NEXT door to my office is an osteopathist with an obsession.

I never would have known anything about the obsession if I hadn't been asked to take an oral message for him from a big, fat woman with a rain-barrel voice, who couldn't get at him one day because he happened to be out. That was how I became acquainted with him. It was something about her silly old bones and a future date. She was in a good deal of a hurry.

He didn't seem a bad sort, and he hadn't any bad habits-aside from osteopathybut as I came to know him better I noticed a pallid nervousness, now and then, of a morning, such as usually associates itself with frivolity overnight.

One afternoon

he came in and asked what I was going to have on that evening. Nothing but clothes, I told him. Then he asked me to dine with him.

His obsession came out after dinner.

He was a Belgian by birth, and evidently of good stock, but back somewhere in his past there was something that made residence at home inconvenient. He told me his mother had frankly expressed a hope that she might be able to forget him, and his father had given him fifty thousand francs as the price of his absence, but had not dropped him altogether. His English was good, unless he rose to excitement, and then it was piquantly touched with French, as once, when he came in somewhat disturbed, with the information that he had just received a rather stiff letter from his fadr-merely indicating the r.

After his departure from Belgium he had roamed the world a while, just looking about for something to interest him. It It was toward the latter end of his money that he had drifted into Chicago and tied up with osteopathy for what he could make by it.

"It's a fairly decent game." he said. "Massage and imagination is about all

there is to it. Never did anyone any harm, so far as I know, and often does a bit of good. You see, when people come to us, they come because they believe in it, and that means more than half a recovery even when there really is something the matter. And the kind of handling they get is good for most of them, anyway. Oh, it's fair enough. I've no scruples about the money." It was in his wandering days that he accumulated his obsession.

In Port Said he had met an Englishman who had been in Syria long enough to begin to doubt whether there was a God. They knocked about a few weeks in company, and finally turned up in Damascus, at a hotel where the Englishman found some friends from London. It was arranged that they would all take horse and go out to the country the next day, to see some vineyards they had been told about.

The weather was so thoroughly incandescent next morning that he was of two minds about going, and finally told them he would follow later if he freshened up. They rode away and left him there.

After a little, he felt lonely and nervous, and concluded to go.

He had ridden two or three miles out of the city, when of a sudden his horse stopped short, in a violent fit of trembling, and tried to turn around. There was nothing in sight to cause a fright. In fact, the view was singularly empty.

"It's the heat," he thought, and tried to turn into the shadow of a great tree near by.

But the horse refused, and began plunging and reaching for the bit, and finally whirled with a snort and bolted back the way they had come.

After a half-mile run and a little soothing the horse submitted to management and went on quietly enough until they came to the same big tree, and then, with a shuddering scream, he reared and almost fell over backward, and turned once more..

This was too much. My friend raised his riding crop and brought it down with a bang between the horse's ears, and stunned him stony.

Then he happened to glance toward the

tree.

It was there.

A Syrian in a dingy green robe and a dirty white headdress stood filthily eating a piece of fruit. A Syrian unsubstantial, with a pale, blotched face, and eyes of inexpressible meaning, making with his free hand gestures of loathsome invitation, and backward calling motions of the head.

"For God's sake," said he

It was gone. There was no one in sight. Yet all the place was open.

That was enough for one morning. He roused his horse, and galloped back to the hotel in a state of pure fear.

Gradually the strange thing faded from his mind. He had almost forgotten it, when one night in Japan, as he lay in a light and restless sleep, there by his bed stood the Syrian, making backward becks of invitation with the head, and reaching toward him with foul hands.

He felt a powerful repulsion, and projected it toward the figure so forcefully that it wavered like a thing of smoke, and receded, only to come back again, and reach out those fearful hands, and beckon with its head.

All night long he lay there, unable to sleep, unable to waken, and fought the phantom with all the loathing and terror of his will, until the morning found him suddenly awake, and in collapse.

That was the first time. Two or three months later it came again, and again he fought that all-night fight, awakening at daybreak weak to the point of fainting.

"I have it often now," he said. "Once every two or three weeks it comes to plague me. Words will never tell the horror of those nights or the haunting weakness of the days that follow them." "What is it?"

"I don't know. I wish to God I did, because then I might know how to free myself."

He studied the table a moment in silence. "Do you know," said he, looking up at me, "I have a feeling that if ever it touches me with those obscene hands, I will die. That is my fight always-not to let it touch

me.

"Lately I know when it is coming, and then I walk the streets, or do anything I can to keep myself awake. I have sometimes kept awake almost a week for fear if it misses me one night it will come the next, and keep on coming until I have to see it."

"That's what gives you the shakes in the morning now and then, isn't it?" I asked.

"You've noticed that, have you?" said he. "Yes, that's what gives me the shakes."

"Keep away from Syria," he added. “It is an accursed country. It has been an astral dumping ground for unknown centuries. You'll miss nothing by staying away, and you don't know what you'll bring away with you if you go. Look at me."

The report of the Commission on Economy and Efficiency on the subject of The Need of a National Budget together with the Hearings before the Sub-Committee on the House-Committee on Appropriations is highly suggestive of the present unscientific methods in use for the determination of government appropriations. The

need for a national budget is well discussed in the report and should convince every thinking person that for developing the economies of the nation, a budget is a prerequisite. There is every reason for calling the attention of state and municipal officers to the rational advance in policy that has been suggested by the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency.

INFANT FEEDING. By Clifford G. Grulee, A.M.,

M.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Rush Medical College (in affiliation with the University of Chicago); Attending Pediatrician to Cook County, Provident, and St. Bernard's Hospitals, and to the Home for Destitute Crippled Children, Chicago; Associate Pediatrician to the Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago. Illustrated. Octavo, pp. 276. Philadelphia and London, W. B. Saunders Company, 1912.

While it is generally recognized that the scientific principles of Infant Feeding have received more attention in Germany than in the United States, there has been no single volume compiling the results of the German investigation that is comparable with this work by Dr. Grulee. It is regrettable that the author has such a low opinion of American work and ignores all that has been done in this country. The book is characterized by an egotistic dogmatism which possibly is due to the fact that the book is based upon a course of lectures given to the students of Rush Medical College.

The writings of Finkelstein, Czerny, Keller, Meyer, Orgler and Freund form the basis of the volume. We commend this book unhesitatingly for the wealth of material it contains, though feeling that the reader must exercise discretion in accepting many of the statements that the writer has made without reservation. The book is divided into four parts:

lack ability to read German this book will be especially valuable, but a reading of it would be advantageous to all interested in infant feeding.

A MANUAL OF PERSONAL HYGIENE. Proper Living upon a Physiologic Basis. By Eminent Specialists. Edited by Walter L. Pyle, M.D.; Assistant Surgeon to the Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged. 12mo of 516 pages; illustrated. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1912. Cloth, $1.50 net.

The fifth edition of Pyle's book, besides the complete revision of the previous edition, contains a very valuable chapter of food adulteration and deterioration by Dr. Wiley. The value of the book is distinctly enhanced through the addition of this chapter. It represents a book which may be recommended without hesitation to the laity, inasmuch as it is not laden with technical phraseology.

PRINCIPLES OF HYGIENE. For Students, Physicians and Health Officers. By D. H. Bergey, M.D., First Assistant, Laboratory of Hygiene, and Assistant Professor of Bacteriology, University of Pennsylvania. Fourth edition, thoroughly revised. Octavo of 529 pages; illustrated. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1912. Cloth, $3.00

net.

Hygiene is rapidly progressing, and advances follow so rapidly that a new edition

Part II. Nourishment of the Infant on the Breast.

Part III. Artificial Feeding.

Part IV. Nutrition in Other Conditions. Some of the terminology will undoubtedly strike the American physicians as being unusual, but this is merely the result of following Finkelstein's nomenclature. Some criticism may be made of the entire neglect of the bacteria! theories of infection and the endeavor of the author to make use of synonyms to correlate the present terminology with that which he has used. For those who are unable to study abroad or

is especially noticeable in the chapters dealing with water and sewage purification. The chapter on Immunity includes the most modern views and is thoroughly abreast of the scientific data available upon this subject. While the present edition has about 25 pages fewer than the third edition, the material contained is by no means abbreviated.

Dr. Bergey has written a practical manual that deals with hygienic principles. It is a most valuable text-book and most serviceable as an index of modern hygiene, such as would interest all health officers, sanitarians and prophylactic physicians.

COOPERATION IN THIS

cease;

How fortunate for us that every busy, bustling year of our lives closes with a short festival of peace. It is a time that invites us to lay aside the competitions and rivalries that have made us keen and cunning, to forget the injuries that have stung our pride and the enmities that have pricked our ambition, and to join with all the children in those innocent delights that make child life beautiful and winsome.

The challenge of childhood is the real motive of our Christmas holidays. That man or woman who cannot enjoy recrea

-LONGFELLow.

tion as a child among children is not fit for the more arduous responsibilities of maturity.

In these closing days of the year, if we love peace and gentleness, we will forget for a while our business and political affiliations-we will affiliate with Young America, the strongest and liveliest party in the whole field of our national life. It is the peace party, too, and we will do well to get an inspiration from our young leaders. while we have the chance. The children have many things to teach us-things that we may have forgotten years ago!

A FEW years ago the overtrained nurse was receiving a great deal of gratuitous attention, and many things, most of them unnecessary, were said and written to prove that the nurse was in danger of receiving too much preparation for her work. We hear little of the overtrained nurse to-day; it is the overstrained nurse who is being investigated, and for whom a plea is made in order that her life may be made more tolerable and more useful, as well by a reduction of her hours of labor, improvement in her diet and betterment of her surroundings.

Although this evil exists in greater or less degree in all countries, Germany seems to be one of the gravest offenders, as is well shown in the recent address of Dr. Hecker before the Cologne Congress. He states that the normal day's duty for nurses in German hospitals was, in 1910, "from II to 131⁄2 hours; in exceptional cases, 181⁄2 hours." From the report in the British Journal of Nursing we select this one item out of many, an exceptional case, of course:

Dr. Hecker then gave specific instances of overwork, including that of a strong

young nurse in a small town in Würtemburg, who, with the help of one servant, was in charge of twenty to twenty-five beds, which were always occupied, mostly by serious cases, such as infectious diseases or accidents. She did all the cooking, and, in addition, was expected to keep the garden, where vegetables were grown for sale, in order. This she did by rising at three o'clock, or in the early morning hours after a night on duty. At the end of four years she broke down, and though, after six months' rest, she resumed work, she now suffered from periodical melancholia.

Right here it would be well for the reader to refer to the graphic story of a nurse's life in a German hospital, "Twenty years ago," which we print on one of the following pages. Dr. Hecker's paper indicates that the conditions are not much better now than then, so far as the strain on the nurse is concerned, and he brings out the fact that a surprisingly large number of nurses are driven to suicide, presumably

because of the intolerable conditions under which they are obliged to work.

We might quote many instances of overstrain in the hospitals of England and other countries, but we would merely prove that the evil of which we speak is not confined to any one country. Indeed, our own favored land is not free from reproach. We wish to cite a case which is reported with editorial comments in the New York State Journal of Medicine:

A young woman in the training school of a large hospital recently committed suicide because she was dismissed from the hospital after serving in its wards for two years, eight months of which, she stated in a letter to the coroner, she had spent on night duty. Her home was on the Pacific coast, and she was, therefore, when dismissed, three thousand miles away from her closest relatives. The incident was sufficiently shocking, but while it is not the intention in any way to criticise the hospital authorities, it does seem pertinent and desirable to point out that such an episode is not calculated to relieve the present shortage of nurses.

May we not justly inquire whether a nurse who has served a hospital for two long, arduous years has not acquired a

claim to consideration superior to that which she had after three months, after six months? Length of service implies efficiency, and ought to count for something of extenuation which would not apply to a shorter period of what certainly is a most arduous and severe service.

Without at all venturing at this time to criticise the preliminary requirements which some authorities think are responsible for the present shortage of nurses, it is our opinion that the severity of the labor and the rigor of the discipline in training schools have something to do at least with aggravating the situation. Discipline must

be maintained with a firm hand. In no other way would it be possible to conduct a large training school, but anyone who has had any experience with many training schools would, we fear, come to the conclusion that humanity is not always observed in the matter of discipline. It is possible to be too severe. The writer remembers a case which happened some years ago in which, for a relatively trifling offense, a pupil nurse, after a year in the training school, was turned in the street with five dollars in her pocket, six hundred miles away from home. Nor are such instances as rare as we could wish. Capital punishment-expulsion from the school— ought to be reserved for the rarest occasion, and should be in the hands of a committee, all other discipline being entirely in the hands of the superintendent of nurses.

We ought not to forget that it is far more serious to take two years of hard and unrequited labor from a young woman and afterward deprive her of the fruits of her labor by dismissal than to discharge a clerk who has received the full equivalent of labor in a weekly wage. Twelve hours a day makes a long day. Eight months of night work in two years is depressing in the extreme to one who has been unused to that kind of toil. Hospitals in general have paid altogether too little attention to the old proverb that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and what is true of Jack is just as true of Jill. There are other fields of labor far less arduous than nursing which have been opened to women of late years. The early glamor of the cap and fichu and dainty uniform is beginning to lose its charm. Young women are finding out that nursing is terribly hard work, that the hospital is often a hard taskmaster, and they are seeking easier ways of earning a living. This may be one