cured under this treatment in from two to four weeks. Operation is indicated in cases with hypertrophied, hard, spasmodically contracted. sphincter, and a sentinel pile well developed. Dilation, incision and excision are the operative procedures, and their names are selfexplanatory.

EDITORIAL COMMENT.

MEDICAL CLASSICS IN MEDICAL MEETING. NOTWITHSTANDING the important position which medical literature occupies in the domain of medicine, students are taught practically nothing in medical college regarding the classic works which reach across the centuries of medical history and chronicle the representative thought and practice of the various periods, while physicians are seldom afforded opportunity for bibliographic research in medical meeting. Owing to the factor of time in the career of the average practitioner, there is doubtful possibility of acquiring extensive concrete knowledge concerning the glories of the guild until the curriculum of every medical college includes a course in the history of medicine. The subject receives considerable attention in Europe, but probably not more than a half dozen American colleges impart instruction of this nature.

A feature of the Ann Arbor meeting of the First Councilor District Medical Society of Michigan was an exhibit by Doctor George Dock of some representative medical books from his private library. Lack of space determined the number of volumes shown to a certain extent, and the works selected were chosen to represent important phases of medical history especially in the modern period and after the rise of pathologic anatomy. The volumes were arranged as given below, so as to follow an order partly chronologic, partly topical. They were open to show important or interesting passages, and each volume bore a card with the author's name, dates and other particulars, as in the list below, taken from these cards. The exhibit gave a bird's-eye view of some of the most interesting periods of medical history. Some of the books, as the "Rosa anglica" and the "Auenbrugger," are exceedingly rare.

* * *

JOHN OF GADDESDEN, also called JOHANNES ANGLICUS. Died about 1350.

The "Doctor of Physic" of the "Canterbury Pilgrimage"; Court Physician.

A copy of his "Rosa anglica," a compend of medicine. This is the Venice 1902 edition, erroneously called the 1516 edition. The first edition was printed in 1492.

The contents give a good idea of the medicine of six hundred years

ago. The mark shows the celebrated passage regarding the use of red light in smallpox.

Translation from the section on "Treatment ('Cura') of Variola:" "Let scarlet be taken and let him who is suffering smallpox be entirely wrapped in it or in some other red cloth. Thus I did when the son of the illustrious King of England suffered from the smallpox. I took care that everything about the couch should be red and his cure was perfectly effected, for he was restored to health, without a trace of the pocks."

GLISSON, FRANCIS. 1597-1677. (Described Glisson's capsule.)

The first edition (1650) of his work on "Rickets," the first monograph on disease published in England, except that of Caius (died 1563) on "Sweating Sickness," a much less thorough work. One of the glories of English medicine. To Glisson's description of the morbid anatomy as observed by the naked eye, subsequent writers have added little.

The first (1679) edition of the "Sepulchretum anatomicum," the brilliant beginning of pathologic anatomy, a storehouse of the most important observations recorded up to that time.

MUELLER, JOHANNES. 1801-1885.

"Ueber den feineren Bau und die Formen der krankhaften Geschwuelste." 1850.

This work is all Mueller finished of a projected treatise on the "Histology and Classification of Tumors." It represents the first fruitful application of the microscope to the study of pathologic anatomy. One of the only two unfinished works left by this great genius, the master of Virchow, Helmholtz, DuBois Reymond, and the most important figure in the history of nineteenth century medicine. "DIE MEDICINE REFORM."

Founded by Virchow and Leubuscher July, 1848, with the object of hastening reforms in university education; medical education and organization; care of the sick and the poor; administration of hospitals; the appointment of a Minister of Medicine for Prussia was demanded, and a Ministry of Public Health and Medical Laws for all Germany. "A Reform of Science and of Society." The journal was given up at the end of one year on account of the failure of the revolution and the impossibility of a reorganization of public health, medical education, and the medical profession.

First edition of the "Cellular Pathologie."

Showing the relations of pathology and medicine to the cell doctrine, and the intimate changes in the tissues and organs, on which the whole of modern medicine is based. No one before Virchow expressed the belief that the phenomena of disease, like other biologic phenomena, are the expressions of cellular activity, a belief that only becomes strengthened by the advance of knowledge.

First volume of the work on "Tumors," published in three volumes in 1863.

The first scientific work on tumors. Based on a histogenetic classification, it includes an exhaustive analysis of the older and even oldest literature, and an almost incredible investigation of actual specimens, macro- and microscopically. While some of the views have been shown by later methods to be erroneous, the work still includes many statements that reappear even now as new discoveries. It marked an epoch and will long be used as a work of reference for all points not requiring recent technical methods for their elucidation.

SENAC, JEAN B. 1693-1770.

"Traité de la Structure du Coeur, de son Action, et cetera," 1749. One of the most important landmarks in the history of diseases of the heart; especially valuable for pathologic anatomy and symptomatology. Senac was one of the most distinguished French physicians of the eighteenth century.

AUENBRUGGER, LEOPOLD.

1722-1809.

First edition of the "Inventum novum," 1761, the first work on "Percussion."

The first edition of the celebrated "Anatomie générale," in which histology, normal as well as pathologic, was first systematically studied. As Corvisart wrote to Napoleon, announcing Bichat's death-"No one before him has done so much and all so well and perfectly, in so short a time."

CORVISART, J. N. 1755-1821.

Commentaries and Translation of Auenbrugger's work on "Percussion." The first edition was printed in 1808. It saved Auenbrugger from oblivion and forced his work on the attention of men before auscultation was discovered.

"Diseases of the Heart," 1806. An important book, but less so than if Corvisart had written it himself. It was made up from his lectures. This, with his "Commentaries on Auenbrugger" would have immortalized him had he done nothing else. He was the first of the, modern physicians; founder of the brilliant French school in the early part of the nineteenth century; first professor of medicine in the Medical Clinic in Paris, 1795; one of the founders of modern pathologic anatomy; physician to Napoleon.

LAEN NEC, RENÉ-THÉOPHILE-HIPPOLYTE. 1781-1826.
First edition of the "Mediate Auscultation."

In this Laennec followed an analytic method, describing in connection with each sign the anatomic lesion indicated. It is the outcome of "one of the purest and most individual discoveries ever made in the history of science.”—(Benjamin Ward Richardson.)

LAENNEC.

Second edition, the final one by his own hands. In this, an entirely new work, he followed a synthetic method, with descriptions of disease

that proved the vast industry and talent of the author. It is a book of pathology, as well as diagnosis, a complete treatise on diseases of the heart and lungs, useful even at the present day. Even the treatment, the weakest part, is far in advance of its time.

LAEN NEC.

Showing the author's account of the discovery of mediate auscultation. (Ramadge's English edition.)

PIORRY, P. A. 1794-1879.

First edition (1828) of Piorry's work on "Mediate Percussion," in which the first advance was made in that art since the time of Auenbrugger, namely, the use of the pleximeter. In this, and still more in later works, Piorry was led astray by a search for refinements in exact percussion that were only slowly overcome by the work of Skôda.

SKODA, JOSEPH. 1805-1881.

First edition (1839) of the “Abhandlung ueber Perkussion und Auskultation."

In this epoch-making work Skôda turned from the ultraexact methods of the French, who aimed at discovering specific signs for each disease, and laid the foundation of modern physical diagnosis, in which signs indicate physical conditions, which must be interpreted by the revelations of pathologic anatomy. Like Auenbrugger, Skôda was long neglected by his fellow-countrymen. The copy shown was bought Later, many editions were published, some of them large ones, and translations in several languages.

uncut.

LOUIS, P. C. A. 1787-1872.

An

The first edition (1825) of the great work on "Phthisis." unsurpassed masterpiece, said to be "the most profound exposition of the natural history of a chronic disease of which the literature of any age or country can boast." The first work on tuberculosis in which the whole condition of the patient was thoroughly examined; before that many organs and functions in the tuberculous were never studied. GERHARD, WILLIAM W. 1809-1872.

"Lectures on Diseases of the Chest."

1842.

Gerhard was a pupil of Louis, and was considered the most distinguished American who studied in Paris between 1830 and 1840. The first who distinguished clearly between typhoid and typhus fevers (article published in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1835). The book shown is his principal work. Diseases of the lungs and the pericardium are especially well done. The treatment of pneumonia is the old-fashioned one-bleeding, tartar emetic, et cetera. BOWDITCH, HENRY I. 1808-1892.

The "Young Stethoscopist" (1846) is a fine example of the work done by the American pupils of Louis.

JENNER, EDWARD. 1749-1823.

The second edition of the "Inquiry" into the causes and effects of the Variola Vaccinæ (1800), an exact reprint of the first or 1798 edition.

"No book so small has ever been talked about so much; no book has been read from the original so little; no book of such dimensions has made the name of any author so famous; no book has been so much praised at second hand." Jenner transformed a local into a universal belief.

Latin translation of Jenner's first three works into Latin, made by Aloisius Careno, published in Vienna in 1799. An important factor in the dissemination of a knowledge of Jenner's discovery.

WATERHOUSE, BENJAMIN. 1754-1846.

"A Prospect of Exterminating the Smallpox," 1802.

Professor of Medicine in the Cambridge (afterwards, Harvard) Medical School. Introduced vaccination (1800) into the United States, assisted its use by his writings and by enlisting the interest of President Jefferson. Was called the "Jenner of the New World." The copy of his book shown was given to the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes by Waterhouse, and later belonged to the Autocrat. It bears his book-plate.

THOMSON, JOHN.

1765-1846.

In this "Account of the Varioloid Epidemic," published in 1820, the author, considered the most learned physician in Scotland, demonstrated the identity of smallpox and varioloid, and showed that the latter could occur in those who had had smallpox, or had been vaccinated, as well as in those who had never passed through the other disHe showed the unity of several varieties of variolous disease, and thought that chickenpox also was merely a variety of smallpox. CAREY, MATHEW. 1760-1839.

eases.

"Account of the Malignant [Yellow] Fever," in Philadelphia. A classic of the first rank. It was written in two weeks and went through four editions: November 13, November 23, November 30, 1793, and January 16, 1794. Almost equal to DeFoe's account of the plague in London, but Carey's work was written in the same season, while DeFoe's was composed long after the plague, of which he saw little. or nothing.

WEBSTER, NOAH. 1758-1843.

"A Collection of Papers on the Subject of Bilious Fevers, et cetera." The lexicographer got out this collection of reports by physicians, with comments, in 1896, before his more celebrated work on "Epidemic Diseases." It is chiefly interesting now in the light it throws on the manners and customs of the time.

DRAKE, DANIEL. 1785-1852.

Equally eminent as patriot, philanthropist and medical author. The book on "Diseases of the Mississippi Valley" is unrivalled in the amount and variety of its material, and is equally remarkable for the charm of its style, the volume of information on diseases and their treatment in a time and place unique in the history of the world, and the glimpses of a civilization that must always be interesting to Americans. The Committee on Medical Literature of the American