EDITORIAL Books for review, exchanges and contributions- the latter to be contributed to the GAZETTE only, and preferably to be typewritten-personal and news items should be sent to THE NEW ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE, 80 East Concord Street, Boston; subscriptions and all communications relating to advertising, or other business, should be sent to the Business Manager, Dr. WILLIAM K. KNOWLES, 40 Mt. Pleasant Ave., Roxbury, Mass. Reports of Societies and Personal Items should be sent in by the 15th of the month previous to the one in which they are to appear. Keprints will be furnished at cost and should be ordered of the Business Manager before publication. DON'T STAY AT HOME! During this month of September, 1906, there will be held in Atlantic City, N. J., a meeting of no little importance; a meeting for which preparations have been in progress many months; a meeting to which hundreds are looking forward with high anticipations; a meeting which will affect to an unusual degree the future of homoeopathy; a meeting which will present uncommonly attractive and significant features. The meeting here referred to is the Seventh Quinquennial International Homœopathic Congress, which will include the Sixty-second Annual Session of the American Institute of Homœopathy. To this meeting have been invited all the homoeopathists in this country and abroad, whose addresses were obtainable by the committee having this matter in charge. Preliminary cir culars, special announcements and the official program and announcement have been widely distributed. Our medical journals here and elsewhere, have informed their readers through their editorial columns and elsehow that such a meeting was to be, and have told them also much concerning its character. The GAZETTE has tried to do its duty in this direction, as well as to impress upon its readers their special responsibilities in connection with the Congress. With all these numerous and varied notifications, surely no member of the profession can claim to be ignorant concerning the Congress. It remains at this time therefore for the GAZETTE to say only a final word to its readers in regard to the meeting so soon to be. That word or message is simply,-"Don't stay at home, and thereby miss the pleasures and benefits to be derived from attendance." For New Englanders, the absence from home need not be over five to seven days, to attend every session of the Congress. The distance to be travelled is not great, and the travelling itself is easy and com fortable; the roads all being good. As to expense, it comes under two heads: railroads and hotels. From all parts of the country excursion-rates are to be obtained from the railroads, the fare being on the certificate plan of one and a third fares. One should be sure to obtain a certificate when purchasing his ticket to Atlantic City; for said certificate officially viséed procures a two-thirds reduction on the return fare. The certificates are "good" from the sixth to the nineteenth of September, the meeting itself beginning on the tenth. and closing on the fifteenth. This allows time before and after the meeting for extra vacation and recreation. Hotels are so numerous in Atlantic City that all tastes and purses may be accommodated. Having been abundantly forewarned as to place and dates, and being within a comparatively short distance of the homoeopathic mecca, New England physicians should be represented by a large number of delegates; a number not to be counted by dozens, as is sometimes the case at the distant Institute meetings, but by hundreds. It should be remembered that while only Institute members can take part in the business meetings of the Institute, "all homoɔpathists in good and regular standing in the countries in which they reside" are invited to attend the meetings of the Congress. Let New England do itself credit and do its share in advancing the cause of scientific medicine. Those who do not stay at home, but join their confrères at Atlantic City, will have the pleasure of spending a few days at one of the most popular resorts on the Atlantic seaboard-will enjoy meeting old professional friends from all parts of the country-will have the privilege of making new friends among their own countrymen and even extending their acquaintance to those whose homes are in distant countries; will be permitted to participate in the extension of a cordial and hospitable reception to guests, to many of whom this country of ours will be a field of novelties; will receive benefit from listening to essays, and taking part in debates, and adding their efforts toward increasing the sum total of professional knowledge; will gather strength and fresh stimulation for the winter's work; and will have the comfort of having done their duty to the profession in whose ranks they are enlisted. Even those who by force of circumstances are obliged to stay at home, may encourage others to go, and all may add to the organized strength of homoeopathy by securing the application for Institute membership from at least one. colleague not now enlisted. By this simple measure the membership of the Institute may be doubled in one year, to the lasting benefit of humanity. For the sake then of homoeopathy--for the sake of its strongest organization, the American Institute of Homœopathy-for the sake of the Seventh Quinquennial International Homeopathic Congressfor your own sakes, don't stay at home! ARE WE TO HAVE A UNITED MEDICAL PROFESSION? With more and more persistency this question keeps before the profession. While the question, like all others, admits of endless discussion, it admits only a limited number and variety of answers, and from the present outlook it will probably be at some distance in the future that the question with any approach to unanimity will be answered in the affirmative. So long as human beings live in different physical and mental environments, so long they will view things from differing standpoints with the inevitable result of disagreement. When disagreements are due simply to different viewpoints and not to a difference in principles it is among the possibilities to so modify perspectives and so adjust one to another viewpoint that an understanding, which virtually removes the disagreement, is reached. As with all things in the realm of thought it is possible to acknowledge the existence of a certain lack of agreement, theoretically, and yet unite, amicably on a definite line of action. In order to answer the question, "Are we to have a united medical profession?" it is necessary to formulate clearly defined ideas concerning homoeopathy and the present status of traditional or rational medicine; of the principles underlying each, and of the differences between them. The essential differences must be recognized as the sine qua non of an agreement. The philosophy of homoeopathy is not wholly appreciated by either its adherents or opponents. It is at the present time too imitative; too much a matter of empiricism; of action in accordance with certain teachings of the Schools or of individuals. It is with the earnest effort to clear away misconceptions and if possible to pave the way to a mutual and helpful understanding, that Dr. Charles S. Mack has written his brochure with the preceding question for its title. Attention is hereby called to Dr. Mack's argument because of its intrinsic merit. It was published by its author sometime in 1904; but it is within a few weeks only that the GAZETTE was made aware of its existence, and the GAZETTE is anxious to share its pleasures with its readers. A few quotations from the brochure may give an idea of its author's purpose and position concerning the question under consideration. "My claim for this little book is that, by defining different cures and by classifying practices, it makes obvious the tenability of an attitude friendly toward both homoeopathy and rational medicine, and that it thus illumines a platform from which no man would be excluded because of his friendly attitude toward either" . . . "In this book will be found discussion of several adverse criticisms of homoeopathy by men distinguished in the field of rational medicine, but evidently not informed in the philosophy of homoeopathy. To those who do not themselves accept homoeopathy, but are advocating a union of the schools, I offer this book as likely to aid them to some adequate conception of the difference which they would adjust. That that difference will sooner or later be adjusted I firmly believe, but never will the schools convene upon a platform which accords less than absolute freedom in regard to homoeopathy as an issue." "That there should, at any early day, be a union of the schools seems unlikely. Facts of human nature and of private interest will long postpone such union; but that come it will I believe. This book suggests what, I think, the platform will be when, whether sooner or later, such union is deemed practicable and desirable." "Each of you may have heard from one or another so-called old school physician an expression of the opinion that there should be no distinct bodies in medicine-that all properly qualified physicians should belong to one body and fraternize in societies. Such expressions on the part of individuals are, I think, interesting and significant; but there can be no live question regarding fellowship of homœopathists and the so-called old school in a common society, so long as the so-called old school as a body is unwilling to fraternize with any man until he shall have pledged himself with his signature or by word of mouth that he does not believe in or intend to practice homœopathy, or shall have pledged something to that effect. Membership in a society cannot make or unmake a homeopathist. four italics. Editor GAZETTE.] and I take it that no kind of co-operation between the two bodies can obtain without provision for absolute independence, or, at least, freedom in all thought and all work relating to the principle similia." . . . "I do not know that in the whole controversy over homoeopathy there has developed anything more remarkable than the proposition that homoeopathists should retain the idea homœopathy, and annihilate the word homœopathist." "To me it seems probable that the name homeopathist will distinguish those who believe in similia from those who do not, until a time when similia is generally recognized, and when physicians are, as a matter of course, homoeopathists; after such time the word homeopathist would perhaps be superfluous." Dr. Mack presents on page forty-three an interesting argument which forms a foundation for his saying "I believe that homeopathy is without a flaw, and that you will find it much more profitable to study homœopathy than to study homoeopathists." Other and interesting phases of this topic are discussed very logically and forcefully by Dr. Mack, who differentiates very lucidly "rational practice" and "homoeopathy," and who has in his little book presented what should prove an effective missionary among the earnest, intelligent and thoughtful members of the profession of both of the dominant schools of medical thought and practice. A PICTURE OF AN OLD FRIEND The GAZETTE considers itself fortunate in being able to present to its readers with this issue a picture of one with whose features they all are not familiar, but whose name is as a "household word" with homoeopathists, known to all; a name held high in their respectful esteem, a name acknowledged as that of an authority commanding the utmost confidence of his colleagues, a name commanding not only respect and confidence but genuine admiration and affection; the name of Dr. Richard Hughes; the name of one who, alas! is no longer of us, but whose memory is deeply and permanently cherished. The position Dr. Hughes occupied in the profession was unique and enviable; that of a renowned scholar, a careful student, an effective. writer, speaker and teacher. His impression on his generation was deep, clear cut, lasting, and his influence will extend far beyond his own country and his own time. Just now it is but natural that his name and memory should come vividly before the profession in connection with the International Congress, for as is well known Dr. Hughes was, as Secretary, the only permanent officer of the Congress. He was in reality more than this; for it was due Dr. Hughes more than to any other single member of the profession that the Congress has continued its existence to the present. It therefore, just at this time, seems appropriate to recall to our memories, as the GAZETTE herewith does by the presentation of his picture, one to whom homoeopathy owes so much. SPECIALISTS AND FEE TABLES Dr. D. W. Cathell of Baltimore who has written very practically on many practical subjects has written within a few months on a subject that will touch a responsive chord in many an overworked general practitioner's heart, and the great body of general practitioners will approve on the whole of Dr. Cathell's topic and argument. The title of the paper referred to is "Certain Fee Table Items that Injure the General Practitioner," but the argument is in support of the idea that the general practitioner should follow the custom established by the specialist and charge "by the case." Dr. Cathell thinks the "Rip Van Winkle fee tables" still used as guides by the general practitioner should be abolished and the physician's "skill and services" made the basis of his charges. In speaking of the specialist. he says: "Each establishes for himself some more or less definite financial policy of his own, and each puts his own value on his services, and each usually takes care to charge each patient a sum large enough to materially aid in giving him and his dependents a comfortable support, with some addition for their needs when he is no longer able to work; and each rightly leaves his medical neighbors of every kind to |