Heraldings

¶¶Service! A unique word. Let us keep our head and recognize our double duty-to the people and to ourself, as a wise father treats the excesses of a wayward son! It will not do to get into the habit of Mark Twain's cat. "Do you get more out of experience than there is in it?" Twain asked. "Now, for example, a cat will set on a hot stove once. But having sat on a hot stove once it will not set on a hot stove again. And the trouble is that cat won't ever again even sit on a cold stove. The demand for service is parallel with that of the cat. The profession is to ded icate itself to greater service than it has ever known. A noble ideal, but who will support us?

¶¶As the people grow more democratic, groups replace individuals, and tend to become ever larger and more firmly knit together. Though the "Big Animal" does not disappear, he is less in evidence. The bigger a man is, now-a-days, the less he attempts a splendid isolation, the more he merges his personality into the membership of the group, for he knows that through the subtle interpenetration of the minds of its several members, feats become possible that are beyond the achievement of any isolated magnate.L. T. Barker.

¶¶The medical profession has numerous enemies without, and a liberal sprinkling of traitors within, its own ranks. Thousands of endocrine perverts, derailed menopausics and a lot of other men and women who have been bitten by that fatal parasite, the uplifters putrifaciens in the guise of uplifters, etc.Editorial, Illinois Medical Journal, Jan., 1921.

¶¶H. M. Brown says "errors of endocrine balance in males and females of the species have produced many feminine men and masculine women. However nearly the hen may approximate the production of a praiseworthy crowing, or however closely she may imitate the strutting of the cock, at certain times she must, whether she will or not, squat and lay an egg. This is a beautiful and most praiseworthy function and one in the performance of which the cock would make a ghastly failure, and it is one, the performance of which the cock has no desire to rival the hen. Why should the hen wish to crow?

¶¶A medical slacker is the doctor who fails to do his duty in relation to the medical profession and in things medical.-President Chicago Medical Society. P. I. L.

Massive Infection of Vaccinated Person With Bacillus Typhosus-That typhoid vaccination produces a high degree of immunity is proved by army statistics. However, no proof has been available that such vaccination could protect against massive infection. A case of massive infection with B. typhosus is reported by Dr. Brooks C. Grant, Washington, D. C. (Journal A. M. A., Feb. 19, 1921) on account of the rarity of such an occurrence. A technician in the laboratory while working with a heavy suspension of living B. typhosus sucked approximately 0.5 c. c. of this culture suspension through the cotton plug of the pipet into his mouth. He immediately washed his mouth thoroughly, three times, with 50 per cent. alcohol. This soldier was last vaccinated with triple typhoid (saline) vaccine, one years and wo months prior to his infection. He was at once given 0.5 c. c. of triple typhoid vaccine in the hope of increasing his immunity. Four days after infection, he complained of slight headache, but had a normal temperature. No further symptoms appeared until the eighth day after infection, when he complained of slight headache and weakness. On the twelfth day a specimen of feces was collected and plated on Endo medium in the usual manner. The typhoid-like colonies appeared in a proportion of about 1:10 of B. coli. These were picked and proved to be B. typhosus by the customary sugar and serum reactions. Other symptoms did not appear.

Gastric Aphorisms

With a persistent reaction of occult blood in the stool there may be more than a persistent ulcer. It may be sarcoma. After a thirty days' course of well directed medical treatment, consult the surgeon.

[Ptosis abdominalis may be marked, the cecum may be lying along the pelvic floor or the stomach six inches below the umbilicus, yet if a fair peristalitic wave be created, symptoms disappear.

(Dyspepsia marked by persistent gas belching is said to have in most cases a gall bladder background. I find the most frequent cause a neurosis.

(Hard water is usually constipating, soft water relaxing. In localities using hard water goitre is often endemic, yet no connecting link has been traced to account for the coincidence.

Soups which have been tabood in atonic dyspepsia are coming into vogue-particularly vegetable soup, since its said they contain water soluble B vitamin from grain and cereals and water solubie C vitamin contained in onions, cabbage and green vegetables.

The laxative quality of bran is said, by some physiologists, to be due to the phosphorus content, yet the latter has no such theraputic influence. The active factor is cellulose, although the entire mineral content may augment its activity.

(There is a growing tendency to attribute peptic ulcer to some ill defined disturbance in the endocrine chain. Of late the removal of the thyroid has been observed to be followed by gastric ulcer-that operated cases of exophthalmic goitre die with gastric carcinoma. In the January number of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine of St. Louis, Mayo reports a case of carcinoma of thyroid co-existant with peptic ulcer in a dog.

Applications of high frequency currents to the spine followed by baking the back, at three day intervals will restore balance to the stomach of nervous dyspeptics.

JOHN M. BELL..

O

Current Comment

A Birthday Party for

Dr. Andrew W. McAlester

N THE evening of Tuesday, February 15, the Boone County Medical Society and the citizens of Columbia, Mo., gave a banquet to Dr. Andrew W. McAlester, in honor of his eightieth birthday, and the medical profession of Kansas City was represented by Drs. J. H. Thompson, Jabez N. Jackson, C. Lester Hall, Herman E, Pearse, W. T. Reynolds, G. Wilse Robinson, C. C. Conover, R. L. Sutton, J. E. Stowers and his son, A. W. McAlester, Jr.

Despite the fact that the large banquet room of the Daniel Boone Tavern, with a capacity of 350 people, had been secured for the occasion, more than one hundred applicants were unable to obtain seats. The majority of these. were not to be denied the pleasure of doing honor to "The Dean of the Missouri Medical Profession," however, and crowded the halls. and galleries throughout the evening.

Dr. McAlester, with his charming wife by his side, appeared as fresh and vigorous as he did twenty years ago.

Following a delicious Southern dinner of roast young guinea hen, with candied sweet potatoes, and all the appropriate side dishes, a number of eloquent speeches were made by old friends and associates of the guest of honor.

Following two very enjoyable recitations by Miss Forbes of Stephens College, Dr. A. Ross Hill gave a brief but comprehensive resume of Dr. McAlester's work in connection with University medical education, and spoke of his long and splendid struggle for higher ideals in educational work. Dr. Herman E. Pearse responded to "Dr. McAlester, State Medical Education and Legislation;" Jabez N. Jackson to "Dr. McAlester as a Sportsman," and Dr. Henry J. Waters, former Dean of the School of Agriculture at the University of Missouri, and now editor of The Kansas City Weekly Star, gave a stirring response to "Dr. McAlester as a Man."

Dr.

The Christian College Glee Club sang "The Rose of No Man's Land," and were repeatedly encored.

Dr. Carl Sneed, president of the Boone County Medical Society, with an appropriate and eloquent speech, presented a scroll, signed by the members of the organization, and by all of the guests.

Tom Bodine, editor of "The Paris Mercury," and a lifelong friend of Dr. McAlester's, aptly expressed the feelings of those present in his

dedication, "To have lived fully and unafraid-"

"To have lived fully and unafraid, to have loved much-men and women and little children and whatsoever things were good and sensible; to have hated with just hatred that which was wrong and foolish; to have served for the love of serving and to one's uttermost; to have had friends and to have cherished them, to have had enemies and forgiven them, to have esteemed your kind, to have despised human pretensions and yet to have valued human worth-and then to sit down in the afterglow of the years among memories that are blessed-what could be more beautiful?"Bulletin Jackson Co. Med. Soc.

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Oldest Physician in Missouri-Dr. Joseph Singer Hallstead of Breckenridge, Mo., celebrated his 103d anniversary on inaugural day, March 4th. As an evidence of the esteem in which the doctor is held by his fellow townsmen, the merchants of Breckenridge closed their stores and business generally was suspended to take part in the celebration of the aged physician's birthday anniversary. doctor and his wife, who is 94 years old, are in good health and apparently enjoyed the affair without showing signs of fatigue. Dr. Hallstead was graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine, Louisville, in 1840, and was married in 1852.

The

The New York Medical Journal-The New York Medical Journal has been converted into a semi-monthly publication. It is to be enlarged, greatly improved, and its high character will be maintained. The Journal in its seventy-eighth year, has made great strides and is today recognized as one of the most practical and influential medical journals in America.

Tribute to Major General Gorgas-A meeting in honor of Major General Gorgas was held in the Pan-American Union Building, at Washington, D. C., in January, at which diplomats, officers of the army and navy, members of Congress and other officials were present. The exercises were under the auspices of the Southern Society of Washington, of which General Gorgas was the former president. It was voted to ask Congress to make an appropriation for a suitable memorial to General Gorgas to be placed in Washington, with a further tribute in the shape of a portrait of the late Surgeon General Gorgas to be presented to the government by the Southern Society and to be placed in the library of the surgeon general's office.

The Virtue in a Hearty Laugh-Dr. Frank Crane enjoys a good show and a funny story. A bit of his philosophy follows:

"But the thing we perhaps need as much as anything else is a good laugh. For it sure doeth good like a medicine. good like a medicine. It dissipates the heady vapors of despair. It promotes the deoppilation of the spleen. It jiggers up the liver. stimulates digestion, promotes the circulation and obviates the necessity of murder in the difficult task of getting along with some people we know. So if you know a 'good one,' for goodness' sake tell it to me."

The Jew and American Ideals John Spargo's new book, "The Jew and American Ideals," will be published by the Harpers about Marsh 1. The author of "Bolshevism" and "The Greatest Failure in All History" has analyzed the course of the anti-Semitic movement in recent years in Europe and in America, particularly with regard to its relation to reactionism, of which Mr. Spargo says antiSemitism is always a corollary and a symptom. The origin and circulation of the notorious "Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion" and the activities of the Russian, Nilus, responsible for their recent appearance, are exposed. The effort to make Bolshevism appear a Jewish movement is dealt with at some length. Spargo says that his interest in combating anti-Semitism is the same that he has in combating anti-Catholicism or discrimnation against the negro or any other attempt to divide our citizenship along religious or racial lines.

Mr.

The schedule of her present and future activities which Fannie divulged recently to her publishers, Harper & Brothers, entitles her to be included among the hardest-working of our authors. In the next few weeks she will lecture in Pittsburgh, before the Federation of Women's Clubs; give a reading under the aus

Fannie Hurst, Author of "Humoresque"

pices of the Board of Education at the Natural History Museum, New York; speak at the University of Illinois. She is supervising the film production of "Star Dust," her new novel which the Harpers will publish shortly; writing a dramatic version of "Humosesque,' to be produced in the spring; has just finished one short novel, and is working on another.

Tuberculosis on Increase-Development of tuberculosis in former soldiers who were gassed in action during the world war has increased at a startling rate in the last few months, according to reports of the director of civilian relief of the Southwestern Division, American Red Cross at St. Louis. Prosperity and high wages that prevailed from the close of the war until the recent past caused hundreds of former soldiers throughout the Southwest to neglect proper treatment afforded them by the government in order to fill positions that paid the unusual compensations of the post-war period. This resulted in the development of chronic bronchitis which is now running to tuberculosis in a mounting proportion of cases.

Needs of ex-soldiers for assistance in obtain

ing vocational training, compensation for wounds and disability, and hospitalization have mounted with unprecedented rapidity since last June, the report of the Director of Civilian Relief shows. The total number of cases handled at St. Louis headquarters. which embraces Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Ok!ahoma and Texas, for the month of December, 1920, stood at 10,500, as against 7,700 in June, an increase of more than 40 per cent in the half year; and of 66 per cent over December, 1919, when a monthly total of 6,600 cases were handled by the home service department of the division.

This is largely due, according to the report. to the break in the demand for labor and the high wages that were paid. Former soldiers of the Southwest who neglected to take advantage of the benefits due them by the government for disability are now turning to these agencies by the thousands with the advent of low wages and small demand for labor.

Yellow Fever Research in Mexico-Dr. F. de P. Miranda of the Mexican National Board of Health gave a resume of the most important facts concerning the knowledge of the causative agent of yellow fever-leptospiraichteroides, before the Orleans Parish Medical Society, New Orleans, January 24th. This culture was cultivated by Dr. Perez Grovas, in Vera Cruz, from guinea pigs injected with blood taken from yellow fever patients. The culture was carried to Mexico City and has been transplanted several times and is of the same stock as that now used for preparations of vaccines being used in Vera Cruz. Miranda was sent by the Mexican National Board of Health to tollow the plague campaign and to do some post-graduate studies in tropical diseases and sanitation. Dr. Miranda is matriculated in the Graduate School of Medicine, Tulane University. He will remain. in New Orleans until June. Dr. Perez Grovas of the Bacteriological Institute of Mexico, Mexico City, isolated the organism in Vera Cruz, confirming the work of Dr. Noguchi of the Rockefeller Institute.-N. O. Med. and Surg. Jour.

Dr.

The Leonard Prize for Research-The American Roentgen Ray Society will award $1.000 to the author of the best piece of original research in the field of the X-ray, radium or radio activity. The competition is open to any one living in the United States or its possessions, in Canada, Mexico, Central or South America, Cuba or other islands of the Western Hemisphere. The research matter must be submitted in literary form in the English language not later than July 1, 1921, and must never have been published. The piece of original research receiving award must be presented before the American Roentgen Ray So