ART. IV. TRANSACTIONS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA. Convened at Wilmington, May, 1870.

This publication reflects much credit upon the members of this society. The essay upon "The Heroic Character of the True Physician," by C. T. Murphy, of Simpson county, is written with much force and feeling, and is creditable to both the mind and heart of its author. The report of the successful ligation of the right external iliac artery for traumatic aneurism of femoral artery, by E. Burke Haywood, M. D., of Raleigh, North Carolina, is an excellent contribution to surgical literature. It is plain, practical, and to the point; showing commendable skill and most excellent judgment. The same writer contributes a paper demonstrating the fact of syphilis having been propagated by a kiss. The paper is termed, "A Warning to Lovers," though it is to be hoped that few, indeed, of the male sex carry, in their worship at the shrine of Cupid, the plaguespot stamped upon the face of this reprobate Adonis, a chancre upon the lips. The report upon Medical Experts, by Dr. E. A. Anderson, embodies many practical suggestions and useful facts. One of the best and most useful papers, that have been contributed by this society, is the essay of Dr. W. G. Thomas, on the important subject of Diarrhoea of Children. This paper is prepared with great care, and will be most valuable to all who study it carefully. As an embodiment of long experience and clinical observation, it will be examined with care, and certainly with profit.

The paper, however, which appropriates most of the space allotted to this volume, is one contributed by Dr. S. S. Satchwell, of New Hanover county; it is termed, "The Topography and Diseases of New Hanover County, and a reply to the paper previously contributed by Dr. W. A. B. Norcom, of Edenton, North Carolina." This paper, by Dr. Norcom, is termed, "The Modern Treatment of Acute

Internal Inflammation." It is handsomely prepared; it is a true exponent of the best views held when it was written; it has received just and most honorable notice not only from the foreign and domestic press, but also from many distinguished gentlemen, whose writings and teachings were quoted by Dr. Norcom. Dr. Satchwell's attack upon this paper is well worthy of a close examination; it is an ingenious and subtle, but desperate and untenable defense of the pathology and therapeutics taught by classic but obsolete authorities. The antiphlogistic school finds in Dr. Satchwell a doughty and indomitable defender of its time-honored but rusty and dangerous old weapons. He exhibits a spirit and tenacity worthy of a better cause. Like a true soldier, he will never surrender, even though his brave and once-conquering army has been annihilated, routed, and driven forever from the field. One, in reading his eulogies of mercury and the lancet, and antimony and purgatives, and emetics, etc., feels as though he had exhumed a musty tome of the past century; that medicine, like the drama, may have its Rip Van Winkle; that metempsychosis may, after all, be true, and that the restless soul of an Andral or a Sydenham may have come back to vicariously disturb and destroy another hecatomb of unfortunate victims.

The whole basis of Dr. Satchwell's argument is, that great men taught and thought as he does; and as no equally great men can ever by any possibility be supposed to exist, modern demonstrations must be wrong, while the dreams and fables of the past can alone receive the seal of infallibility. Hippocrates, and Andral, and Sydenham, and Ham.ilton, and Cullen, and Chomel, and Borhave, etc., made positive statements, and, of course, such statements must be true. Why say an artery contains blood, when classic old worthies affirmed that it contains air? Why accept the fanciful ideas of Harvey about the circulation, when he contradicts every aphorism of Hippocrates upon this subject? Why claim that steamers traverse the ocean, when French savans said that this was impossible? Why accept

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any improvement in physics or physiology, when "the great lights," as Dr. Satchwell terms them, failed to cast their illuminating rays upon these improvements, to demonstrate their existence and validity? In playful illustration of this anomalous argument, why should the enthusiastic sportsmen tax themselves with the care and expense of ammunition and fowling-pieces while hunting grouse upon Scottish moors, when an admitted authority (who, true to his name, is ever ready to make a noise) in Kentucky, assures us that the pre-historic Scandinavians simply commanded these birds to come down from their favorite tree, the "Pinus Sylvestris," and be caught by that historic animal, the Scandinavian pointer, when forthwith these obedient creatures flocked down in such numbers, that their honored remains now represent a large portion of each kitchen-rubbish heap (popularly known as kjockken-moedding) in that classic but much abused land?

This blind obedience to authority is (to the surprise of every careful observer) the bane and the destroyer of some of the best and most able in our profession. Serious argument is useless in controverting the reasonings of any one who is thus determined to deposit all of his own mental wealth in the treasury of another, and who, when this treasury is believed by the ablest judges to be dangerous and insolvent, can only be convinced by the crucial test of perşonal ruin. Anecdote may attract at least their attention when reasoning is disregarded. Perhaps nothing better illustrates the comic position of one who is governed absolutely by authority, than this anecdote quoted by Dr. Gross from Moliere; it represents a dialogue between the physi cian Tomes and the maid Lisette:

"Physician- How is the coachman? Lisette- Very well. He is dead.' Physician-Dead?' Lisette-'Yes.' Physician-That is impossible.' Lisette-It may be impossible, but it is true.' Physician-'He can not be dead, I say.' Lisette-'I tell you he is dead, and what is more, he is buried.' Physician-'I will not believe it, for your

friend has been sick only six days, and Hippocrates says that such a disease never terminates before the twenty-first day.""

Seriously speaking, however, it is wonderful that Dr. Satchwell and those who think with him can entertain such opinions, when the facts and results (not the theories and dogmas) connected with the treatment of inflammation are even superficially investigated. It needs but the smallest amount of industry imaginable to bring facts which must convert or should convert the most incorrigible disciple of the antiphlogistic school. A distinguished teacher writes as follows in this connection:

"During ten years, 648 cases of pneumonia were treated by different physicians, according to the rules then enforced (1839) by all writers in the Royal Infirmary, at Edinburgh. Of this number, 388 were cured, 38 relieved, while 222 died. Of 107 cases recorded by Louis in 1835, and treated by bleeding and tartar emetic, 32 died. Of 648 cases treated by Rasori, at Milan, by large doses of antimony, 143 died. Andral tells us that pneumonia is one of those diseases the treatment of which is most simple and efficacious-his remedy being chiefly copions blood-lettiug; and this to be practiced with adults, children, and the aged. Of his 65 cases quoted to prove the soundness of his principles, no less than 36 died."

Contrast these statistics with those of Dr. Bennett, as extracted from the records of the Royal Edinburgh Infirmary. He treated 115 cases of pneumonia, of which 112 were cured and 3 died. Such facts tell the whole story in regard to the treatment of inflammation. The ancient worthies butchered their victims; modern physicians heal and bless them. Such facts form a fitting epitaph for the dead practice of the past, and the most eloquent eulogy upon the enlightened practice of the present. They must convince all but those who will not be convinced. Of such, it can only be said, they are wedded to their idols; let them alone.

MISCELLANEOUS.

"Non omnes eadem mirantur amantque."

The United States Pharmacopæia.-It is evidently a trite proposition that there are few things of more importance to the medical profession than the official Pharmacopoeia, or standard list of medicines and preparations; and, as the commencement of another decade has brought the subject agasn before the American medical public, we conceive that it is well worthy our editorial space. Some of the oldest members of our profession doubtless still remember the birth of our national standard; but to most it is probably unfamiliar, and therefore it seems best first to give a sketch of its history, while in a second article its present and future will afford a topic for comment.

Up to 1820, there had been no recognized standard in the United States, nor, indeed, any work which offered itself as such. It is true that in certain districts endeavors had been made to regulate the preparation of medicines, and the Parmacopoeias of the Massachusetts Medical Society and the New York Hospital had exerted a limited influence in their respective circles, but they were strictly local in origin and aim, and were by no means supreme, even in their immediate neighborhoods. The constant annoyances and disasters arising from this want of a common standard can well be imagined; and, as the number both of doctors and druggists increased and the intercourse between widely separated communities grew more close and frequent, this state of affairs became more and more intolerable. early as 1814, Dr. Coxe, in the preface to the third edition of his Dispensatory, proposed the formation of a national Pharmacopoeia; but it was not until 1818 that the New York Medical Society, at the suggestion of Dr. Lyman Spalding, made an official proposition, which was received and acted on with warm approbation throughout the country. In accordance with this, the United States was divided into four districts,-Northern, Middle, Southern, and Western; and in each of these a convention was directed to be held. It was, however, only in the Middle and Northern sections that the meetings actually occurred and manuscript Pharmacopoeias were prepared.

As