For the general practitioner and for students in medicine, it would be difficult to imagine a more useful and satisfactory work. F. P. G. Muscle Training in the Treatment of Infantile Paralysis. By Wilhelmine G. Wright, Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, 1905. Reprinted from The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. clxvii, No. 17, pp. 567-574. Oct. 24, 1912. Price, 25 cents. W. M. Leonard, Publisher, 101 Tremont St., Boston, Mass. The demand for light upon this subject exhausted the file of the Journal in which it was printed and has led Dr. R. W. Lovett and the Medical Journal to re-issue the article in form of a thirty-two page reprint at the nominal price of twenty-five cents. The directions given are explicit and make the reprint not only of great value, but practically the only set of definite directions in the treatment by exercise of conditions following paralysis. Surgery, Gynecology and Obtetrics.-This journal has become undoubtedly the greatest of its kind in the world. It is now the official journal of the Clinical Congress of Surgeons of North America. The February issued contains not only 232 pages of the usual beautifully illustrated original matter, but has also 128 pages of abstracts and bibliographies. It is the first periodical in the English language to publish a complete international abstract of surgery. After May 1st all subscribers in this country will pay $10 per annum. The trustees of the National University of Arts and Sciences of St. Louis announce that a contract wa ssigned on February 21, 1913, for the building of $5,000 worth of appartus fo ruse in the physiology laboratory of the medical department (American Medical College) of the University. Dr. Bernard Blass, formerly of New York City, has been elected professor and head of the Department of Physiology, and will assume this position with the opening of the session of 1913-1914. MISCELLANY Cough of Phthisis-In the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis the mitigation of cough is frequently of prime importance, since the repeated effort to expel accumulations of perverted secretion or suppurative materials is often of such degree that pleuritic pains are intensified and the patient is reduced to a state of extreme weakness. Furthermore, the interruption of sleep caused by frequent acts of coughing invariably bring about a marked depression of the vital forces. The systematic administration of an agent which exerts a sedative influence upon the respiratory tract, modifies the pulmonary accumulations and invigorates the expulsive act is usually expedient, for the reason that the comfort and general well-being of the patient is substantially improved by such a course. It is, however, judicious to avoid the administration of any drug which is capable of producing by-effects that are detrimental, in any way, to the welfare of the patient. It is particularly important that the use of drugs which cause digestive disturbances, constipation or addictions should be eschewed, for such drugs always interfere to a very considerable extent with reparative progress. Glyco-Heroin (Smith) is singularly serviceable in e treatment of cough of phthisis, since, while possessing extraordinary coughameliorating, dyspnea-relieving, repair-promoting, sedative and expectorant properties, it is completely incapable of producing the slightest untoward effects. Durbin Disposes of Dental Supplies.-The J. Durbin Surgical and Dental Supply Company of 1508 Curtis street, Denver, and 25 West Broadway, Salt Lake City, has recently disposed of the dental supply department in the Denver office. This was done in order that they can give more space and time to their increasing business in surgical instruments, hospital supplies, and kindred branches. The Salt Lake office continues to handle dental supplies as heretofore. Larger and more varied lines of surgical instruments, etc., are being added to the Denver stock, making it the most complete of its kind west of Chicago. Utah Medical Journal Address all articles, personals, items of interest, and books for review, intended for the Utah Journal, to the Editor, Frederic Clift, M. D., Ogden, Utah. All advertising correspondence should be addressed to the main publishing office, 1839 Champa Street, Denver, Colorado. Our prices on Reprints about cover actual cost. Those ordering Reprints must order at the time of revising their proofs. We will give to contributors of original articles, or mail to addresses furnished by them, a generous number of copies of this journal free of charge. The names and addresses must be sent to the editor at the time of furnishing the manuscript. DEPARTMENT OF EUGENICS EDITOR FREDERIC CLIFT M.D., LL.L ASSOCIATE EDITORS JOHN A. WIDSTOE, A.M., Ph.D., President D. H. CALDER, M.D., Superintendent State Agricultural College, Logan. EDWARD G. TITUS, Sc.D., Professor Zoology, Agricultural College, Logan. ALEXANDER MCMASTER, Judge Juvenile Court, Third Judicial District, Salt Lake City Mental Hospital, Provo. FRANK M. DRIGGS, Superintendent School for the Deaf and Blind, Ogden. State E. G. GOWANS, M.D., Superintendent State Industrial School, Ogden. G. HENRI BOGART, M.D., Paris, Ill. SOME CHILDLESS WIVES. Barrenness was once woman's most dreadful fate, back in those days when "Go ye forth and replenish the earth" was spoken, and thence to the pioneer days when the family greeting to the bride and groom, as they turned from the altar was "May you live long, prosper, and have big babies." And the big babies were an elemental part of the prosperity, for each boy and girl was a valuable asset in the earlier days of the pioneer. It was a disgrace, or at least a misfortune, not to have children. But the old order changeth, and instead of a dozen or more olive branches the family of one and two became more frequent than greater numbers. At the same time the long rows of tiny tombstones in family burial lots are no longer common. Prevention of pregnancy became more common and by the crudest methods. Vaginas were tanned into leather by astringent douches and washes. Fallopian section as a preparation for marriage was resorted to. It was to this illicit operation, indeed, that the world is indebted for the boon of sterilization by vasectomy. Thus was repeated the truth of that age old truism told in Samson's riddle, "Out of the eater came forth meat, but of the strong came forth sweetness." Some of these women have later come to know the holy desire for maternity, and have come begging oh, so piteously that the severed tubes be reunited, but I have never known the operation successfully performed, either in the male or the female. There are some of these women who had contracted loveless marriages, mere sexual partnerships for reasons of finance, social position, or other conventional cause, who have later developed love and affection strong as their nature will admit. These women, invariably desire to bear a child for the husband who later became a lover. The relation between love and sexual desire is dual and in its better phase is little understood. Sexual desire does lead to attachments between man and woman. On the other hand, love for a man instinctively prompts a normal woman to wish to mother his child. sons. From all this generalization I desire to report a case of an entirely different kind, one in which the woman desired motherhood for financial reaAfter correspondence I met her at a hotel in Indianapolis. She had written for me to meet her at a certain date, in her home city, but had fixed a time when I would be in attendance on a convention, and I so wrote her. The morning of the convention I had not been in the lobby of the hotel where our association foregathered, for fifteen minutes until I was paged out. She was in the city, waiting me at an other hotel. Angered, I sent her messenger back with a note making an appointment for 8:30 in the evening. My cavalier treatment resulted partly from resentment that she had presumed to come on for consultation regardless of my convenience, and partly because of disgust for her mercenary reasons for desiring maternity. A childless uncle wished to make her husband his heir, provided there were children to perpetuate the family, otherwise another nephew was to inherit it. She was anxious that the money should come to her husband. When I came to her room, I found her a magnificent jewess married at sixteen and now thirty. She had brought written reports from examinations of both herself and her husband. A careful reading of these reports convinced me that neither partner should be sterile. For a long time I talked with her hoping to stumble on to a solution. a solution. Finally I learned that orgasm occurred much more quickly and forcibly with her than with the husband. This, with a sharply acid reaction of the vaginal secretions offered a possible answer. At orgasm the uterus after its usual suction action, would close firmly and exclude the semen ejaculated later, while the acid secretions would kill the spermatozoa, before admission to the uterus was possible. I explained this to her and advised that she procure a bivalve speculum and a long smooth syringe. Before coition thoroughly cleanse the vagina with borax solution. Then after intercourse the speculum was to be introduced, the semen taken up in the syringe then injected into the uterus. I insisted upon the speculum, and also that in the first instance the husband should have his physician demonstrate its use, as there are many fatal terminations to attempts at lay introduction of probes, lead pencils and syringe noz zles into the uterus, which instead puncture the culdesac. She was much impressed with the idea, but demanded to know as to its use, "What do your books say?" I had to tell her that my advice was not from literature but from reason, and pressed for an answer told her of Zola's novel, "The Son of a Gun," founded on a similar condition. She wanted to know if such operation had ever really been done, and I told her that every expert horse-breeder in the land kept and used an "impregnator." Then she was angry, gloriously, imperiously angry, because I had compared her to a beast, a brute! It took some time to pacify her-I added ten dollars to my fee because of her tem、 per-but when she did understand that no offense was intended, she apologized. She wrote me that pregnancy followed in six weeks treatment, and when in due time the child was born, the parents sent me a handsome honorarium. Since I have considered similar treatment for some other cases in which there is no other adequate reason for the sterile condition, here arises a delicate, a very delicate question: If the semen from another man be used, is it more culpable to inject it in the usual manner than with a syringe? In the instance cited in a former paper of this series, the husband was impotent, or rather sterile. In such cases would the woman be justified in resorting to mechanical impregnation? Would it be permissible for a physician to secure semen by milking a prostate and then injecting it? In the novel by Zola, aforementioned, the priest furnished the semen to the physician, the woman was impreg nated, and the plot hinges on the question of the child's legitimacy. By the way, the Jewess is now pregnant with her third child, according to a recent letter. EUGENICS AND CHILD WELFARE*. Child welfare begins with the eugenic idea. "A nation is composed not of property nor of provinces but of men," and there can hardly be a nobler ideal than to so attend to the carrying forward of the divine command to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth as that there may be a fit race produced. Posterity is left to us by our progenitors, and unless we deliberately select. the worthy for parents of the coming generation, rejecting the unfit, not as individuals, but as parents, we shall most certainly breed for posterity evils that can be named but not numbered. Eugenics stand for the principle that the right child shall be born. Heredity and environment determine the human character and life. Eugenics stands for the principles of heredity, and all there is involved in the campaign against infant mortality stands for the environment of the child. Therefore we see at once the compatibility of eugenics and child welfare. The time for the question to be raised that eugenics asks is before the union of the parent cells to form the new individual. At the moment, however, of conception, eugenics joins forces with all that resists infant mortality, for with the fusion of unit cells individual character has begun, and if the eugenist should then raise his voice and say this new individual shall not be born, he becomes at once those who would advocate child murder. At that fusion time then eugenics is too late. as del and the law he has discovered. Perhaps no science in modern times has attained such deserved prominence as that named by Galton and which has for its most inspiring principles those outlined by Mendel in his manipulations of plants and flowers. The determiner in the protoplasm of the parent cell fixes the character of the offspring, and a trait or character in the progeny is there by virtue of the unit existing in the parent cell. For instance, one of Mendel's peas was tall or dwarf if there were present or absent respectively in the protoplasm of the parent cell a determiner for that character. Special stress then must be laid upon the determiner, or unit character of the cell, for it is here that we reach the essence of heredity in the individual. The unit character remains the same throughout succesive generations whatever the associations may be from generation to generation. Mendel's Law and Human Charac ter. As applied to the human individual there arise limitations due to our lack of knowledge as yet of the component elements of human characters or traits. Mendel's law applies to unit characters, and most human traits are complex, that is, not a single unit but made up of many units. Therefore until our research has gone further and we are better able to analyze human characters we cannot claim entire adjustment of Mendel's law to the ramifications of all human traits. But even in the present state of our knowledge we are undoubtedly helped to a clearer understanding of problems heretofore unsolved, or explained on purely empirical grounds. Stu Mendel's Law. For a more comprehensive understanding of the effect upon the human individual of the principles of heredity in his physical, mental and moral nature, we are indebted to Men*Read before the Kentucky Child Welfare Conference, Louisville, and republished from the Louisville Journal of Medicine and Surgery of January, 1913. |