To the President and Members of the Mich. State Medical Society: GENTLEMEN:-Your Recording Secretary has the honor to report that exclusive of those elected at this meeting and those whose names have been dropped from the roll of membership on account of long arrearages in payment of dues, there are borne upon the roll of membership 238 names. Two members, Drs. Abram Sager, late of Ann Arbor, and A. E. Leete, late of Romeo, both honorary members, have died during the year. I have collected during the year for initiation fees and dues the sum of... Deposited with the Treasurer.. $281 00 263 00 $15 05 Balance due Recording Secretary...... The Transactions for the year 1877 and previous years have been distributed among members of this Society, to other State and county societies, to prominent medical men in this and other States, to insurance companies and State officials as in former years. Seven hundred copies of the Transactions for 1877 were published, at a cost of $240.82, of which number 340 are remaining on hand. Respectfully submitted. GEO. E. RANNEY, REPORT OF THE TREASURER. To the President and Members of the Mich. State Medical Society: 1877. May 14-By cash paid Woolnough & Bodine.. $5.50 112 25 243 70 361 45 Balance in my hands.. $160 06 All of which is respectfully submitted. GORDON CHITTOCK, Treas. Mich. State Med. Society. On motion of Dr. Jerome the reports were referred to the Finance Committee. Dr. Kedzie said that the Committee on Necrology was not prepared to report at this meeting, and thought it would not be able to report at this session, and asked the permission of the Society to prepare a report for the Secretary, to be pubIlished in the Transactions. On motion the committee were given leave to file their report with the Secretary. Dr. Campbell then read paper on the treatment of varicose ulcers by Esmarck's bandage. A motion to publish the same in the minutes was carried. Dr. McLean said he believed that the fly blister is a very efficient method for treating certain ulcers. It looks somewhat severe, but it is not so. He had tested it to his satisfaction. The application of a fly blister to an ulcer gives it a very great start on the road to health. In some cases I have no doubt the bandage is needed. With regard to the dressing, he thought he would recommend the doctor to try another wash with the red wash, namely the wash known as black wash. He could not explain why it was, but he knew that nothing afforded so much relief as the black wash in varicose ulcers. It is almost a specific for them. It is much better than the red. The great advantage, however, is in the management of patients. He was very glad to hear that doctrine laid down so plainly. He moved that the Society return their thanks to the doctor for his very valuable paper. Carried. Dr. Brodie would like to inquire whether the Dr. applied the stocking first or the bandage? The author said that in some cases he applied the bandage because the pressure of the stocking was insufficient. Lead was Dr. Topping said he had seen two cases of lead poisoning from the use of lead washes. One case was fatal. shown to be in the urine by chemical tests. They were under the treatment of irregular practitioners, or ulcer doctors who treated them almost exclusively by the application of either a salve made of sugar of lead or sugar of lead washes. Dr. Duffield then read a paper on a small-pox epidemic which occurred in Dearborn. Dr. Dunster asked how many days intervened between the visit that conveyed the small-pox and the appearance of the disease in the pneumonia patient. Dr. Duffield said ten days. Dr. Kedzie moved that the paper be accepted and referred to the Committee on Publication. Carried. Dr. Carstens then read a paper on the use of quinine in the treatment of scarlatina. Dr. Marshall said he would say that three years ago his attention was called to the use of quinine as a prophylactic in scarlet fever; that his attention was called to it accidentally, and where he administered quinine there were no deaths. In all those cases where it was given the disease was made much milder. He agreed with the doctor in regard to the use of quinine in that disease. The President said he would like to make a remark in regard to one idea seeming to be conveyed by the paper, or which may be inferred from it, viz.: that the death-rate is necessarily any evidence of the reliability and efficiency of medical treatment. His first experience in scarlet fever was somewhat singular. It first came about six miles from him in the southwest direction, and gradually extended toward the town in which he lived. It then moved around the town as on an axis. It made a complete circuit of the town, and at no time extended ten miles from it in any direction. It took two years for it to make that circuit. During the first year, no matter what the treatment was, not two per cent. died,-not two per cent. of the cases occurring during the first year. During the first six months of the second year about ten per cent. died. During the last six months of the second year not many cases occurred, but over seventy-five per cent. died. Now he spoke of this because here was a disease subject to practically the same or similar treatment and by the same men, and manifesting such a wonderful difference in its fatality in a single locality, showing that there must be something inherent in the disease itself, and it shows that we cannot safely say that because there have been no deaths that the treatment used is safe in every case. We should suspend our judgment in regard to the medicine under these circumstances until a wider experience tests its effect and efficiency. He had been interested very much in the paper and presumed it would convey useful and practicable suggestions to many minds. Dr. Brodie said he thought physicians very apt to run too much on a certain remedy for the cure of certain diseases. Of course, experience is good to show what is good for one year, but it may be good for nothing the next year. He had seen the time in epidemics of scarlatina where tincture of iron and chlorate of potash would seem to cure almost every case; again another season you can not do any thing with it. Such treatment as the doctor had advocated might have been good for last year, and may be good for nothing next year. When one remedy seems to have no effect, the quinine or some other tonic may be used to advantage. As far as the scarlet fever in Detroit last year was concerned, he thought it was very mild. A great many who had the scarlet fever had no doctor at all. He would not want to tie himself down to take quinine. He thought the doctor used quinine for almost any thing. If he hit upon it for scarlet fever, it was something he never heard of before. He did not think we ought to take too much stock in any remedy for the cure of certain diseases. It will be found that scarlet fever depends upon the atmosphere and the system of the individual. You get scarlet fever without any contagion. He thought certain conditions of the atmosphere and certain conditions of the individual influenced the disease and its development. In certain seasons you will have scarlet fever, and you may trace it back as far as you have a mind to and you cannot find any cause for it or any reason for it except some such a reason as that. Dr. McColl said that so far as this matter was concerned he fully agreed with the last speaker that we should have different treatments. Four years ago he had a number of cases of scarlatina and treated them with quinine in large doses as recommended by the reader of the paper. He had deaths in his cases that year. During the past winter he had treated quite a number of cases of scarlatina with the same treatment and no deaths occurred. There had been a number of other cases in his town treated by irregular practitioners and not a single death from scarlatina followed. He had the records of over 60 cases of scarlatina that had been treated the past winter by Homeopathic practitioners, Hydropathics, and by regular physicians and not a single case proved fatal, and he thought that while it would be of great value to use quinine in the treatment of scarlet fever, he did not think we should lay it down as a rule to be the treatment par excellence, although he believed it would mitigate the symptoms. He agreed with the last speaker to a certain extent and disagreed with him in one respect. He believed that every case could be traced back to some source. He traced the first case to the sheriff and his family and traced it from there to a prisoner in the jail: the family lived in the jail building. All the other cases could be traced to this family, and he thought every case of scarlet fever should be isolated. Dr. Carstens said he did not want to stand before this Society as claiming that in scarlet fever you need have no other remedy but quinine, but he thought there were many worse ones. He happened to be extraordinarily lucky in having no fatal cases. He claimed that quinine has a good deal to do in modifying the disease, and he thought in preventing death in many cases. He could trace all his cases to one source. Dr. Bennett asked for explanation. Now, is it a fact that all the medicine we are going to need pretty soon is going to be quinine? We have got a class of physicians in the country that don't have any thing in their cases but quinine; they give it in all diseases, from apoplexy clear down to the itch. [Laughter.] He made these remarks by way of preface, and would like to know of the author of the article if he had got any way of explaining how sulphate of quinia acts, what its modus operandi is upon the system that destroys the germ of the disease? The next question is as to it as a prophylactic effect. He wanted to know if his investigation into the subject had enabled him to fathom its mystery or modus operandi, how quinine is a prophylactic and how quinine is a cure? Dr. Carstens said that when the gentleman would tell him how quinine will destroy that poison that causes intermittent fever then he would tell him exactly how it was in scarlet fever. Dr. Bennett said he did not subscribe to the doctor's theory at all. That quinine walks into the system and grapples up the malarious poison as a tangible thing, he did not believe that at all. He was not taught that pathology; he believed that quinine cures intermittent fever about on this principle: that a substance, a certain thing that we call "malaria," although we cannot follow it or detect it, that that poison produces a deleterious state of the nervous condition. Now we do not believe that quinine destroys the poison in particular, but it acts as a restorer to the lost nervous power that has been destroyed by the effect of the malarious poison upon the nerve, and that it is in no sense a chemical agent that comes in and destroys the little bug, or carries it out. [Laughter.] On motion it was referred to the Committee on Publication. On motion it was voted that when the meeting adjourn it be until seven o'clock P. M. Dr. Topping read a paper upon the use of obstetrical forceps. On motion the paper was referred to the Committee on Publication. On motion the Society adjourned to visit the new Capitol, as per invitation of the Secretary of the State Building Commissioners, A. L. Bours., Esq. |