She awakes. My relief is only momentary; she removes her foot, but only for a second. She falls asleep again. Once more I feel the imprint of that foot. It has grown to fully ten times its original size. Ten minutes more of agony. The train stops. That accursed train is forever stopping. The next time I travel toward Spain and I am in a hurry, I'll walk. She awakes. The foot this time has not cast its moorings. I will address her and politely request her to cast my stomach adrift. I will try her in several languages. "Do you speak French? I said, in the purest English. A negative shake of the head. "Do you speak English?" I resumed. Another shake of the head. "Perhaps you speak German?" I cried in despair, and then the monotous negative head shake. Confound you," I said, "here I have addressed you in three different languages and you can't speak any one of them. I'll try her in Spanish." 66 I had studied Spanish after the easy conversational method in anticipation of my visit to Spain. So here goes; and I hurled in perfect abandonment a medley of sonorous Spanish, suggestive of the removal of her foot. I paused for a reply. It came. "Eggskuse me, sair," she said, "I can no speak ze Anglish." I felt flattered. The easy conversational method was bearing fruit. The train gives a sudden lurch, and then as if in agony it stops. The Spanish frontier is reached. A Spanish official is uttering a command in a boisterous voice. I regard his Spanish as simply execrable. I can't understand a word he says. My companion has left the compartment; I follow and am ushered before a Spanish officer, who directs me to the disinfecting room. "Cholera in Marseilles," he says laconically. It is 2 A. M. and cold. There is a wealth of rain. What can one expect in a monarchy but reigning sovereigns. Travel is a delightful pastime, but in the abstract. Ten minutes for disinfection. It must have been ten hours, if my feelings, and not the clock, had measured the time. I have crossed the Atlantic several times, sleeping at night in one of the so-called rooms on board of the steamer and imagined in consequence, that I was immune to asphyxia. I am sure that the disinfection received at the Spanish frontier discounts asphyxia several times with plenty to spare. The disinfection is over; that is the process. The effects cling closer than a postage stamp on an envelope. Three minutes for refreshments, so I inhale a few whiffs of Spanish climate. O! I wish I were home. This thought recurs numerous times, but perish the idea, for travelling in the abstract is a delightful pastime, even in Spain. I am in the compartment of the railroad train again. My companion this time is a gentleman. He snores artistically. He gives vent to sounds clearly limited to the diatonic scale. He wears spectacles. He wears them in his sleep. He must like to see his dreams. My stomach is playing the devil with me. It has asserted its dignity already three times and seems bound to throw off the indignity heaped upon it-three sausages and a glass of French wine-1 can hardly blame the stomach, so I don't. The train moves. I am surprised. It has only stopped five times since leaving the station fifteen minutes ago. I have fully made up my mind that there is no place like home. I restrain the thought. Am I not consummating the anticipated dream of years? If I can only consume this tedium by reading, but the snoring of my vis a vis has already reached the pentatonic scale, and I cannot even see to read. I wish he would wake up and speak to me. That fellow is beginning to snore louder than ever. It becomes positively insufferable. Decency forbids recording my thoughts at this moment. He is now awake. 1 am sure he is an Englishman, for he hasn't said a word, and besides he incommodes me by trying to occupy the entire compartment. I venture to ask him if he is rich. He replies in the affirmative. I question him regarding his annual income. He answers, "about ten thousand pounds annually." "But pray, why do you ask?" he asked in a rising inflection. "Because," I replied, "if I had your income and snored as badly as you, I would have an entire train." Silence is resumed. The train to keep itself in condition stops several times. I learn that it is the lightning express. What queer names they have for such trains in Spain? Daylight is appearing. The train approaches Barcelona. The Catalonian peasants in holiday attire are in evidence. The lightning express must be an accommodation train, for it stops long enough to allow passengers to exchange greetings with their friends at the numerous stations. Barcelona is reached at last. I am transported to the hotel in a vehicle which looks like an inverted tomato. The vehicle plays dice with the passengers. It has thrown six. I am directed to a cheerful room on the top floor, which is very small. By walking I will be compelled to lose weight, for it is only an attenuated body that can occupy the room. While engaged in my ablutions, the sound of trumpets is heard. I rush out into the street and learn that there is going to be a bull-fight. I want to see a bull fight. The only kind I ever saw in America were fought according to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. When you are in doubt follow the crowd. I wish I had done so. I see the building, "A Los Toros," in the distance. I leave the crowd and make a detour, hoping to reach the amphitheatre by a shorter route. I sink into a morass up to my knees. The day is beginning ominously. I am thinking hard in this soft ground. I am extricated with a sort of improvised derrick. I repair to a neighboring clothier and purchase a pair of epileptic trousers. I call them epileptic because they have a horrible fit. I am now quite content to take the beaten track. I purchase a ticket and seat myself in the lower gallery in a front seat. I am seated among the rank and fashion of Spain. Rank, becase their cigars are vile; fashion, because the customary garlic is in evidence everywhere. A band discourses music, but the musicians are courteous enough to atone for their presence by cutting it short. The bull-fight has now commenced. The odor of garlic is less manifest. The excitement is so intense that the people hold their breath. My neighbor on my right faints from exhaustion. I presume he got tired from over-exertion in holding his breath. One would at least think so, judging from the muscularity of his breath. The gladiator, the matador and the pugilist are mere examples of evolution adapted to their environment, but the dominating incentive, cruelty, is always the same. The spectators have cancelled for the time being their relation to mercy. They are not present to witness a mere scientific contest. In a word, they want to see blood. No doubt there were hundreds in the audience at the amphitheatre who were disappointed because the bull had not gored the picador to death. I was sorry for the bull; he was having a hard time of it. The banderillero tries to affix the banderillas into the neck of the now infuriated animal, and he succeeds. The fight is getting interesting, but it is soon over. The bull is now mortally wounded. The puntillero now strikes the animal with a triangular dagger in the spinal cord to produce instant death. Having killed the bull according to the rules of the game, the public now reward the matador by applause and by throwing their hats and cigars into the ring. I admire the Spanish method of disposing of bad cigars. In our country, we adopt a more barbarous method, by giving them to our friends. While the various articles are being thrown into the arena, I thrust my head forward, when I suddenly feel a sensation of blood trickling down my face. There is a big gash in my scalp. I must have been struck by a cigar. They smoke very heavy cigars in Spain. A policeman attempts to arrest the hemorrhage, but in vain, the blood spurts from an artery. I proceed to leave the amphitheatre to obtain the services of a surgeon. He stops the hemorrhage and bandages the wound. The bandage is very large, and I have a great load on my mind. I leave the amphitheatre, a mendicant approaches and I give him a peseta. Inspired by my extravagance, at least a dozen beggars solicit alms. One more importunate than the others thrusts his maimed and dirty hand in my face. I push him away and he falls. This is the signal for attack. About one hundred mendicants (at the time of the occurrence there were probably three, but distance lends exaggeration to the fact) surround me and attempt to do me personal injury. The fortunate presence of a gendarme protects me from their violence. The day is getting very portentous. I must escape from this chapter of accidents. I hail a passing vehicle and direct to be driven to my hotel at once. The conveyance lasts about one block and then a wheel comes off and the vehicle is overturned. I am compelled to crawl through the window. It was a very narrow escape in a double sense. I am bursting with indignation, so have my epileptic trousers. The driver arbitrarily assesses the damage at one hundred pesetas. We compromise the matter and he accepts one peseta. I will trust the Spanish conveyance no longer. I will walk back to the hotel, notwithstanding my trousers to the contrary. At last I reached my hotel. I send for the clerk. "Are you sure," said I to the latter, "that the ceiling is secured, and will you please put a bulkhead along side the chandelier, send up five fire escapes, turn off the gas, and, above all things, anchor the hotel." "The fact is," said I continuing, "that I am desperate and I won't take any more chances," Then I related to the dumbfounded clerk my mishaps of the day. I would like to leave Spain at once, but the clerk tells me, that the lightning express will not leave until the following night. I am in a position to know something about their lightning express trains. So I enquire when the freight goes out, as I am in a hurry to get away. He replies that the freight train will also leave on the following night attached to the lightning express. Before leaving Spain I want to indulge myself in a Spanish dinner. The meal is superb. It is the best German cooking I ever tasted. When I want a Spanish dinner again, I will go to Berlin, where in a little restaurant off the Linden, I can get an excellent meal. The next day is beautiful. I walk along the Rambla. I need a pair of shoes. The saleslady is the wife of the proprietor. She is beautiful. I haven't as yet detected the odor of garlic. I don't want to be disillusioned. I spend three hours in agreeable conversation. She spoke Spanish, of which I understood nothing, and I French, of which she comprehended quite as much, yet I understood her and she me. I purchased a pair of shoes, "at a reduction," she said. I didn't observe where the reduction came in, but it came in all right. As soon as I left the shop with my feet incased in the new shoes, the reduction became manifest, and it was rapid. I couldn't walk. I tried to remove the shoes in the usual way, but failed. I had to cut them off my feet. My feet were so badly swollen, that I swathed them the remainder of the day in a solution of lead water. I am glad to be on the train again. The incidents attending my departure from Spain are not worthy of record. I got into an altercation with the conductor about the genuineness of my ticket; I was mistaken for a spy; a couple of my fellow-passengers engaged in a rough and tumble fight; an indulgent mother used me as a mattress for her darling son, who talked in his sleep; an hysterical woman insisted on fainting when she found that I had a flask of whiskey. The attacks ceased as soon as the succulency of the flask was no more. Aside from these minor incidents, the return journey was enjoyable which warrants my exordium, that travel is, in the abstract, a pleasurable pastime. Gonorrheal Epididymitis. In addition to local applications and rest in bed, the following internally acts most delightfully : M. S.: A teaspoonful every hour or two. Infantile Convulsions.— B Moschi...... Gum acacia. Aq. fœniculi... Syr. aurant. cort.... ... gtt. xlviii .qs. ad ziii gr. 7 aa 3 I M. Sig. A teaspoonful every hour or two.-Practical Medicine. BY FRANK PARSONS NORBURY, M. D. Physician to Oak Lawn Sanitarium; Neurologist to Our Savior's Hospital; Physician to AND EGBERT W. FELL, B. S.. JACKSONVILLE, ILL. Skull and Brain Traumatisms.-Griswold, in the Physician and Surgeon, February, 1899, considers that simple fractures, or even depressions of the skull, are not as a rule followed by bad results. He says that the skull should not be trepined until a lesion has been clearly diagnosed. When trepanation is necessary sufficient bone should be removed to thoroughly examine the injury, to relieve pressure and afford free drainage, through the dura and arachnoid, if necessary. Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Paretic Dementia.-Neff (Physician and Surgeon, June, 1899) emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis, as, he says, by appropriate methods of treatment these cases may be improved. Argyll-Robertson, immobile or contracted pupil, exaggerated or perverted knee-jerk, facial tremor, slurring or halting speech, defective innervation of the face, cerebral seizures, combined with a developing dementia, characterize the initial stage of this disease. Antisyphilitic treatment is of little, if any, value. The following treatment was used in eleven cases of paretic dementia, and three of cerebro-spinal syphilis (1) Cold pack of a maximum duration of thirty minutes, and of a temperature of from 55° to 70°, dependent upon reaction of patient; (2) application of |