mMSch,i898.rm'}  Gleanings  from  the  Medical  four  rials.  159 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  alcohol  is  a  depressant  rather  than  a 
stimulant ;  that  it  is  not  a  food  ;  that  its  power  to  check  the  meta- 
bolism of  tissues,  and  delay  the  excretion  of  effete  products  from 
the  system,  is  not  a  benefit ;  that  it  does  not  promote  digestion,  but 
retards  it ;  that  it  is  the  cause  of  many  diseased  conditions ; 
that  the  substitution  of  other  drugs,  in  cases  in  which  alcohol  is 
claimed  to  be  beneficial,  is  productive  of  better  results  ;  and  that 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  daily  use  of  alcohol  by 
members  of  the  community,  as  a  beverage,  or  as  a  remedy,  with  all 
its  possible  and  actual  evils,  is  in  many  instances,  the  outcome  of  the 
well-intended  prescriptions  of  family  doctors. 
Now,  if  it  should  turn  out  that  the  use  of  alcohol,  besides  being 
hazardous,  is  always  unnecessary,  such  cardiac,  cerebral  and  other 
stimulants  as  strychnine,  strophanthus,  digitalis,  ammonia,  caffeine 
and  nitroglycerin  being  able  to  fulfil  all  demands  for  which  alcohol 
has  been  administered,  what  a  load  of  responsibility  will  rest  on  the 
text-books,  the  very  latest  of  which  inculcate,  with  increased  vehe- 
mence, a  doctrine  which  may  do  immeasurable  personal  injury  to 
the  great  host  of  medical  graduates  sent  out  every  year,  and  to  the 
trusting  communities  which  expect  and  deserve  from  their  medical 
attendants  wise  benefactions  unmixed  with  baneful  ingredients  ! 
If  the  medical  journals  of  the  country,  instead  of  advertising  and 
commending  medicated  wines,  intoxicating  malt  extracts  and  well- 
aged  whiskies,  would  intimate  that  the  non-alcoholic  treatment  of 
diseases  deserves  a  fair  trial,  and,  if  their  readers  would  personally 
test  this  treatment,  no  harm,  but  an  immense  amount  of  good, 
might  be  the  outcome. 
TREATMENT  OF  SOFT  CHANCRE. 
A  Hungarian  practitioner,  Dr.  E.  Szanto,  has  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that,  of  all  the  means  employed  against  soft  chancre,  salicylic 
acid  is  the  best.    He  uses  it  in  the  form  of  an  ointment,  as  follows  : 
R    Acid.  Salicylic,     gr.  xv 
Vaselin,  %  i 
Tinct.  Benzoin,  .^ss 
m,. — Sig.  :  For  external  use. — Buffalo  Med.  and  Surg.  Journal. 
