victims of the dire consequences of adenoids are speedily restored to health, to normal vigor, and to the use of those special functions, the deprivation or impairment of the use of any of which results in so much personal discomfort. EDITOR'S NOTES. The Tri-State Medical Association of Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee will meet in Memphis, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, November 14, 15 and 16, 1899. These meetings are always fraught with a great deal of interest to the physicians of the adjacent States, and the attendance upon them is constantly growing larger. Addresses this year will be delivered upon Medicine, by Frank A. Jones, M.D. Surgery, by E. A. Neely, M.D. Materia Medica and Therapeutics, by Edwin Williams, M.D. Ophthalmology and Otology, by E. C. Ellett, M.D. Laryngology, by Richmond McKinney, M.D. Dr. Wm. T. Braun, of Memphis, has returned home after taking a postgraduate course in New York City. The Hippocratic Oath is now being sent to the physicians of the United States by that aggressive concern, the Arlington Chemical Company, of Yonkers, N. Y. This is a work of art, done in excellent lithography, and is accompanied by a reprint of an article by Dr. A. M. Trawick, of Nashville, published in the May issue of the MONTHLY, which has for its text a consideration of the Hippocratic Oath, with the author's conclusions drawn therefrom. The St. Louis Courier of Medicine has been revived, and is under the charge of C. R. Dudley, M.D., Editor-in-Chief, with a corps of associates. The first number of the journal presents a creditable appearance. John V. Hamilton, M.D., Acting Assistant Surgeon of the U. S. Army, died at Matanzas, Cuba, on July 26, 1899, of chronic nephritis. Dr. Hamilton was a graduate of the Memphis Hospital Medical College, class of '93, and was appointed to the medical corps of the army from Mississippi. He had been in the service about a year. Medical Education in Kentucky. The State Board of Health of Kentucky gives notice to all concerned that it will hereafter refuse to recognize, as a basis for certificates to practice medicine, diplomas from any medical college which does not, in good faith, comply with the requirements of the American Medical College Association, the American Institute of Homeopathy and the American Eclectic Medical College Association, respectively, both as to preliminary education and four years' course of study. This means that no school that graduates three-year students will be recognized in this State hereafter. Miss Adele E. Shaw, of Neptune, Tenn., who has twice recently contributed to our pages, requests that we state to our readers that she is not a doctor of medicine, for since the publication of her articles she has been the frequent recipient of letters and literature of various kinds addressed to her as an M.D. Dr. R. J. Baze, of Mason, Tex., an alumnus of the Memphis Hospital Medical College, is, we learn from the Austin Daily Tribune, enjoying no little professional success in the thriving city of his adoption. The International Conference on Prostitution and Venereal Diseases will be held in Brussels, Belgium, September 4, 1899, and consecutive days. The Winkley Artificial Limb Company, of Minneapolis, Minn., has for its President a gentleman who, as State Senator, representing the city of Minneapolis during the past legislative session, solely through his personal work, it is said, secured the defeat of several bills introduced with the sole purpose of breaking down the present State medical code and allowing quackery of all kinds State recognition, license and protection. This in itself speaks for the strictly professional methods of the house, which, combined with the excellence of their product, accounts, in a large measure, for this company's unqualified success. Dr. Everett E. Ellis, formerly of Dyersburg, Tenn., has located in Hot Springs, Ark. We wish him every success in his new field. The American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will hold its twelfth annual meeting in the Assembly room of the Denison House, Indianapolis, Ind., Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, September 19, 20 and 21, 1899. BOOK REVIEWS. A Textbook of the Diseases of the Nose and Throat. By D. Braden Kyle, M.D., Clinical Professor of Laryngology and Rhinology, Jefferson Medical College, etc., etc. With 175 illustrations, 23 of them in colors. Price: Cloth, $4; sheep or half- Morocco, $5 net. W. B. Saunders, 925 Walnut street, Philadelphia. In no special line of medicine or surgery have Americans gained more renown than in that of rhino-laryngology; for this science has practically been developed in the United States; but in none of the various specialties has the textbook literature of this country been so deficient. Indeed, since the publication of Bosworth's magnificent work in two volumes, now generally accepted as a classic, there has been no notable addition to the works upon the diseases of the nose and throat. True, we have had various hybrid attempts at textbook making, in the shape of conglomerate volumes, which consider, all in a heap, the dis eases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, or else the ear, nose and throat, but no adequate effort has been made to supply an existing demand for a work devoted exclusively to a consideration of the diseases of the nose and throat. Therefore we have right gladly welcomed Dr. Kyle's book. This book might be criticised in various particulars were we disposed to cavil, but who is there that cannot find fault with anything from the pen of man? Even the holy writ does not escape condemnation. We cannot, however, avoid quarreling with the author for his brevity in many places. More space might have been accorded the treatment of various conditions. Such an important and successful operation as that of Asch for the correction of deviated septa should not have been dismissed with a mere line, in order to give place to a detailed description of the author's own operation for like conditions. But this is only a minor matter, and judging from the character of the book it was not written for advanced workers in the diseases of the nose and throat, but for students and some general practitioners who desire a slight knowledge of these disorders. In this respect it is decidedly the very best work that we have as yet seen. The classification of diseases is good, there is just enough pathology given, and the illustrations are in almost every instance excellent. And while the author occasionally permits his preference for a particular instrument designed by himself to crop out, which is perfectly legitimate, he is to be congratulated at not having filled his book with cuts and descriptions of devices of his own, which in most instances are usually neither useful nor ornamental; also we delight in finding that he has made his own personality largely secondary, and has not relapsed into a habit, common with some writers, of frequently making use of the personal pronouns "my" and "I." The Hygiene of Transmissible Diseases: Their Causation, Modes of Dis semination, and Methods of Prevention. By A. C. Abbot, M.D., Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology, and Director of the Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Pennsylvania. Illustrated. Price, $2 net. W. B. Saunders, 925 Walnut street, Philadelphia. After all, the key-note in the study of disease is its prevention, and it is the order of the day that medical students and practitioners should keep abreast with all progress made in modern preventive medicine. The most potent preventive is general hygiene, and the theory of hygiene is based upon sanitation. In this book Dr. Abbott has considered in a most thorough manner the whole subject of general hygiene as applied in the prevention of transmissible diseases. In fact, his work comprises a study of the causation, modes of dissemination and methods of prevention of this class of diseases. From introduction to finis the book reads with an unusual degree of charm and interest, and the high position occupied by the author in the field to which this work pertains sets upon its teachings an authoritative stamp of reliability. The book is well illustrated, and the typographical work is exceedingly good. Over One Thousand Prescriptions, or Favorite Formulæ, of Various Teachers, Authors and Practicing Physicians. The whole being carefully indexed, and including most of the newer remedies. Cloth, 300 pages, postpaid, $1. The Illustrated Medical Journal Co., Detroit, Mich. This is the second edition of this handy manual, and is just from the press. It has nearly 100 pages of new matter added. As the practical worth of this kind of a book consists in its having a handy and complete index, this book has it, for some sixteen pages of small type are devoted to this object, and some of the lines have as many as twenty different references to as many different formule; this would go to show that there are about 2000 different prescriptions given in the volume. In other words, taking the price of the book into consideration ($1), it would argue that there are furnished some twenty different prescriptions for one cent. We notice that many of the newer remedies are among the prescriptions, thus bringing the treatment of many of the diseases down to date. Both old and new writers of both home and foreign countries are represented among its formulæ. Blank pages are frequently introduced, so that a handy place is furnished for recording any new prescription that one might wish to preserve. The printed index will index all such penciled additions if care is taken to write them opposite a page with a formula for similar disease; this would then save the bother of indexing the penciled additions. A Textbook of Pharmacology and Therapeutics: Or, The Action of Drugs in Health and Disease. For the Use of Students and Practitioners of Medicine. By Arthur R. Cushny, M.A., M.D., Aberd. Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the University of Michigan, Medical Department, Ann Arbor. In one handsome octavo volume of 728 pages, with 47 engravings. Price, cloth, $3.75 net. Lea Brothers & Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1899. ness. So much in modern therapeutics—at least, in the every-day use of drugs-is irra tional that we would be prone to condemn the indiscriminate use of drugs were it not for the fact that this action in practitioners is condoned, in that the therapeutic range of most drugs, especially the newer ones, is claimed to be so wide. Therefore every work that tends to teach the scientific and efficacious use of drugs-rational therapeutics-should be well received. In this book of Cushny's we have a treatise which is commendable for its simplicity and thorough As stated in a preliminary notice of his work: "The author bridges the gap between the fundamental medical sciences, such as physiology and chemistry, and clinical medicine. He builds the principles of therapeutics on these unquestionably firm foundations, and details the special applications of each drug in disease." Students will find that in this book there is a reason why every drug mentioned possesses a given property, and they are therefore enabled to grasp its therapeutic action. Everything is plainly set forth. In order to render the work all the more complete, a list of the various pharmaceutical preparations and a bibliography are added. Better to hunt in fields for health unbought The wise for cure on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.-Dryden. MEMPHIS MEDICAL MONTHLY. VOL. XIX MEMPHIS, OCTOBER, 1899. No. 10 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. THE PRESENT STATUS OF MEDICINE. CLINICAL EXPERIENCE vs. LABORATORY RESEARCH.* BY FRANK A. JONES, M.D. MEMPHIS. Chief of Clinic, East End Dispensary; Demonstrator Physical Diagnosis, etc., To every question debatable there are two sides, a negative and an affirmative; to every issue pertaining to things material there are two forces, a constructive and a destructive. After every storm there is a calm. These three axioms may well be applied when we view the field of medicine as it exists today, when we review the past and when we contemplate the future. Truly the numerous theories and fads as regards the etiology and pathology which come before us daily in the thousands of medical journals and textbooks constitute a subject most debatable. The conflict waxes hot between the clinician, the constructionist, the pathologist, the microscopist, the laboratory wise man and the destructionist. The pathologist creates the storm center; his wind blows, his thunder rolls, his lightning flashes, all the world stands amazed, confused, confounded and dumbfounded at his wisdom. After the storm the clinician represents the calm. He quietly gathers together what he wishes to accept out of the wreck. * Read before Tri-State Medical Association (Miss., Ark. & Tenn.), Memphis, December 21, 1898. VOL. XIX-28 433 |