Volume 60 · Issue 03 · 1941

Recently it has been demonstrated that the renal tubules and the ureters might be blocked with the Acetyl Sulfapyridine crystals if large amounts of Sulfapyridine or similar drugs were administered.

In contrast to American and European medical literature, reports on the acute poliomyelitis in China is strikingly scarce. An early account of disease occurring in China is found in the Customs Surgeon's report (1) in 1913 stating the occurrence of sporadic cases of comma and pyrexia among foreign soldiers in North China with symptoms pointing: to the diagnosis of acute poliomyelitis. This report mentioned that sections of the spinal cord and brain on two of them which occurred among the British Legation Guards were forwarded to the Royal Army Medical College, London, and the diagnosis of poliomyelitis was confirmed histologically. Zia (2) in 1930 in a clinical report of two cases in the acute stage of the disease mentioned that only one diagnosis of the disease was found in the past eight years among 25,000 admissions to the P.U.M.C. Hospital. New (3) in 1934 in a brief note on the epidemiology of the disease in China stated that he had seen 150 cases of poliomyelitis mostly chronic and the earliest being 2 months after onset of the disease. He further gave the impression that the disease is in rapid extension. He, however, gave no details of data or records.

Since the publication of the brief report by Heineman (1) on the original use of sulfanilamide in the treatment of trachoma followed shortly by that of more extensive studies of Loe (4a), and Lian (3a), a large number of articles on the same subject have appeared in medical literature. The authors have not been unammous in their opinions in regard to the degree of effectiveness of the drug on trachoma. They may be generally divided into three groups: First, those (2) who consider sulfanilamide as of doubtful or of no value at all in the treatment of trachoma; second, those (3) who consider sulfanilamide only as a useful adjunct to the usual local trachoma treatment; (To them, sulfanilamide alone does not cause healing. But it becomes an effective agent when used together with other chemical or mechanical measures) snd finally, those (4) who have obtained more or less con- sistently good results with the use of sulfanilamide alone.

Lei-Kung-Teng (雷公�? is a wild, poisonous plant which grows abundantly in central, southern and eastern parts of China. In Manchuria, Korea, and Japan this plant is also to be found. In the mountainous regions of Nan-Yao (南嶽), Hunan, the annual production may amount t0 5,000 kilos. It is extensively used by farmers as an insecticide. This plant, according to Chen (1), is the cheapest and most practical native insecticide.

Ya-tan-tzu(鴉膽�? also known as K'u-shen-tzu (苦参�? is widely produced in Kwangsi and Yunnan Provinces. It has been used for centuries as specific remedy for dysentery (1) among the populace. Liu in 1937 and 1941 tried it on patients with amoebic dysentery with satisfactory results (2). One of us, Y. T. Chang, decided in 1936 to take up this problem on account of its clinical value. None of the previous investigators: Schlagdenhauffen, Physalis and Bertrand, (3) and (4), Power and Lees (5) has obtained the active principle.

In the light of the researches made on the mode of kala-azar infectionin some endemic areas of North China by various workers during recent years there appears strong evidence: (1-6) that both human ancl canine leishmaniasis are transmitted by sandflies and that Phlebotomus chinensis is the chief, if not the only, vector. It seems therefore that from the epidemiological point of view of kala-azar, the study of the geographical distribution of this insect becomes a matter of first importance in the present time.

In August 1940 three leeches extracted from human nose in Lotien, Kweichow, were sent to the writer for study. They were collected by Dr. Hsing-Jen Chu of the Public Health Personnel Training Institute, who was in that summer, making health survey in that locality.

In this investigation 100 cats were examined. Of this number 72 were males and 18 females and 10 not recorded as to sex. The preponderance of males is because male cats are in great demand and females are not for sale but kept for breeding purposes. Most of the cats examined were adults. Only a few cats were free of parasites while most of them harbored more than one species. The number of different species of parasites found in individual animals is given below in Table 2 and the results of Andrews' survey in Shanghai is appended for comparison. From this table it is clear that the Chengtu cats tend to harbor more species of parasites than the cats of Shanghai.

The subject of this paper is an infrequently observed anomalous condition of infancy or early childhood. Perhaps because of its rarity, it has been largely neglected in most text-books and medical publications. The fact, however, that four examples of this anomaly have been observed on the surgical service of the Peiping Union Medical College Hospital during the last four years suggests that it may not be as rare as has been supposed and that it deserves more attention from the medical profession. For this reason, brief discussions of the etiological and therapeutic aspects of the condition are presented in this paper, aa well as a summary of the clinical findings of these four cases, three of which came under our personal care.

The modern multiple stage thoracoplasty is so effective a method of treating pulmonary tuberculosis not amenable to any other type of treatment that its adoption has become more and more widespread throughout the world.

The other day I picked up a book by the late Sir Robert Jones, and I was amazed to find how much out of date it seemed to be in its description of how to treat this or that fracture.

It is unnecessary to stress the importance of the conservation of drugs in this period in which supplies have become so scarce. One of the important materials to be conserved is pure glucose as used for intravenous injections. Parenteral fluid administration has proved to be an indispensable aid in the treatment of dehydration. The same treatment is required in many other diseases and in post-operative complications where a decrease of plasma sodium and chloride occurs. In many instances the fluid can be administered in the form of 0.9% NaClsolution. In other cases it has been found advantageous to add 5% glucose to the saline solution in order to introduce at the same time nutritive material and to minimize the dangers of ketosis. Finally 5% glucose solution without sodium chloride and, at times, hypertonic glucose solution have been used to produce diuresis and to dilute the blood in toxemia.