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IS CHICORY INJURIOUS ?
1309 drunk pure and apparently without prejudicial effects. Most dietetic authorities seem to agree that there is no reason for believing that chicory is in any way injurious to health, and after all it is merely the root of a wild endive, kiln-dried, and broken in fragments. Still, many roots contain injurious substances and the subject seems to call for more serious investigation than it has hitherto appeared to receive.
possible the disturbing influence of food a definite quantity of blood was withdrawn, and the time tested either by Brodie and Russell’s coagulometer or by Wright’s instrument described in our pages,’ some advantages attaching to each. In experimenting on the influence of drugs or other agents on the coagulation time, therefore, it is important that the same conditions should be preserved as far as practicable. The drugs, it may be remarked, were injected subcutaneously with a hypodermic syringe. The effects of milk were first examined both in suckling and adult animals and it was found in opposition to the observations of Wright and Paramore to have very little, if any, effect in either
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDICINE.
THE SIXTEENTH
AT the Fifteenth International Congress of Medicine held in Lisbon in 1906 it was decided that the next meeting of the congress should be in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It is now announced that the Sixteenth Congress will be opened in Budapest on August 29th, 1909, and that it will continue to Sept. 4th. The work of the meetings will be conducted in 21 sections. Professor Calman Muller is the president and Professor Emil Gr6sz is the general secretary. The offices of the various committees in charge of the arrangements are at Esterhzy-utcza 7, Budapest VIII.
accelerating retarding coagulation. In other experiments on rabbits Dr. Coleman found that the administration of citric acid lengthens the time of coagulation by forming sodium citrate. The hypodermic injection of calcium chloride shortens the time of coagulation. Solutions of normal saline injected subcutaneously have a pronounced effect in diminishing the time of coagulability of the blood. The injection of &bgr;-naphthylamine lengthens it, due in all probability to the accompanying pyrexia, since the effect is not obtained if the pyretic phenomena are absent, as is occasionally observed. The subcutaneous injection of diphtheria toxins augments the time of coagulation. Finally, it was found that when leucocytosis occurs either as the result of some pathological condition or of the hypodermic injection of a drug there is a lengthening of the time of coagulation of the blood. or
TRAUMATIC ASPHYXIA.
-
IS
CHICORY
INJURIOUS ?
THE above may seem a startling question to ask, for been abundantly mixed with coffee for a great many years and we cannot recall a single instance in proceedings taken under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act in which it was urged that chicory was injurious. When a mixture of coffee and chicory is sold as coffee an offence is, of course, committed in accordance with the terms of Section 6 of the Act, which requires that no person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food which is not of the nature, substance, and quality demanded by the purchaser. On the other hand, if it can be shown that chicory is injurious to health it is clear that the proceedings could be based on Section 3 of the Act which demands that no person shall mix, colour, stain, or powder any article of food with any ingredient or material so as to render the article injurious to health. During the hearing of an action for slander, which was decided in favour of the plaintiff in the High Court last week, one witness stated that the selling of 50 per cent. chicory and coffee mixture was likely to cause a great deal of disease in a poor neighbourhood, and a medical man also stated that from his medical experience in poor districts coffee mixed with chicory often set up irritant poisoning. Mr. Justice Bigham admitted some interest in this statement, since he said he had been in the habit for many years of drinking a mixture of chicory and coffee. The chemistry of chicory does not appear to be as clear as it might be. We are merely told that it contains some volatile oil, a bitter substance, and a large proportion of It answers the purpose of the substitutioncaramel. monger admirably in giving intensity of colour to coffee I infusion, rendering it fuller flavoured than when coffee ’, is used alone. The introduction of chicory for this purpose did much to diminish the popularity of coffee in I this country. The consumption of coffee may have fallen owing possibly to the flavour of chicory being disliked or there may have been a real dietetic reason and some persons may have found that chicory disagreed with them. Against this view, however, is the fact that in some parts of the continent an infusion of chicory is
chicory has
I’
1 THE
LANCET, Oct. 14th, 1905, p. 1096.
TRAUMATIC asphyxia (asphyxia due to pressure on the chest) is a rare condition which has seldom been studied during life. Our knowledge of it has principally been gained from examination of the bodies of persons pressed to death in struggling crowds. Many of the occasions on which this accident has occurred are historical. At the Champs de Mars in 1837 23 persons were crushed to death in the rush of the mob ; in the fire at the Vienna Ring Theatre nearly 1000 persons perished in this way ; and in the panic at the Victoria
Hall, Sunderland, 200 children were asphyxiated by being crushed in a corridor. In the Canadian Medical Jo2crnal for April Dr. E. S. Ryerson has reported the following case. A
boy, aged five years, was admitted into hospital on May 9th, 1906, for injuries which he had received about an hour previously while riding on the back of a lorry. In some way he was caught between the hind wheel and the spring, stopping the wheel and making it drag along the ground for some feet and thus attracting the driver’s He was picked up unconscious, black in the attention. face, and breathing with difficulty. On admission there were marked symptoms of shock ; he was cold and shivering and his teeth chattered ; his face was pallid and his pulse was weak and rapid. Consciousness was dulled but questions roused him. His eyes were tightly closed as if he suffered On the head, trunk, and limbs were from photophobia. contusions and abrasions. His face and neck presented a deep blue mottled appearance which shaded off and disappeared over the upper chest. The pallor of the face could be seen through the blue discolouration. The dark blue spots were small and circular and separated by bands of normal skin. They were not influenced by pressure. On the face and neck they were so close together that they In the clavicular regions resembled a diffuse ecchymosis. they were separated by larger areas of normal skin and The eyelids were followed the distribution of the vessels. blue and swollen and could be opened only by force. The conjunctivae projected over the corneas from haamorrhagic effusion beneath them. The respirations were regular but shallow. The heart sounds were irregular but moderately strong. On the 10th he was quite con. scious but drowsy ; the temperature was 9Q° F., the pulse was 120, and the respirations were 30. The eyes were still kept closed. The pallor had disappeared and the blueness was not so deep. On the llth he was bright and sitting up in bed. The blue spots had faded considerably ; the conjunctivas were almost black. Some blue spots were found on the soft palate. On the 23rd he was running about the
possible the disturbing influence of food a definite quantity of blood was withdrawn, and the time tested either by Brodie and Russell’s coagulometer or by Wright’s instrument described in our pages,’ some advantages attaching to each. In experimenting on the influence of drugs or other agents on the coagulation time, therefore, it is important that the same conditions should be preserved as far as practicable. The drugs, it may be remarked, were injected subcutaneously with a hypodermic syringe. The effects of milk were first examined both in suckling and adult animals and it was found in opposition to the observations of Wright and Paramore to have very little, if any, effect in either
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDICINE.
THE SIXTEENTH
AT the Fifteenth International Congress of Medicine held in Lisbon in 1906 it was decided that the next meeting of the congress should be in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It is now announced that the Sixteenth Congress will be opened in Budapest on August 29th, 1909, and that it will continue to Sept. 4th. The work of the meetings will be conducted in 21 sections. Professor Calman Muller is the president and Professor Emil Gr6sz is the general secretary. The offices of the various committees in charge of the arrangements are at Esterhzy-utcza 7, Budapest VIII.
accelerating retarding coagulation. In other experiments on rabbits Dr. Coleman found that the administration of citric acid lengthens the time of coagulation by forming sodium citrate. The hypodermic injection of calcium chloride shortens the time of coagulation. Solutions of normal saline injected subcutaneously have a pronounced effect in diminishing the time of coagulability of the blood. The injection of &bgr;-naphthylamine lengthens it, due in all probability to the accompanying pyrexia, since the effect is not obtained if the pyretic phenomena are absent, as is occasionally observed. The subcutaneous injection of diphtheria toxins augments the time of coagulation. Finally, it was found that when leucocytosis occurs either as the result of some pathological condition or of the hypodermic injection of a drug there is a lengthening of the time of coagulation of the blood. or
TRAUMATIC ASPHYXIA.
-
IS
CHICORY
INJURIOUS ?
THE above may seem a startling question to ask, for been abundantly mixed with coffee for a great many years and we cannot recall a single instance in proceedings taken under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act in which it was urged that chicory was injurious. When a mixture of coffee and chicory is sold as coffee an offence is, of course, committed in accordance with the terms of Section 6 of the Act, which requires that no person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food which is not of the nature, substance, and quality demanded by the purchaser. On the other hand, if it can be shown that chicory is injurious to health it is clear that the proceedings could be based on Section 3 of the Act which demands that no person shall mix, colour, stain, or powder any article of food with any ingredient or material so as to render the article injurious to health. During the hearing of an action for slander, which was decided in favour of the plaintiff in the High Court last week, one witness stated that the selling of 50 per cent. chicory and coffee mixture was likely to cause a great deal of disease in a poor neighbourhood, and a medical man also stated that from his medical experience in poor districts coffee mixed with chicory often set up irritant poisoning. Mr. Justice Bigham admitted some interest in this statement, since he said he had been in the habit for many years of drinking a mixture of chicory and coffee. The chemistry of chicory does not appear to be as clear as it might be. We are merely told that it contains some volatile oil, a bitter substance, and a large proportion of It answers the purpose of the substitutioncaramel. monger admirably in giving intensity of colour to coffee I infusion, rendering it fuller flavoured than when coffee ’, is used alone. The introduction of chicory for this purpose did much to diminish the popularity of coffee in I this country. The consumption of coffee may have fallen owing possibly to the flavour of chicory being disliked or there may have been a real dietetic reason and some persons may have found that chicory disagreed with them. Against this view, however, is the fact that in some parts of the continent an infusion of chicory is
chicory has
I’
1 THE
LANCET, Oct. 14th, 1905, p. 1096.
TRAUMATIC asphyxia (asphyxia due to pressure on the chest) is a rare condition which has seldom been studied during life. Our knowledge of it has principally been gained from examination of the bodies of persons pressed to death in struggling crowds. Many of the occasions on which this accident has occurred are historical. At the Champs de Mars in 1837 23 persons were crushed to death in the rush of the mob ; in the fire at the Vienna Ring Theatre nearly 1000 persons perished in this way ; and in the panic at the Victoria
Hall, Sunderland, 200 children were asphyxiated by being crushed in a corridor. In the Canadian Medical Jo2crnal for April Dr. E. S. Ryerson has reported the following case. A
boy, aged five years, was admitted into hospital on May 9th, 1906, for injuries which he had received about an hour previously while riding on the back of a lorry. In some way he was caught between the hind wheel and the spring, stopping the wheel and making it drag along the ground for some feet and thus attracting the driver’s He was picked up unconscious, black in the attention. face, and breathing with difficulty. On admission there were marked symptoms of shock ; he was cold and shivering and his teeth chattered ; his face was pallid and his pulse was weak and rapid. Consciousness was dulled but questions roused him. His eyes were tightly closed as if he suffered On the head, trunk, and limbs were from photophobia. contusions and abrasions. His face and neck presented a deep blue mottled appearance which shaded off and disappeared over the upper chest. The pallor of the face could be seen through the blue discolouration. The dark blue spots were small and circular and separated by bands of normal skin. They were not influenced by pressure. On the face and neck they were so close together that they In the clavicular regions resembled a diffuse ecchymosis. they were separated by larger areas of normal skin and The eyelids were followed the distribution of the vessels. blue and swollen and could be opened only by force. The conjunctivae projected over the corneas from haamorrhagic effusion beneath them. The respirations were regular but shallow. The heart sounds were irregular but moderately strong. On the 10th he was quite con. scious but drowsy ; the temperature was 9Q° F., the pulse was 120, and the respirations were 30. The eyes were still kept closed. The pallor had disappeared and the blueness was not so deep. On the llth he was bright and sitting up in bed. The blue spots had faded considerably ; the conjunctivas were almost black. Some blue spots were found on the soft palate. On the 23rd he was running about the