At the annual election on Wednesday afternoon | shortly sent you by the secretary of the society. · last, there was an unusual display of feeling in It was fully and even boastfully acknowledged reference to the action of the American Medical by several that they had come to carry their Association in New Orleans last May. It was point, even if it required the setting aside of all whispered about for a few days prior to the meet- the laws of the society. While some of these ing, that some effort would be made to commit gentlemen publicly announce their adherence to the County Society to the side of the malcontents, and regard for the Code of Ethics, yet more than and thus enable them to succeed in their efforts one expressed the belief that this was the enterat obstructing the meeting of the International ing wedge, toward the adoption of the New Code, Congress of 1887. or the destruction of the Medical Society; and one even hoped for these results, as he desired to be free. It was suggested in the conversation which followed in the little group around him, that his proper plan was to resign, but he seemed to prefer to wait within the lines while constantly chafing at the restriction imposed upon him.

The leaders, and those who spoke in behalf of the opposition, announced themselves as "pacificators," endeavoring to promote the harmony of the profession, but the remarkable method which they have adopted has thus far been productive of a decidedly different effect. It is the cause of most bitter talk in every accidental meeting of medical men, and the daily papers are jocosely predicting in this disagreement of the doctors a great increase in the sales of patent medicines.

It is a well-known fact, announced at the meet

ing, that at least one gentleman on the ticket thus elected is not a member of the County Society, and it is a question whether several were eligible by reason of non-payment of dues. The question of the legality of this election may yet be brought before the Censors, or even require a decision of the Judicial Council.- Journal of

Last October, in accordance with a special law of the County Society, which says "Nominations for delegates shall be made at the stated meeting in October by a nominating committee named at the stated meeting in June, which committee shall present a ticket of candidates for election to the different delegations of the Society," this nominating committee presented a ticket of nominations of delegates to the American Medical and the State Medical Societies. This report was received without a dissenting voice, and, as usual, a copy was sent by the assistant secretary to each member of the Society, with the notice for the January meeting. A day or two prior to this meeting, some of the members received a circular asking them to support a different ticket; to quote their words, "Nominated in the interests of general professional harmony." It does not appear as though any effort was made either by the members of the nominating committee or by their nominees. When the Society was assembled, the first move was to suspend the order of business in order to introduce, in violation of the By-Laws, a ticket not named by the nominating committee; this was on the motion of Dr. Agnew, who seemed to be the leader of the opposition to the regularly named ticket. This proposition was opposed by some A MEDICAL COUP D'ÉTAT IN PHILAof the oldest members, and especially by several of the ex-presidents, as not in order. Now commenced a most remarkable scene. Hisses, jeers cries of "order" were hurled full in the faces of the little party thus standing up for the rules and asking that they be obeyed. The president seemed utterly powerless, or disinclined to stem the flood that carried all before it. The " ayes' and "nays" were demanded and yielded to with great reluctance. The call showed that out of a membership of over four hundred, about one hundred and fifty were in favor, to fifty against the substitution of the new ticket. Of course, after this vote, the ballot was a mere form, and resulted in about the same figures, or even with less opposition, owing to the fact that many now left the room disgusted.

During the balloting Dr. Agnew offered a series of resolutions condemning the action of the American Medical Association, and requiring the Philadelphia delegates to vote for a reversal of its action. These resolutions will no doubt be

American Medical Association.

DELPHIA.

PHILADELPHIA, January 11, 1886. To the Editor of The College and Clinical Record. Dear Sir:-Believing that it is but just that a fair and impartial statement of the recent action of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, in subverting its own by-laws for the election of delegates to the American Medical Association, should be put upon record, I desire, as an eye-witness of the proceedings, to occupy a brief space in your columns.

The By-Laws of the Philadelphia County Medical Society regulating elections of officers and delegates stipulate that, "at the stated meeting in June, a committee of five members shall be constituted, which shall be called 'the nominating committee,'" and that "at the stated meeting in October, this committee shall present a ticket of candidates for election to the different delegations of the Society," and "no member shall be put in nomination who is in arrears for the annual contribution of the current year." In accordance

with these By-Laws, the nominating committee appointed last June reported to the society last October the names of members eligible as delegates to the American Medical Association and the State Medical Society of Pennsylvania, their report being unanimously adopted.

will meet with much favor at the hands of the members of the American Medical Association in the South and West, who will form the great bulk of the members in attendance at the St. Louis meeting in May next.

Whatever moral effect was intended to be produced by the exclusion of several of the gentlemen on the regular ticket from attendance as delegates at the St. Louis meeting will be counteracted by the fact that they are already permanent members of the American Medical Association, and, although as such they are not entitled to vote, they have an equal right with all the delegates to participate in the deliberations of that body. Whatever influence they are capable of exerting, therefore, by their presence at the St. Louis meeting, will be just as sensibly felt, and the great mass of members and delegates in attendance at that immense gathering, for such it promises to be, will not know, and certainly will not care, whether these gentlemen have a right to vote or not, their right to discuss this coup d'état being wholly undisputed. The College and Clinical Record, February, 1886. PROGRESS OF THE OPPOSITION TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS-SIGNS OF THE END.

At the stated annual meeting of the County Society, held January 6, 1886, when the society, in accordance with public notice, met to transact its annual business, the hall was packed, not only with members, but also with medical students and newspaper reporters, and it soon be. came apparent that an organized effort had been privately formed to subvert the usual proceedings. Prominent medical teachers and others, who rarely or never attend these meetings, were present, in the interest of a ticket then first known to many, and speciously headed, “In the interest of general professional harmony." The movement was inaugurated by a motion to suspend the orders of the day and proceed at once to the election. No objection was raised to any member on the ticket already regularly nominated in accordance with the By-Laws; but it was understood that one person was specially offensive in consequence of his course at New Orleans. Four ex-presidents and old members of the County Society vigorously resisted this revolutionary action, insisting on the observance of the By-Laws in reference to elections, and charging, without denial, that several of those named on the substi-meeting in New Orleans simply exercised its tuted ticket were ineligible, as not having paid their dues, and that one was well known not to be a member of the County Society. Their efforts to maintain the supremacy of the laws were received by vigorous and repeated hissing and calls not usually heard outside of a political con

vention.

Under a call for the yeas and nays, a vote to recognize and permit the presentation of the new ticket was taken, there being 165 yeas to 36 nays, the balance of the 450 members of the society being absent and ignorant of the proceedings then in progress. Having succeeded, in spite of the By-Laws, in introducing their ticket, the next step was to present during the balloting resolutions in opposition to the action of the American Medical Association at New Orleans, and instructing the delegates to endeavor to restore the original organization of the International Medical Congress as it stood before the last meeting of the Association (Drs. Billings, Hays, and others).

It remains to be seen what course will be taken by the members of the regular ticket thus ostracised. The probabilities are that the admission of the other delegates at St. Louis, and the legality of their election, will be brought to the decision of the "Judicial Council" of the Association. It is very doubtful if the resolutions adopted

When the American Medical Association at its

right to enlarge its Committee on the Organization of the Congress, and make it more truly representative of the whole profession, a few leading men having the control of two or three prominent medical journals captiously denied the right of the Association to meddle with the matter. They were soon compelled to abandon that position as untenable.

They next made a sudden and concerted attempt to prevent the Enlarged Committee from making any progress in the work of organization by the most reckless efforts to keep members of the profession from accepting any official positions in the Preliminary Organization of the Congress. They denounced the action of the Association, and openly avowed their preference to have the whole profession of the country disgraced by a withdrawal of the Congress to some other country rather than to make any honorable and fair concessions to the fairly expressed wishes of the National Association. In the mean time, the properly Enlarged Committee on Organization quietly progressed with their work, adopting complete and satisfactory rules of organization, and appointing the provisional officers of the Congress and of the Sections; thereby providing an efficient Executive Committee of the Congress to take all further control of its affairs. The Executive Committee promptly commenced its

MEDICAL NEWS AND MISCELLANY. Young, Dr. Z. T. Somers, Dr. P. Morgan, Jr.,

DR. B. F. BAER has been elected president of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia. DR. ROYAL W. AMIDON has assumed editorial charge of the Analectic.

DR. JOHN B. ROBERTS, Professor of Surgery in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, was married on Janu

ary 26th to Miss Anna H. Roberts.

DR. AUSTIN FLINT has accepted the invitation to deliver the Address in Medicine at the next meeting of the British Medical Association.

Congress a success. I wonder if the journals | Chemistry, Dr. Blank; Professor of Materia

which are supporting this sort of thing are not waking up to a sense of their being on the wrong side of the fence. I know where one of them lost four subscribers in this city since the raid began. Is not this a straw which shows which way the wind is blowing?-Cor. New England Medical Monthly.

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS.-The note in the last Monthly from a doctor who signed himself "Not a member of the American Medical Association, "has touched the keynote of the whole International Medical Congress business. When a committee appointed by any organized medical body insults its constitutors as did the Original Committee, headed by Drs. Billings and Hays, by appointing every one of themselves to offices, and prominent ones, too, and some of their members to several offices, we think it is time for the profession to call a halt. A few have followed the Original Committee, the mass of the profession are behind the New Committee, staunch and true. Let them rave, rant, revile, and misrepresent; they are the only ones who will suffer, not the International Medical Congress.-Cor. New England Medical Monthly.

THE TREATMENT OF FROST BITES.-Dr. Lapatin, in the proceedings of the Caucasian Medical Society, advises that fingers and toes which have been slightly frost-bitten, and which subsequently suffer from burning, itching, and pricking sensations, should be painted, at first once and afterward twice a day, with a mixture of dilute nitric acid and peppermint water in equal proportions. After this application has been made for three or four days the skin becomes darkened and the epidermis is shed, healthy skin appearing under it. The cure is effected in from ten to fourteen days. The author has found this plan very effectual among soldiers who were unable to wear their boots in consequence of having had frozen feet. They were in this way soon rendered capable of returning to military duty.-British Medical Journal.

Medica, Dr. Gallagher; Professor of Obstetrics,
Dr. Duff; Professor of Gynecology, Dr. Asdale;
Lecturer on Dermatology, Dr. Dunn; Lecturer
on Nervous Diseases, Dr. Ayers; Lecturer on
Orthopedic Surgery, Dr. King; Lecturer on
Genito-Urinary Diseases, Dr. Thomas.

THE NEW CHILIAN REMEDY FOR CYSTITIS AND CALCULUS, PICHI (Fabiana Imbricata).— The London Medical Times and Gazette, December 5, 1885, reports a new remedy for cystitis, viz., Pichi (Fabiana Imbricata), which has its habitat in Chili, that fruitful home of medicinal plants.

It appears that Brazilian physicians of high scientific standing, as well as the native inhabitants, esteem the medicinal virtues of this drug in the treatment of urinary diseases, and especially its value in treating renal and vesical calculi and cystitis.

We learn that Messrs. Parke, Davis & Co., the manufacturing pharmacists, with their usual enterprise, sent a special representative to the native habitat of the plant, who has secured for them a supply of the genuine drug, of which they now offer samples to the medical profession desiring to ascertain by clinical trial its real medicinal value.

The conservative members of the profession are not a little skeptical as to the value of new remedies, but those who have followed the history of the introduction of cascara sagrada, coca erythroxylon, and other new drugs which are now indispensable members of the materica medica, are firm in their belief that progress in therapeutics must be attained by a careful examination of the claims for consideration of each new aspirant for therapeutic honors.

THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.-According to the Medical News (of Philadelphia) of December 26th, the Medical Record gives the following editorial note from the St. Petersburg med. Wochenschrift, of November 21st: "The prospects of the next International Medical Congress, which was to meet in 1887, in Washington, have lately, in an unusual manner, been put in jeopardy. The Original Organizing Committee, of which, as announced by us in previous communications, the well-known surgeon-general of the United States Army was secretary-general, and to which the most distinguished American physicians be

The Western Pennsylvania MEDICAL COLLEGE.-The Western Pennsylvania Medical College has been organized and liberally endowed, and will soon assume possession of its new building on Sixth Street, Pittsburgh, Pa. The course of lectures will not begin, however, until October. The faculty will be composed of the following well-longed, has been retired. This was accomplished known, earnest, and hard-working practitioners: Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Heckelman; Professor of Physiology, Dr. Allen; Professor of the Principles of Surgery, Dr. Murdoch; Professor of the Practice of Surgery, Dr. McCann; Professor of the Principles of Medicine, Dr. Snively; Professor of Clinical Medicine, Dr. Lange; Professor of

through the intrigues and hostility which developed at the last annual meeting in New Orleans. At this time a new committee was appointed, under the presidency of a Dr. Shoemaker, of Philadelphia. This new Organization Committee contains but a few of the members of the previous committee, and is composed mostly of unknown

and insignificant physicians, who inspire no confi- | who had always been healthy, and who came into dence in their capacity for conducting the Con- the hospital on the 12th of November, saying that gress." six days before he had "caught cold." He had

When the St. Petersburg med. Wochenschrift some cough and expectoration, with pain in the knows no better than to confound "the well-chest and ankles. At the same time, his face, feet, known surgeon-general of the army" with the and scrotum became swollen. The cough had deofficer who was the secretary-general of the com-clined when he entered the house, but the pains mittee of seven, it publishes the value of its con- persisted, though without any swelling of the demnation of the new committee as "composed joints. The oedema of the face was gone, but mostly of unknown and insignificant physicians." that of the feet and scrotum persisted. Some To it they doubtless are unknown. But what moist rales were heard, his spleen was enlarged shall be said of both the Medical Record and and his temperature was 1020. His urine and his Medical News, which reproduce this statement heart were normal. Twelve years ago he had about "the well-known surgeon-general of the chills and fever. He was given quinine and diaarmy" (and not for the first time) without contra- phoretics, and under their use passed fifty-five diction?-Cor. Journal of the American Medical ounces of urine daily. On the 14th the dema Association. was gone, but the temperature was near 1010. He was also given fluid extract of jaborandi in twenty-drop doses. This caused profuse perspiration, and in a few days he expressed himself as well. Repeated examinations have failed to detect the slightest traces of albumen; his, heart and liver are normal; remember these facts, for they have an important bearing. Here we have acute general oedema without disease of the heart, liver, or kidneys. This condition generally comes from kidney disease, but there is none here. This man is strong and hearty in every respect. This is one of those rare cases where the inflammatory state similar to that which gives catarrh, affects the areolar tissue. There has always been a lingering belief in the minds of some clinicians. that there may be a transudation of serum, not only from mechanical causes, not only from disease of the liver, heart, and kidneys, but that it may be caused by an inflammation of the areolar tissue. The writers of the last and the early part of the present century used to speak of "inflammatory oedema," in those days this case would have been described as such. But it transpired

THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF CHLORIDE OF CALCIUM.-Dr. R. W. Crighton (Practitioner) has used chloride of calcium largely for eight years, and knows of no other remedy that will produce the same good results in suitable cases. And, among these, first, is enlargement of the cervical glands in children, where the glands seem massed together, and are almost of stony hardness, and in which both iodine and cod-liver oil have failed to reduce the bulk. After some weeks' patient use of the chloride, with careful attention to diet and general hygiene, there seldom fails to be noticed a softening and separation of the individual glands, and generally, in a few months, such a reduction in size, or complete disappearance in milder cases, as to warrant the term cure being applied to the case. On the discontinuance of the remedy, however, an increase of size often takes place, necessitating its continuance at intervals for a year or more. Dr. Crighton has found the chloride of calcium equally efficacious in cases where suppuration had occurred. One case was that of a lady of forty, who from child-that, as our nicety of diagnosis advanced many hood had scarcely ever been many months free from suppuration of some of the cervical glands. These had generally been incised, and cod-liver oil and the preparations of iodine almost constantly taken. She was treated with chloride of calcium thrice daily. In less than three months all suppuration had ceased, and the enlarged glands had become much reduced in size. In tabes mesenterica the good effects are striking and lasting, if the disease is not too far advanced. Dr. Crighton always prescribes crystallized chloride calcium, as the anhydrous salt forms a turbid solution, and has an unpleasant taste. The dose is one, two or three grains for young children, and rarely over twelve or fifteen grains for adults.

GENERAL CATARRHAL EDEMA.-This case, gentlemen, possesses unusual clinical interest, as you will see when we develop it. We have a man

of those cases which had been called by this name were found to be due to kidney disease and other causes, when, as so often happens, our clinicians, sailing away to the other extreme, dropped this disease altogether, and its occasional actual occurrence was overlooked. But here we have a case where careful and repeated examinations fail to give any other cause. We might almost call it a new disease, it has not been worked up for many years. There has been some irritation (by cold) and inflammation of the areolar tissue, and a consequent exudation of serum. We will give this man Basham's mixture for a few days.-Professor J. M. DaCosta, Medical and Surgical Reporter.

DIURETICS.-Dr. V. M. Reichard (Philadelphia Medical Times) says diuretics may be divided into two great classes; those in which the chief effect is an increase in the amount of urinary