Vol. XXIII. No. 7.] 



POPULAE SCIEI^CE NEWS. 



Ill 



purposes. By its use, every kind of cough could be 

 taught to students by direct demonstration. In a 

 course on children's diseases, the whoop of pertus- 

 sis would be given at the right moment, and com- 

 pared with the cough of a severe bronchitis, or the 

 snuffle of a syphilitic infant, while the same child 

 shows in its own person the progress under treat- 

 ment, its present condition being registered for 

 future use. 



It is believed that other physicians are trying to 

 render this instrument professionally useful. 



A WRITER in the Journal de la Sante considers 

 that the verification of death by the use of electricity 

 is the only serious method, and the most easy to 

 practice. 



The most elementary of electric machines will 

 suffice for this purpose. The muscles of the face 

 being the first to lose their contractility (the mus- 

 cles of the eyelids and of the lips excepted), if, *vith 

 an apparatus that determines, upon an assistant, a 

 slight contraction, no contraction whatever of the 

 muscles of the face of the subject is produced, one 

 might affirm that the person is dead. Should the 

 slightest trace of contractility be observed, however, 

 the same apparatus should be, without delay, em- 

 ployed to electrify the region of the heart, so that, 

 if death is only apparent, the respiration and circu- 

 lation may be revived. 



According to Dr. Bernard, in an article addressed 

 to the Paris Academy of Medicine, the only infalli- 

 ble signs of death being cadaveric rigidity and pu- 

 trefaction, the physician should only deliver his 

 certificate when he has established these phenomena 

 to have occurred; but, as it is claimed that cadaveric 

 rigidity alone is not an -infallible test of death, it 

 will be prudent to wait for the first sign of putrefac- 

 tion, viz. : the greenish coloration of the abdomen. 



Dr. Dujardin-Beaumetz, physician ofthe Hos- 

 pital Cochin, has delivered his report for 1888 on 

 rabies in the Department of the Seine, and an- 

 nounces brilliant results for M. Pasteur's treatment. 

 The mortality for uninoculated persons was 15.90 

 per cent, in 1887, and 13.33 P^"" cent, in 1888; while 

 for patients treated in the Institute the mortality 

 was only 1.14 per cent, in 1887, and 1.19 per cent, 

 in 1 888. 



Mr. Victor Horsely, one of the leading surgeons 

 of England, strongly endorses Pasteur's treatment 

 of hydrophobia. 



Dr. Clouston, of Edinburgh, has published his 

 experience with paraldehyde. He likes it far better 

 than any other pure hypnotic. Very often the pa- 

 tient is asleep in five minutes after the drug is 

 given. It is very rare that it produces disagreeable 

 eflects. It does not interfere with the appetite for 

 food next morning, nor distub the stomach or 

 bowels. In some cases it restores to the brain the 

 habit of sleep, and it may be di-scontinued without 

 leaving a drug habit. The doctor found it of no 

 use, but rather injurious, when given in the day- 

 time. The dose varies- largely according to the 

 case. Too small doses are apt to excite the patient. 

 He begins with 40 miniums to 3i. and goes up to 

 3ii. in ordinary cases. In very many cases of con- 

 firmed insomnia, in melancholia, and in acute ma- 

 nia, three, or even four, drachms are required. In 

 cases of mania he often adds a drachm of one of the 

 bromides to the evening dose of paraldehyde. 



Biliary calculi in women, it is believed by Mar- 

 chand, {London Med. Press), are often caused by 

 wearing corsets. The pressure exerted by these 

 articles of dress, on the liver, is transferred to the 

 gall-bladder and its ducts, causing retention of the 



bile in the gall-bladder. If the daily evacuation of 

 the gall-bladder is imperfectly accomplished, reten- 

 tion and stagnation of bile occurs, and consequent 

 disposition to the formation of gall-stones. 



membrane in diphtheria. If the naphthol is not 

 pure, the liquid will be of a pinkish color. 



SuLi'HONAL in night-svveats is reported upon 

 favorably by Dr. Bottnich in the Therap. Monatshefte. 

 He administered to a lady, eighty years of age, who 

 had passed many sleepless nights, fifteen grains of 

 sulphonal as a hypnotic. She had suffered from 

 such profuse night-sweats that she was frequently 

 compelled to change her night-dress twice during 

 one night. The sulphonal had the effect of rapidly 

 stopping the sweats, and further investigations 

 proved that in most cases night-sweats could be 

 overcome by taking thirty grains of sulphonal at 

 bed-time. 



Dr. a. H. Neuth writes (^London Lancet) that he 

 has had remarkably good results from the use of 

 antifebrin, externally, as a sedative. He combines 

 it with lanolin or vaselin in the proportion o- 

 twenty grains to the ounce. To this, other medi' 

 cines may be added, as seem applicable to special 

 cases. In obstinate, irritable ulcers it soothes the 

 pain and subdues inflammation. 



In psoriasis, combined with some mercurial prep- 

 aration, it acts like a charm. He has also found it 

 a most useful adjunct to other remedies in erythema, 

 erysipelas, eczema, herpes, urticaria, and other irri- 

 tations. 



In cases of pyuria renalis, due to calculus. Dr. 

 Walker (I'hila. Med. Reg.) recommends R. Lithii 

 carbonatis, Grs. iij. ; acidi borici, Grs. V. Make 

 into one pill, and repeat the dose four times daily. 

 He thinks boric acid prevents fermentation of 



Dr. Vuillet {.Tour, de Pharm. et de Chir.) uses 

 salol, in the form of cotton tampons, in diseases of 

 the uterus, as an antiseptic dressing. Drs. Creyx 

 and Jarry use equal parts of salol and amylum as a 

 dusting powder in fungous granulations of the ute- 

 rus, and in vaginitis. 



A writer in the London Med. Press states that 

 when an impassible urethral stricture exists, and the 

 surgeon, after performing external urethrotomy, is 

 unable to find the urethral opening, supra-pubic 

 tapping can be done, and the bladder catheterized 

 from behind, forwards. The sound is passed for- 

 wards to the stricture, another instrument pas.sed 

 from the front, and the intervening stricture-tissue 

 incised. 



It is, as is shown by Med. Classics, a mistake to 

 suppose that because milk is a liquid, that it is at 

 the same time a drink capable of satisfying the 

 thirst of infants. Although milk appeases hunger, 

 it makes thirst more intense after it remains some 

 time in the stomach and its digestion has begun. 

 It is thirst which causes healthy, breast-nourished 

 infants to cry for long periods of time, in many in- 

 stances. There are many cases of indigestion due 

 to weakness of the child's gastric juice, or insufli- 

 ciency, which would be greatly benefitted or even 

 cured if the child were allowed an occasional drink 

 of water. 



It has recently been found that naphthol, which 

 is very insoluble in water, can be combined with 

 camphor so as to form a liquid. It is only necessary 

 to rub up one part of naphthol with two parts of 

 dry camphor to obtain a creamy liquid. It has been 

 found to be an excellent antiseptic application to 

 wounds and ulcers, and is said to clean off the false 



A.sTiiiNGENT washes prevent the formation of 

 bed-sores. Dr. Walker {Med. Times and Reg.) uses 

 a one per cent, solution of chloral hydrate, with 

 very beneficial results, in the treatment of bed-sores. 

 The parts were thoroughly syringed, washed, and 

 dressed in chloral. 



Special care should be exercised by the physician 

 to prevent the formation of bed-sores, by daily exam- 

 ination and prompt resort to astringent antiseptic 

 dressings. Many a patient wiio has passed safely 

 the crisis of a disease, has died from the fearful 

 sufferings following upon the formation of bed- 

 sores. 



Several years ago Dr. C. W. Prentiss, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, published a case in which he thought 

 the use of jaborandi caused white hair to resume its 

 natural dark color. He now reports another case, 

 the patient being an old lady, with Bright's disease. 



THE AMERICAN POSTURE. 



These are the days when even the most ordinary 

 and apparently inconsequential items in human 

 conduct or social custom must be submitted to the 

 prying gaze of science. Everything, from the kiss 

 that first accentuates the dawn of love to the painful 

 struggles of parturiency, has to have its analysis 

 and physiological explanation. It seems somewhat 

 strange, therefore, that, in this alert and eager 

 search for cause and effect, no one has yet attempted 

 to analyze and place on a solid scientific basis the 

 practice of sitting with one leg crossed over the 

 other. This is a custom which, we venture to 

 assert, is distinctly American, and one that has been 

 observed and transmitted with pious care by the 

 average American male for the past, two hundred 

 years. Its prevalence may have become somewhat 

 modified by the incursions, during late years, of 

 foreigners with large waists and weak adductors ; 

 but the true^Vmerican still preserves this detail of 

 his birthright with a constancy and obtrusiveness 

 born of a deep sense of its eternal and inherited fit- 

 ness. 



There are certain inferior races of men who also 

 sit cross-legged. But their case is quite different. 

 They abduct the thighs and cross the legs, assuming 

 a more or less foetal posture, and one evidently con-_ 

 nected with a lower degree of ethnical evolution. 

 The monkey sits somewhat in the same style. In 

 the higher and tenser civilization, however, which 

 has unfolded beneath the stars and stripes, and the 

 ennobling influences of the spoils system in politics, 

 there is nothing foetal in the posture, but directly 

 the reverse. The adductors of the thighs are 

 brought into play, — a nobler group of muscles, and 

 one whose super-activity must, we take it, mean a 

 higher physical development of man. 



The. conditions of life in America madeof Brother 

 Jonathan a man with a short trunk, small waist, and 

 long legs, — anatomical proportions exactly suited to 

 a comfortable sedentation with the thighs crossed. 

 This type of man still prevails in New England, the 

 south, .and parts of the middle states and the west. 

 With these a posture in which the thighs cross is 

 instinctive. The observations of physiologists and 

 physicists would undoubtedly show that in this po- 

 sition the centre of gravity is thrown forward so 

 that it corresponds more nearly with the tubera 

 ischiorum, thus enabling the sitter to gain a firmer 

 hold upon the seat. Besides this, the weight of the 

 crossing leg doubles the pressure df the foot upon 

 the floor, and this again helps to prevent slipping 

 forward. Whether there is anything in the posture 

 which arouses a particular sense of ease, comfort, 



