MK. Bowling

EDITORS SOUTHERN PRACTITIONER: Nearly a year after the event, there comes to me the SOUTHERN PRACTITIONER of September, 1885, conveying to me, for the first time, the intelligence of the death of my friend and preceptor, Dr. W. K. Bowling.

No sadder intelligence has ever crossed the Continent to me, and I cannot refrain, even at this late day, to offer this tribute to his memory. I feel as if I were almost alone in the medical world. All the men

whose names were on my diploma are now dead but, Dr. J. B. Lindsley.

It is not of the medical standing of my friend and teacher that I wish to speak. The world knows that, and anything that I could say would add nothing to his well-earned honors and distinction. It is the moral worth of Dr. Bowling that claims my attention. For a quarter of a century our correspondence, both private and public, was intimate, for during his whole journalistic career I was an almost constant contributor to his journal. He was a man of deep religious convictions, and while he did not publicly blazon them to the world, he acted them out in the humble walks of life. The poor always found in him a sympathetic heart and willing hand. He gave the same care and attention to the most humble in life that he did the millionaire. "He went about doing good." This I know, for I have often been with him, and have admired and even envied his goodness of heart, and have endeavored to profit by his example, and whatever I have been, am, or expect to be, is due to his teachings, by example as well as precept. I met him last in 1873, just after cholera had ravaged the fair City of Nashville. He related an incident to me that made a deep impression upon my heart. An old blind negro, that eked out a miserable existence by playing the flute on the street corners, was stricken with cholera. The doctor attended him and he recovered. After his recovery, his heart overflowed with gratitude to his benefactor, and having nothing to pay him with, he took his flute and sat under the doctor's bed-room window and played it the whole night long. The doctor stated, "I have received many large fees in my life, but that was the largest fee I ever received. Money is trash and is not to be compared to the outpourings of a grateful heart, let it be ever so humble. Such fees lighten the burdens of life and lighten the years of one's existence."

The doctor loved medicine for its own sake, and for the good he was enabled to accomplish by it. In speaking of his religious convictions, he said to me, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and hope for salvation through His merits. I was immersed into His church forty years ago. I have never lived a secular churchman, but I hope a fair Christian. When I die some one will say, "he was an Infidel." I leave it to you, doctor, to straighten your intellectual right arm at him with a pen at the end of it."

He has gone to his reward, full of years and good deeds that the morning of eternity will reveal. S. T. CRAWFORD, M.D.

STOCKTON, CAL.

ON THE TAIL OF A TRAČK; OR, ON THE TRACK OF A TAIL-CUI BONO? PRO BONO PUBLICO!

The following "original"—yes, very original-article, is the leader in the State Board of Health Bulletin, published by the Tennessee State Board of Health, bearing date May 31st, 1886, and delivered at our office by mail-carrier on June 25th, 1886, with a request printed in red letters on outside of wrapper, "Please exchange." We have been sending our journal to the Secretary of the State Board of Health since the receipt of the first number of the "Bulletin." The leader alluded to has at its head a list or roll of members of said Board, as follows:

STATE BOARD OF HEALTH OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE.

J. D. Plunket, M.D., President, Nashville; Jas. M. Safford, M.D., Vice-President, Nashville; Hon. E. W. Cole, Nashville; G. B. Thornton, M.D., Memphis; Hon. D. P. Hadden, Memphis; P. D. Sims, M.D., Chattanooga; Daniel F. Wright, M.D., Clarksville; J. Berrien Lindsley, M.D., Secretary, Nashville.

We give the article, headings and all

PROPHYLAXIS AGAINST TRICHINE.

OFFICE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, NASHVILLE, May 5, 1886. Dr. J. D. Plunket, President State Board of Health:

Sir--In pursuance of instructions contained in the following communication, I acted with the least delay :

NASHVILLE, May 3, 1886.

Dr. J. Berrien Lindsley, Secretary State Board of Health:

Dear Sir-The life-history of the trichina spiralis is now fairly understood, but up to now sanitation has advanced no further than to advise the microscopical examination of all pork, to enjoin that it be well cooked before eating, and to enter a warning against keeping hogs about slaughter-houses, and feeding them on the raw waste products. The perfect protection, however, of the people against this tremendous scourge, and to minimize the sources of infection to the hog, demands, it would seem, a system which shall reach yet further, and prove more thorough, than heretofore. To that end, therefore, the Executive Committee directs that you proceed at your earliest convenience to Huntingdon, and at once seek a conference with the Carroll County Board of Health, and offer to them the following suggestions, which you are directed to urge that they at once practically adopt upon the premises where the Espy family reside (see Dr. J. W. McCall's report, printed in the Bulletin, pages 113 to 115, for details):

1. A microscopical examination for trichinæ of all pork slaughtered upon "the H. C. Townes Farm" during the past twelve months should be made at

once.

2. All pork discovered to be trichinous should be condemned and subjected to prolonged boiling.

3. All carnivorous animals upon the premises, including dogs, cats, rats, mice and snakes, should be promptly destroyed, and also thoroughly boiled.

4. All hog-pens, together with hog manure, should be burned; and all wells, or other collections of water to which the swine may have had access, or into which drainage from the pens could have taken place, should be closed up.

5. The range of the herd from which the trichinous pork was derived, which afflicted the Espy family, should be closed against hogs for a period of one year 6. If there are other animals, vertebrate or invertebrate, which it is expected the hogs could have devoured, upon the "Townes Farm," microscopical examination should be made to embrace them also.

A written report covering the results of your visit will be expected.
By order of the Executive Committee.

J. D. PLUNKET, Chairman.

On the following morning I took the train for Huntingdon, and upon my arrival there at once sought an interview with the Carroll County Board of Health. A full and free conference was early secured, and it is gratifying to state that I found the board willing, earnest and unanimous in the desire to adopt any and all means which would, as a matter of fact, or which would afford a reasonable basis even for the hope, that this dangerous parasite might be circumscribed in its march, if not wholly exterminated. Dr. J. W. McCall, the attending physician of the Espy family, kindly offered to drive me out to the Townes Farm, upon which the Espys live, where I had the opportunity of inspecting the entire premises, and saw nearly all the members of the family.

At "hog-killing time," which, in this instance, was upon December 15th, 1885, Mr. Espy slaughtered nine hogs in all, turning the greater portion of them into meat. The balance was turned into soap, except the livers and lungs, which were hung up in a tree close by, and which, it is believed, were afterwards eaten by dogs. A close inquiry into the probable sources from whence the diseased hog became infected, revealed the fact that the only animal remains these hogs were likely to have fed upon was furnished by three beavers which had been killed in October or November last. I obtained a portion of one of these heaver's tail, the only part that was left of them, and have had it carefully examined by Dr. Charles Mitchell, of Nashville, for trichina spiralis. He reports:

I have made a careful microscopical examination of the piece of beaver tail (from the locality furnishing the trichinous pork), and find the same entirely free from parasites or anything of a suspicious nature. Still, the amount of muscle-tissue in the specimen submitted was so small, that it is doubtful whether it could be considered a fair index of the entire animal.

Mr. Espy still has remaining some thirty hogs of the same herd, which the Carroll County Board of Health will have killed at once, and treated in the manner suggested by the Executive Committee in instructions given above (see No. 2) if it is thought best to do so. The interest manifested by the State Board in this matter is fully appreciated ' by the authorities of Carroll, and from whom I received assurance that the suggestions offered will be faithfully and promptly carried out. Respectfully submitted,

J. BERRIEN LINDSLEY, M.D., Secretary.

Well! well!! well!!! And the schoolmaster is at home in Tennessee, and the Blair bill is not passed, nor the Miller substitute.

The President of the State Board of Health of Tennessee and the Chairman of its Executive Committee says that "the life history of the trichina spiralis is now fairly understood;" and goes on with a very timely warning against keeping hogs about slaughter houses, (good), and feeding them on raw waste products. (Italics are ours.) Raw waste products will exclude the acorn, the beech nut and other mast; and then directs their Secretary to proceed to Huntingdon, and make investigation, and microscopically investigate "all pork slaughtered upon the H. C. Townes farm during the past twelve months." But No. 2 and No. 3 of these edicts are-well what shall we say they are? We will not give them a name, but will again trouble you, my dear reader, to look at them in our type and see if you cannot see them with our eyes.

"2. All pork discovered to be trichinous] should be condemned and subjected to long boiling." (The query naturally arises, If this pork is condemned by so august a tribunal as the self-perpetuating State Board of Health, why boil it?)

"3. All carnivorous animals upon the premises, including dogs, cats, rats, mice and snakes, should be promptly destroyed and also thoroughly boiled." Eheu! Eheu!! Mirabile dictu!!! If they are promptly destroyed, why boil them?