friends will not forget our patience and long suffering (nor their patients and their long suffering) when they go out in quest of cash, or when they sell their cotton, cows, calves, or when they collect any cash (this is the "c" c'son, see?) but will promptly divide with us.

Heaped in the hollow of his [our] desk

The doctor's [the Journal's] bills are laid.

He'll [we'll] rustle 'mongst his patrons [our subscribers] till

The last darned one is paid;

The farmer [the doctor] and his men are paid,

And in their eyes he sees [we see]

-Speculation? No; but cash,

To pay, in lieu of peas!

[Back number revised.]

[We do not want any peas in ours, if you p'ease.-ED.]

AS OTHERS SEE US.

"The TEXAS MEDICAL JOURNAL is the very best journal I have seen in the West."-DR. W. C. BOTELER, Kansas City.

Dr. W. B. Outten, the well known Chief Surgeon of the great Missouri Pacific Railway Company, says: "I am always well pleased to receive the 'RED STAR of TEXAS.' It is strong, vigorous and aggressive, and to my conception-thoroughly wide awake and progressive." [That's the size of it.-ED.]

Dr. I. N. Love, whom everybody knows, says: "Let me congratulate you upon the continued attractiveness of your JOURNAL. It makes me weary to see some of the medical journals that are wafted through the mails, that are better adapted to fill the wastebasket. Doctors all over the country see a journal succeed, and they fancy they can go and do likewise. They fail to realize that it takes journalistic instinct-talent,-hard work, and the expenditure of a great deal of money to make a journal succeed, as you can no doubt well testify."

[It is related of Goldsmith that he was envious of the success of anybody, in any line, and was vain enough to say that what any one else could do, he could do. He laid a wager with Garrick that he could perform an acrobatic feat that he had seen done at a circus, and actually attempted it. He failed, of course, and got his shins skinned for his pains. similar foolhardiness and failures in the attempt to establish a medical journal "to fill a long-felt want."-ED.]

We have seen some

One of the largest drug firms of the United States, a long-time

patron of the Red Back, writes: "We think your JOURNAL one of the best of its kind, being so bright and original, and so widely circulated throughout Texas." [A representative of this firm, who traveled through Texas, informed us that he saw the Red Back everywhere he went.-ED.]

Prof. Geo. Dock, M. D., of University of Michigan, in renewing his subscription, writes: "Please continue to send the Red Back. I enjoy the reading about the good work going on in Texas, and hope you will keep it going."

A GREAT SANITARIAN ON SPINAL CONCUSSION.

In such a duel as is presented by the contest between railway surgeons of the country, in behalf of their corporations, on the one hand, acting in self-defence, as in some cases where their very existence is threatened by the enormity of the demands made by the rapacity of claimants and their counsel, legal and medical, and by claimants represented by distinguished and able members of both professions, we must expect to see sturdy blows given and taken, and we must look for the strongest and ablest presentation of the side of the claimant, who will not consent to surrender without a struggle, and a strong one at that.

The publication in the Texas Medical Journal and the Galveston News of the paper entitled "Railway Spine," read by the editor of this journal before the National Association of Railway Surgeons at the Galveston meeting last May, and an article by Dr. D. R. Wallace, the veteran surgeon of Waco, Texas, in the TEXAS SANITARIAN, advocating similar views, has drawn out the State Health Officer of the great State of Texas, Dr. R. M. Swearingen, of Austin, a capital good fellow, and a physician of high character and standing in his State, who assails the authors of the papers, and the views presented with great vehemence. He regards the great body of railway surgeons as under the domination of the chief surgeons of their respective roads.

I quote his language, speaking of the more prominent of the chief surgeons of the National Association of Railway Surgeons:

"There are others, we think, who are inspired by less praiseworthy objects, and in this class will be found some of the strongest men among them. They are the 'chiefs (not all, however) of the hospital departments' for great railway systems. These are the men who formulate rules for the guidance of subordinates, furnish the schedule of charges to be made for the ser

vices rendered by them to employes, pay them their pitiful fees, mould their opinions in harmony with the new dispensation, teach them how to be experts in all manner of railway injuries, particularly the railway spine, and, above all things, to store their minds with useful knowledge, when called upon to give testimony in suits for damages.

"I do not mean to convey the impression that the subordinate surgeons thus taught and drilled will ever intentionally bear false witness, or in any manner do violence to the most stainless conscience. The object of that corporation school of surgery is to organize a corps of doctors who think alike; who believe Gross and Erichsen teach dangerous and mischievous doctrines; and who are always ready for duty when called upon to give pointers to attorneys, or give evidence in courts of justice.

"Dr. W. B. Outten, of St. Louis, one of the chiefs, and an ex-president, I think, of the Association, occupies a high seat in this modern school of surgery, and might be designated as the Professor of "Theory and Practice." In the Galveston News of May 11th, he gives some racy theories on the causes of railway concussions."

Dr. W. B. Outten, chief surgeon of the Missouri Pacific railway system, especially falls under his malediction, as do other prominent gentlemen.

I do not believe that Dr. Swearingen, one of the good fellows of the Medico-Legal Society, has in the past established a great reputation as a medical witness in Texas, in railway damage cases. If he has done so, it has escaped my observation. Nor do I think his motive is to bring forward his name as a future aspirant in the courts of Texas, in favor of mulcting improperly and exorbitantly the railways of a State which owes so much to railways for its wonderful growth, progress, and development as Texas does.

Dr. Swearingen is one of the ablest of the sanitarians of the South and West. It is due to his magnificent personality that he has created for the State of the Lone Star a sanitary system as unique as it is excellent. On that he is high authority. It does not disparage his high character as a sanitarian to say that he is not regarded as an authority in damage cases.

Will he oblige the surgeons of the country, and the bench and the bar, with a definition of "concussion of the spine," so that the average juryman or judge will be able to recognize it when he sees it? What has he to say of the criticisms upon Erichsen's definition in the article he assails? What of the opinion of Dr. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans, there quoted? Is there such a thing, Dr. Swearingen, as "concusssion of the spine uncomplicated by external lesion of the vertebral column?"

We must be more cautious of impugning the motive of railway surgeons or of railway counsel.

Accidents on railway trains sometimes fracture and break the spinal column. The case cited of a fractured or broken spine of the section hand injured near Manor, Texas, in charge of Dr. Gregg, is one of the rare cases of this kind.

No one can defend such an order, in such a case, as was given, but the case and the order are quite foreign to the discussion of cases of "concussion of the spine uncomplicated by external lesion of the vertebral column."

Should any steps be taken by honorable surgeons towards arresting the recognized evil of fraudulent claims, constantly presented against railways, under the class designated as railway spine or spinal concussion?

It is fortunate for the new Section on Railway Surgery of the Medico-Legal Society that it is as open to the surgeon of the railway corporation as to the attorneys or surgeons of the claim

ant.

More of the surgeons of the Medico-Legal Society are probably not surgeons of railways than those who are. And this is true of the legal side also. Is it not time to provide remedies for acknowledged evils, before they become unbearable? I am obliged to the great Texas sanitarian for his assault, if it will serve to open discussion on an evil so momentous and important as railway spine has grown to be.

Dr. Swearingen's criticisms upon railway surgeons, their intelligence, honor, and motives, are without question ill-timed, not well considered, and should be withdrawn.

It is a question higher than the personal motives of men or of individuals. The evil is colossal, universally recognized, and a scandal and disgrace of our civilization. How to remedy it is well worthy the serious and thoughtful inquiry of every honorable surgeon in the land.-N. Y. Medico-Legal Journal (advance sheets), September, 1894, Clark Bell, Esq., editor.

Book Notices.

AN ILLUSTATED DICTIONARY OF MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ALLIED SCIENCES. Including the Pronunciation, Accentuation, Derivation, and Definition of the Terms Used in Medicine and the Allied Sciences. By George M. Gould, A. M., M. D., Author of "The Student's Medical Dictionary;" "12,000 Med

ical Words Pronounced and Defined;" "The Meaning and Method of Life," Editor of the Medical News; President, 1893-94, American Academy of Medicine; one of the Ophthalmologists of the Philadelphia Hospital. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. In one compact, large octavo valume of 1633 pages, bound so as to lie open at any page. Prices, full sheep, net, $10.00; half Morocco, net, $10.00; half Russia, with Thumb Index, net, $12.00.

In calling the attention of our readers to this superb lexicon, we feel that we cannot do better than to reproduce the following from the review in the University Medical Magazine, July, 1894:

"The present work is not a revision or a compilation of a previous work, but is entirely new, and is the result of a careful gleaning by the author and corps of assistants of the living liter ature of the day. The objects which the author has sought to accomplish were, briefly: 1. The inclusion of the many thousands of new words and terms that have been introduced into medicine during the last few years. 2. To give the most complete epitomization of the words of the older and authoritative lexicographers. 3. To include all the more commonly used terms in biology. 4, Keeping the size and purpose of the book well in mind, to give it an encyclopedic character, not only by supplying the usual pronunciation, derivation, and definition of words, but also by showing their logical relations, their bearings, and their practical importance for the worker in literary or clinical medicine. 5. When advisable, to give a pictorial illustration. 6. To cast the influence of the work, in doubtful or disputed cases, in favor of a more consistent and phoretic spelling. 7. To indicate the best pronunciation of words by the simplest and most easily understood method. In scanning through the book with these in mind, we can but say that the work seems to have been well and thoroughly accomplished. The spelling of hemorrhage, orthopedic, etc., with a single "e" instead of with the diphthong will probably seem to some a little radical. It is, however, in line with progress, with the teaching of the leading philologists, and with the most recent and authoritative popular dictionaries. In addition to furnishing concise and accurate definitions and pronunciations, upwards of one hundred tables have been included, in which is classified an immense number of facts collected from various sources. Many of these have been prepared especially for this work, and are not to be found elsewhere. Space will permit us to mention but a few of them. We note a complete table of arteries, giving the origin, distribution and