It cannot have been altogether the result of chance that the death rate of Denver during the first year of the new health service fell from 23.7 to 18.6 per thousand per annum and one year later to 14.27. During Dr. Steele's administration an impulse to the scientific conduct of health matters was given all along the line, but no more important or visibly permanent improvement was made than in the esablishment of the municipal hospital for the common contagious diseases. As late as 1892, whenever a homeless person was attacked with a contagious disease, such as measles, he was usually driven in an open wagon six miles across the plains to the isolation hospital on Sand creek. Many a nameless grave marks the terminus of those drives; though the death certificate only reported "pneumonia," the doctors knew that the winter winds had done the fatal work, while the patient was being transported to a place of safety. Under the efforts of Dr. Steele cottages were purchased in a most convenient location and equipped for the care of cases of all ordinary contagious diseases except smallpox. This establishment, though still inadequate and unworthy of the city's needs, has again and again proved itself an indispensable and blessed retreat and is most appropriately named "The Steele Memorial Hospital." When, in 1892, the country was threatened with an invasion of Asiatic cholera, leading medical men of Denver urged upon Governor Routt the importance of re-establishing the state board of health, which had been allowed to fall out of existence some ten years before, for the protection of the commonwealth. A new board was accordingly appointed by the governor and Dr. Steele was appropriately chosen its president, as he had already been once before in 1879. Much work was done for the public by this board of health which the public will never know. Its members had no thought of fame or profit. When the medical department of the University of Denver was organized in 1881, Dr. Steele was chosen its first dean in a faculty distinguished by the names of Bancroft, W. C. Davis, W. H. Williams, H. A. Lemen and Whitehead, not to speak of others who are still leaders among us. He was professor of the Principles and Practice of Surgery and Clinical Surgery. Dr. Steele was elected president of the Denver school board in 1877 and was one of the organizers of the Colorado State Medical society in 1871, and was made its president in 1875. But a mere collection of dates or a record of official positions no more represents a man's real life than a skeleton resembles the body it supports. Dr. Steele's personality was his strongest power and endures in the memory of his friends. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, April 1, 1825, graduated in medicine from the University of the City of New York in 1848, and died in Denver January 20th, 1893, while still serving as health commissioner. His son now occupies a seat upon the supreme bench of this state, and his widow and two married daughters live in Denver. CEREVISINE IN THE TREATMENT OF GONORRHEAL OPHTHALMIA. By EMMA JANE KEEN, M.D. Cenver, Colo. Denver, Case Infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Colorado, born March 31st. Soon after birth the nurse noticed a discharge from the eyes and swelling of the eyelids, for which nothing was done except bathing the eyelids with warm water and flushing the eyes with breast milk. On the fourth day the attending physician's attention was called to the condition of the child's eyes and he at once ordered cleansing them with boric acid 4% solution every half hour and a 2% solution of protargol to be used every two hours; also atropine every six hours. Four days after, or when the child was eight days old, I was called to see the case. I found a profuse discharge of pus which proved to be gonorrheal, marked swelling of the lids, great chemosis and extensive ulceration of the right cornea with marked keratitis and small ulcer on left eye. I at once ordered the eyes cleansed every ten minutes with 1 to 2,000 formalin and 5% solution of protargol carried forcibly over and into the folds of the lids, the interspaces and conjunctival sacs. This I allowed to remain in ten minutes. I also ordered hot applications to the lids and used atropine and eserine alternately. After four days of this treatment, or when the child was twelve days old, I found the condition growing worse. The discharge was of a dirty yellow color and the gonococci of Neisser were numerous; corneal destruction was so great that perforation seemed inevitable. I now decided to try a 50% solution of Cerevisine, a sample having been given me by Dr. Coover, with the request that I test the drug, as it had never been used in gonorrheal opthalmia. I ordered it used as protargol had been in the right eye, which had been most effected from the first, and continued the treatment as before in the left eye. This treatment was carried on for three days with marked improvement in the right eye. I then began using Cerevisine in the left eye. At the end of the week, making four days for the left eye under Cerevisine, I found the eyes recovering as rapidly as possible and a complete disappearance of infection. Under the circumstances I cannot but feel that the quick destruction of the gonococci, the rapid disappearance of the discharge and inflammatory process, and the resolution of the injured corneal and conjunctival tissues were due to Cerevisine. The average persistency of the gonococci in purulent ophthalmia in the infant under protargol, is four weeks, and under silver nitrate five weeks, while under the Cerevisine treatment I obtained complete disappearance of all gonorrheal infection in four days with much less pain and reaction than when protargol was used. After eight weeks there are no evidences of the eyes having been infected, excepting slight temporary opacities of the cornea, and complete recovery is assured. ACCIDENTS. Most accidents that befall individuals are the result of ignorance or carlessness on the part of themselves or others. A thorough knowledge of one's own business and disposition to mind it are prime principles of prevention. Despite personal care, however, the fool who "didn't know it was loaded," the servant girl who lights the fire with kerosene, the man or woman who tips the boat or lets a brick fall on you, the rash operator of the gasoline stove, the bicycle scorcher, the reckless chauffeur, and other people just as bad, will always be with us, to escape from as best we can. Besides there are totally unavoidable accidents, such as the lightning stroke, the runaway horse, the foreign body blown by the wind into the eye. Railway corporations have realized the essential need of having their men on the road examined for color blindness, and most large business concerns are learning to discriminate against drunkards. The use of automatic devices for signaling, for stopping a train, putting out fires, and so on, are coming constantly into greater use, to the benefit of all concerned. brakeman has the shortest duration of life of all occupations. The The constant use of the Davy safety lamp in mines would almost certainly avert the disasters occasionally occurring among miners from explosion of fire damp and production of choke damp. THOMAS H. HAWKINS, M.D., LL.D., Editor and Publisher. Henry O. Marcy, M D., Boston. COLLABORATORS: Thaddeus A. Reamy, M.D., Cincinnati. Joseph Price, M, D., Philadelphia. Thomas B. Eastman, M.D., Indianapolis, Ind. S. H. Pinkerton, M.D., Salt Lake City Subscriptions, $1.00 per year in advance; Single Copies. 10 cents. Address all Communications to Denver Medical Times, 1740 Welton Street, Denver, Colo. We will at all times be glad to give space to well written articles or items of interest to the profession. [Entered at the Postoffice of Denver, Colorado, as mail matter of the Second Class.] EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT THE DIET FOR CONSUMPTIVES. The successful treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis is mainly a matter of nutrition and regimen. To so feed the patient as to bring about a steady gain in weight should be the physician's chief aim. In order to accomplish much, the patient must take nourishment every two or three hours in the daytime. Night feeding is often required in active phthisis. Fats and proteids should predominate as a rule, though an excess of fats is contraindicated when dyspepsia and diarrhea are present. Good, rich milk will in most cases serve as a dietary basis, and the quantity taken should be limited only by the capacity of the patient. Many persons imagine they cannot take milk, but nearly always by persistent effort they find that they are able to do so. Milk should always be taken sip by sip, best alternated with well masticated bites of solid food. The dilution of the milk with plain water, Vichy or lime water, the addition of a pinch of salt or baking soda to each glassful, and in intractable cases peptonization, all serve to render the milk more digestible, and one and another method should be tried until it is well borne by the patient. Salted crackers often aid in making the liquid more agreeable. Biliousness arising from the free use of milk is easily prevented by the |