THE French government has accorded Madame Curie, wife of the discoverer of radium, a pension of 12,000 francs per annum. Besides this income she will have the salary connected with the chair of Physics, in the University of Paris, to which she has recently been appointed.

THE Philadelphia Board of Education is agitating the advisability of employing a corps of trained nurses to work among the school children of that city. Because of the appropriation incident to the departure, such a bill would be likely to receive a negative vote in the city council.

THE Buffalo city hospital for the care of patients suffering from contagious diseases is rapidly nearing completion. The erection of the new building has necessitated an expenditure of over $50,000, and in range of equipment the institution will be one of the best appointed in the state.

THE study of alcoholism has been introduced into the curriculum of the University of Berlin. The subject will be demonstrated from all phases the influence of alcoholic indulgence on the mental development of the young, its relation to insurance, its effects on the physical powers, et cetera.

COCKTAILS adulterated with wood alcohol are responsible for two deaths which occurred recently in Brooklyn, New York. A ten-gallon keg of the wood product was found on the premises of the saloonkeeper who dispensed the decoction, and the rascal has been arrested on a charge of homicide.

A CHARTER was recently granted in New York to the American Institute for Scientific Research, which had its inception in the Society for Psychical Research. The new body was organized primarily to investigate conditions of abnormal psychology and to place the study on a scientific foundation.

NEW ROCHELLE, New York, is to have a new hospital. Mr. C. O. Iselin has pledged himself to contribute $40,000 toward the project, providing the citizens of the town subscribe $60,000, and thereby facilitate the erection of a modern building. Twenty thousand dollars has already been collected.

THE Pennsylvania State Board of Health has inaugurated a course. of instruction for persons suffering from or exposed to transmissible diseases. The knowledge is dispensed by means of circulars, and comprises practices regarding the care of afflicted as well as precautions calculated to insure prevention.

THE Chicago Medical Society elected the following officers at its annual meeting on June 20: President, Doctor George W. Webster; secretary, Doctor Robert T. Gillmore; councilors, Doctors William A. Evans, Charles S. Bacon, Frank Billings, Lewis L. McArthur, and Farnand Henrotin; alternates, Doctors William E. Quine, Henry F. Lewis, Winfield S. Harpole, Brown Pusey, and Theodore Tieken.

THE Dental Alumni Association of the University of Pennsylvania has erected a bronze tablet in Dental Hall to commemorate the late Doctor Charles J. Essig, one of the country's foremost workers in the domain of dentistry, and professor of dental mechanics and metallurgy in the Quaker institution.

THE records of the California State Medical Society were lost in the recent disaster. As a peculiar coincidence the society met in San Francisco on April 17, 1906, the day before the catastrophe, and on the morning of the 18th-in front of the ruined convention hall-the meeting was declared adjourned.

GERMAN Southwest Africa is to be converted into a receiving station for tuberculous Teutons. Evidently the sanatorium system as conducted in Germany has not produced the most desirable results, and since the climatic conditions in Germany's portion of the dark continent are ideal for the consumptive, the government has decided to test the plan by sending a number of afflicted working people to the continent.

THE hospital system of San Francisco suffered severely from the recent earthquake, all but three or four being rendered useless. The Children's Hospital was one of those which remained intact, and its inmates are receiving the attention of Doctor Hezadiah Crabtree. A Maternity Hospital has been established at Berkeley University, and prospective mothers are thereby assured proper care during the puerperium.

THE Indiana State Medical Association held its annual meeting at Winona Lake on May 23-25, 1906. Following are the officers elected for the coming year: President, Doctor George J. Cook, of Indianapolis; vicepresidents, Doctor John B. Berteling, of South Bend, and Doctor Charles J. Chittick, of Frankfort; secretary, Doctor Frederick C. Heath, of Indianapolis; treasurer, Doctor Albert E. Bulson, Jr., of Fort Wayne.

THE medical section of the Newberry Library, Chicago, has been consolidated with the John Crerar Library of the same city. Together with the library proper, Doctor Senn has given permission for the transfer to the Crerar Library of the Senn Collection on Medical History. At present the quarters of the John Crerar Library are inadequate to accommodate the change, and a new building is being erected as quickly as possible.

THE New York State Commission in Lunacy will erect a State Reception Hospital and Dispensary for the Insane. The Board of Estimates and the Aldermen of New York City have authorized the purchase of a piece of property 200 x 250 feet between Seventy-third and Seventy-Fourth Streets, overlooking the East River, for the purpose. The land will cost $146,000, and it will be leased to the state. The Lunacy Commission will expend $300,000 in buildings.

AFTER a more or less successful career of twenty-three years, the Ontario Medical College for Women has been discontinued, owing to the establishment of coeducation in the Medical Department of Toronto University. The attendance has been growing smaller each year, and a disruption was the inevitable outcome.

ONE hundred two candidates received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in Philadelphia on June 13, the event being the one hundred fiftieth commencement of the University of Pennsylvania. The address of the occasion was delivered by Professor John Bach McMaster, of the history department of the University.

THE thirtieth annual meeting of the American Dermatological Association was held in Cleveland, Ohio, May 31 and June 1 and 2, 1906. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Doctor Arthur Van Harlingen, of Philadelphia; vicepresident, Doctor William A. Pusey, of Chicago; secretary-treasurer, Doctor Grover W. Wende, of Buffalo. A number of excellent papers were read and discussed, among them being one by Doctor William F. Breakey, of the University of Michigan.

THE Chicago Medical Society has been considering the "contract practice" question. A protest was raised by the Douglas Branch of this organization, and the referendum showed that 358 members were opposed to perpetuating the practice, while 201 were of the opinion that the present system should continue in vogue. The total membership is 1,928, and inasmuch as the by-laws require that fifty per cent of the members must engage in a referendum in order to insure its validity the vote was far from being decisive.

THAT the conduct of confinement in case of triplets is not always pecuniarily remunerative was demonstrated recently in New York City. Some time ago a grocer in the Borough of Queens engaged the services of a physician to deliver his wife. The stipulated fee was eighteen dollars, but after discovering that the procedure contemplated dealing with triplets, the physician increased the charge to $50, which the grocer refused to pay. Litigation ensued in the Jamaica Municipal Court, and the jury decided against the plaintiff, notwithstanding the fact that the case required the services of two extra medical assistants.

BECAUSE of the utter disregard which quacks and venders of nostrums evidenced for the law pertaining to the practice of medicine, Judge Green, of New York City, has evolved the following clear and simple definition: "The practice of medicine is the exercise or performance of any act, by or through the use of any thing or matter, or by things done, given, or applied, whether with or without the use of drugs or medicine, and whether with or without fee therefor, by a person holding himself or herself out as able to cure disease, with a view to relieve, heal, or cure, and having for its object the prevention, healing, remedying, cure, or alleviation of disease."

THE San Francisco catastrophe rendered necessary the convening of a special session of the California legislature, during the deliberations of which enactments of interest to the medical profession were passed which contemplate the following appropriations: The University of California receives $83,800, about $8,500 of which is to restore buildings and apparatus damaged in the Medical and Veterinary departments; the Agnew State Insane Asylum, at San José, receives $25,000 for the building of temporary quarters for inmates pending the erection of permanent buildings; the State Board of Examiners receives $2,500 for the restoration of property; the State Board of Pharmacy receives $2,500 for the restoration of property; amounts necessary for the reproduction of the registers of the State Boards of Examiners in Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry; and amounts necessary for the issuing of duplicate certificates to physicians, pharmacists, and dentists who lost the original papers in the fire.

RECENT LITERATURE.

REVIEWS.

PROGRESSIVE MEDICINE.*

PROGRESSIVE MEDICINE for March, 1906, comprises the following subjects: Surgery of the Head, Neck, and Thorax. Infectious Diseases-Including Acute Rheumatism, Croupous Pneumonia, and Influenza; the Diseases of Children; Rhinology, Laryngology, and Otology. There is an index accompaniment. The abstracts are all well done, and the compiler's personal opinion, which is frequently given, is always of great value.

*Lea Brothers & Company, Philadelphia and New York.

GALL-STONES AND THEIR SURGICAL TREATMENT.*

THE first edition, exhausted in eight months, tells the story of the popularity of this work; it pleases the profession. Sufficient time has elapsed since it first appeared for criticism and improvement. The result has been a careful revision with added illustrations and explanatory cases, increasing the size of the book about seventy pages. The illustrations are fine and the text is plain and well written. It is a good book and one is improved by reading it. Few books in medical literature merit such praise.

C. G. D.

*By G. A. Moynihan, M. S. (London), F. R. C. S., Senior Assistant Surgeon to Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, England. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Octavo of 458 pages, beautifully illustrated. Philadelphia and London. W. B. Saunders & Company, 1905. Cloth, $5.00 net; Half Morocco, $6.00 net.

RURAL CITY MILK SUPPLIES AND THEIR RELATION TO INFANT FEEDING. HOME MODIFICATION VERSUS LABORATORY MODIFICATION.*

ANNA MARION COOK, M. D.

DAVID MURRAY COWIE, M. D.

[FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.]

EXCEPTING the good that may come from frequent repetition of already known facts, thus aiding the dissemination of the knowledge of modern infant feeding, it would seem that there is little excuse for an article having the above title. When, on the other hand, we compare the analysis of milk made in various countries and various parts of our own country, note the variety of results obtained, the analyses upon which are based the many formulæ that have been introduced in textbooks, and endeavor with failure to reproduce results vouched for by standard methods of obtaining definite fat percentages for home feeding, it would seem that some value may be attached to any investigation that will help to clear up some of these discrepancies.

AND

RURAL CITY MILK SUPPLIES.

Towns of 10,000 to 20,000 population, proportionate to their size, receive their milk from a radius of twenty, thirty, forty and often fifty miles. As distance is time, and time and handling are bacterial growth, it is not difficult to see how conditions that obtain in small towns are superior to those in the larger cities. It is a well-known fact that the so-called good creams of large cities are usually several days old. Conditions are better with certified milk. Seldom in rural districts is cream delivered over twenty-four hours old.

The writers are indebted to the Ann Arbor Board of Health for *Read before the Section on Medicine at the Jackson meeting of the MICHIGAN STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY.