ing envelope to be then and there opened and the name of the successful author announced. (b) All successful essays become the property of the Association. (c) The medal shall be conferred, and honorable mention made of the two other essays considered worthy of this distinction, at a general meeting of the Association. (d) The competition is to be confined to those who at the time of entering the competition, as well as at the time of conferring the medal, shall be members of the American Medical Association. (e) The competition for the medal will be closed three months before the next annual meeting of the American Medical Association, and no essays will be received after March 1, 1898. Competitors will address their essays to the undersigned. 14 Edgewood Ave., Atlanta, Ga. -Journal of the American Medical Association. Reciprocity in Medical Licensure. Dr. William Warren Potter, of Buffalo, president of the National Confederation of State Medical Examining and Licensing Boards, chose this for the subject of his annual address at the seventh annual meeting of that body held at Philadelphia, May 31, 1897. He first paid tribute to the memory of Dr. Perry H. Millard, of St. Paul, then, in an introduction, reviewed some of the essential points of progress that had been made in State control of medical practice, and, finally, considered his subject. THE PROBLEM.-The most important question now to be discussed pertains to the interstate exchange of licenses, and every friend of State control is interested in establishing this principle. It is one of the objects this confederation is laboring to accomplish, but a most difficult problem for solution. A national registration bureau is desirable where legally qualified and reputable physicians may be recorded-physicians whose names appear on this register to be allowed to pass from State to State in the enjoyment of all privileges pertaining to the practice of medicine. Those chiefly agitating the question of reciprocity, however, are specialists who desire to spend profitable vacations at summer resorts and do not relish the idea of taking State examinations in the localities chosen for their holiday practice. Another class of men, compelled by circum stances to change residence, is more deserving of sympathy; they take the examinations uncomplainingly. Shall a State require of its own citizens a compliance with its practice laws while granting to thrifty summer specialists exception from their operation? As the State laws forbid discrimination against the inhabitants of each, there is both a legal and a moral bar to such exemptions. OBSTACLES TO RECIPROCITY.-Equality of standards for admission to the study and practice of medicine is the only enduring basis on which reciprocity can be established. When the several States adopt a uniform level of preliminaries; a uniform period of collegiate training, including uniformity of methods of teaching, and, finally, an absolute similarity in the methods of conducting State examinations and granting licenses, then reciprocity will be equitably and permanently established. It is important for the State medical examiners to come to an agreement on these several points, that they may act with intelligence on a common platform. The State imposes a post-graduate examination, and none should be admitted to it who are not holders of diplomas legally obtained from registered and recognized colleges. It is understood, of course, that there must be established a uniform system of recognizing and registering medical schools in the several States. THE SOLUTION LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS.-The remedies lie in legislative enactments. Those who most loudly and persistently demand interstate indorsement aim their criticisms at examining boards, whereas these have nothing to do with the question. The statutes in States that have established licensure, prohibit interstate exchange except between such as have equality of standards. The demands of the restless and migratory doctors must be taken to the State legislative halls. Meanwhile, the members of this confederation may assist in bringing the matter to a more speedy conclusion by acquainting their legislatures with the difficulties to be overcome, and by urgently recommending the adoption of such amendments to existing laws as will meet and remove the present defects. Great care must be exercised, however, in the preparation of amendments; the State laws are for the public weal, reciprocity is only for the few. Amendments to existing statutes should be proposed only through State medical examining boards or State medical societies, that are familiar with defects and best know the remedies needed. When legislatures can be persuaded to turn a deaf ear to all amendments that are proposed outside of official sources, it will be a happy day for the friends of State license. The object of this discussion is to divert further criticism of the delay of reciprocity into the proper channel. If legislators could be made to appreciate the fact that public health interests are involved in the question of State license; that every attempt to weaken the principle is a blow at public sanitation; and that higher standards of medical education mean better health for the people, then, perhaps, it would be easier to obtain and maintain the necessary laws to protect the commonwealths agaist that kind of ignorance, superstition, or super-refinement, that always lurks in the invironment of quackery. Power of Topical Blood Supply in Gonorrhoea: Cases I to XXIII. BY THOS. B. KEYES, M. D., Surgeon and Gynecologist to the Bethesda Free Dispensary, Chicago. The primary treatment which I employ is to fill a two-quart fountain syringe with a warm solution of bichloride of mercury, 1 to 40,000, and irrigate the urethra thoroughly, using a No. 9 soft rubber catheter, going slowly and allowing the water to pass by its side so as not to push the virus farther back. The urethra is irrigated about one or two inches farther back than the inflammation goes. The fountain syringe is again filled, this time with a warm weak solution of sulphate of zinc (14 grains to 2 quarts of water), and the urethra again irrigated. After having thoroughly treated the urethra by the irrigations above described, I now fill a Keyes-Ultzman's urethral syringe with bovinine, and inserting this well back of the inflammation, gradually inject, and withdraw the syringe, at the same time. With most cases one such treatment is sufficient. The disease is aborted, and no discharge or soreness remains; the bovinine acting both as a soothing balm, and to feed and build up the lesions of the mucous surface which have taken place. In no instance has any complication set in after the above treatment, and in those cases where complications had existed, they quickly subsided under the treatment with the usual hygienic precautions. SUMMARY OF TWENTY-THREE CASES TREATED AS ABOVE. In sixteen cases: eleven first attacked 1 to 5 days before treatment; and five, second attack 2 to 4 days before treatment; there were no complications, and the cure was accomplished with one treatment. One case with phimosis, 18 days standing, cured with four treatments. One with chancroid, second attack 13 days before; cured with three treatments. Two with balanitis, attacked 7 days before; cured with three treatments. One with ardor urinæ and chordee, of 9 days standing; cured with three treatments. Two with lymphangitis, cured with two and three treatments respectively. CHANCROID ULCERATION: CASE NO. XXIV. From among particularly bad cases of chancroid-the worst I have ever seen-I report the following: Miss M. W. had treated herself for about two months, when the ulceration began to extend rapidly, and when I saw her the whole right labia majora, and to the extent of about one inch into the vagina, was deeply ulcerated. After putting on a bichloride of mercury pack for about thirty minutes, I gave her some bovinine, which she applied faithfully, and in two weeks the sore was entirely healed. Lime Water as a Disinfectant for Linen and Cotton Fabrics.--Beyer has tested different methods employed for the disinfection of bed linen and underclothing. The ordinary methods by boiling are not suited to these articles, as the presence of blood, pus and feces causes an ineradicable stain if a high temperature is used. Soaking the garments in solutions of various soaps for one or two days failed in every instance to kill cholera, typhoid and pyogenic organisms which were mixed with the feces with which the garments were smeared. In some cases the germs were killed when the solution containing the linen was kept at 50 degrees C. for a few hours. With lime water the results were much better. Sample garments which were soaked in this solution for twenty-four hours were found to be sterilized. An equally good result was obtained in a hospital where about one-half a cubic meter of soiled linen was soaked in lime water for forty-eight hours, or for twenty-four hours, if the clothing was first rinsed with lime water and then placed in a fresh solution. The lime water does not injure linen or cotton goods, but shrinks woolen to such an extent as to prevent its use.-Fortschritte der Medicin. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. F. E. DANIEL, M. D., Editor. S. E. HUDSON, M. D., Managing Editor. EDITORIAL STAFF: PROF. J. E. THOMPSON, M. D., Texas Medical College, Galveston; Surgery. PROF. DAVID CERNA, M. D., Texas Medical College, Galveston; Therapeutics. Published Monthly at Austin, Texas, by Drs. Daniel and Hudson. Subscription price $2.00 a year in advance. City. Eastern Agents: The Monihan-Fairchild special Agency, 24 Park Place, New York Official organ of the West Texas Medical Association, the Houston District Medica Association, the Austin District Medical Society, Brazos, Valley Medical Association the Galveston County Medical Society, and several others. A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. Well, the agony is over. The Texas legislature finally adjourned without passing any practice act, thus again disappointing quite a number of physicians of the State. The Texas Medical News grows very angry over it, and abuses the Speaker of the House in unmeasured terms, and unjustly blames him, we think, for the failure. The News calls him "traitor" and all sort of hard names, and alleges that the speaker "promised Dr. Field that he would recognize him to call up the bill," and didn't do it. Well, its no fight of ours, the News and Mr. Speaker for it. It is right funny tho' how our genial contemporary swells with wrath and threatens Mr. Speaker with the "influence" of the doctors! The "influence" does not seem, so far, to have been an available quantity,--at least in securing medical legislation. Dr. McLaughlin may be able, however, to crystalize it into a bolt of wrath with which to smite Mr. Dashiel. We'll see later. The writer cannot help thinking that after all, it is best for the profession that the act did not pass. I believe had it done so the time would have come when all would have regretted the inconsiderate step,-recognizing homeopathy. It was inconsiderate, and hastily done; and done too by a mere tythe of the medical profession. There were less than one hundred mem |