Straight Shots.

Related entries: Request for Straight Shots - Some Safe Suggestions - Aesculus, Collinsonia, Hamamelis - Practical Suggestions

I. V. COLE, M. D., SEATTLE, WASH.

In response to your invitation in the September number of THE THERAPEUTIST for straight shots I will state that I have used Hamamelis alone and combined with collinsonia in many cases of hemorrhoids with benefit to all, and a cure for a large number.

One case of angina pectoris responded to specific cactus, diet, and exercise, with no return in two years.

Specific chionanthus has cleared the urine of sugar and brought back health to a dozen carefully watched diabetics.

Specific staphisagria is my routine internal treatment of all cases of posterior urethritis, prostatorrhea and gleet. One patient complained of violent, painful diarrhea, while taking minim doses 4 times a day, but the gleet was cured in a week. The most of them have a sense of well being and increase in weight.

I had a highly interesting experience one Sunday morning before breakfast. A man telephoned me that he had very important business to transact with me and must have an interview immediately at my office. Never having had the honor to transact very much important business in my life, I lost no time in argument and arrived promptly on the scene. I found a large husky man of forty years or more pacing up and down trembling like a leaf, with his penis and one testicle tightly enclosed in a glass bottle, labeled Hunt's Pickles. Said penis and scrotum occupied all the space within the bottle. They were of a beautiful blue-black color, which added much to the cosmetic effect.

Passing up the gentle remarks the gentleman made about the several kinds of a fool he was, and how he was on the verge of investing his money in an ax, if I had not arrived at that precise minute, etc., will state that his peculiar predicament had lasted not less than three hours. As Osler had failed to mention any treatment for strangulated penis in his Practice and didn't believe much in medicine anyway, I was compelled to use my own grey matter to solve the problem.

By the use of a three cornered file I soon had an opening in the bottom edge; reaching for the Ethyl chloride spray, that bottle soon looked like a Dawson window pane in January; then changing the target to the hole in the bottom of the container until an icicle hung from the glands when, "Lo, and behold ye" the contents slid out like melted butter. An immersion of the offending member in hot saturated solution of ammonium chloride soon brought the sunset glow.

When I mentioned the very moderate fee of ten dollars he turned blue in the face and I reached for my hypodermic but he, thinking I was about to pull a gun, came to, and explained that owing to the financial stringency he was short but would pay me in full if he had to save a whole year. I suggested that as circumstances pointed to him as a very saving man next pay day would find him at my door with a goodly portion. With that straight shot he departed, leaving his bottle for security.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.