The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-09-11
ADVANCES IN MEDICINE AND
SURGERY.
Striking Progress Shown and Indicated
eress.
CDR. James j. Walsh In the Indepen-
dent

CDR. James j. Walsh In the Indepen-
dent.)
For eight days nearly seven thousand
doctors, nearly five hundred of these from
the United States, have been attending
the sessions of the Thirteenth Interna-
tional Medical Congress here in Paris.
An interesting phase of the discussions
of the second days meeting concerned
the question of the use of fat in larger
quantities than is at present the custom.
1t was pointed out that nature supplies
the infant with diet containing a larger
proportion of fat than the individual is
liable to take for himself later in life.
The workman Graves fat to make up for
the heat lost by exer "a, but those of
sedentary occupation are apt gradually
to loss their taste for it. The result of
the comparative absence OF fat from the
dietary is the occurrence of intestinal
torpor. The food residue is not properly
fabricated, and the state of constipation
so common in our times develops. For
it's relief recourse Is had to laxatives,
some new and highly lauded form of
which makes it's appearance at least once
q week, until now they are the bane Of
the generation. The milk fats, cream,
butter and milk itself are the most sufta-
BILE form of fatty materials. They are
especially we'll borne by those with dis
turbed digestion. One German observer
noted that the vegetable oils, olive oil
and the like. not only served very use
full nutritional purpose, but were actually
curative in their effects in many painful
disorders of the stomach.
A marked feature of the discussion of
stomach diseases was the confidence ex-
pressed on all sides in the surgery of the
stomach. 1t is only little over decade
since surgical procedures, involving the
stomach, became anything more than
great rarity. Now even very conserva-
tive physicians counsel recourse to surgi-
cal Intervention when severe stomach
symptoms persist in spite of medical
treatment. The result is that the once
nopelessly fatal conditi on, cancer of the
stomach, is now considered to be abso-
luteIy durable in many cases,
=, 1t has been the custom to consider chat
of the three lowest forms of plant life,
the microbe, the ferment and the mould |
only the m1orobe produced disease in |
man. In recent years it has become clear
that certain OF the ferments also produced |
conditions in the human |
race, as we'll as in some of the higher
animals especially those associated with |
man. There has even been serious ques-
ton whether cancer was not due to a |
is, to a ferment not |
unlike the ordinary yeast that splits up |
sugar solutions into alcohol and carbOnic |
1iOxide. Now comes the proof that the |
moulds. too, may be pathOgenic for man.
some years ago certain cases OF an affec- !
lion produced seemingly by an asperg1IIus
fungus were reported. There was doubt, |
lOweVer, whether this was the real etiOlO-
gical agent or not Now this doubt has
)een completely set at rest by the report
If number Of cases from different OBJ
servers, and it is evident that aspergilosis
must be granted a place in human
1850 Iogy. Some OF the LESSONS of the dis
ease resemble ordinary assesses, and it
S probable that any OF them have been
for such. The disease has es-
,aped recognition so far because of this
'eserl blance to Well-knOWn forms OF sup
curative disease
Tobacco came In for much more than
is ordinary abuse at the DOCTORS hands.
Various rather indefinite pathological
conditions have been attributed to its
Use. Certain nervous symptoms have
been we'll known to be due to it, but
hey usually disappeared on the discon
of the weed and the patients |
entirely. A Turkish physician