Part 5

“Leaves of Healing” leaves out of its vaporings the fact that Zion City had a smallpox epidemic not long ago, and was quarantined by the health authorities, and that the people submitted to vaccination with gratifying results. Nor does the above-mentioned magazine record the fact that the president and secretary of a local branch of antivaccinationists in Minneapolis, who were fighting a compulsory vaccination law before the Minnesota Legislature a few years ago, died of virulent smallpox during that meeting of the Legislature.

The antivaccinationist usually has at his command a set form of speech that contains more vituperant adjectives, and less reason and judgment, than the average self-constituted reformer. Smallpox and other preventable diseases will continue to exist while the uneducated and ill-balanced minds are permitted their volley of wind-laden speech. Some day the people will wake up, cast the “reformer” aside, and climb on to the band-wagon of health and happiness.

It will take our educators and sanitarians some time to harness the team to the wagon, but when it starts it will go on merrily to its destination.

OWNERSHIP OF THE JOURNAL-LANCET

In answer to a number of inquiries the following statement is made:

The stock of the JOURNAL-LANCET is held by a number of Twin City physicians, and the publisher, Mr. W. L. Klein.

The JOURNAL-LANCET is the official organ of the State Medical Associations of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The responsibility for its reading matter and editorials rests with the publication committees of the state associations.

MISCELLANY

To the Physicians of the State of Minnesota:

The Committee on Public Policy and Legislation most earnestly asks the co-operation of every physician in the State of Minnesota in procuring the passage of the several bills that have been decided upon, and either have been or will be introduced into the legislature during this session. It is believed that there is not a man upon the roster of the State Medical Society, or indeed any physician in Minnesota, who does not see the necessity of certain legislation for the protection of the physicians in the State, and also that the common weal will be advanced by the passage of the telephone bill introduced by Senator Andrews, of Blue Earth, and by the passage of the bill relative to trachoma, which is a constant menace to the public health, and several other bills that are in course of preparation, but which await certain developments before their presentation. The committee earnestly begs of all the physicians in the State that they will write to their representatives and senators from time to time urging with great earnestness their support for the several measures advanced by the Committee on Public Policy and Legislation. It is believed that every physician can influence at least from 10 to 100 votes at a general election, and this fact, of itself, makes the physician a factor in the election of any candidate. It is believed by this committee that the medical men of the State, if they will but unite and act in concert, can measurably influence legislation. The time has come for the physician to take his place in the political system of the State, both as an active agent and, indirectly, through his influence of others.

The telephone bill provides for physical connection between all telephone companies in the State without extra charge, except a small toll. It provides that telephone companies shall be placed under the direction of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission. It provides that no greater net income than 5 per cent shall be allowed upon the capital actually used in the operation of the telephone companies. It provides for intercity telephone service in the cities whose city limits adjoin without extra charge.

The trachoma bill provides for the segregation of trachomats, and, under certain circumstances, for the maintenance by the State of special schools for their education in school districts having as many as 20 trachomats.

There is also drafted and ready for introduction a bill requiring all persons who seek to practice medicine in any form whatever to pass the regular examination before the State Board of Medical Examiners.

There is in contemplation a bill for the purpose of procuring certain lands for the building of cottages thereupon and establishing farms to be worked by lepers who may be or shall have been committed to the leprosarium farm, the intention being that those lepers in the State that are able to work shall have an opportunity to do so, and that the said lepers should care for lepers who are unable to work or earn a living. It is also proposed to purchase a small tract of land not far from the State University for the purpose of allowing an exhaustive study of certain forms of leprosy with the aid of the State University Medical Staff. The leprosarium farm would be under the direction of the State Agricultural School.

The Chairman of this Committee will be very glad to receive advice and suggestions from the physicians in the State.

Cornelius Williams, M. D., Chairman of the Committee on Public Policy and Legislation. St. Paul, Minn., February 3, 1915.

REPORTS OF SOCIETIES

MINNESOTA ACADEMY OF MEDICINE

The Academy met at the St. Paul University Club, Feb. 3. Dr. C. M. Carlaw presided.

Four doctors were proposed for membership: Drs. W. H. Condit and Stephen Baxter, of Minneapolis, and Drs. Wilhelm Lerche and F. C. Schuldt, of St. Paul. All four names were referred to the executive committee.

Dr. Arnold Schwyzer showed some x-ray pictures of a penetrating gastric ulcer. He also made a report of a case where gall-stones gave a feeling of emphysematous crackling, due to small marble-sized stones with no more fluid than enough to fill the spaces between the stones (perhaps a teaspoonful in all).

The paper of the evening was presented by Dr. A. E. Benjamin, the subject being “Goiter Operations with Simplified Technic.” The paper was thoroughly discussed, the whole evening being given over to its consideration.

The reading of Dr. White’s thesis was deferred until another meeting.

Twenty-seven were present.

Fred E. Leavitt, M. D., Secretary.

CORRESPONDENCE

To the Editor:

In the February 15th issue of THE JOURNAL-LANCET is a discussion by Dr. Klaveness, of Sioux Falls, S. D., on a paper on “Syphilis and Its Relation to Society” by Dr. McLaughlin, of Sioux City, Iowa. In this discussion Dr. Klaveness states: “We are unfortunate here in South Dakota in this respect, that we do not have the population and the laboratory facilities for resorting to the Wassermann reaction at all times, and any man within the State who would systematically carry out a Wassermann reaction now and then would invalidate his findings very materially, inasmuch as it is very well established that, in order to obtain reliable readings, you must have a serologist or bacteriologist to follow this work exclusively in order to get accurate findings. It is immensely important, and it would be a boon to the suffering people, if we could have a state serologist.”

This statement by Dr. Klaveness is contrary to the facts as they now exist and did exist at the time he discussed the paper at Watertown, S. D., in May, 1914.

We have a well equipped medical laboratory in South Dakota in connection with the medical department at the State University at Vermillion, and we have been doing the Wassermann test.

This misstatement should have been corrected at the time it was made, but was not, as I was in Watertown but part of one day during the State Meeting last May and did not hear the paper or its discussion.

Permit me to state through your columns that we do the Wassermann test at the State Health Laboratory and have been doing it on Thursday of each week since March 21, 1914. At that time a circular letter announcing the fact was sent to every physician in the State, including Dr. Klaveness. This announcement was made only after several months of experimental work in perfecting the technic and controlling all factors.

We do the original Wassermann test, using the Nogouchi antigen. All our reagents are prepared in our laboratory and every possible control is carried out each time the test is set up. We therefore believe that our results will compare favorably with the best scientific work of this character.

At the present time a fee of $5.00 for each test is charged, containers and instructions are supplied upon request.

We have done the Wassermann test for the State Hospital for the Insane at Yankton from the first.

Mortimer Herzberg, M. D., Director. Vermillion, S. D., February 18, 1915.

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THE LOYALTY OF NURSES

To the Editor:

My attention has just been called to an article published in THE JOURNAL-LANCET, August 1, 1914, it being an address by Dr. George D. Head to the graduating class of the Asbury Hospital. The advice Dr. Head gives to the nurses seems very good, and very elevating to our profession, but I would like to analyze it to show that it is not quite practical.

It has taken considerable effort on the part of nurses to convince the people, and to convince some doctors, that they are any more than machines. Because we ask for three hours rest out of the twenty-four, and because we asked for a fixed rate for service, Dr. Head says that our loyalty to high ideals is diminishing. Unfortunately, in the nursing profession, as in all other professions, there are some who are incapable and unconscientious; and, if Dr. Head had the experience of having a nurse leave a patient, unattended, at a critical time, she probably was one of the few incapables, or was so overtired from loss of sleep that it was necessary for her to have rest. When Dr. Head says that a nurse should waive her rest hours for days or a week at a time, if necessary, I think he is making a mistake. A nurse cannot do her duty by a patient if she does not have proper rest. It is unfair to both the patient and the nurse. Dr. Head may say that most patients are not in need of constant attention for more than a few days or a week, and that a nurse can stand it for that length of time without rest hours. This is true; but we have to consider that the next case may be just as critical, and so the nurse must reserve some strength for the cases to follow. And more often than not, the nurse is obliged to take cases with very little or no rest between them.

In the second place, Dr. Head thinks that the nurses ought to have a varying scale of charges for service. The doctors do it; why shouldn’t the nurses? Dr. Head does not seem to consider the fact that the nurse has one patient, while the doctor has many. Suppose a nurse takes care of a poor patient for five or ten dollars a week, where is the rich patient who is willing to pay forty or fifty dollars a week to make up the loss? The nurses have found that twenty-five dollars a week is the price that is necessary for them to live on in order to keep themselves clothed, pay for their laundry (no small item), and carry them over the few weeks of rest or over the dull season. The average life of a nurse, as a nurse, is, I believe, not more than ten years. In that length of time, at the wages she gets, she is not able to lay away a great amount for a rainy day, which usually comes all too soon.

We have a number of good hospitals in Minneapolis where people in moderate circumstances can be very comfortably cared for at a considerably less expense than employing a nurse in their homes. The poor in our city, I think, are fairly well taken care of in the city hospitals and by the visiting nurses, who are paid for such work.

As for nurses refusing cases because they are afraid of them: I think there is usually some just cause. If a nurse has a tendency towards tuberculosis, she should refuse such cases; or if she has a tendency towards throat troubles, she should refuse diphtheria and scarlet-fever cases. A nurse who is constantly with a patient runs considerably more risk of infection than the physician, whose visits are usually short. There are nurses who make a specialty of such cases, and usually there is no trouble finding such a nurse. Nurses who make a specialty of obstetrical cases or of children should not take contagious work. As for a nurse refusing a typhoid case because she is afraid of it: I cannot believe that any real nurse would do such a thing.

It also seems to me very ridiculous, and it surely cannot be a common thing for a nurse to inquire before she consents to take a case whether or not the plumbing is modern and how many servants are kept.

As to just what Dr. Head means by saying that a nurse should be willing to do any kind of service about a house. I do not know; but I do know that nurses are not usually physically fit for washing or scrubbing, yet, as a rule, nurses are glad to perform duties which are not just in their line, in order to help the household to run smoothly.

Most of the nurses in general work are engaged in nursing because they are obliged to earn their living, and in most cases because they are especially interested in this particular field; and, although most nurses take some charity cases, it is impossible for them to take many, even to satisfy what Dr. Head calls “the inner, higher longings of the soul.”

Harriet M. Prime, R. N.

Minneapolis, February 4, 1915.

BOOK NOTICES

MANUAL OF OBSTETRICS. By Edward P. Davis, A. M., M. D., Professor of Obstetrics in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. 12mo of 463 pages, 171 illustrations. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1914. Cloth, $2.25 net.

As indicated by the name this is a handy book. It is well illustrated, the text is brief and well written, and as complete as could be expected in a work of its size.

It presents no features which are especially new, though it takes up many of the most recent advances in obstetrics.

It is a work that aims to give those who wish it a concise account of the status of obstetrics at the present time.

--Adair.

BALNEO-GYMNASTIC TREATMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASES OF THE HEART. By Prof. Dr. Theodor Schott, Bad-Nauheim. Published by Blakiston, Philadelphia. Price, $2.50.

This brochure sets forth in the main, preceded by a short chapter on medical treatment, the philosophy, technic, and clinical results of balneogymnastic therapy in chronic heart-conditions.

It would appear, inasmuch as Prof. Schott admits the non-establishment of the probable curative factors of either the carbon dioxide or mineral constituents, that possibly, as Dr. Anders in the foreword surmises, the curative properties may reside in the “advantage of being far removed from the cares and responsibilities growing out of the practical affairs of life at home.”

Relative to the more firmly established value of the gymnastic element, it is quite evident that the “resistance movements,” are an improvement over the Zander mechanico-gymnastic, and of similar value to the so-called “Terrain Kur,” with the added advantage of personal application.

--Schneider.

DISEASES OF BONES AND JOINTS. By Leonard W. Ely. M. D., 220 pages, 94 illustrations. Surgery Publishing Co., N. Y. Price, cloth. $2.00.

Few men are better fitted than Dr. Ely to write an authoritative book on joint and bone diseases. He has gone at his study from the only logical end; that is, the study of the underlying pathology. The book throughout shows the result of much conscientious work in the pathological and x-ray laboratories, carefully checked up from the clinical aspect.

The average specialist who writes a manual for the use of the general practitioner seems to think he must mention every theory which has ever been brought out since the time of Hippocrates, together with a list of every form of treatment ever proposed. The bewildered family doctor gets about as much help as he would from the perusal of a few pages of the Index Medicus. One good theory, clearly stated, even if it is not universally accepted, may form a practical working basis which will be of great aid to the doctor in the understanding and care of his cases. In this particular Dr. Ely is most satisfactory. He has worked out the pathology of the tubercular and other chronic joint diseases in a clear and logical manner. While much may have to be altered in the light of further research, at least one can feel sure that Dr. Ely has convictions, and that his work will form a useful basis for further investigations.

The illustrations are taken almost entirely from photographs or photomicrographs and are mostly original. So many works on Orthopedic Surgery appear which are filled with cuts handed down from one text-book to another, cuts of impossible people wearing impossible appliances, that it is hard to imagine that such a book, illustrated with such quaint old prints, can represent the latest word or offer anything new.

Dr. Ely’s discussion of the pathology of joint tuberculosis is perhaps the most interesting thing in the book. His idea of the red bone marrow and the synovia being the sole tissues to be primarily involved does not agree with the recent work of Fraser, of Edinburgh. Evidently more work must be done in order to harmonize these findings.

In general, while not much space is given to treatment, what there is, is clear and is carefully selected by the author, instead of leaving this important point to the discretion of the reader.

His discussion of the chronic arthritides is quite full and very instructive. He points out particularly the resemblance between the pathological conditions found in various chronic infectious joints and in the various stages of joint tuberculosis.

This little book will certainly be of use to anyone who has to treat bone and joint diseases.

--Reed.

NEWS ITEMS

Dr. Chas. Pierce, of Wadena, has moved to Menahaga.

Dr. J. L. Stewart, of Spearfish, S. D., has located at Custer, S. D.

Dr. Jas. Farrage, formerly of Deering, N. D., has located at Park Rapids.

Dr. Hugo Neukamp is leaving Fessenden, N. D., to locate in Beulah, N. D.

The Dell Rapids Hospital was completed and opened the latter part of February.

Dr. H. A. Gueffroy, of Chicago, has taken over the practice of Dr. D. F. Sullivan, of Frankfort, S. D.

The new St. Alexius hospital, at Bismarck, N. D., was formally opened to the public February 15th.

The entire surplus of the old Homeopathic Hospital Association, amounting to $1,000, was voted to the support of the Maternity hospital, of Minneapolis, at a recent meeting.

The Physicians’ Hospital company has been incorporated at Thief River Falls for the purpose of building and maintaining a hospital at that place. The company is capitalized at $25,000.

In a previous issue we stated that Dr. G. P. Shepard, of Chicago, had located at Jamestown, N. D. Dr. Shepard is from Courtenay, N. D., and not from Chicago, though he has been taking postgraduate work in that city for the past few weeks.

The Medical Society of the State of New York invites all physicians of the country to its hundred and ninth annual meeting which is to be held in Buffalo, April 27-29. This will probably be the largest medical meeting of the year, except perhaps that of the A. M. A. in San Francisco.

Messrs. J. D. Edgar, Arnold Hamel, R. A. Johnson, and H. A. Rudd, and Miss Olga Hansen, all of the class of 1915, have been elected to the Minnesota chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national honorary fraternity in medicine, the membership of which is based solely upon scholarship.

Dr. James E. Moore, who has practised in Minneapolis for thirty-two years, twenty-eight of which have been devoted to the exclusive practice of surgery, has given up his practice and will, hereafter, give his entire time to the Medical School of the University of Minnesota, except for a limited amount of consultation work.

In our last issue we made the statement that the Ramsey County Medical Society would not admit a physician to membership until he had been a resident of the county for one year. This should have been written so as to convey the meaning that a physician must have been a resident of some county for at least a year, not necessarily Ramsey County.

It is the desire of the publishers of the Journal-Lancet to make this department of news as interesting to its readers as possible. The items are obtained from a number of sources, and, though a great deal of care is given to their preparation, mistakes will necessarily occur. Will you not help to keep up the interest of this column by sending in anything which may be of interest to the readers? Notify us of mistakes as they occur that we may make a correction in the next issue.

“The Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Incorporated,” with an initial endowment fund of $1,500,000, has recently been incorporated. It has for its object the endowment of the graduate medical instruction and research work which has for years been a feature of the Mayo Clinic, at Rochester. The founders are: William J. Mayo, Charles H. Mayo, Henry S. Plummer, Edward Starr Judd and Donald C. Balfour. The board of temporary trustees having in charge for the present the investment of the fund is composed of Bert W. Eaton, George W. Granger and Harry J. Harwick. The board of scientific directors is composed of Louis B. Wilson, William F. Braasch, E. Hessel Beckman, A. H. Sanford, and Walter D. Sheldon. For the present the expenses of the foundation will be met by annual contributions from the Mayo Clinic, the income from the endowment being allowed to accumulate and increase the principal.

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PHYSICIAN WANTED

To locate in a thriving North Dakota town. For full information correspond with Andrew Erickson, Makote, N. D.

OFFICE FURNITURE FOR SALE

A good roll-top desk and other office furniture is offered for sale at a reasonable price. 616 Syndicate Bldg., Minneapolis.

PRACTICE FOR SALE

An established practice in a town of 2,000 for sale for the price of the office outfit. If you mean business, write at once. Address 205, care of this office.

SANITARIUM FOR SALE

A new, strictly modern, 50-bed sanitarium with three acres of land on a beautiful lake, located near the Twin Cities, for sale cheap. Address 206, care of this office.

WANTED

An eye, ear, nose, and throat man who is willing to work. Must be sober, competent man. State the salary expected, and give credentials in the first letter. Address the C. A. Hoffman Co., 814 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis, Minn.

PRACTICE WANTED

In Minnesota or South Dakota town, with some future and where English is spoken. This is wanted by physician who has had several years’ experience in practice, and has done laboratory and hospital work. Address 198, care of this office.

WANTED

A physician and surgeon to locate at Judson, North Dakota. No doctor located within seven miles on the west and twenty-three miles or more in other directions. One who could start small drug-store in connection with his practice preferred. Address First State Bank, Judson, N. D.

WANTED TO EXCHANGE

Contract mining practice, on Iron Range, with modern hospital, complete equipment, autos, good roads, drive all the year, best contracts, $600 to $800 cash each month; future very bright. Owner wishes to correspond with an A 1 physician and surgeon with a good stand in or very near the Twin Cities, with the view of effecting an exchange for part of the year. Address, 204, care of this office.

FOR SALE