in most hospitals, the anesthetic has been entrusted to a member of the house staff, usually the junior. *** A patient may die from an anesthetic badly given long after the ordeal of the operation is passed. Ether pneumonia, ether shock, post-operative vomiting of obstinate character all follow in the wake of an improperly given anesthetic. There are many questions regarding anesthetics which the skilled man can answer, but which the young interne either is not allowed to answer or is incapable of answering. *** It has been too common in the past and is still too common for the operator to be compelled to keep one eye on the man with the ether cone and the other on his work. As a result of this bad system it often happens that the narcosis is either insufficient at critical moments or needlessly

profound, or the patient stops breathing altogether and all hands proceed to artificial respiration. We have all of us seen such scenes, yes, and been actors therein much oftener than we would willingly admit. would willingly admit. Nor do these facts apply to New York hospitals alone. While writing this paper, the writer received a reprint from Dr. John B. Roberts, of Philadelphia, entitled, "The Anesthesia Peril of American Hospitals." When a man of Dr. Roberts' weight and conservatism thinks the facts justify such a title as this, it is high time that we woke up to the evils in the present system and set about their correction.-From an editorial in Medical Standard, Oct., 1908.

Moral: Look out for hospital operations.-ED.

D

R. KING, of Philadelphia, of the army medical corps, states some practical demonstrations of the various effects of tobacco in the army recruits. He says that in the rejections of volunteers of the civil war in 1861-63, the average rejections did. not exceed 13 per cent., while in 1897 the rejections ranged about 90 per cent. Why there is not more publicity given to this flagrant evil has been a question in my mind, and I have wondered whether there had not been a systematic covering of the evils by those who had the power to make them public. I ask myself the question, are such men in cahoots with the tobacco trust, or are they willingly ignorant of the widespread, evil effects this curse is having in our government? Or are they like. one case that came to my notice only a few days ago, of a doctor who had a patient who was using too much tobacco, and had been told so by his friends (a thing which he knew very well himself). The doctor, being asked by this man's friend why he did not.

Some time ago a young man who came into my office for an examination, especially for his eyes, said that he had just been examined for the military service, and was rejected on account of his eyes. He had never known that he had eye trouble, as they had never given him any trouble, and was in doubt about it now. I examined him thoroughly and found nothing abnormal in his vision, but I did find that he had a tobacco heart that would unfit him for service. I have wondered why his first physician pronounced him unfit on account of his eyes instead of his heart.

Rev. C. M. Southgate says: "Tobacco blights the boy's finest powers, wit, muscle, conscience, will. Nations are legislating against it. Germany, with all her smokers, says: 'No tobacco in the schools, it spoils the brain and makes it too small for soldiers.' The military institutions of France

say: 'No tobacco.' West Point and Annapolis say: 'Drop the cigaret.' Major Huston, of the Washington navy yards, says: 'One-fifth of all the boys examined is rejected for heart disease, of which ninety-nine cases in one hundred come from the use of the cigaret. Notice one sixteen years of age only possessing the stature of one twelve.' "Tobacco is murdering many a lad, the cigaret is the devil's kindling wood; it starts a craving for stimulants, and arouses the animal passions.' You will notice with all this go obscene pictures and evil books and novels, with profanity, and all leading on the way to the asylum and the workhouse.

A Yale college test on tobacco users shows that out of the highest scholarship only five per cent. use tobacco, while of men who do not get appointments sixty per cent. use it. During the four years' course the non-users, though taller when they enter, gain 24 per cent. more in height and 26.7 per cent, more in girth.

Go with me along the streets of many of our large cities, as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and note, walking along in the gutters children and even old gray-headed people, gathering from the slime and filth of the gutters where they have been swept and emptied from the cuspidors, cigar and cigaret stumps, also tobacco quids, putting them in their baskets. Look still closer and you will observe some, without a basket, pick up a stump and either place it directly into their mouth or into their pocket for future use, not stopping to think whose mouth it mouth it might have come from, maybe from one with a filthy, loathsome disease of sores and cancer.

Some time ago an Italian boy in New York was arrested for picking stumps from the gutter and brought before the judge, and in answer to the question of what he did with them, said: "I sell them to a man for ten cents a pound for making cigarets.

Rev. Wallace R. Struble, leader of the Willard Hall noonday meetings, reports as follows:

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"A company of forty-eight children, girls and boys ranging from the ages of five to fourteen years, were crowded in one room about sixteen feet square. They both ate and slept in this room. They had a task of gathering three pounds of this material each day, and if this is not gathered they are punished.

"The cigar stubs are treated by cutting off the charred ends, packing them in bales and then distributing them to illicit manufacturers of cheap cigars, cigarets and snuff. Undoubtedly many thousand pounds of this stuff get back into the markets in the form of fivecent cigars, 'Turkish' or or 'Egyptian' cigarets and snuff."

This is no doubt a prolific source of disease, as the material is taken from the gutters and cuspidors that are emptied out into the streets alive with disease of all kinds, coming from the diseased mouths of many of those who are literally being eaten up with cancer and other loathsome diseases that are too numerous to mention. Who can think of a more filthy source of disease, a more risky problem in venturing to use this dangerous material!

The tobacco habit is not confined to men alone. The Daily Mail speaks of the lady of fashion who no longer apologizes for lighting a cigaret after dinner, and says that in Paris four of the leading physicians joined the anti-tobacco club. One, condemning this fashionable vice strongly, said that the habit of smoking is not confined to one class, but is becoming common among all classes, and that the cause of this habit is idleness, lack of occupation, love to imitate others (as the small boy), feebleness of the will and ignorance of the effects. They soon become slaves to the habit, and result in general social decadence.

Snuff-dipping among women is very common in some parts of the country. A peculiar case came to my attention some few weeks ago which I will mention. This woman began to have pains at the pit of the stomach, which grew worse. Soon there began to form a tumor in the stomach which gave con

siderable distress. She was examined by different physicians, and some pronounced the tumor a cancer, and yet she had not the marked symptoms of a cancer other than the tumor. She grew worse, literally starving to death. At the post mortem it was found that a tumor of snuff and sticks (supposed to be from the swab of wood) with mucus, food and all kinds of material of large size had formed into a hard lump.

Tobacco is expensive, injurious, unnecessary, has no place or possesses no qualifications for recommendation to any living being on earth. Think of these figures, that there are every year fifty million dollars more spent for tobacco and snuff than for bread. No wonder the prophet, looking down to our time, exclaimed, "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto Me. Hear and your soul shall live." 55, 2, 3.

An Experience.

Isa.

It seems to me that if these learned school boards, health boards and physicians would look up the "protoplastic cause" of some of these diseases, they would make the discovery that the man did who had his legs amputated to get rid of corns, i. e., the remedy is more dangerous than the dis

ease.

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Truth Telling.

RUTH TELLING is a healthy exercise. It creates a full regular pulse, slow deep respirations and a generous supply of vital vibrations from the nerve centers. It was the truth tellers that survived in the struggle for life. Thus we have inherited a constitution that can easily adjust itself only to truth telling.

A lie causes the flush of shame, the guilty glint of eye, and sets the motor nerves into faint tremulosities that perhaps may not attract attention, but is very destructive of nerve tissue. It takes nerve to tell a lie-yes it takes nerve it wastes nerve-it destroys nerve-and is altogether an expensive indulgence.

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Cancer Parasite.

causes cancer.

HE new theory sprung upon the medical world by Dr. Hiram D. Walker, is an expression of how fertile the average doctor's brain is in discovering new parasites. We give the clipping below, taken from the Atlanta Constitution of November 21st. This doctor thinks he has discovered another parasite which It is not at all likely his guess is anywhere near correct, but it has succeeded in securing for him. a little free advertising, which is entirely in accordance with the new code of ethics of the American Medical Association. To advertise and then pay for it is unethical, but to get one's name in the paper by any device without being obliged to pay for it, that is ethical. Splendid ethics, too. I presume the newspaper managers do not like it, though. However, as to the clipping, here it is:

Buffalo, N. Y., November 18.-The Buffalo Academy of Medicine last night heard a new theory as to the origin of cancer. Dr. Hiram D. Walker, formerly of Newburgh, N. Y., but now living here, said, in a paper on the subject, that seven years' experiment had proved to his satisfaction that cancer is a parasitic disease and that the common garden worm is the source of the parasite which produces cancer. The transmission of the parasite from the worm to the human being comes rom the worm crawling over fresh vegetables, which are afterwards eaten. He said:

"If I am correct in my conclusions, all the suffering and death caused by cancer can be prevented by refraining from eating such vegetables as cab

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bage, celery, onions and lettuce, which have been infected by these parasites."

Dr. Walker elaborated on a series of sixty experiments upon various animals. Feeding or injecting the parasitic germs obtained from earth worms into guinea pigs, mice and dogs, was followed in many cases by the development of tumors or cancers.

In almost every case infection was fatal to the animals. Dr. Walker presented a series of microscopic slides. showing cancer cells produced under these conditions. These cells were examined by prominent specialists and pronounced cancer cells, though the specialists were not told from what animals the cells were taken nor how produced.

HE most important study in this world is the study of man himself, who may be said to be: God's highest thought below. From this viewpoint we look at human anatomy, which gives us a description of the form, structure and location of the various parts of the human frame; then at human physiology, which treats of the actions, functions and uses of these parts, and lastly hygiene, which treats of the health and improvement of individuals. Physiological knowledge has been obtained by a very close observance of the actions of various parts of living bodies, and possible operations upon living animals have added additional light on this subject.

As a close observer, I have come to the conclusion that disease is largely due to a decretion of the vital force of the body. There seems to be one great fundamental law, which pervades the universe of Jehovah, and it may be called the law of equilibrium. To illustrate what I mean by said law, let us suppose that two clouds are equally charged by that subtle force

we call electricity; there will be no sign of any disturbance. They may pass and repass, yes, even mingle with each other, and there will be no visible signs of lightning; but let those same clouds be unequally charged, or what is termed in electrical science, one positively and the other negatively charged, and immediately the heavens will stream with the lightning flash until the law mentioned is established, then the lurid lightning flash is no longer seen, but all Nature seems to rejoice with universal joy. The storm was doubtless due to the disturbance of this law, and the loud, reverberating noise of thunder was Nature giving vent to her pains.

This is true of man as a cosmos in himself. A decretion of the vital force of the body, or the disturbance of the law of equilibrium, will tend to a diseased condition. The vital force of the body may be disturbed in two ways: By mental impressions and by physical impressions. By the former in the case of sudden fear, joy, or a sudden shock to the mind in any way. We must ever be alive to the fact

that the mind has a remarkable power over the body, and he who relies on medication only without stimulating the mind, will have many failures. I have demonstrated in a public audience when by the executive of the mind (the will) that this is true, when I have caused the heart to increase its pulsations when I have said it must do so. The vital force is also disturbed by physical impressions. Having damp feet or sitting in a current of air while in a state of perspiration, will at once affect some weak spot in the body and the visible effects will be evident. From the foregoing facts. it appears reasonable to the student that "prevention is better than cure," but in the event of the appearance of disease, it may not be out of place to say that no drugs taken into the system can heal, for there is nothing that can be applied outwardly or taken internally that can heal. All that can be done is to bring about conditions whereby Nature will do her best; hence all healing is divine, even if Nature, in her remedial dress, is the laborer, for behind every manifestation of manifestation of force there is resident the Divine will. When we come to the circulation of the blood, my belief is that there is an active agent as well as the heart which aids in sending the blood through the different parts of the body.

By the side of the arteries are nerves which are charged with electricity. Of course, in a fine form. Being so charged, an influence is exerted upon the blood which assists materially in its circulation. This being the case, should the heart cease from any cause to do its office work, then that organ might again be persuaded to beat, when aroused to activity by the flow of blood through hypodermic injections of sodium chloride, oxygen, sulphur and phosphorus. Thus the cessation of the heart is not always an indication that death has ensued. When the facts are thoroughly known that the nervous system is to the body what a great electric system is to a city, then more attention will be paid to the nerves. Air, ventilation, light, exercise, drink,

food, etc., all have an important part to bear in the nourishment of the nerves. They are the wires that carry messages to the citadel of the brain; and also being charged send the electric spark to the blood, which assists in taking oxygen to all parts of the body in the red discs, and when repairs are needed the white discs are sent by the same force with lightning rapidity, as agents to mend the breach. If something is wrong anywhere in the body the message is conveyed through these electric wires, and pain is but a sentinel giving warning that robbers are at work. When the warning is given investigation should be måde at once. To inject morphine is like putting a plaster over the mouth of the sentinel, while the robber carries on his deadly work. How foolish to deaden sensibility to pain, while disease is doing its destroying work. The proper thing to do is to find out the cause of all the turmoil and commotion, and begin at once to remove the exciting cause. Once that is out of the way a normal condition will undoubtedly come.

Drugs and doctors are not always. conducive to this condition, and humanity is slow to grasp the truth of Nature in her onward march to victory. The departure of human beings. from natural to artificial living has made possible the many nostrums found in many homes to-day. Keep close to Nature and live in a common sense way, and all other things being equal, with the mind properly balanced, thinking health thoughts, your life will be radiant with health and sunshine, for health is the normal condition of man.