water).

English, wet:-Gr. hygros, Skr. ud and unatti (to wet). See "water".

English, dropsy :-E. hydropsy, Gr. hydor (water).

English, whisky:-I. usige (wash, water, i. e. water of life).

English, otter (a water-animal) :-Lith. udra, Russ. vuidra, Gr. hydra.

Latin, unda (wave, water) :-E. redound (L. re (d) undare), to roll back in waves. E. abound (L. abundare) to overflow. E. surround (L. super-undare).

English, wash :-AS. wascan, Swed. vasca. From E. water. E. wipe:-G. wisch (rag for wiping), Skr. pra-unch (to wipe), Skr. unch, from venscho, to wipe.

Further, Webster even seems to connect winter and weather with "wet", "water".

While this word-study, as stated, has nothing to do with medicine, nor even with our "piu", may not it serve to remind some of the readers of their "unabridged", gathering dust in a dark corner, and to inspire them, when snowed in on wintry eves, to delve into those wondrous pages, the educational as well as entertainment value of which is, alas, understood by all too few. How few, even, are aware of its value to doctors for purely professional purposes, besides general scientific subjects!

educational institutions were saturated with German "kultur", with materialistic and socialistic philosophies and scientific absurdities. The medical profession, especially, was overstocked with pseudoscientific fads, fakes, and frauds. And, while the general public was not slow in unloading its part of the noxious cargo, the profession still is hugging its delusions, although most of them are dead and putrid, and it is time to take an inventory of stock and make a good housecleaning.

The clinics that Doctor Hirshberg mentions, from that of the brothers Mayo down, have degenerated into mere mechanical laboratory-machines, from which the human, the personal element has been almost wholly eliminated; people going to those clinics are not patients, they are just material, the same conditions prevailing there as those that were so well known in all German clinics for many years. They do, however, all seem to possess superhuman facilities both for self-advertising and for belittling and discrediting the general practitioner. And, inasmuch as nearly all state and many municipal health-boards and state universities maintain laboratories where tests and examinations are made at a nominal cost, I fail to discover a crying need for any more laboratory facilities, especially when one considers the fact that much of the work done in that direction is just a refined and concentrated system of pure graft.

To specify: take Koch's tuberculosis bacillus, now well known to be a universal bacillus that is found in the sputum of 92 percent of healthy persons [?!-ED.] and, therefore, has no diagnostic significance whatever; and, yet, the practice is almost universal to base a diagnosis of tuberculosis upon the finding of that bacillus. The fakery of it might be excused; however, thousands of sick people have gone into untimely graves, because of the depressing effect such an ill-advised diagnosis has made upon a sensitive overwrought organism. The Klebs-Loeffler bacillus, also, is a universal microbe, being found in healthy throats as well as in many acute diseases other than diphtheria, such as, for instance, measles, scarlet-fever, pneumonia, and other infections, while in some of the most virulent cases of diphtheria it can not be found. And still you see many doctors, when they get a case of sore throat, send a swab to a laboratory and base their diagnosis entirely upon the finding. When one considers the fact that there are many kinds of sore throat and that not more than one case in ten is one of true diphtheria, the absurdity of such a method of diagnosis becomes apparent. And then they will charge their patients, many of whom can ill afford such expense, from $5 to $15 for the examination and from $5 to $25 additional for administering antitoxin. And this kind of work is not done by the country practitioner, either, but, by the very elect "specialists" in our centers of population! It is enough to make an honest man furious, for, it is the most stupendous piece of graft that the medical profession ever has been afflicted with.

The Wasserman test for syphilis has proved entirely worthless, while syphilis is such a serious malady that any one basing his diagnosis of its presence or absence on this test not only jeopards his own reputation, but, also the safety and happiness of his patient. The indiscriminate use of x-ray work in surgery prompts the query, whether it would not be better to have a few poorly set fractures and dislocations than to have so many maimed for life by x-ray burns.

I might continue in this vein, however, what I have presented will suffice to illustrate the charges made; and I am not decrying laboratory work, but, merely the abuse of it. The competent physician, however, makes his diagnosis from the clinical evidence, supplementing and verifying this by reliable laboratory tests. And the "woods are full" of such general practitioners, who are safer, surer, and better diagnosticians than your cooperative-cliniclaboratory, ultra-scientific specialists-infads doctors; and they do not have to suck their thumbs, either, in order to reach correct conclusions.

The last part of Doctor Hirshberg's article, where he quotes the SurgeonGeneral, together with his own concluding paragraph, are both unwarranted flings at the civilian physician. I know that during the winter and spring in many, if not all, the military camps the death rate from pneumonia, measles, and cerebrospinal meningitis was appalling. When one considers the fact that those young men were picked for their physical fitness and that there is no acute disease that is so easily

controlled by modern therapeutics as is pneumonia, one can be excused for being thoroughly disgusted with the Army Medical Department.

As for the social diseases, I know that conditions at our state military camp actually were terrible, that the War Medical Department failed miserably in having control over the situation, and that the city authorities of Des Moines confessed their inability to remedy the trouble, that public opinion became aroused to a high pitch and brought so much pressure against the disgrace that the government at Washington had to interfere toward correcting the evil. And I also know that in many other camps conditions were but little better. When our boys were down on the Mexican border, the same conditions prevailed there. The medical department confessed its inability to control it, and General Funston issued a drastic order, giving camp-followers twenty-four hours to leave, those remaining to be shot.

But, the worst load that the medical profession of America is carrying today is, not social diseases, but, just Socialism, a disease of a low order.

Socialism is an assumed name and shows how a world of iniquity can be covered up and glossed over with one euphonious word. The real name for those of that faith (?) was, for many centuries, heathenism. And it is these worthies that are responsible for the propaganda for healthinsurance as well as for the cooperativeclinic agitation.

And what is Socialism? Just envy, the envy of the shiftless against the thrifty. One of the inspired prophets tells us that Satan became envious of some of his fellow angels and started a revolution, for which he was cast out of heaven. But, he managed to gain an entrance into the Garden of Eden, where he seduced Mother Eve, thus introducing evil into the world; and the two forces of good and evil have been contending for the mastery ever since. Also, the sacred historian tells us that Abel was thrifty and prospered, for which he found favor with the Lord, while Cain was not thrifty, and, so, became filled with envy and rose up and slew his brother Abel. So, Cain became the first Socialist (heathen). And the spirit of Socialism of today is exactly the same as that of Cain, from the unlettered bomb-throwing anarchist to the

comes.

However, it seems that, when once a man becomes infected with the malady, the more cultured and educated he gets, the more virulent and vindictive he beThe advent of the Christ, promulgating the doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, was the first serious opposition to Socialism. They talk glibly of this humanitarianism, but, the voice is that of the wolf in the sheepskin, for, all real Socialists are atheists and antichrist, and there can be no real brotherhood without a father. And Christ gave us the rule that "by their works shall ye know them", and, if you will read through a whole library of socialist literature, you will find that almost every page of it breathes envy and threatens revolution.

Compare the work of the Christian organizations of America with organized Socialism, from the great missionary societies, the Red Cross, Y. M. C. Α., K. of C., Y. W. C. A., Christian Endeavor, Salvation Army, the Belgian, Syrian, and Armenian relief associations, and others too numerous to mention. These, since the war began, have expended billions of dollars in humanitarian relief work and have rescued and saved millions of human lives. And what has organized Socialism done? Echo calls back, "What?" They have, however, succeeded in keeping the department of justice at Washington busy the year round. A year ago, their national committee at Chicago voted to raise a million dollars, ostensibly for campaign purposes, but, really to get and keep their members out of jail and to keep them off the gallows.

When a Socialist gets well advanced in the order, so that he can talk loud and long, he becomes an Internationalist, ceasing to be a man, but, becoming a creature without a country and without a soul, hated of God and despised by man. Some of the foremost of their graduates, among others, are Lenine and Trotzky, Sir Roger Casement (executed for treason), and "Big Bill" Hayward (sentenced to the penitentiary).

This war has brought to light in a startling way the complete union of all the evil forces in this world, from the heathenish aristocracies of Europe to the Bolsheviki of Russia, from the Sinn

I. W. Ws.

Some of the world's greatest statesmen have tried to answer the question, What are we fighting for? Some say, to destroy obsolete autocratic governments, some, to make the world safe for democracy, others say, to make the world a decent place to live in; but, every thinking man feels in his inner conscience that none of the answers are satisfactory, for, there might be a righteous autocracy. Abraham was a typical autocrat and he walked and communed with God. On the other hand, a real democracy like the present one in Russia, is just an illustrated de luxe edition of hell on earth.

We surely are not fighting to make the world safe for any such democracies! No, the question is a much larger one, yet, also a very simple one. It is just Christianity against heathenism, or Christ against Satan. And, to illustrate, just compare France and Germany. "By their works shall ye know them". Noble, heroic, selfsacrificing France! All her actions, from the beginning of the war, have been typically those of a Christian nation, while Germany has violated every law in the decalog, in addition to which she has invented fiendish outrages that the author of that code had never dreamed of, atrocities so diabolical that they would make the most accomplished fiends in hell greeneyed with envy. In fact, the head of the Prussian autocracy is the very personification of Satan incarnate.

I close with the prediction that an overruling Providence will not permit the Prussian autocracy to sue for peace until its power is completely destroyed.

Miles, Iowa.

W. A. MARNER.

[We hope, Doctor Marner feels better after having let off steam in this emphatic manner. However, he is in error regarding the frequency and importance or the nonimportance of pathogenic bacteria, such as the bacillus of tuberculosis and that of diphtheria. For one thing, the tubercle-bacillus is not found in the sputum of 92 percent of healthy persons. Evidence of tubercle-bacillus infection has been detected in so high a percentage of healthy persons in certain communities, but, in these instances, the bacilli were imprisoned in the lymph-glands, and were not found in the sputum. Whenever the tubercle