“In this connection I desire to quote an expression of Prof. William H. Welch concerning the merit of the work of ex-Surgeon General Sternberg, done since the first Yellow Fever Commission was appointed, in 1879 (see Medical News. June 21, 1902. p. 1198). Dr. Welch said 'that Sternberg's work with yellow fever would stand forever; that it was a common thing in these busy days to forget the steps which led up to an important discovery. All that Dr. Sternberg had done in the study of yellow fever was necessary work, and it had to be done just in the way that he did it. The ground had first to be cleared. If it were not so, the discovery had not been possible; and later discoverers themselves would have had to hunt out the large host of microorganisms which Dr. Sternberg had described and laid aside.'
“And similarly I can say of Dr. Hemmeter's efforts that, no matter what the eventual outcome of this problem will be, all that he has done was necessary work, and it had to be done just in the way that he did it.
“Just one more idea and I shall have finished. It concerns the demonstration of such research work in places at a distance from the experimentor's laboratory. Such demonstrations are always attended with great difficulty. They usually require four animals, two or three janitors to transport them, and as many laboratory assistants as the director of the laboratory can manage to take with him. The technique of these operations, the high-grade sensitiveness of operated animals, the refinement with which chemical tests should be made, all require for their safe conduct that the experimentor should work only with those men who are used to his system. The animals themselves are always influenced in one way or other by the presence of strangers. I remember in one animal which was demonstrated on March 17th, at the University Hospital, the demonstration at which Dr. Satterthwaite was present, a most unexpected change in the quality of the gastric secretions took place. This was a control animal which had undergone no operation whatever. He was simply taken along to show the proteolytic power of a normal dog and compare it with the operated dogs. His gastric juice had been previously tested on several occasions, and always found to be of regular standard, but on the night of the demonstration before the Medical Society this animal's gastric juice was practically inactive, containing no HCL nor pepsin.
“Dr. Hemmeter has already informed you that in some animals the loss of gastric juice after extirpation of the salivary glands is only temporary, and that in varying time—in some cases three weeks, in other animals three to four months—there is a gradual resumption of gastric secretion. This resumed secretion, however, never becomes as effective as it was in the same dog before an operation. The question when to begin to make observations on an operated animal depends entirely upon the state of this animal; if the dog eats his food with appetite, he has no fever, and his digestion appears to be satisfactory; then the observations may be begun, even if it is only one week or ten days after the last operation. One of the most valuable animals that was used in this series of experiments was so injured in the effort to transport him to another laboratory that he could not be used for further experimentation. The dog struggled so in his holder while he was being transported in a wagon that the partition of true mucosa which separates the accessory from the plain stomach was broken through. This had happened once before in transporting a dog from the laboratory to Dr. Hemmeter's country place, and his associates in the Medical Faculty, becoming aware of the great labor and cost involved in such operations, and the rarity with which they succeed, advised that no further Pawlow dogs be sent to other laboratories.”
AN INTERESTING CASE OF SCROTAL HERNIA.
By G. E. Bennett, '09.
Senior Medical Student.
Patient—George Kolubaher.
Age—Sixty-six years.
Occupation—At present a farmer; formerly worked as laborer in stone quarry.