New Anesthetics.--Several important advances have been made in methods of giving anesthetics and in the nature of the products used. Temporary unconsciousness with electricity was induced in 1909 by Dr. Stephane Leduc. Stovaine was invented by Dr. Jonnesco, of Bucharest. He injected it into the spinal cord after the method made famous by Biers with cocaine in 1899. Dr. W. S. Schley invented novocaine for the same purpose. Temporary unconsciousness was accomplished by the use of epsom salts injected into the spinal cord by Dr. Samuel J. Meltzer. All of these efforts to discover a harmless anesthetic by spinal injection were made possible by investigations and experiments of Dr. J. Leonard Corning, of New York, who worked along this line as far back as 1885. The most revolutionary discovery, however, was that of Dr. S. J. Meltzer at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, when he inserted a tube into the windpipe, through which he pumped the anesthetic into the lungs. While doing this he at the same time pumped oxygen to aerate the blood, thus ensuring the patient against possible accident during the course of difficult and tedious operations on the lungs and heart.
Vaccine in Typhoid Fever.--Inasmuch as typhoid fever has played an important part in the conduct of all wars, it has always been a source of much careful study by military and naval surgeons in every civilized country in the world. We had not, however, reached a stage when it was possible to hope for its extermination until medical science began to appreciate the possibilities of vaccine therapy. The Cuban, Boer and Russian wars, because of the terrible experiences of the soldiers with typhoid in each of them, stimulated inquiry along the line of discovering a serum of vaccine that would be effectual against it. American, British, French and Japanese military and naval surgeons instituted experiments simultaneously to discover an anti-typhoid vaccine. In the fall of 1909, American army surgeons were experimenting with a serum at Washington and on Governor's Island with success, but the first public announcement of an absolutely successful vaccine was made by Captain Vincent of the French navy on June 20th, 1910, before the Académie de Medicine in Paris. The final success of the anti-typhoid serum has been conclusively proved by elaborate tests upon soldiers and sailors in many nations.