378 
EXTRACTS FROM EXCHANGES. 
SURGICAL ITEMS. 
If indiscriminate operating is often responsible for the sac¬ 
rifice of healthy organs, reluctance to operate also has a heavy 
responsibility to bear. . . . The conservatism which saves 
organs rather than health is not a true conservatism.—(/. B. 
Wheeler .) 
Dried wound secretions which require prolonged soaking 
to soften and remove them, can be readily dissolved and 
washed off if soaked with hydrogen dioxide (H 3 0 3 ).—( L. A. Ml) 
As surgery progresses, the operator becomes more fearless 
and his methods more simple ; by practice, he avoids long and 
tedious procedures; by cautiousness, deferred convalescence; 
by asepsis, unsightly cicatrices; with anaesthetics, the inflic¬ 
tion of pain; and, lastly, his knowledge of sutgical anatomy 
leaves no telltale offenses against the solution of continuity.— 
{E. M.) 
It is never advisable to perform an amputation immediately 
after an injury. The tendency of modern surgery is to delay 
the operation until the tissue has regained as much vitality as 
possible.— {V. Sch. Int. Journal of Surgery.) 
As a surgical analgesic and for the purpose of facilitating 
the action of anaesthetics, heroin hydrochloride is being exten¬ 
sively used in the German clinics.—( L. A. M.) 
The prognosis in cases of penetrating gunshot wounds of 
the abdomen treated on the expectant plan is extremely bad, 
the death rate being about 90 percent.— {Int. Jour, of Surgery.) 
The keynote of the treatment of general septic peritonitis 
must be the relief of the peritoneum and of obstructed lymph 
channels, and this can only be done by removal of the septic 
exudates and subsequent drainage.— {Int. Jour, of Surgery.) 
The average patient when nearly well of a sickness will 
take a bottle of Rotgut’s Relief or a box of Poopendike’s Pills, 
and to these he will give all the glory, and “ the doctor be 
d-d.” —Medical World. The experienced veterinarian is 
fully capable of comprehending the ennui which actuated the 
writing of the above paragraph.— {L. A. M.) 
EXTRACTS FROM EXCHANGES. 
RUSSIAN REVIEW. 
On the Physiology of Urinary Secretion [By 
Schwarz \.—All the theories on urinary secretion agree on the 
