A NOTE ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF PHOSPHORIC ACID.

BY WILLIAM PEPPER, A. M., M. D.

I have for several years been using phosphoric acid internally in a large number of cases. The medicinal properties that are usually assigned to this drug are those of a tonic to the digestive organs and to the nervous system. It is usually administered in the form of dilute phosphoric acid, alone or in combination with some other tonic, such as quinia, tincture of the chloride of iron,

etc.

After having satisfied myself that it is a remedy of very great value in suitable cases, I was led to consider its administration in conjunction with other substances by noting the large extent to which I found the preparation, termed Horsford's acid phosphate, used in this community without prescription from any physician.

I found, on inquiry, that this preparation, the formula of which is published in the paper accompanying each bottle, contains the following ingredients in each fluidrachm:

B.-Acid. phosphor. (free).
Calcis phosphate ..

Magnesii phosphat..
Ferri phosphat..

Potassii phosphat

.grs. vss.

...

.grs. iii.

gr. ss. gr. 1-6.

.gr. 1.

It is a liquid of an intensely sour taste, with scarcely any appreciable trace of the taste of iron, and, when very freely diluted with water, is not an unpleasant dose. Many patients, however, complain of its intense sourness; and in the dose recommended by the makers (f3 ss), it quite frequently causes irritation of the stomach and looseness of the bowels on account of the large proportion of phosphoric acid contained.

As each fluidrachm contains five and one half grains of free phosphoric acid, which is equivalent to sixty-six minims of dilute phosphoric acid, the ordinary dose of a half teaspoonful of the acid phosphate contains the equivalent of thirty-three minims of dilute phosphoric acid-an amount which is more than will be readily tolerated by many stomachs. In addition, it is clear that the quantities of the phosphate of magnesium, iron, and potassium present in half a teaspoonful of the "acid phosphate," namely, grain one

fourth, one twelfth and one eighth, respectively, are too minute to produce decided therapeutic effects. In very many of the cases, however, where phosphoric acid is indicated, efficient doses of these associated phosphates would also be desirable.

Despite these defects, I ascertained that Horsford's acid phosphate had been used with such good results as to suggest the desirability of an analogous preparation more in accordance with the views above expressed. I therefore requested Henry C. Blair's Sons, the well known apothecaries of this city, to compound for me the two following formula:

First.-Liquor Acidi Phosphorici Comp. (with Iron).

Second.-Liquor Acidi Phosphorici (without Iron).

Aquæ....

After various trials, they have prepared these formulæ in permanent and eligible forms.

It will be observed, in the first place, that the amount of phosphoric acid is somewhat less than that contained in Horsford's acid phosphate, as the syrupy phosphoric acid used in the preparation of these formula is about sixty per cent. the strength of glacial phosphoric acid; so that the compound solution (No. 1) contains the equivalent of about forty-five minims of the dilute phosphoric acid in each fluidrachm, and the simple solution (No. 2) contains the equivalent of about thirty-six minims of dilute phosphoric acid in the fluidrachm. The amount of iron in the one, and of the other phosphates in the second solution are such that, while the chief action of these preparations would, of course, be due to the phos

phoric acid, the associated elements may be expected, even in moderate doses, to produce some appreciable effect.

I have used these two solutions lately with very satisfactory results, and I incline to think they deserve an extended trial.Philadelphia Medical Times.

NERVOUSNESS, DIVORCE, FOOD.

BY EPHRAIM CUTTER, M. D., Boston, Mass.

In a late number of the North American Review Dr. Allen showed the present prevalence of divorce, and in endeavoring to account for it raised the question in substance, whether increased nervousness might not explain the increase of divorces. While we believe that no one cause, or set of causes, alone, can account for the facts stated, still we think the physical, physiological or pathological subjective conditions expressed by the word "nervousness," or better by the word "neurosis," are worthy of the attention of those who study the etiology of divorce. Take one hundred married couples who are not nervous and one hundred couples who are nervous; if the divorce disease attack both, we think there would be no mistake in affirming that the larger number of divorces, other things being equal, would be found with the nervous couples. All know that nervous folks are harder to get along with than those who are not nervous. This is easily explained. We all receive information as to what is in the world through the medium of nerves. The eye, an instrument of precision, capable of detecting over three billions of vibrations in one second of time, sees through the impressions made on the optic nerve. Blindness results when this nerve is injured. The ear, another wonderful instrument of precision, that can detect 20,000 vibrations in one second of time, hears by means of the auditory nerve. The tongue tastes with the gustatory nerve. The body feels with the nerves of touch. The nose smells by the olfactory nerves. Our innate intuitions all come through cerebral nerve centres. Respiration, circulation, secretion, digestion, development, growth, etc., are governed and maintained through the nerve centres. Is this doubted? Look in upon a family where the eldest married daughter is ill with puerperal convulsions. Her nerve centres poisoned with retained urea. Her renal excretion loaded with albumen-the

life of her blood. What are the fearful objective symptoms but a terrible result of interference with nerve force?

Take an example common in New England. A woman, pale, irritable, sensitive, fretful, peevish, or, as they say, "spleeny and nervous." How distorted the evidence presented to her sensorium, to her weakened nerve centres, must be! Sometimes she may look the picture of health, yet suffers from pain and abnormal sensations, perhaps even aberration of mind-but all are realities to her-and yet how easy is it for husbands of such women to complain of their incompatibility of temper, their want of congeniality, etc. The matter ripening with years may be followed by the production of alienation enough to cause separation by law! We knew a husband to seek divorce in Boston since his wife became insane after marriage. Yet the wife was suffering from local physical disease sufficient to account for the mental alienation under her circumstances. The court refused a bill. The man ran off to California and remarried, while his deserted wife, under treatment, and his absence, disclosed no evidence of insanity.

But have nervous diseases increased? Dr. George M. Beard, the eminent neurologist of New York, in a late article in the Virginia Medical Monthly, July, 1879, says, that functional nervous diseases are new and not found in our older medical works. There was not even enough new disease of the weakened type (neurasthenia) to give it a name, but now we find evidence of the increase of this class of troubles in,

1. The establishment of specialists, and special journals and literature of neurology.

2. The testimony of physicians over forty years in practice, that more cases of disease are connected with the nervous system now than when they entered on the practice of medicine.

3. The number of insane persons is on the increase, and their treatment less successful, as seen by the increase of hospitals and the perusal of their reports. (In 1871 I found, in the State Insane Asylum at Stockton, Cal., 1,000 patients. That is 1 to 500 of the State population.)

4. The term " nervous prostration" is in common usage.

5. The shelves of the druggists show more officinal and nonofficinal drugs for nervousness than ever before.

6. Nervine hospitals.

7. Sthenic disease replaced by asthenic.

8. Great national mental activity. We are a nation of readers. Our ephemeral literature is immense.

9. Look over the faces of a New England audience. See the cry of nerve distress depicted on the adult faces.

10. Culture in modern civilization means increased exercise of nerve force.

11. Charcot, in Paris, in 1875, published a case of hysteria followed by central spinal lesion. Now, hysteria is one of the many reflex nervous disturbances arising from peripheral uterine lesion. If Charcot is correct, we have certainly come on a great idea in neurology-one that has a tremendous influence in unsettling the nervous systems of our women, and which goes far to explain the irreconcilable differences in unhappy married life. Who can expect an agreeable good nature in a person whose posterior columns of the spinal cord are in a state of fatty degeneration (sclerosis)? Gynecological diseases are very prevalent.

Perhaps, then, divorce is a matter of medical jurisprudence; certainly I have known such cases. If these things are so, are there any causes of large operation, that are calculated to unsettle the nervous system? We reply "yes," but we will only allude to one that operates three times a day on every person, almost, in society. Dr. James H. Salisbury, of Cleveland, Ohio, refers to it in the remark, "Food is an agent of tremendous power." Feed mankind with the same science that birds, kine, and horses are fed

-to wit, on their natural food-and then we may look for the healthy results obtained with these animals. Dairymen know how to feed for health and milk. Hostlers know how to feed their horses, and ladies their canaries. They all seek to give the normal natural food of the animal under their care. Now, if man would treat his own race as he treats his animals, we think human nervous systems would not show such signs of weakness. What is nerve food? It is a selection of aliments containing all the elements necessary for the nerves in normal proportions and in assimilable conditions. Phosphorus, sulphur, fats, etc., are regarded as chemical nerve food.

We ask, "are there any aliments in universal civilized use that