Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
February.  19 18.  J 
Book  Reviews. 
Annual  Report  of  the  Surgeon-General  of  the  Public 
Health  Service  of  the  United  States  for  the  Fiscal  Year 
of  1917. 
This  report  which  is  a  book  of  387  pages  covers  an  extensive 
field  of  work,  and  attests  to  the  efficiency  of  the  Public  Health 
Service  presided  over  by  Surgeon-General  Blue. 
It  is  impossible  in  a  brief  article  to  even  mention  by  title  the 
list  of  activities  of  this  service,  only  a  few  can  be  mentioned. 
Pellagra,  which  has  prevailed  extensively  in  parts  of  the  South, 
is  supposed  to  be  caused  by  eating  damaged  maize.  As  studied  in 
some  asylums  it  has  been  found  to  be  entirely  preventable  by  proper 
diet.    It  has  been  possible  to  transmit  the  disease  by  inoculation. 
Trachoma,  a  disease  of  the  eyes  leading  to  blindness,  has  been 
treated  in  two  hospitals  established  in  the  Appalachian  Mountains. 
As  the  disease  was  a  formidable  enemy  in  the  Russo-Japanese  War, 
it  is  recommended  that  the  eyelids  of  all  recruits  be  examined, 
especially  in  some  parts  of  the  South. 
Health  conditions  surrounding  employees,  both  women  and  men, 
have  been  closely  studied.  The  mental  and  physical  status  of 
school  children  in  various  parts  of  the  country  have  been  studied, 
especially  in  New  Castle  and  Sussex  counties  of  Delaware,  numbers 
of  feeble-minded  children  thus  being  brought  to  light. 
In  the  report  of  the  hygienic  laboratory,  the  death  of  Dr.  Martin 
I.  Wilbert  is  mentioned. 
The  Division  of  Pharmacology  has  examined  wild-grown  digi- 
talis from  Oregon  and  has  been  found  that  it  complied  with  the  re- 
quirements of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  for  strength.  It  is  claimed 
as  the  result  of  considerable  work  done  on  cannabis  that  the  meth- 
ods adopted  by  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  (9th  edition)  for  testing 
this  drug  did  not  always  yield  satisfactory  results. 
In  view  of  some  unfavorable  reports  concerning  the  toxicity  of 
salvarsan  and  analogous  compounds,  it  is  now  under  careful  study. 
The  quarantine  work  carried  on  along  the  Mexican-Texas 
border  is  both  extensive  and  important;  they  are  constantly  on  the 
look  out  for  typhus  fever,  the  importance  of  it  being  shown  by  the 
fact  that  in  the  city  of  Zacatecas,  Mex.,  in  4  months  of  1917  there 
were  2,000  deaths  from  this  disease  in  a  population  of  60,000. 
Very  complete  equipments  are  maintained  along  this  border 
for  ridding  the  imigrants    (Mexican  laborers,  etc.)   of  vermin. 
