A CALL. The undersigned physicians, members of the State Eclectic Medical and Surgical Society, and residents of the Fourth Congressional District of Michigan, would respectfully request all those who, according to the by-laws of the above-named Society, are entitled to co-operate in the organization of an auxiliary district society, to meet with them in the parlors of the Bond House, Niles, Mich., at 7:30 o'clock A. M. on Thursday, May 28, 1879, for the purpose of organizing a District Eclectic Medical Society for this Fourth Congressional District (St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Cass, Van Buren and Berrien Counties), such society, when organized, to be incorporated under the act of 1877, entitled "An act for the incorporation of Eclectic Medical Societies," and to be auxiliary to the State Society incorporated under the same act. All residents of the said Fourth Congressional District who may be at the time designated above members of the State Eclectic Medical and Surgical Society of Michigan, and graduates of reputable medical colleges, will be entitled to sit in the Convention, and to become charter members of the Society organized thereby. H. S. MCMASTER, Dowagiac. DOWAGIAC, Mich., April 8, 1879. FOR SALE. Location in principal city near the central part of Illinois. House and grounds $2,000 cash and $1,000 in one or two years (which is about half their cost). One of the best fields for surgery in the State. The physician who wishes to retire has a large practice (of twelve years) which can be transferred to the purchaser, who must be a man possessing energy and good qualifications. Further particulars may be obtained by addressing WILSON H. DAVIS, M. D., Northwest corner State and Madison streets, Chicago. A CASE OF ABSCESS OF THE LIVER. July 28, 1878, I was requested to see A. G. S. in consultation with two other physicians. The patient was, by profession, a teacher, between fifty and sixty years of age, and had, some twelve years previously, suffered a severe attack of inflammation of the right lobe of the liver, which had left that organ enlarged, causing the lower ribs upon the right side anteriorly to bulge out considerably. From time to time subsequently, attacks of an inflammatory character, accompanied by severe pain, had been suffered; but, on the whole, the patient had been able to attend to his ordinary duties. Two months previous to the time of this consultation, an unusually severe attack had been experienced, which refused to terminate as had those preceding, but had gone on with great pain, physical prostration and emaciation. The lower ribs protruded, at the time, to the extent of at least two inches, while just below, and approaching the median line, appeared a slightly-fluctuating protrusion. Into this the needle of a hypodermic syringe was passed to the depth of an inch, by which means a drop of tenacious pus was removed. The patient was so much delighted with the ease and painless character of this examination that he seemed to take, aside from his personal welfare, a scientific interest in the next proposed step, which was the use of the aspirator. By means of a Molesworth aspirator, twelve ounces of clear pus were at once withdrawn, when the bloody character of the discharge caused a discontinuance of the operation. The next day, a similar amount was withdrawn, and so on until within a week fifty-one ounces were taken. From this time on, aspiration was resorted to every four to six days for two or three weeks, the result being the removal of two or three ounces of albuminous semi-transparent fluid. Into the sac were injected, from time to time, various substances, as solutions of sulphate and chloride of zinc, iodide of potassium, etc. Weeks passed on, and the discharge seemed destined to become a chronic affair. Meantime, under the use of tonic treatment and a nutricious diet, the patient had so far recovered as to begin teaching, and the opening was kept open by a tent of cloth. One morning, upon removing the dressing, as usual, the tent could nowhere be found. Shortly after this, the discharge increased remarkably, assumed a more puriform appearance, and a most disagreeable fecal smell. After some weeks, the patient called at my office to consult with me upon the matter, not, however, mentioning the loss of the tent eight weeks before. As throughout the treatment there had appeared a small indurated bunch, which, since this increased suppuration, was for the first decreasing, I advised to let it take its course a few days longer. The next morning, upon removing the dressing, an increased flow of pus brought with it the long-lost tent! From this time, the discharge ceased rapidly, and disappeared-to re-appear once again for a few days soon after. At the present time, it has not discharged or given any evidence of trouble for the last two months, and the patient appears to be permanently cured. The use of the hypodermic syringe as a diagnosing aspirator in cases of supposed suppuration, of ovarian or other cysts, and as a means of removing the contents of the strangulated bowel in hernia, where the contents are gaseous or sufficiently fluid, is not sufficiently appreciated by the mass of the profession. In almost all cases, it will be found superior to the common exploring-needle, while its delicacy does much to obviate the risk, small though it may be, attendant upon the use of the smallest ordinary aspirator-needle. [XI.] RADEMACHER'S SYSTEMIC DISEASES. BY PROF. N. P. PEARSON. Is it not strange that the "Regulars," for centuries, have worked with the most indefatigable zeal to find constant remedies for their nosological forms, and never yet succeeded in finding a single one? And still they roll the stone of Sisyphus, and, in spite of this constant failure, they are very proud of their system, and ever ready to condemn, a priori, any sincere physician who tries to find another road in their wilderness of therapeutics. When we read carefully through their text-books, we find only a blundering empiricism, gilt-edged with modern physiology and pathology. New remedies is the daily cry, and the mountains and forests of distant regions are searched through to find such. Many old and well-reputed remedies are thrown away as obsolete. The old antiphlogistic is not so much in vogue as of yore, but one antiseptic remedy after another is nowadays discovered to destroy the supposed parasitical germ of many diseases. In open wounds, I am ready to acknowledge their beneficial action, but, inside the circulation, I consider their antiseptic action very problematic or doubtful. Experienced physicians have long ago recognized two principal conditions of the entire organism, which have been called sthenia (strength) and asthenia (weakness), and, in apparently the same disease, these required special attendance and often great difference in medication for successful treatment. Erichson, in his celebrated text-book of surgery, says: "It is the type that is affected by this constitutional disturbance, its sthenic or its adynamic character, as indicated by the pulse and the tongue, and not the mere diagnosis of the local, that must guide the surgeon." In inflammation, he discriminates between three main kinds: "(1) Sthenic, (2) asthenic and (3) that with irritative fever. In all three, there may be the same redness, swelling, heat and pain, and the treatment yet entirely different." Fothergill, in his excellent "Hand-Book of Treatment," coincides perfectly with him, and insists on having his words "printed distinctly on the brain-cells of the medical student." It has sometimes appeared to me that there might be four different conditions of the entire organism in diseases, namely, nervous, hematic, sthenic and asthenic; but Rademacher, in all his searching, could only find three, although admitting the possibility of more, and these corresponded to the three Paracelsic Universalia: Nitras sodæ, Ferrum and Cuprum, or the sedative, tonic and stimulant principle of general treatment, and he adopted, from Paracelsus or from a pure therapeutical point of view to designate these conditions, Saltpeter, Iron and Copper diseases. Some superficial readers have complained that he gave scarcely any indication for them; but he and his followers give better indications than we find anywhere else; and I must complain that our common textbooks pay too little attention to this important matter in the right way, for many and fatal mistakes are frequently made from lack of exact discrimination in this respect. Pneumonia has too often been treated with the lancet and other antiphlogistics, when tonics and stimulants were required; puerperal fever with turpentine, when nitras soda should probably have been given; diphtheria with iron, instead of cuprum; dysentery dragged along with astringents and opiates, when nitrate of soda might instantly relieve; rheumatic or scarlet fever followed by their bad and sad consequences in a similar way, etc. In the physiology, we learn that in the capillaries is the great "workshop" for the tissue-change, nutrition, secretion, excretion, etc. We may, then, in diseases here find either an excess of nutritive material or too energetic vital state (1) which we may call active Plethora, or Sthenia, or (2) a deficiency of nutritive material, called Anæmia, or (3) an impaired |