The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-07

few of the present generation of practi- tioners regret it's disuse According tol the imperfect statistics accessible to us, the mortality of pneumonia at the pres ent day is greater han it was when
 veneseetion was in vogue, but whether this is because, as is asserted, the type of pneumonia has changed, or because bleeding was really curative must be left to conjecture. Another remedy for the disease, now equally out of fashion, but the beneficial effect of which many men still living in this city have wit messed, was the exhibition of q single large dose, 20 to 30 grains or more, of
 calomel. This was the routine practice
 of the late Dr., George F. CaInmann and of his pupil, Drha James R. Leaning. Very many country practitioners, who
 do not lose many of their patients from pneumonia, rely almost as a routine
 measure upon diapheresis in the man
 agement of their. cases of this disease. The patient is put to bed surrounded by hot bottles, and is frankly sWeated, day and night, until the disease sub- sides, which 1t does often without wait 1 ing for the classical crisis. The details
 of this method were given by Dr. Mac 1 Artney of Fort Coyington, N. r., in the. | Medical Record of September 19, 1896. Another mode of treatment for which. it's advocates-Dr. Simon Baruch and i others whose authority cannot be ques-l 1 tioned--clairn ideal results, is the cold
 pack. In recent communication (Med- ] ical Record, September 23, f905), Dr. i Baruch states that he has lost but two
 patients, both practically hopeless from
 the beginning, in over 100 cases treated
 by this method. Dr. Andrew H. Smith
 few years ago reported the successful
 employment of ehloroform ir1halations in the treatment of pneumonia, and
 commenting upon this article and let ! ter on the same subject by E. J. White 1 head, Dr. F. F. Wells of Chicago, re- called a report by Baumgartner (Lun-
 genentzundung, Stuttgart, 1S50) of 201
 cases treated by himself and others
 with but deaths a mortality of S5 per
 cent Chloroform inhalaItions were also commended by the late pr Roberts
 Bartholow. >>+= @g
 The use of sodium salicylate has been | warmly advocated by A. H. Smith, and the efficacy of this remedy was further
 insisted upon by Sebring in an article
 in this journal for April g, 1899. The
 value of creosote, by inhalation in va DOT or internally in the form of the carbonate, has been asserted so many l times and so positively by trustworthy 1 observers that it can hardly be dis pl1ted-yet it is ignored by most of the authors of textbooks on medicines In
 the Medical Record there have been ar-
 ticles dealing with this method of treat
 ment by Beverley Robinson, Leonard Weber, W. H. Thomson, l. l.. Van Zandt, and others, the force of which can be denied only by impugning the credtbility of the powers of observa- tion of the writers. Another remedy
 which has been strongly advocated by
 Dr. H. Altshul is iodide of potassium in large doses. Dr. Altshurs article in the
 Medical Record for March 26, 1904, was in the nature of 8 preliminary report,
 and we have not seen any notice of further experiences with the remedy,
 but this account of Its action then giv- en would seem to warrant further trial
 en would seem to warrant further trial. Quinine in enormous doses has also been given With apparently Denehclal
 effect Galbraith reports (Journal of
 the American Medical Association, Jan
 uary 28, 19O5) fifty cases of pneumonia
 treated by quinine without single death, and commenting upon this in
 the same journal for March 11,1s05 Sol omon Solis-Cohen instances a case in
 his own practice in which 8 man with
 all the signs Of pneumonia took by mis- take 60 or 80 grains of quinine in the icourse of six or eight hours and promptly recovered. In what way these and other agents, such as digi-
 tails and veratrum virfde, exert their
 beneficial, if not curative, action in pneumonia, is beyond our purpose te
 discuss here Some are doubtless mi.
 crohicidal, others may be antftoxic
 while still others probably have an op-
 sonic action, but the essential fact is
 that they are regarded as curative by
 many acute and careful observers.
 This review of some of the methods
 employed with greater or lesser mea-
 sure of success i'll the treatment oi