Miscellany
1889
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
jamin Galbenewitz, who has an office on Hanover Street, and he was charged with failing to report promptly, as by law required, the case of a patient whom he was called upon to treat for the small-pox. The Board of Health was not apprized of the case till November 20th, the notice having been mailed the 19th. It was claimed by the prosecution that the eruption must have been present and recognizable as small-pox for a week previous to the time of notification. The patient was a child of six
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... hs, and the household consisted of the father, mother and five children. They lived in narrow and contracted quarters in a small tenement in the rear of Salein Street. For the most part all were huddled in the kitchen, which was the general living-room in a crowded neighborhood, a place, in fact, where the general conditions were favorable for the spread of the disease. The mother of the patient was brought from the Canterbury Street Hospital to testify, and appeared somewhat weak and emaciated. She told of rash and pimples which were visible on the body of her little daughter about a week before she died. She had a notion that it might be chicken-pox, as another of her children had only recently recovered from that disease. The doctor had made three or four visits. The defendant, Dr. Galbenewitz, stated that he did not become convinced of the identity of the infant's complaint with small-pox until the afternoon of the day on which he mailed his notice to the Board of Health. He had been for fifteen years a physician in this country, and had practised also in Russia. The hearing closed at 4.30 p. m., when Judge Hardy imposed a fine of $100 and costs, from which sentence the accused appealed. NEW YORK. -There was an interesting discussion before the Section of Laryngology and Rhinologyof the New York Academy of Medicine, November 26th, concerning the misuses of cocaine. Dr. W. II. llolbrook Curtis read the introductory paper which dealt with a large number of cases where the use of cocaine in a local way had affected the entire system of the patient. The fact that Dr. Köhler, the discoverer of the drug, was present at the discussion and took part in it, lent an additional interest to the meeting. Dr. Köhler said that he made it a rule of his practice never to prescribe cocaine. " Whenever I use it," he continued, " I administer it myself, and then the patient cannot secure more of it by merely refilling the prescription. I make it a rule never to use much more than a five per cent, solution because 1 find the results achieved quite as good as though 1 had used a forty per cent, solution-it only requires a little more time. In subcutaneous injections a much weaker solution should be used, two per cent, beiug quite effective." -
doi:10.1056/nejm188912051212308
fatcat:lfwgkpryhnbzpezmpcl5o5lw4e