NEW REMEDIES IN VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
699, 
y tie action of ethyl-iodide on sodium paranitrophenol, which 
orms mtrophenetol, the latter yields by prolonged boiling with 
glacial acetic acid-phenacetine. It is described as appearing 
colorless, tasteless, inodorous, scaly glistening crystals, sparing¬ 
ly soluble in cold, more freely in boiling water, and in about 1 
to 16 of alcohol. Phenacetine was introduced in 1887 and 
was recommended as an antefebrile, since which time its litera¬ 
ture has attained large dimensions. It has been given in phthis¬ 
is, typhus, polyarthritis; peritonitis with success, and has also 
made a reputation as an antineuralgic in vasomotor neurosis in 
t e lancinating pains of neuralgia and hemicrania. Success fol- 
lowed its use in the whooping cough of children and in epidem¬ 
ic influenza both as a prophylectic and remedy. The action of 
phenacetine seems to be free from the danger of producing col¬ 
apse and unpleasant effects generally; like most of the synthet¬ 
ical antipyretics its antefebrile effects are accompanied by more 
or less profuse perspiration. When fever is accompanied by 
restlessness or sleeplessness, phenacetine has been found to re¬ 
duce the high temperature and produce quiet sleep without 
being followed by headache. 
The soluble forms of iron.—The use of iron in medicine dates 
from the earliest times; indeed, so remote is the period when 
man first began to appreciate its virtues as a medicine that it is 
no longer possible to exactly define it. Probably the first form 
m which it was taken was not as a metal or as salts, but in some 
mineral spring which bubbled up from an unseen source richly 
stocked with super-carbonate of iron dissolved from some fer- 
rugmous strata through which the water passed. What may be 
distinctly termed the scientific use of iron in the treatment of 
disease, dated from the discovery of that element as a constant 
constituent of healthy blood, the conclusion being inevitable 
that it served some important purpose there, and that, con¬ 
sequently, its diminution might be the cause of disease. So it 
came about that iron grew to be regarded as a haematic, or as a 
medicament that specially acted upon and enriched the blood. 
All conditions of the body which were characterised by an ap- 
