GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITAL, SAINT LOUIS.

Report of the Attending Physician for the Year 1859. During the year 1859, we have treated two hundred and thirty-seven; of these one hundred and seventy-five have been cured, and twenty have died, giving a mortality of 8 percent.

Intermittent typhus and remittent fevers, have predominated over all other diseases; after these come in order diseases of the respiratory organs, dysentery, diarrhea, inflammations of the abdominal organs, and rheumatism; all of these-cases have been unusually severe.

The cases which were fatal, were mostly organic diseases of the lungs, or of the abdominal organs, the sequel of longstanding attacks of intermittent fever, and such patients have come under our treatment in many instances after they had exhausted all their means in resorting to medical aid, and without relief. We have then taken them in with constitutions broken down, and done all in our Power to restore them to health, and out treatment has usually been attended with success, except where they have been affected with serious organic lesions of the lungs, chronic inflammation of the bowels, or dropsy, depending upon some primary disease of the heart. Among the acute diseases of the respiratory organs, pneumonia has been most frequent, and the remedies there for have been universally in the first stage of simple hyperaemia, Aconitum; in the second stage, of hepatization, Bryonia, especially if the pleura was involved (pleuropneumonia); in such cases this latter remedy will be always indicated. If edema of the lungs was present, or to prevent paralysis of the lungs, Tartarus emeticus was used; where the patient expectorated the rusty colored bloody sputa, Phosphorus was our remedy, and this last named medicine is especially indicated where the auscultatory examination shows a tuberculous complication, or a threatened tubercular deposit; in the stage of infiltration, Tinct. Sulfuris was always our remedy, and with the same eclatant results, as we have seen from its use when employed in the hospitals of Drs. Wurmb and Fleischmann, in Tienna. It exerts a specific influence in promoting the absorption of exudations either into the pleural sac or the bronchial ramifications of the lungs.

In intermittent fevers our remedies were usually Arsenicum alb., China, Chinoidine, Ipecac., Nux vomica, Ignatia. Pulsatilla, Veratrum or Carbo vegetabilis. fifty-six cases were treated; and forty-seven cured; five remain under treatment, and four left irregularly.

In typhus our principle remedies were Bryonia, Arsenic, Rhus tox., and Acid phosph.

In rheumatism we have found the best success from Rhus tox., Bryonia alba, Actaea racemosa, Spigelia and Colchicum: sometimes Tinct. Aconit. nap. or Tart. emet. one-tenth was employed, and with success.

The medicines are usually administered in the second attenuation or in the third trituration; as occasion requires, we employ the higher attenuations up to the thirtieth, and in other instances the mother tinctures, always upon the homoeopathic principle of “Similia simlibus curantur.”

The success of our Hospital is thus far most encouraging, and is intended as an asylum or home for the poor sick, without respect to religion or nationality Here the poor sick are taken in, nursed, fed and clothed and their maladies prescribed for according to the most approved rules of medical science and art, and “without money or price;” if the patient is in a condition to pay, the sum of three dollars per week he demanded from him.

We wish to appeal to a generous public for assistance in the forwarding of this enterprise, as our Hospital is supported alone by the liberal donations of charitable persons. In our present house, we can accommodate only twenty-five patients; in the new Hospital, we shall have accommodation for one hundred and seventy (possibly two hundred). In the summer months. we daily have applications from at least four times as many as we have room for, and during the past summer months, the City Hospital has been usually overfilled, so that numerous patients, sick and in distress, who have applied to us for a card of admission, when it was impossible for us to accept them for want of room, have left our office with tears in their eyes, telling us that they “had not where to lay their heads.”

The hour for the daily visit is between half-past eleven, a.m., and one, p.m., at which time physicians as well as all humane persons are invited to visit our Institution.

From the first of November to the first of March, upon each Saturday in the week, at twelve o'clock, m., clinical instructions will be given gratuitously to all medical students or physicians that may be pleased to attend.

T. G. Comstock, M.D.

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