Vol. XXV. No. 8.] 
POPULAR SOIEI^CE NEWS. 
125 
that milk sterilized at about 1C7^ F. was about 
free from acid-producing germs, but still con- 
tained live bacilli : a class of microbes apparently 
more difficult to alter, acting chiefly on the casein 
and producing, as a rule, alkalinity instead of 
acidity. This fact suggested to tlie mind, that 
even though the heating of milk be not carried to 
boiling-point it may be very useful in arresting 
the growth of the acid ferments, and leaving 
therein the bacilli, causing, by their nutrition, 
alkalinity of the media. We all know how fre- 
quently lime water is administered to bottle- 
raised babies to counteract the effect of acidity. 
Theoretically we might, on the same principle, 
ascribe a beneficial influence to the alkaline-pro- 
ducing microbes left in the milk by pasteurization 
— influence, which may be doubly useful because 
these organisms live at the expense of, and, there- 
fore, reduce, the casein which, in cow's milk, is 
always in excess of the necessary quantity for 
very young children. 
In the careful, constant use of pasteurized, milk 
there is neither colic, green diarrhoea, or other 
intestinal disorders so common when using raw 
cow"8 milk : but if the milk l)e highly heated, say 
at boiling-point for several minutes, it is cooked 
and the casein is affected : it digests well, but 
there may be some slight colic owing to the hard- 
ness of the faeces, and consequent Interference 
with the naturally easy and frequent evacuation 
of the bowels at a tender age. But there are not 
any other intestinal troubles. 
Pasteurized milk, however, should be used early 
for it wiir not keep long, the germs not having 
all been permanently arrested : therefore, only 
careful methodical people can safely utilize it. 
Thorough sterilization on the other hand is prac- 
ticable t)y all who may provide a vessel of some 
kind to boil water. To heat the milk at any tem- 
perature, it may be put in nursing bottles, plugged 
immediately with clean cotton wool (absorbent 
cotton), and then the bottles should be placed in 
a water bath, allowing the water and bottles to 
heat simultaneously. There are more convenient 
steam sterilizers manufactured now for the pur- 
pose. 
We have caused the use of both sterilized and 
pasteurized milk in a number of bottle-raised 
children in the last two years with marked suc- 
cess, and we would recommend to doubting phy- 
sicians the careful study of fermentation, coagu- 
lation, and digestion of milk, and the effect of 
pasteurized, sterilized, and raw cow's milk on the 
sensitive digestive organs of the young. 
It must not be forgotten, either, that the germs 
of cholera, typhoid fever, fibrinous pneumonia, 
and others are destroyed or arrested in their 
puUulation by a temperature not higher even than 
that used in pasteurization, i. e., 158° to 167° F. 
[Specially Compiled for Popclak SCIEncb News.] 
MONTHLY SUMMARY OF MEDICAL 
- PROGRESS. 
BT UAURICE D. CLARKE, M. D. 
Lawson Tait on Surgery. — At a meeting of 
the British Medical Association, Mr. Lawson Tait 
delivered the address in surgery, choosing for his 
subject " Surgical Training, Surgical Bacteria, 
Surgical Results." From the earliest times, he 
I says, we have made most earnest attempts to 
dimmish suffiering, to prolong life, and to cure 
disease. We have made mistakes, but there is no 
human progress without error. He then spoke 
of the necessity and advantage of a general edu- 
cation, but insisted on the necessity of a special 
training and subdivision of labor for the attain- 
ment of the highest art and skill. " A surgical 
craftsman must be a trained gentleman, accus- 
tomed by a classical ediicatiou to use his native 
tongue with ease and fluency and without confu- 
sion. He must have the fundamental principles 
of reasoning and of business habits instilled into 
him by such mathematical training as will be in- 
volved in his being able to pass some one of the 
examinations now insisted upon by all licensing 
bodies." If possible it would be better for him 
to be a graduate in arts. The author protests 
against the attention to detail and the enormous 
waste of time involved in the present biological 
training of the surgical student. Let him learn 
his anatomy so he will never forget it and every 
fact in it which may, even under the most unlikely 
conditions, aid him. But let him be spared that 
senseless period in useless details of anatomy 
which he prepares himself to forget as soon as 
the examinations are over. In the old days it 
was charged against the corporations that they 
turned out a large number of ill-educated em- 
pirical practitioners who knew nothing but their 
patients ; now the tendency is to turn out a still 
larger number of scientific young tyros who know 
neither patients nor their diseases. Mr. Tait 
therefore strongly favors the old apprenticeship 
system, though slightly modified, for there is no 
longer need for the pliarinaceutical work. We 
should not only know how to deal with disease, 
but with men and women while they suff'er from 
it. Our biological practitioners have no experi- 
ence of either of these lines of research. Mr. 
Tait then makes an earnest appeal for practical 
experience in the mechanical work required in 
surgery, and thinks each student who is to follow 
the craft of surgery should be taught to use his 
hands in the carpenter and blacksmith's shop. 
Having spoken of the training for surgical 
practice, Mr. Tait then spoke of the great ad- 
vance in surgery in his day. The year 1847 was 
the birthday of our work, when anaesthetics were 
brought into the region of actual fact. That has 
been to surgery what the motive power of steam 
has been for the arts, manufactures, and com- 
merce. The present surgical triumphs could 
never have been attained without the aid of anies- 
thesia. I'he number of operations have vastly 
increased, and the subdivision of work has become 
inevitable. The first subdivision came in ophthal- 
mic surgery, when Bowman and Critchett found 
that they could not combine rough general work 
with their finer work. In abdominal work noth- 
ing was done before the introduction of anassthe- 
tics except Ephraim McDowell's work. The next 
great advance was the intra-peritoneal treatment 
of the pedicle by means of the cautery. As the 
practice of surgery has grown so has the number 
of hospitals, and they have also been improved. 
Many advantages are gained by the development 
of specialism. 
As to surgical results, Mr. Tait wished that 
they were better, and that we knew better what 
they were. In the results of our work we have 
much cause for congratulation. He then spoke of 
the antiseptic theory, " which has not led to any 
tangible result beyond what every housewife 
knew before its day, namely, that dead moist 
organic matter will decompose if some agent or 
other gets to it." As to antisepsis in midwifery, 
Semelweiss thirty years ago claimed that puer- 
peral women were poisoned by dirt. To improve 
our results we do not need any more theories, but 
better work and better systems of working, pre- 
ceded by better systems of training. 
Tobacco and Organic Lesion of the Heart. 
-In connection with a discussion at the New 
York Academy of Medicine, relative to the influ- 
ence of tobacco upon the system. Dr. A. L. 
I^oomis, thought that when tobacco poisoning 
reached a point where it produced disturbance of 
the heart there was something more than func- 
tional disturbance; there was a change either in 
the connective tissue or of the muscular fibres of 
the heart. Such hearts did not bear ether or 
cocaine. He impressed the fact that the heart 
condition was not functional ; it was organic. 
Dr. A. Jacobi, having elicited from Dr. Loomis 
the opinion that in such cases there was never, as 
far as his observation had gone, entire recovery 
from the heart trouble, said th.at he could not 
agree with him. He kneNv persons who had had 
functional disturbance of the heart from tobacco- 
poisoning recover entirely after the use of tobacco 
had been discontinued. That was a hope which 
he thought we should hold out to our patients, 
unless it could be shown that the lesion causing 
the disturbance was of a nature which did not 
admit of entire recovery. 
Dr. Loomis thought Dr. .lacobi had in mind 
cases of disturbance of the stomach from use of 
tobacco, which caused reflex irritability of the 
.heart. 
Dr. Jacobi remarked that Dr. Loomis seemed 
to know his mistakes better than he knew them 
himself. He /lid not believe that he had made a 
mistake, although he thought there was room for 
diversity of opinion. He would be very sorry to 
have patients get the idea that their condition 
was an organic change in the heart which could 
not be remedied. 
Dr. Andrews mentioned a case in which the 
man was obliged, twenty-five years ago, to give 
up tobacco on account of disturbance of the heart 
and he remained well today at 7G. — Journal oj 
American Medical Association. 
A New Disease. — Two English physicians. 
Dr. Hale White and Mr. Golding-Bird, have re- 
cently described an aft'ection to which they give 
the name "Idioglossia." It appears that the 
patients hear well, and express themselves in 
articulate sounds, but such sounds are unlike 
those of any known language. The patients 
really have a language of their own, in which 
there does not seem to be any confusion, i. c, the 
sounds given forth have an intelligent application 
and the same sound always has the same mean- 
ing. The discussion before the Royal Medical 
and f'hirurgical Society was varied, some of the 
members contending tli.at the so-called language 
of those aff'ected was but a modification of the 
English tongue, .and was to be accounted for by a 
lack of development in that particular direction. 
— Journal American Medical Association. 
A New Treatment of Phthisis. — Germain- 
See shuts his patient up for two, three, or more 
hours daily in a hermetically closed metallic 
chamber, into which is slowly admitted a current 
of compressed air, which, having passed through 
a mixture of creosote and eucalyptol, is saturated 
with the vapor of these substances. Since Au- 
gust last ten cases of phthisis have been sub- 
mitted to this treatment, all of which cases, with 
one exception, had reached the period of soften- 
ing, and bacilli had been detected in the sputa. 
The results obtained were : return of appetite, 
even in advanced cases, gain of weight and 
strength, fall of temperature to the normal in a 
week or two, disappearance of hajmoptysis, dimi- 
nution of cough and of purulency of sputa, cessa- 
tion of dyspnoea. It is claimed that the method 
reduces the malady to a purely local lesion, all 
