EDITORIAL.
NORTH CAROLINA MEDICAL JOURNAL.A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, PUBLISHEDIN WILMINGTON, N. C.
NORTH CAROLINA MEDICAL JOURNAL.A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, PUBLISHEDIN WILMINGTON, N. C.
NORTH CAROLINA MEDICAL JOURNAL.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, PUBLISHED
IN WILMINGTON, N. C.
☞Original communications are solicited from all parts of the country, and especially from the medical profession of The Carolinas. Articles requiring illustrations can be promptly supplied by previous arrangement with the Editors. Any subscriber can have a specimen number sent free of cost to a friend whose attention he desires to call to ourJournal,by sending the address to this office. Prompt remittances from subscribers are absolutely necessary to enable us to maintain our work with vigor and acceptability. All remittances must be made payable toDeRosset & Wood,P. O. Box 535, Wilmington, N. C.
We ask the attention of the members of the North Carolina Medical Society, at the request of Dr. Charles Duffy, Jr., President, to their obligation as Chairmen and members of Committees and Sections.
The sections as instituted at the last meeting of the Society are as follows:
It will be remembered that the resolution creating the Sections offered by Dr. Shaffner, of Salem, designed that all papers coming under the above heads should be presented to the Chairman of that section, and through him papers are to be presented to the Society.It is highly desirable, therefore, that papers intended to be presented should be sent forward to their proper chairman, that they may get early attention. The ultimate design of this method is to promote a systematic and orderly presentation of papers, and to induce every contributor to the literature of the Society to put his paper in a way to be properly shaped before being read to the Society. Sometimes papers are too long to be read during the session, and still are too important to be neglected. These papers should be passed upon by the Section to which they belong, and given to the publication committee.
As desirable as this plan is, it must not be understood to exclude papers prepared too late to be reviewed by the section, for literary laziness and procrastination is the prominent failing of members of our State Medical Society. (We are now speaking as editors).
With the additional work now devolving upon our State Society, every effort will have to be made to economize time. It is desirable that the Board of Medical Examiners meet a day in advance of the Society, in order that candidates passing the Board can at once enter into the duties of full membership, and enable the members of the Board also, to take active part in the proceedings. This we understand to be the plan agreed upon by the Board, and it may be officially announced in thisJournal.
All these matters should be thought over before the meeting is right upon us, if we intend to make the best use of the opportunities presented, and not embarrass the presiding officer by a jumble of ill-digested work, or bring disrepute upon the Society by presenting papers put together without due study.
Another matter of vital importance should be carefully considered by every member of the Society. It is the amendment proposed by Dr. T. D. Haigh, of Fayetteville. He proposes to amend the Constitution (Art. IV, Sec. 2,) so that the officers are elected by ballot. This is not a new feature. It has been tried before in the Society but was found to consume a great deal of time. This is the only objection we have heard against it, and this should not be considered insuperable, if the amendment corrects abuses of which we have heard complaints.
We would like to see the office of President filled for a longer term than one year. A good presiding officer is not so easy to getthat we ought to be willing to let him go out of office as soon as he has shown his capacity, and this remark applies with peculiar force to the present incumbent. To affect this change though, there must be a further amendment of the Constitution.
“The U. S. Steamer Plymouth, Captain Hanning, which left Boston March 15th, for a cruise to the West Indies, returned to Vineyard Sound on account of two cases of yellow fever occurring on board when about 80 miles south-east of Bermuda Islands.
“The ship had been in Boston during the winter, and as she had come from the West Indies last autumn with yellow fever on board she had been frozen out and fumigated. As she had not called into any port since leaving Boston, this development showed that the germs of yellow fever still existed in her, and she was headed north, being deemed, under the circumstances, unfit for cruising in the tropics. On the 31st of March, Peter Eagan, the boatswain’s mate, was buried, having died from yellow fever on the previous day.”—Wilmington Sun’sassociated press telegram.
The above dispatch has since been verified and the minute details will no doubt be investigated most thoroughly. Notwithstanding this case is not without a parallel, it comes in uncomfortable collision with the theories we cherish of the killing power of low temperature on the yellow fever poison.
In the most dismal times of a ravaging epidemic the heart turned with anxious longings for the arrival of frost! This was the line of demarcation between the pestilence and recovery from it! But in this case we are informed that the Plymouth spent the winter in Boston harbor with open hatches, the cold being intense enough to freeze the water in the boilers. Every means for thorough disinfection had been applied that could suggest itself to the minds of the well educated medical officers in the service of a government lavish in its supplies. With all this, a short cruise develops the fever in a form intense enough to cause the death of one of the two seized with the disease.
We will await the detailed accounts of the investigation which is to follow with peculiar interest. It is a starting point for the National Board of Health, and a difficult one.
We append the following from the Surgeon-General of the Navy, received through the Bulletin of the Public Health, from Surgeon General Hamilton, U. S. M. H. S.:
“The Surgeon-General of the U. S. Navy has furnished the following facts in regard to the recent outbreak of yellow fever on the U. S. Steamer ‘Plymouth:’ On November 7th last, four cases of yellow fever occurred on board the vessel while lying in the harbor of Santa Cruz; these were removed to hospital on shore and the ship sailed for Norfolk. Three mild cases occurred during the voyage and the ‘Plymouth’ was ordered to Portsmouth, N. H., thence to Boston. At the latter port everything was removed from the ship and all parts of the interior freely exposed to a temperature which frequently fell below zero, the exposure continuing for more than a month. During this time the water in the tanks, bilges, and in vessels placed in the store rooms was frozen, 100 pounds of sulphur was burned below decks, this fumigation continuing for two days, and the berth-decks, holds and store rooms were thoroughly whitewashed. On March 15th, the ship sailed from Boston southward; on the 19th, during a severe gale, the hatches had to be battened down, and the berth deck became very close and damp. On the 23d two men showed decided symptoms of yellow fever, and on the recommendation of the Surgeon, the vessel headed northward. The sick men were isolated, and measures adopted for improving the hygienic condition of the vessel and crew. The surgeon reported that he believed the infection to be confined to the hull of the ship, especially to the unsound wood about the berth deck, all the cases but one having occurred within a limited area, and that while the ‘Plymouth’ is in good sanitary condition for service in temperate climates, should she be sent to a tropical station, probably no precautionary measures whatever, would avail to prevent an outbreak of yellow fever.”
Charcoal for Burns.—A retired foundryman claims that powdered pine charcoal thickly dusted over a burn is a never-failing and speedy remedy.
THE NATIONAL BOARD OF HEALTH.
This body as now composed includes fairly representative men. As far as we can learn it is as follows:
A committee of experts has been sent to Havana to study the disease where it is endemic, and where it can be seen for many months in the year.
“The system [adopted by the new National Health bill] contemplates a national sanitary supervision of all vessels engaged in the transportation of goods or persons from any foreign port where any contagious or infectious disease exists, to any port of the United States. All such vessels shall be required to obtain from the consul, vice-consul, or other consular officer of the United States at the port of departure, a certificate in duplicate, setting forth that said vessel has complied with all the necessary regulations and possesses a clean bill of health. This provision applies with particular and special force to vessels from Havana, a clause in the bill defining in detail the duties of the medical officer in charge of the port. The said inspector must issue a certificate setting forth ‘that he has personally inspected said vessel, her cargo, crew, and passengers; that the rules and regulations prescribed by the National Board of Health in respect thereto have been fully complied with, and that in his opinion the said vessel may be allowed to enter any port of the United States and land its cargo and passengers without danger to the health thereof on account of any contagious or infectious disease.’ Any vessels from such port entering any port of the United States without such certificate shall in each instance forfeit the sum of five hundred dollars. The execution of these provisions is entrusted to the National Board of Health. Thelatter is also charged with the duty of obtaining information of the sanitary condition of foreign ports and places from which contagious diseases are or may be imported into the United States, and also similar information from home ports. It is also provided that the National Board of Health ‘shall correspond with similar local officers, boards and authorities acting under laws of the States in sanitary matters, to prevent the introduction and spread of contagious and infectious diseases from foreign countries into the United States and from one State into any other State by means of commercial intercourse, or upon and along the lines of inter-State trade and travel.’ To such an end it shall be lawful in times of emergency for said board of health to confer upon any such local officer or board within or near the locality where his provisions of this act, and any rules or regulations made in pursuance thereof.”—Medical Record.
Dr. Symes, in thePharmaceutical Journalof January 10, publishes the results of his researches on the combination of thymol, chloral-hydrate, and camphor, acting as an antiseptic. The two former drugs are rubbed together in a mortar, and an equal quantity of camphor added, which liquefies the whole, and produces a powerful antiseptic. Its virtues were immediately tested on some urine containing pus, and which was already beginning to decompose. Two drops of the compound being added to it, the putrefaction was arrested. If thymol and camphor alone are rubbed together, they also become liquid, and this a convenient form from which to prepare the ointment. Thymol-camphor can be mixed in almost any proportion with vaseline,ung. petrolei, or ozokerine, and the thymol will not separate, as in crystals, when thymol alone is used. A solution of thymol in water (1 in 1000) is sufficiently strong for the spray in surgical operations. If used for the throat, milk and glacial acetic acid will be found to be good solvents for it.—London Medical Record.