During the succeeding days there was no fever, but for several nights the temperature was sub-normal. However, the lung cleared up nicely, and she was soon well to all appearances. During the extreme high temperature the father had suggested the use of antipyrine, which I declined to administer. After the child's recovery he expressed great gratification, and brought to me a newspaper clipping which quoted a distinguished Parisian authority as condemning the use of antipyrine and similar drugs in the treatment of this disease. So far, everything was lovely; and the homoeopathic prescriber felicitated himself upon the never-failing resources of our incomparable materia medica.

After five weeks of apparently perfect health, the child again sickened, very suddenly and more violently than before. She had been away from home for a few days, and returned, with her mother, in apparent health. About three hours after her return she was attacked with vomiting and diarrhoea. The vomited matter was first simple ingesta, then bile, then water. The stools began as simple, loose evacuations, without marked characteristics. The temperature was 103°, and tending upward. Arsenic was administered. During the night the vomiting and purging continued every hour, and by morning we realized that the case was one of extreme gravity. Counsel from the city was agreed upon, and Dr. James B. Bell was called, who gave the case a thorough examination. By this time the watery vomit was black with disorganized blood, and closely resembled the coffee-ground vomit of gastric ulcer or cancer. The stools were frequent, and sometimes involuntary. There was considerable delirium, with hallucinations, twitching of arms and some carphologia. Mouth dry, and tongue continually moving from side to side licking the corners of the mouth. There was sharp pain in the head, mostly frontal, but an entire absence of pain in the stomach and bowels. After carefully watching the patient for an hour, Dr. Bell expressed fear of a convulsion, prescribed stramonium, and left with a grave prognosis. During the following night the evacuations were somewhat less frequent, but the black vomiting continued, and a few doses of phosphorus were administered without benefit. By morning of the second day the character of the stools had changed, and presented the same coffee-ground appearance as was seen in the ejecta. It was still impossible to keep anything on the stomach, and rectal enemata of malted milk were resorted to, which were retained about half an hour; but it is improbable that much nourishment was absorbed in that way. The patient frequently remarked that she was hungry; and her delirium was colored with visions of appetizing food. The pain

in the head was apparently not very intense; the face continued pale, and she could be aroused from her delirium sufficiently to answer a question with the graceful diction which she used in health. After a second interview with the consulting physician, the medicine was changed to lachesis. But all our efforts seemed futile against the irresistible march of this disease. Early in the afternoon she asked for the bed-pan, used it, then vomited, and immediately went into a convulsion, and expired in a few moments.

I feel that I have drawn a very inadequate picture of this terrible case. For malignancy of aspect, rapidity of action, and insensibility to remedial measures, nothing comparable to it has come under my observation except those malignant cases of diphtheria which seem doomed to death from the very start. This child seemed as far out of our reach as if bitten by a rabid dog. What caused this profound poisoning? The child was under the close observation of a prudent mother, and had suf fered from no indiscretions of diet. The absence of a history of indigestion and gastric pain precluded the idea which would naturally be suggested by coffee-ground vomiting.

The presence of typhus fever in this country must be considered in making a diagnosis. But it is evident that this case differed widely from typhus in several essential particulars. Cerebro-spinal meningitis was more nearly approximated, but that was contra-indicated by the absence of characteristic symptoms of head and back. We called the case la grippe; and, as that disease was generally epidemic, it is entitled to the benefit of whatever doubt may exist as to the correctness of our diagnosis. While most of our cases of this disease are either neuralgic or catarrhal, we know that there is a gastric type occasionally seen. We know, too, that in all epidemics an occasional case will stand out in startling prominence, and display a severity immeasurably greater than its fellows of the same anamnesis but different development. I believe that this is the explanation of the extreme malignancy of the malady, which cut off a beautiful young life in the short space of forty-eight hours. A distinguished physician once said, "I can cure all illnesses except the last." I do not know that he was a homoeopath, but he ought to have been. There are few medical agnostics, I take it, in this society. We know that our resources are tremendous; that their victories have been great in the past, and that conscientious effort will win still greater triumph in the future. We have too often seen the salutary effect of the similar remedy to feel other than hopeful when exhibiting its action on the sick. Yet there come times to all of us when strength is turned to weakness, and we are forced to acknowledge that

while "similia" is strong it is not sufficiently powerful to make "this corruption put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality."

THREE CASEs of puerperal albuMINURIA WITHOUT

CONVULSIONS,

BY JOHN J. SHAW, M. D., PLYMOUTH, MASS.

[Read before the Massachusetts Homœopathic Medical Society.]

It has been my good fortune to have had three marked cases of puerperal albuminuria in which convulsions did not occur.

I was called to Mrs. S. shortly before she was expected to be confined. I found her badly bloated; the lips of the vulva being so swollen that she could only lie on her back with the knees widely separated. I pricked the mucous surface in perhaps a dozen places on each side, and thus soon relieved her, so that she could go about. The urine was loaded with albumen.

Her confinement occurred soon after, and although she was sick over thirty-six hours, there were never during that time any signs of convulsions. I had this lady under treatment for a long time after this, I think about two years, when she again became pregnant, her urine still containing a small percentage of albumen. By the time she was three months along, both legs were prodigiously swollen, and there was not more than one-third of the normal amount of water passed.

Soon after this she aborted, (probably by her own act), but was obliged to call me on account of excessive flowing. I treated her in the ordinary way, but in the whole course of my attendance I discovered no signs of uræmic intoxication. I continued to give her medicine for upward of a year after this, with occasional examinations of the urine, but each time finding albumen; and her feet and ankles would swell badly if she stood on them long at a time.

She finally got tired of taking medicine, and I did not hear anything more from her for another year, when she had again become pregnant, and this time passed through her gestation in perfect comfort. The albumen had entirely disappeared from the urine, and her confinement was perfectly natural and quite comfortable.

health.

Since that time she has enjoyed the best of

My second case was that of Mrs. C. When I was called to her, I found her so badly swollen in every part, face, trunk and limbs, that although a woman who would naturally weigh not more than one hundred and twenty pounds, she had the appearance of a person who would weigh over two hundred. She expected to be confined in about one month. She had not con

sidered it necessary to speak to me in regard to her health, supposing it to be one of the misfortunes of her condition. She called me when she did on account of severe and continuous vomiting. This I soon succeeded in checking, but she was still obliged to be exceedingly careful in her diet.

She passed but little urine, not over ten ounces in the twentyfour hours, and it contained about all the albumen it could. The child was dead, but I think it had been so but a short time. I gave her apocynum can. and arsenicum without apparent benefit. Finally with terebinth and apis the amount of water began to increase, and the anasarca to disappear. But at the time of her confinement there was still considerable swelling about the lower part of the body, and the urine still contained a large percentage of albumen. She was in labor about twelve hours, when she was delivered of a dead male child, of about six pounds weight, and which had apparently been dead about three or four weeks. She showed no signs of convulsions, and had a steady although slow getting up.

Under merc. cor. and arsenicum the water gradually cleared and in about three months was entirely free from albumen. Since that time she has continued well, and is now as strong and fleshy as is usual with her.

The third case was that of Mrs. H. In the belief of her friends at the time she passed through her gestation in perfect condition; she herself saying, afterward, that she felt perfectly well during the whole time, with no sense of weight in the abdomen or clumsiness of the limbs; and yet when I was called to her after labor had commenced; I found her in an exceedingly plump condition.

Her labor was slow and rather tedious, the os dilating with some difficulty. Her pains were quite far apart, and between the pains she almost invariably fell asleep. In fact she seemed to be in a rather drowsy condition all the time, and bore her pains with very little complaint.

About twelve hours after I was called in, she was delivered of a ten-pound girl. The placenta came away all right, and the uterus contracted well, and I left her in a very comfortable condition, although it was apparent that the plumpness was the result of dropsy. There was almost no amniotic fluid. The abdomen was to all appearance as large after confinement as before.

About five hours after I left her, I was summoned with the information that she was flowing badly and was feeling faint. I found her flowing quite freely, with pulse at one hundred and twenty. I had nourishment given her, which relieved the faintness, and appropriate remedies soon checked the flowing.

The next morning the pulse had dropped to one hundred, she had passed a comfortable night and was feeling nicely. The eyelids were however very puffy, and she could not see to tell time by a good-sized clock ten feet away. I secured a specimen of her water, and found it loaded with albumen. The amount passed was very small. I put her on apocynum can. and arsenicum, and soon had a free flow of urine. The bloating of the feet, legs, abdomen and face, rapidly disappeared, and in three weeks was entirely gone. She seemed perfectly well; the sight was almost normal, and the urine was entirely free from albumen; and I might add that I was happy, for the patient had braved the disapprobation of a large circle of friends in employing a homoeopathic physician, and I should have felt particularly badly if she had not done well.

In these three cases which I have described, no preventive medicine whatever was given, because I did not see them in season to give any before confinement, and I did not have any occasion to give any at the time.

I

In the second case, though I gave treatment which resulted in increasing the flow of urine and reducing the dropsy, yet did not succeed in lessening to any considerable degree the amount of albumen passed.

In something over five hundred cases of confinement I have had three cases of convulsions, (not hysteric), and had apparently as much reason to expect them in the above detailed cases as in those in which they did occur. I am glad to be able to add that all of my cases recovered.

TREATMENT OF DiphtherIA.

BY J. H. SHERMAN, M. D., BOSTON.

[Read before the Massachusetts Homœopathic Medical Society.] Intelligent treatment of diphtheria as well as intelligent treatment of other diseases presupposes true conceptions of the nature of the disease. I take it for granted, with the incontrovertible evidence on the subject, that the cause of the disease, diphtheria, is the introduction into the system of microscopic germs, bacteria. Without these germs no diphtheria. The first point of attack is the natural one where in the act of breathing they would come in contact with the tonsils and soft palate or mucous membrane of the nose. In mild attacks the disease remains a local one, the general system becoming little affected. In the severe cases it extends to almost every organ in the body.

On the supposition that the disease is caused by germs, then to cure the disease, we must destroy or antagonize them. Have

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