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do not contain the normal amount of food for the nervous system?" We reply "yes,"-flour, starch, sugar. Liebig long ago pointed out that two thirds of the mineral elements-including the gluten and phosphate cells-were removed by milling. He predicted disaster to the human race for demanding an article of flour that should make up into white bread-the dark colored bread being due to the retention of the gluten cells in their normal proportions. Magendie fed dogs on flour. They all died in forty days. He fed others on wheat and they thrived, etc. Now flour is largely made up of the parenchymatous starch of the wheat. In being made white it loses three fourths of the peripheral mineral elements that our Creator intended man should get when wheat was eaten. In other words, three fourths of the nerve food is withdrawn from the most prominent article of diet used by married couples who seek divorce. We do not wish to diatribe, but we would respectfully say to Dr. Allen, that if he could induce the married to give themselves the phosphorus and the nerve food intended for wheat eaters, that their nerve centres would be better nourished and fed. In this case they would perform their life duties better and be less sensitive to outside influences. As a hungry man is more impressible (may we call it nervous? look for example at a hungry company waiting for a delayed dinner) than a man well fed, so nerve fed couples could bear with and put up with the disagreeabilities of life. Their temper would be better, as their health would be better. Reproduction would be less an abnormal and more of a physiological process. The mother's nerve centres well fed and sustained, would delight in the agreeable music of the voices and feet of children. We would have more Cornelias. The function of lactation would be well performed, the children have a better start in the world, and life be much less a burden to the attendAs the dairymen feed for milk, so may physicians feed. For example, a few years ago a Boston lady married and went to Maine to live; her age was twenty-eight years, and her weight ninety-eight pounds. After a time she was delivered of twin sons. A strong desire was expressed to have the functions of lactation, so that their support should be derived from the mother alone. She was placed on the dairyman's plan and carried it out. After six months—the twins had lived on their mother alone—one weighed

ants.

seventeen pounds and the other eighteen pounds, while the mother had gained ten pounds in weight. There are no signs of divorce in this family, and the twins are perpetual sources of delight to all around. In my opinion, starving nerve centres means, deficient secretion, disaster and, sometimes, divorce. In this connection it may be proper to ask, are there any neuroses which would especially interfere with the marital state and cause unhappiness? Physicians well know the result of reflex irritation. Among them is an exaltation of the sense of touch, so that the lightest contact produces excessive pain. For example, I have seen the slightest touch of a patient's chest produce agony. Another, where a gentle touch of the finger on a dorsal spine, caused the patient to faint, unconscious. This state of things is called hyperesthesia (over feeling). When hyperesthesia becomes located in the way of marital life, the history of the pair becomes extremely unhappy. For example, some fifteen years ago a divorce was decreed in Massachusetts on the ground of impotency, due to congenital malformation, and sworn to by an expert (so called). Subsequently, a true expert showed nothing present but vaginismus (hyperæsthesia). So, that in this case, at least, a neurosis caused divorce. Now, if this wife had been treated gynecologically, and cured, no divorce would have been decreed.

As a physician, I believe that more are generally cross, peevish, irritable, ugly, morose, unfeeling, revengeful, because of hungry nerves, than is usually believed to be the case. The time to approach for a favor is just after a good dinner. On the other hand, intoxicated nerve centres steel the heart to murder and crime. It is not intended to wink out of sight natural depravity, but we do believe, if the nervous systems of the married were well nourished, that much of the incentive to divorce would be removed.

In conclusion, we would express surprise at the ease with which divorces are obtained. At Lowell I once heard a judge give a hearing to a wife. She began her relation and had not proceeded far when she remarked, "He struck me." "Did he strike you?" interrupted the judge. "Yes," was the reply. "Divorce decreed," said the judge, and this closed the hearing. If divorces are sapping the foundation of our national life more than murders and other crimes, ought not our legislators to make a more serious

know but the woman lied, and

matter of it? How did Judge that this was her scheme to get another husband? It appeared, however, to the writer that food had much to do with the decree, for it was dinner time. The judge was human and hungry, so his nerve centres were not well settled, and made but short work with the case. We repeat "food is an agent of tremendous power.”— Therapeutic Gazette.

CHIAN TURPENTINE.

This old remedy-known to the profession many years ago, and subsequently almost entirely forgotten-has been revived and vested with unusual interest through a report by Prof. John Clay, of Birmingham, published in the London Lancet, of March 27, last. It is scarcely necessary to inform our readers, at this stage, that Prof. Clay claims for Chian turpentine curative properties in cancerous disease, particularly of the female generative organs, and certainly his report goes a great way to establish his claims. His theory of its modus operandi is, that it acts directly as a poison on the cancer cells, thus causing their death.

Although Dr. Clay's experience was confined to a period of but twelve months previous to his report, his opportunities of obserying cancerous affections in the large eleemosynary institution with which he is connected, were abundant, and in none of the cases on which he tried the virtues of Chian turpentine had he failed to notice, at the date of his report, marked improvement, while in some there was apparently complete recovery. Such results were sufficient, in England, where the profession evidently look less askance at a remedy because it is novel, than they do in this country, to induce immediate and extensive trials of the drug. The results were extremely contradictory, some observers reporting that they had seen no favorable effects whatever, while others verified Dr. Clay's statements. Such discrepancy led to an investigation, when it was found that there were spurious articles in the market. The sudden demand soon exhausted the stock of Chian turpentine on hand, and awaiting the collection of more, Canada balsam and turpentine resin were largely used as adulterants, the former of these two articles resembling the Chian turpentine so

closely as to require an expert to detect any difference. So firmly convinced is Dr. Clay, of the virtues of the genuine article, that he ascribes all failures to the use of spurious varieties.

In view of the above, it becomes the physicians of this country to guard against imposition. The history of other remedies gives assurance that the sophistication of Chian turpentine will be attempted as soon as the demand arises.

It is unfortunate that the sample of the drug which Dr. Clay employed should have been set up as the criterion for the genuine Chian turpentine. Dr. Clay's sample had been long in stock, many years probably, and had undergone changes in its physical properties due to age. It had become hard and more or less brittle, and hardness and brittleness will thus be apt to be regarded as essential properties of the true drug. The authorities on the subject describe it to be a viscid substance, leaving the inference that the hardness and brittleness are due to vaporation and oxidation. Samples, moreover, recently imported from Cyprus, and regarding whose genuineness there is no room for doubt, are not hard and brittle, but answer the description given by the authorities. The old stock, which for many years has literally been a drug on the market, has been almost or entirely exhausted, and the value of Chian turpentine must hereafter be based on the newer supply. It will be useless longer to look for the physical properties which characterized the samples, upon the use of which Dr. Clay based his reports. These properties can come only through age.

A practical test of its purity is said to be the specific gravity. Recent Chian turpentine should stand between 1.040-1.050. The dried, brittle variety floats in a cold solution containing eight per cent., by weight, of concentrated sulphuric acid, and sinks as soon as this liquid has been diluted with three to four times its volume of water; all the adulterants used, being lighter than water, its behavior toward this mixture would indicate them if present.

Genuine Chian turpentine must contain between eighty and eighty-two per cent. of resin, soluble in alcohol, and from five to six per cent. resin, soluble in solution of potassa. These tests should be applied after the volatile oils have been removed by distillation. The proportion of volatile oil varies considerably in different samples; it is larger in a soft, recent specimen, than in one which has

become brittle from age and exposure. Such old and brittle specimens are no longer completely soluble in benzine, while this liquid dissolves entirely the recent variety.

Genuine recent Chian turpentine has the consistence of honey, a greenish yellow color, an odor similar to fennel and turpentine, and a bitter taste. Canada turpentine, which is the most common adulterant, can easily be detected by the behavior of an ethereal solution of the sample, when mixed with alcohol. If the sample is pure, the mixture will remain clear, while in presence of Canada balsam, it becomes milky, and clears only after boiling. If twentyfive to fifty per cent. of Canada balsam is present, the sample will give a clear solution in chloroform, while the pure turpentine gives a turbid mixture.

Dr. Edmund Andrews, of Chicago, raises an interesting question regarding this drug, or rather regarding the combination employed by Dr. Clay. He reports, in the Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner, for the current month, that "experiments performed by himself and others, would seem thus far to corroborate his (Dr. Clay's) assertions," but that it is too soon to say whether the improvement will be permament. The question which he raises is, whether Dr. Clay is not mistaken in giving Chian turpentine, rather than sulphur, which enters largely into his prescription, the primary place. The following is Dr. Clay's formula: Chian turpentine, six grains; flowers of sulphur, four grains; to be made into two pills, which are to be taken every four hours. "The malignant element in cancer," says Dr. Andrews, "appears to be the non adherent, multiplying cells which fill its cavities, and, so far as we can judge, its disastrous results are dependant on the enormous power of reproduction of these bodies. If there be a substance in the materia medica which can act upon these cells as antiseptics act on bacteria, by destroying their life, or can modify their vitality, so as to check their multiplication, as arsenic checks the production of ephithelial cells in scaly diseases of the skin, such a remedy will cure cancer. Cells already in existence would either be absorbed or remain harmless, if they no longer multiplied. These cells, in short, suggest to one many analogies with such low forms of organic life as are destroyed by sulphur, arsenic, carbolic acid, etc. The analogy is vague, and not implicitly to be trusted; neverthe

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