the author was at a loss 
to understand the nature of the affection, until he 
happened to detect a typical grayish-black line along 
the free edge of the gum in a.patient. On repeated 
examination, the line proved to be more or less 
pronounced in every one of the patients. The 
diagnosis of lead poisoning being arrived at. Dr. 
Shimanovsky began to treat all the cases by hydro- 
chlorate of pilocarpfne (internally, 0.006 to 001 
gramme, twice a day) and hot baths (from 32° to 
35" R., once daily). The results were invariably 
striking. In a day or two, regular stools set in, 
appetite improved, the tongue became clean, colic 
subsided, and a complete recovery soon followed. 
An inquiry elicited the fact that a few months 
previous to the outbreak of the epidemic, a rustic 
miller, one of the patients, had filled up some 
fissures in his mill-stones with about twenty pounds 
of melted lead, and that all the patients had their 
rye ground at his poisonous mill. 
menter obtained thirty-three recoveries. Drs Renoy 
and Richard, who, on their side, had followed this 
method, obtained one bundled and three recoveries 
out of one hundred and eight cases. Dr. Merklen, 
on the other hand, in a report on the mortality' 
caused by typhoid fever in the hospitals of Paris, 
showed that this mortality fluctuated between four- 
teen and fifteen per cent. In another report by Dr. 
Sorel, the author stated that out of one hundred 
and five cases of typhoid fever, he obtained one 
hundi'ed recoveries, and five cases proved fatal. 
The treatment consisted in prescribing the sulphate 
of quinine associated with the salicylate of soda. 
Some of the patients had taken baths, but rather 
warm than cold. Dr. Sorel does not believe that in 
present circumstances the superiority of cold baths 
is sufficiently well established to make a method 
of treatment obligatory in the P'rench army, as it is 
in the German army. A French critic, writing on 
the cold-water system of the treatment of typhoid 
fever in Germany, gives the following statistics, 
drawn up by Dr. Longuet, relative to the German 
army, which may be found interesting here. In 
1865, out of 2,500 typhoid patients, there were from 
500 to 700 deaths. From 1S82 to 18S4, the number 
of patients was nearly identical ; but, thanks to the 
application of the cold baths, the deaths among the 
soldiers amounted on the one hand to 221, and to 
183 on the other. Since then the diminution of the 
mortality was slow, constant, and malheniatical, 
according as the cold-water system extended. From 
twenty-four per cent, in 1865, the mortality fell to 
eleven percent, in 1876. In 1883 it was not more 
than nine per cent. These figures were thought by 
the writer to be conclusive on the subject, and he 
asked why the French were obstinate and remained 
behind in this matter. — Lancet. 
The Bath Treatment of Typhoid. — The sys- 
tem of cold baths in the treatment ot typhoid fever 
as employed in Germany has been put to the test by 
Dr. Josias, and he reported U> the Societc des Ilopi- 
taux that during the years iSSS and i88y he treated 
thirty-six cases of typhoid fever by cold baths, — that 
is to say, with water at i8" C, — repeating these 
every three hours. Of thirty-six cases the experi- 
Monomania in Stealing. — A series of facts 
supplied by a Scotch sheriff exemplifies phases 
of crime related to habitual drunkenness and to 
proclivities indicating insanity: "Between the 
years 1844 and 1S65 one woman was committed 
to prison 167 times for being drunk, and when 
drunk it was her invariable practice to smash 
windows. Then there was a man who, when 
drunk, stole nothing but Bibles. He was an old 
soldier, wounded in the head ; when drunk, the 
objects of his thefts were always Bibles. He was 
transported for the seventh act of Bible-stealing. 
Another man stole nothing but spades; a woman 
stole nothing but shawls: another, nothing but 
shoes; and there was a curious case of a man who 
was transported for the seventh act of stealing a 
tub. There was nothing in his line of life and 
nothing in his prospect, no motive, to make him 
specially desire tubs ; but so it was, that when he 
stole it was always, excepting on one occasion, a 
tub." — British Medical Journal. 
The Surgical Treatment of Long Lasting 
Abdominal Colics. — Dr. Lauenstein, Hamburg, 
found upon operating upon a single lady, aged 
sixty-three years, who for one year had suffered 
from abdominal disturbances with obstinate consti- 
pation, the transverse colon near the splenic Hexure 
compressed by an omental band of the breadth 
of two fingers. The band was ligated in two places 
with silk ligatures. Recovery followed. The cause 
of the formation of this constricting band is un- 
known.— -4 »na/s of Surgery. 
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