1234 
Oic RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 2, 1918 
The ** Cures” for Asthma 
I wuld say to A. H. M., page 963, that 
no drug will cure asthma, it being a 
symptom and not a disease. He can get 
relief by inhaling the smoke from stram¬ 
onium leaves, soaked in a, not too strong, 
solution of saltpeter, then dried, pulver¬ 
ized very fine, then take a small quan¬ 
tity on a metal dish, and light with 
match or live coal and breathe the 
smoke. If solution is too strong it will 
burn too fast. Or he may use the fol¬ 
lowing, which is as good as can be com¬ 
pounded : Powdered Grindelia robusta, 
4 oz.; jaborandi, 4 oz.; encal.vi)tus. 2 oz.; 
digitalis, 2 oz.; cubebs, 2 oz.; stramonium 
leaves, 8 oz.; saltpeter, 0 oz.; cascarilla 
bark, % oz.; mixed, used same as above. 
If paroxysm is severe, throw a blanket 
oyer head to confine the smoke, or shut 
himself in small room. The above are 
as good as any advertised cure ever put 
out; do not spend money or time on 
them. One person has asthma, another 
sick headache; both are same in most 
cases, and are easily cured if doctors 
only would treat them properly. 
• Ohio. CHAS. D. GIBSON. 
It is not correct to say that asthma 
is a symptom, not a disease, for, though 
there are cases of symptomatic asthma 
dependent upon the presence of some oth¬ 
er underlying trouble, there are many 
cases also in which the asthma itself 
son at W(^st Point to bar Briti.sh ships, 
are to be iTopened, after a century and .n, 
quarter of idleness, to supply munition 
plants. 
The Rev. Peter K. Solovey, a priest of 
the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic 
Church of North America, filed an affida¬ 
vit Oct. 17 with the New York Supreme 
Court ill which he accused P.ishop Alex¬ 
ander Namelovsky of the same church of 
ordaining men who have never been semi¬ 
narians of the church in order to enable 
them to evade the military service law. 
Father Solovey’ charged his superior with 
several other"' misdemeanoi’s and asked 
that a receiver be appointed to assume 
control of the church property. 
Investigation in Ne\v York by the Alien 
Property Custodian recently unearthed 
the history of the Chemical E.xchnnge 
Association. It was financed from Berlin 
and arranged for here by Count von Bern- 
storff and Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, and 
had for its object the cornering of all the 
carbolic acid in this country to prevent 
its being used in the manufacture of mu¬ 
nitions for Germany’.s enemies. The plan 
was_ so successful that between .Tune, 
191.5, and March, 1916, its organizers did 
gain possession of a va.st quantity of car¬ 
bolic acid. This, since they were unable 
to send it to Germany, they converted 
into harmles.s pharmaceutical products, 
such as salicylate of so<la, salol and ar¬ 
tificial oil of wintergreen, and sold their 
stuff at an excellent profit. Dr. Hugo 
Rhode Island, was destroyed by fire at 
I’awtucket. Oct. 17. The loss is esti¬ 
mated at .$200,000. 
Felix Gouled, a manufacturer of em¬ 
broidered goods, with a factory in Wee- 
hawken, offices in the Metropolitan and 
Flatiron Buildings. New York City, and 
a house in West End Avenue, was con¬ 
victed Oct. 18 by a jury in the Federal 
District Court of dealing illegally in army 
raincoat contracts. He was found guilty 
of bribing army officers to award con¬ 
tracts to manufacturers with whom he 
had an understanding. Gouled, a native 
of Warsaw, Poland, who began life in 
America fifteen years ago as a waiter, and 
has made .$1,000,000 in eighteen months 
in war contracts, was sentenced to .seven 
years in the Atlanta Penitentiary and to 
pay a fine of .$10,000. 
Federal officers arrested in New York 
Oct. 22 Samuel and Benjamin Alpert, 
undertakers, for attempting to defraud the 
Government. It is said that the bodies 
of .soldiers "and sailors who die at camp 
are shipped from the camps to the under¬ 
takers in well-made pine boxes which cost 
the Government .$•')(; each. The practice 
of certain local undertakers is to visit the 
relatives of the dead men and misrepre¬ 
sent the value of the Government coffins. 
These undertakers a.sk the families if it is 
their desire that the .soldier or sailor dead 
be buried in a cheap pine box. In the 
majority of instances the grief-stricken 
relatives revolt at such a prospect and 
constitutes the only recognizable disorder 
present, and, so far as our present knowl¬ 
edge goes, becomes entitled to recogni¬ 
tion as a distinct affection. 
As the paroxysms of asthma arc due to 
spasmodic contraction of the walls of the 
finer breathing tubes, anything that will 
cause a relaxation of these muscular 
walls will temporarily relieve the attack. 
Among the most common and useful 
drugs given for this purpose are those 
mentioned above, and the formulas 
should prove useful to sufferers. If not 
all are readily procurable, one or more 
may be left out. Various combinations 
of these things constitute the asthma 
remedies on the market. Unfortunately, 
there is no one combination universally 
useful, each sufferer having his own 
peculiar susceptibilities; the simpler com¬ 
binations are quite as apt to be effective 
as the more complicated, however. 
Asthma is not easily cured “if treated 
This little viie secs visions of the nny his soldier hrothcr is "clcnnituj itir’ 
a nidchine (jiin nest in Fninec. 
Here ice have Prof. Kniin, of Cornell, showing some Wayne Co., y. Y., fanners itoic 
to throw out the slaclccr hens. 
properly,” the statements of the adver¬ 
tising asthma healers to the contrary 
notwithstanding. It is often one of the 
most intractable of affections in spite of 
the most intelligent . treatment and the 
sufferer may, or may not, find relief in 
some measure that has benefited others. 
If the advertising “specialists” in asthma 
would publish their failures along witli 
their testimonials of cures, their reading 
matter would assume much more bulky 
proportions and be correspondingly less 
deceptive. m. b. d. 
Empyema in the Army 
Army surgeons seem to have adopted 
the principle of the modern milking ma¬ 
chine to the necessities of hospital treat¬ 
ment. Empyema is a disease in which 
fluid accumulates in the chest cavity and 
has frequently to be removed through a 
hollow needle. The “Official U. 8. Bulle¬ 
tin,” in an article upon the cause and 
treatment of this disease in our army, 
mentions an ingenious device by which 
this fluid is kept removed from the chests 
of a whole -ward full of patients. The 
drainage tubes from the patients’ chests 
are attached to a central pipe and a suc¬ 
tion pump removes the fluid at proper in¬ 
tervals. 
Frequent removal of the accumulating 
fluid, which too, often becomes pus, has 
resulted in a very gratifying increa.se in 
the percentage of cures, and the disease is 
consequently much less formidable than it 
formerly was. It has been found to be 
caused by a virulent type of germ be¬ 
longing to the family of the streptococci. 
Epidemics of this disea.se in camps and 
cantonments last Winter caused serious 
concern and led to the appointment of 
commissions for its study. Much was 
learned by these commis-sions and the 
army surgeons feel that any future epi¬ 
demics which may occur can be kept well 
in' hand. It is to be hoped that they will 
acknowledge their indebtedness to the 
dairy industry of our country, not only 
for an indispensable food, but for a me¬ 
chanical device which has added so much 
to the efficacy of their treatment. 
M. B. I). 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—A million dollars’ worth 
of sugar, part of the cargo of the trans¬ 
port America, was reported to have been 
lost when the America sank at her Hobo¬ 
ken pier. 
Iron mines in Sterlington, N. Y'^., which 
turned out the iron used for the chain- 
boom which was stretched across the Hud¬ 
Schweizer. who died last December, was 
the agent cho.sen by Bernstoi-tV and Albert 
to carry out the plans for buying up all 
the available carbolic acid in the United 
States. Schweizer was a naturalized 
American and a chemist employed by the 
Bayer Company, makers of aspirin tab¬ 
lets. Two more German-owned companies 
were taken over Oct. 21 in New "York by 
the Alien Proiierty Custodian. They are 
Gerstendorfer Bros., a .$1,000,000 corpora¬ 
tion manufacturing A)ronze paints, var¬ 
nishes and enamels, and the Hamhurg 
Assurance Company, organized in Ger¬ 
many in 1897 with a capitalization of 
$2,300,000. 
Tidal waves, which followed the earth¬ 
quake in Porto Rico, added to the death 
toll and devastation, the American Red 
Cross was advised Oct. 17. The city <)f 
Mayaguez. the third largest in the island, 
was jn-actically destroyi'd by the inrush 
of water, while the towns of Aguadilla, 
Amasco. Aguada and I’once w(‘re dam¬ 
aged badly. Other towns on the western 
part of the island were damaged by tin* 
earth shocks and the death list is placed 
at more than 100, with probably 300 in¬ 
jured. Hundreds of families are home¬ 
less and the property loss is estimated 
from .$3,000,000 to $4,000,000. 
St. .lean de Baptiste Church, one of the 
largest Catholic churches in. Northern, 
the undertaker leaves with an order for 
a coffin, the cost of rtvhich many of the 
relatives can ill afford to pay. Then the 
undertaker appropriates the Government 
coffin and later re.sells it, after removing 
the official stamp from the inside. These 
sales have netted from $15 to $25 each, 
the investigators assert, and some of the 
boxes have even been resold to the Gov¬ 
ernment. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—A forest pre¬ 
serve of more than 2.(K)().000 acres is as¬ 
sured to the people of New Y’ork State, 
and the purchase of more than 200,(100 
additional acres is now being negotiated 
with the owners, according to a summary 
just compile^ by Conservation Commis¬ 
sioner George D. Pratt. The summary 
represents what has been accomplished by 
the Conservation Commission in eighteen 
months since funds became available un¬ 
der the .$7,.500,000 bond i.ssue which th(‘ 
voters approved for the acquisition of 
lands in the Adirondacks and Catskills 
for State park purposes. Since the ap¬ 
proval of the issue, 400.731 acres of forest 
land have been offered for sale to the 
State, of which, after deducting such 
tracts as by their location were manifestly 
unsuitable for forest preserve purposes, 
411,050 acres have already been examined 
and appraised by the commission’s for- 
c-.ster.s. Of the 411,6.50 acres of which the 
Conservation (Commission has completed 
its inspection, it has agreed upon a price 
for 171,045 acres and recommended their 
purchase to the commissioners of the 
I.and Office. Altogether a total expendi¬ 
ture of over .$900,000 is involved. 
Public school boys from New York city 
who worked on the farms of the State 
last Summer earned $42,960 more than 
their expenses, .Tohn D. Tildsley, associate 
city superintendent, told the Board of 
Education recently. Two thousand boys 
from the city schools were employed on 
the farms from four to five months, and 
report.s from <16 show 10.6.50 acre.s were 
cultivated which could not have been tilled 
without their labor. The Board of Edu¬ 
cation appropriated $19,000 for the farm 
work and .$10.(KK) has been returned un¬ 
expended. The boys picked ,32.3,627 
quarts of berries, for which they w’ere 
paid $10,0(XK 
Prof. Ezra Dwight Sanderson has just 
been appointed Professor of Rural Drgan- 
ization at the New York State College of 
Agriculture, Cornell TYiiversity. Prof. 
Sanderson, who is a graduate of the Mich¬ 
igan Agricultural College, was engaged 
for some years in entomological work in 
Delawaro, Texas, and New Hampshire. 
In 1907 he was made director of the New 
Hampshire _ Agricultural Experiment 
Station, Avhich position he held until 
1910, when he left to become Dean of 
the_ College of Agriculture of 'West 'Vir- 
ginia University and director of the West 
Virginia Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tion. In .Tune, 1915, he resigned the lat¬ 
ter position to enter the Graduate Sclm^d 
of the University of Chicago as a student 
in sociology, and he was sub-sequently 
made a Fellow in Sociology at the Uni¬ 
versity of_ Chicago. Another appointment 
IS that of Prof. Homer C. Thompson to 
be Profes.sor of Vegetahle Gardening. 
Thompson was graduated from the 
Ohio State University. Prior to this he 
had been employed in the United States 
Department of Agriculture in experi¬ 
mental gardens and had charge of experi¬ 
mental work on rice lands in South 
Carolina, and subsequently held positions 
as assistant horticulturist in the Missis¬ 
sippi Experiment Station and assistant 
profes.sor of horticulture in the Missis¬ 
sippi Agricultural (’ollege; professor.ship 
of horticulture at Cleni.sen College, South 
Carolina; in 1911 he was apiiointed as¬ 
sistant horticulturist in the United States 
Department of Agriculture, and in 1912 
was given charge of the truck crop pro¬ 
duction projects of the department, and 
he has had responsibility for them since 
that time. In l!)13 he was promoted to 
the position of horticultiiri.st in the United 
States Departnieiit of Agriculture. 
'^^UINGTDN.—Director-General of 
Iiailroads McAdoo issued orders Oct. 16 
establishing iinirorm baggage rules on all 
raili’oads under Government control. In¬ 
valid chairs will be checked free. A 
nominal charge will be made for go-carts 
and bicych's. Corpses will be checked on 
the iiaynient of one first-class passenger 
fare. No change has been made in the 
excess baggage rate. There will be usual 
free_ allowance of 150 pounds. A con¬ 
cession which salesmen have sought for 
years is granted them—they will be per¬ 
mitted to check baggage on a one-way 
ticket to a destination short of that called 
for by their ticket. Provision has been 
made for handling in baggage .service such 
articles as adding machines, cash regis¬ 
ters. computing .scales, talking machines, 
baseb.'ill and club paraphernalia, much of 
which had to be sent by freight. 
Two parts of the Kitchin revenue bill 
which have been attacked as unconstitu¬ 
tional were removed from that measure 
by the Senate Finance Committee Oct. 17. 
’Phese are the Federal tax on dividends 
paid by State and municipal securities 
and the tax on salaries of the President 
and the entire judiciary. 
Not even the so-called Kruezen, or new 
beer for carbonizing old beer, can be 
brewed after Dec. 1 under a ruling an¬ 
nounced Oct. 18 by Food Administrator 
Hoover and Fuel Administrator Garfield. 
Brow(‘r.s had asked that they be allowed 
to bis'w new Ixs'r for this purpose after 
the date fix<Ml by the President for all 
brewing to cease. If necessary to use the 
malt and other material now on hand, 
brewers may use as much of their fuel 
allotment as they choose between now and 
Dec. 1. However, for the purpose of re¬ 
frigeration after Dec. 1, it is considered 
that the allotment of Biel under the order 
of .July 3 is sufficient and it will be nec(>s- 
sary for the brewers to save sufficient coal 
out of their allowance for this purpose. 
Cistern Filter 
On page 766, H. P. E, East Provi¬ 
dence, R. I., asks how is a filter con¬ 
structed for a cistern. Clean cistern, 
scrub it clean, then make a box 12x18 
inches with boards eight or 10 inches 
wide. Take a piece of % or ^-inch mesh 
galvanized screen and nail on for a bot¬ 
tom. Place on the screen a piece of 
coarse gunny cloth, just covering the 
screen, then fill the box half full of good 
clean charcoal Hang the box under the 
inlet pipe in the cistern. Let all water 
run through this charcoal before going 
into the cistern. Once or twice a year 
empty the box and wash the charcoal and 
replace the same as in the beginning. I 
have found in my experience of over 40 
years of mason work this to be the best 
kind of a filter. Hollow brick walls filled 
with charcoal and gravel soon become fil- 
E, D. B. 
Fayetteville, N. 
