Varieties.
HOW MILK SHOULD BE TAKEN.—Milk is a food that should not be taken in copious draughts like beer, or other fluids, which differ from it chemically. If we consider the use of milk in infancy, the physiological ingestion, that is, of it, we find that the sucking babe imbibes little by little the natural food provided for it. Each small mouthful is secured by effort, and slowly presented to the gastric mucous surface for the primal digestive stages. It is thus gradually and regularly reduced to curd, and the stomach is not oppressed with a lump of half-coagulated milk. The same principle should be regarded in the case of the adult. Milk should be slowly taken in mouthfuls, at short intervals, and thus it is rightly dealt with by the gastric juice. If milk be taken after other food, it is almost sure to burden the stomach, and to cause discomfort and prolonged indigestion, and this, for the obvious reason that there is insufficient digestive agency to dispose of it. And, the better the quality of the milk, the more severe the discomfort will be under these conditions.—Dr. Dyce Duckworth in Popular Science Monthly for August.
FOREST CULTURE.—Probably fifty years hence there will be abundance of trees in the West. (So—what happened? MM) Agriculturists are rapidly awaking to the necessity of planting them. The Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad Company has begun the planting of hundreds of acres of trees on its lands. A Boston capitalist has engaged a company of raisers of forest seedlings in Illinois to break and plow a large area in Kansas, and plant no less than 2,720 trees to the acre, and cultivate these until they shade the ground. At the end of that time—say ten years—the plantations will be delivered over to the owner. No trees less than six feet high are to be counted. The Fort Scott Railroad has adopted this plan, one advantage of which is that the tree enterprise will be attended by experienced men, whose interest it will be to make as much of a success of it as possible.—Manuf. and Builder, June.
WINTERGREEN AS AN ANTISEPTIC.—From the fact that the best salicylic acid is obtained from wintergreen oil, it is scarcely surprising to learn that Gosselin and Bergeron ("Archives Générales," January, 1881) have found that wintergreen is almost as antiseptic as carbolic acid. They have used two alcoholic solutions of varying strength; the stronger is composed. of five parts oil of wintergreen, one hundred parts alcohol and fifty parts, water; the weaker, of two and a half parts of oil of wintergreen, one hundred alcohol and one hundred water. No toxic effect or caustic action resulted from the use of these solutions. It is probable that while the cost of this antiseptic solution may be as claimed by Gosselin and Bergeron, still physicians engaged in rural practice may find in the use of these alcoholic solutions of wintergreen oil an economical means of practising anti-septicism, as wintergreen is an exceedingly common plant east of the Mississippi river.—Chic. Med. Rev., May 5.
OIL OF CAJEPUT IN ECZEMA.—Dr. Claiborne ("Gaillard's Medical Journal," April, 1881) claims to have secured very good results from the use of the oil of cajeput in infantile eczema. The drug was used in the form of a lotion composed of oleum cajeput four drachms, sapo viridis four drachms and alcohol two ounces, with which the eczematous patches were washed at least once a day. An ointment composed of two ounces of oxide of zinc ointment and two drachms of oil of cajeput was kept locally applied to the eczematous patches. The oil of cajeput has often been used in other dermatoses, though without much effect, but this is perhaps the first contribution to its use in any form of eczema.— Chic. Med. .Rev., May 5.
CHAULMOOGRA AND GURJUN OIL IN LEPROSY.—John D. Hillis, F.R.C.S.I., West Indies.—I have tried, and with much success, chaulmoogra oil in true leprosy. I give it internally in doses commencing with ten minims in emulsion with milk; and externally I apply a liniment of one part of chaulmoogra to fifteen of olive oil to the eruption, the diseased nerves or the tubercular surfaces. I find that the oil causes Constipation; and in consequence I am in the habit of administering it with castor oil.
I have, however, obtained much better results at the General Leper Asylum with gurjun oil—wood oil. The cases in which gurjun oil has failed have either been too far advanced or with hereditary taint, or where the disease had been preceded by small pox, syphilis or yaws (framboesia); these are much less amenable to treatment.—N. Y. Med. Abstract.
KAVA KAVA IN GONORRHOEA.—Dr. French has recently prescribed this remedy with great success in gonorrhoea in conjunction with other remedies, as follows: Ex. fl. eucalyptus 2 drams, ex. fl. kava kava 5 ½ drams, acid benzoic ½ drachm, pulv. acid boracic 3 drachms. M. S. 1 dram 3 times a day. Kava kava has recently been shown by Dupuy to be a sialogogue, bitter tonic, mild excitant of the nervous system, diuretic and blenostatic. It is, however, probable all the supposed virtues of this plant depend on the oleoresin which directly affects the mucous membrane like other oleoresins.—Chic. Med. Rev., 1881, p. 123.
EUCALYPTUS IN CHRONIC DISEASES OF THE STOMACH.—Dr. Charles James Fox has successfully treated the diseases mentioned with tincture of eucalyptus in doses of 1 dram twice a day, continued for a few weeks, or if necessary, several months.
In a class of cases of symptoms of ulcers of the stomach, threatening perforation, he has found that a strict regimen and light diet, conjoined with the use of the drug, exempted the patient from the recurrence of attacks.—Medical Bulletin, April.
POULTICE OF JABORANDI.—Cases of mammary inflammation are successfully treated by Dr. H. B. Stehman with a poultice composed of two parts flaxseed meal and one part crushed jaborandi leaves, the latter infused in a quantity of hot water necessary to make the poultice of the proper consistency; a diaphoretic mixture is given at the same time.
In mumps this treatment proved equally gratifying, and in the inflammatory stages of buboes the poultices prevented suppuration.—Lancaster Med. Soc. Trans.; Med. and. Surg. Reporter, June 25.
PAPAIN FOR TAENIA.—In the "Lyon Medical" M. Bouchut reports that he has used papain, or vegetable trypsin, as well as animal pepsin, as a vermifuge, and he states that he not only finds it more active, but that he has relieved several children by its means. After its use a child had passed yellow softened segments of tapeworm, twenty-five centimeters long, and in a partially digested state. These facts, taken with those which have been derived from the colonies in which the juice of carica papaya has been successfully used for worms, go far to prove that this new remedy will in future be of service as an anthelmintic.—Med. and Surg. Rep., July 30.
APOCYNUM CANNABINUM IN ANASARCA.—Bright's disease is becoming the fashionable disease to study, more especially since Charcot, who sets the fashion for many physicians in the United States, has been paying much attention to it; these symptoms have been chiefly pathological and symptomatological. However, many independent observers have dealt with it from the therapeutical aspect, and Dr. J. S. Dabney (New Orleans "Medical and Surgical Journal," Feb., 1881) has found, he claims, that apocynum cannabinum is one of the best diuretics and hydragogue cathartics that can be employed in the disease, as it causes not only marked diminution of the anasarca, but also decrease in the albumen and casts. He claims for it certain advantages: First, a small quantity only is necessary to produce diuresis, emesis or catharsis. Second, it has an agreeable aromatic taste. Third, it has tonic properties. Fourth, its harmlessness, free emesis resulting from an overdose. While many of these claims seem rather strained, still there appears to be but little doubt that the remedy is of much value in ascites, anasarca and allied conditions.—Buffalo Med. and Surg. Jour., June; Medical Review.
DESICCATED OX BLOOD AND HEMOGLOBIN.—Dr. Le Bon says that desiccated ox blood and hemoglobin has been thoroughly tried in the Paris-hospitals and found very efficacious in debilitated patients. It is indicated in those cases that require raw meat, iron or the phosphates. The elixirs or wines sold as containing the essential principles of blood or meat are of comparatively little value, and are devoid of the nutritive properties contained in the albuminoid principles which are so essential.—St. Louis Courier, April, p. 327; Med. Times and Gazette.
SUGAR OF MILK AS A LAXATIVE.—A writer in the "Deutsche Med. Wochenschrift" recommends sugar of milk as an efficient and agreeable laxative. He gives from quarter to half an ounce in half a pint of warm water, or of milk and water, fasting, in the morning.—Med. and Surg. Rep., July 30.
ACTION OF CONINE.—Dr. Bouchefontaine recently reported ("Bulletin generale de Therapeutique") before the Académie des Sciences some experiments which proved, he claimed, that conine first acted on the nerve centres themselves before affecting the nervous connective substance between the nerves and muscles. In the dog and the batrachians the alkaloid ends by completely decreasing the nervous motor excitability if given in sufficient quantity, but is then fatal to both classes of animals. These results fully accord with clinical experience, for it has frequently happened that cases of acute mania and progressive paresis in which delusions existed based on the motor disturbance, have had both removed by the use of sufficient doses of either the alkaloid or the fluid extract of the drug which has calmed the motor excitement, thus removing the delusions and preventing the establishment of a vicious circle which would soon exhaust the patient.—Chic. Med. Review, 1881, p. 132.
The American Journal of Pharmacy, Vol. 53, 1881, was edited by John M. Maisch.
