621 
THE A ME RICA N-S CAN DINA VIA N R E VIE W 
the body to a focus of infection in the tonsils or in the teeth. School¬ 
children are caret ully inspected as to the condition of these organs, and 
proper treatment is at once instituted without expense to the parents. 
Suppurating tonsils, ear-abscesses, nasal catarrhs and other focal in¬ 
fections have been shown to be originally responsible for Bright’s dis¬ 
ease of the kidneys. Neglected and infected teeth or roots are now 
known to be a very common cause of stiff, painful joints and other 
diseases, the origin of which was formerly more or less obscure. Sev¬ 
eral recent discoveries of modern medicine point in the same direction, 
and as a result, there exists a perhaps exaggerated tendency to combat 
an entire class of diseases, including mental disturbances, by the ruth¬ 
less removal of all of the patient’s teeth; but a counter tendency against 
this radical dentistry has already begun to make itself felt. 
A practical and highly up-to-date innovation has very recently 
been introduced by Dr. Goodhart of New York in the form of “brady- 
kinetic analysis.” It is an original and useful method of studying the 
deformities of motion by analysis on the moving picture screen. The 
pictures are so taken that the patient is exposed to the film from 160 
to 300 times per second and projected on the screen at the rate of 16 
per second; the result is that the abnormal movements are so reduced 
in speed as to permit analysis of motion. Experienced neurologists 
who have familiarized themselves with the interpretation of these pic¬ 
tures are thereby enabled to recognize the cause of the existing dis¬ 
turbances and in many cases to institute the proper measures for relief. 
The last decade shows not only an immense advance in experi¬ 
mental medicine, but medical thought is seen to tend ideally toward 
prophylaxis. It is also characteristic of the times that much endeavor 
has been devoted to the elimination of pain from surgical operations. 
Of recent years such painlessness is often secured without rendering 
the patient absolutely unconscious, by means of local conduction or 
spinal anaesthesia. Ether and chloroform have been largely replaced 
by the less dangerous nitrous oxide gas. Due to the phenomenal prog¬ 
ress of modern American surgery, nearly all organs of the body are 
now accessible and amenable to operative treatment when indicated. 
The introduction of serum and vaccine treatment, improved knowl¬ 
edge of the internal secretions, mental therapeutics, the scientific ap¬ 
plication of dietetic principles and the judicious employment of the 
new photo-therapeutic substances, have exerted a profound and stim¬ 
ulating influence on the evolution and tendencies of modern American 
medicine. 
