MINOR INTELLIGENCE.

AN epidemic of smallpox is threatened in the penitentiary located at Lansing, Kansas, four convicts having recently been stricken with the disease.

THE establishment of a state tuberculosis sanatorium in Iowa has been facilitated by the passage of a bill in the legislature appropriating $50,000 for the purpose.

AT the recent Pittsburg meeting of the American Association of Medical Colleges, the medical department of Oklahoma University was admitted to membership.

TYPHOID fever is epidemic in Pittsburg, more than four hundred cases having thus far been admitted to the hospitals, besides the hundreds of other cases scattered throughout the city.

THE sum of $50,000 has been provided by Mrs. Louisa N. Bullard for the establishment of a Chair of Neuropathology at Harvard University. The bequest is made as a memorial to the husband of the donor, William Story Bullard.

SAINT LUKE'S HOSPITAL, New York, has been enriched to the extent of $15,000 by a bequest of Mrs. Sarah A. Sands, whose death occurred recently. The sum will be utilized to endow three beds in memory of the donor's husband, Abraham B. Sands.

THE Prussian Minister of Railways has inaugurated a novelty in the method of transporting sick persons in railway coaches. Suitable stretchers will be admitted to third-class compartments, two third-class fares being paid for patient and stretcher and one for the attendant.

EXPERIMENTS announced from the Edinburgh University research laboratory are to the effect that trypsin injected into a cancerous mass will effect its absorption, but since the agent has only been employed on rodents, its practical value in human subjects remains undetermined.

DOCTOR JOHANN FLINTERMANN was recently tendered a testimonial dinner by the Detroit Club in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of his advent into medical practice. Doctor Flintermann received his medical degree from the University of Gottingen in 1864, and two years later he located in Detroit.

A FREE tuberculosis clinic, to be in charge of Doctor Victor C. Vaughan, was recently opened in the Detroit Board of Health building. It is estimated that there is an average of one death a day in Detroit from this disease, and the purpose of the clinic is to instruct subjects how to care for themselves and prevent the spread of contagion.

DOCTOR FRANK WILLIAM SMITHIES has been appointed demonstrator of medicine in the University of Michigan, to succeed Doctor Roger S. Morris, who accepted a position in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Doctor Smithies is an Ann Arbor graduate, and since receiving his degree has been connected in a teaching capacity with the University of Chicago.

FOURTEEN Women physicians of Detroit recently organized a society whose membership is limited exclusively to women practitioners. It is designated the Women's Academy of Medicine, and is the third of its kind in the country, the others being located at New York City and Rochester, New York. Women physicians in Michigan who are members of their county society are eligible to membership in the new guild. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Doctor Lucy J. Utter; vicepresident, Doctor Mary G. Haskins; secretary, Doctor Anna Starring; treasurer, Doctor Minta P. Kemp; councilors, Doctors Florence Huson, Louise RosenthalThompson and Isabella Holdom.

ON April 2 a free clinic, to be known as the German Polyclinic, was established in connection with Grace Hospital, Detroit. The new institution will be essentially German in character, none but physicians of Teutonic extraction being eligible for official positions, although treatment will be tendered to afflicted regardless of race or creed. Doctors Herman Kiefer and Ernest W. Haas have been elevated respectively to the presidency and secretaryship, and the various chairs will be occupied as follows: Children's diseases, Doctors Charles G. Jennings and Guy L. Kiefer; general medicine: attending staff, Doctors Ernest W. Haas and August Gorenflo; consulting staff, Doctors Carl Bonning and Herman Kiefer; diseases of the eye and ear, Doctor Louis J. Hirschman; diseases of women, Doctor James A. MacMillan; nose and throat, Doctor Fred J. Clippert; diseases of the digestive organs, Doctor George W. Wagner; pathologist, Doctor Edward H. Hayward; surgery, Doctors Johnston B. Kennedy and George H. Palmerlee.

RECENT LITERATURE.

REVIEWS.

EPITOME OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.* THIS little manual is indeed an excellent guide so far as it goes. It is intended to be only an epitome. There are men who oppose the use of these contractions-good men; and there are men who think they are of great use to the student and practitioner who are also good men. These compendiums cannot help being good books because they are copied from good books. Usually they are condensed rearrangements of Osler's, Anders', or some other standard work, altered just enough. to make the reading a little different, with the definitions a bit modified. Even those who oppose them enjoy perusing them. They are sometimes refreshing, and if one should question closely he will probably

find that these men are fond of some similar little book, the only difference being that it is published in another language. We find a few mistakes but they can easily be excused on the ground of "first edition." We think that many of these abbreviated books have a place, and many of them fill a long felt want. This is one of them. This is one of them. It is thoroughly up-to-date. *A Manual for Students and Practitioners. By Hughes Dayton, M. D., Principal to the Class in Medicine, New York Hospital, OutPatient Department; Clinical Assistant in Medicine, Vanderbilt Clinic, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. In one 12mo volume of 324 pages. Cloth, $1.00, net. Lea Brothers & Company, Publishers, Philadelphia and New York, 1905.

A LABORATORY MANUAL OF PHYSIOLOGICAL
CHEMISTRY.*

DOCTOR ROCKWOOD's laboratory manual is admirably adapted to the needs of the student of physiological chemistry. Only the most important illustrative experiments are given in large type and they are not too many and are well chosen. It has the advantage over books that are filled with interrogations in that while it does not fail to interrogate, it intelligently answers, thus making it of service to the student and of inestimable value to the busy physician who wants an immediate reply. to his query. Here and there are additional leaves inserted for notes. Altogether the book is a very valuable one, and can be especially recommended to those who wish to begin the study of, or review the subject.

D. M. C.

*By Elbert W. Rockwood, M. D., Ph. D., Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology and Head of the Department of Chemistry in the University of Iowa, et cetera. Second edition, revised and enlarged. With one colored plate and three plates of microscopic preparations. Large 12m0, 229 pages, extra cloth. Price, $1.00, net. F. A. Davis Company, Publishers, 1914 Cherry street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

PROGRESSIVE MEDICINE.

PROGRESSIVE MEDICINE for December is full of its usual amount of the world's best medical literature. We have praised the merits of this publication so many times that it seems unnecessary to say more. It is one of our most welcome visitors. It is impossible to see how it could be improved.

D. M. C.

*A Quarterly Digest of Advances, Discoveries, and Improvements in the Medical and Surgical Sciences. Edited by Hobart Amory Hare, M. D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. Lea Brothers & Company, Publishers, Philadelphia and New York.

MODERN SKIAGRAPHIC TECHNIQUE.*

BY VERNON J. WILLEY, A. M., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.

DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL ROENTGEN LABORATORY.

It is undoubtedly true that the technique employed in making Roentgen radiographs is, with many who make use of the Roentgen rays in diagnosis, largely the result of habit and convenience. It is with most of us, largely a personal problem. It is also true that radiography is largely an art, and partakes but little of systematic scientific application. Yet there are certain fundamental principles, recognized by many, which are preparing the way for a logically developed system. What is meant by a good radiograph? What should it show? How shall we judge whether or not it is technically correct? First of all it is well to be clear on one point: a radiograph is not a photograph. It does not represent by its shades and shadows, the real object. It is a record of the different densities encountered by the Roentgen rays in their passage through a body made up of materials presenting different degrees of obstruction to the passage of the rays. A photograph is a record of impressions made by rays of light of various degrees of intensity, reflected from the object to the sensitive plate. There may be no suggestion of the density of the object photographed. The photograph represents the real object, and is easy of recognition. The radiograph is a record of the densities of the different parts or organs through which the rays pass to reach the sensitive plate, and may or may not be easy of recognition; in not a few instances it requires a radiographically trained eye for its correct interpretation. A good radiograph is one which, first of all, renders a truthful record of these. densities, and is simple and easy of interpretation. Negatives must

*Read at the Ann Arbor meeting of the FIRST COUNCILOR DISTRICT MEDICAL SOCIETY, December 22, 1905.

be produced showing the greatest possible contrast between tissues of different density. The differentiation must be sharp and clean cut, the negative clear, clean, and free from fog or haziness. The simplest method of judging of the value of the radiograph as to whether it shows the presence or absence of pathological conditions, is, of course, comparison with a normal radiograph. The anatomical structures which show in the normal radiograph should be carefully studied and compared with the corresponding structures of the radiograph in which pathological structures may be revealed. Theoretically one should be able to show by a radiograph any pathological condition involving a marked change in density of the involved tissues. Practically we are able to realize this to a very satisfactory degree, but it is useless to place much reliance upon a skiagraph which has not truthfully recorded normal structures which differ more in density than the change from normal to pathological.

The production of a radiograph fulfilling the necessary conditions depends upon

First, properly selected electrical apparatus kept in perfect working

order.

Second, properly selected and properly excited vacuum tubes. Third, suitable accessories for diaphragming the rays, and for immobilizing the part radiographed, and

Fourth, reliable sensitive plates or films, followed by correct and special photographic technique.

The electrical apparatus, static machine, induction coil, or high tension transformer should be one with which the operator is thoroughly familiar. If he expects to progress further than the elements of the subject, embraced in the radiography of extremeties, he will require an induction coil capable of delivering at least a nine-inch solid flame, and preferably one delivering more than a fourteen-inch flame. The apparatus must be so adjusted, and supplied with controlling rheostat and variable inductance, as to respond at once to his varied requirements. If he is to attempt rapid work, the primary circuit must be broken by an electrolytic interrupter preferably of the Wehnelt type. This invention of Wehnelt has done more than any one thing to make possible the extensive use of Roentgen rays in diagnosis. The Wehnelt interrupter is simple of construction, works equally well on alternating and direct currents, and the operator who makes his own and keeps it in repair has mastered a large percentage of the instrumental troubles which are likely to confront him.

The fundamental requisite of the Roentgen tube is that its rays must penetrate the tissues to be radiographed. The thicker the tissues or the greater the density the greater must be the penetration. The proper working of the tube is exhibited by the hemisphere of the tube in front of, or anterior to the face of the anode, fluorescing brilliantly, clearly, and steadily. The hemisphere of the tube back of the anode should be quite dark, without fluorescence, and without irregular fluor