used in Germany, except that Germany does not insure against the unemployed. This national insurance plan is intended to effect as wide an insurance as possible of the working population, against sickness and breakdown, or, in other words, to provide for insurance against loss of health and for the prevention and cure of sickness and against unemployment. The bill will partly rest upon compulsion. It is proposed that the insurance moneys should in part be collected at the source by deductions from wages; so much for men and so much for women. The employer will also pay a stipulated amount for each man and woman employed by him. The State's contribution will be the payment of two-ninths of the benefits in case of men and one-fourth in case of women. There will also be a voluntary section for those not working for an employer, but engaged in some regular occupation, such as blacksmiths, farmers, etc. It is estimated that there will be about 9,200,000 men and 3,900,000 women in the compulsory class, and 600,000 men and 300,000 women in the voluntary class. All who are qualified to insure and do not belong to any Society can insure through the postoffice. Practically 14,000,000 persons will come within the scope of the scheme. In England, at the present time, about 6,000,000 workers are insured against illness by the friendly lodges and other societies. The British Medical Association claims that if the national insurance bill is accepted by the Government, it will convert into contract practice the treatment of all persons employed for a wage between the ages of 16 and 65, whose income is below $800. This comprises the greater part of the male population of the country, and a considerable number of the females. The bill involves the whole working class and a considerable portion of the middle classes. There are very few physicians whose practice does not consist largely of this element of the population, and many whose practice consists entirely of it. All that remains to them of private practice is the children below the age of 16 and the women married or otherwise engaged, who do not work for a wage. You see the effect of lodge and contract practice upon the medical profession in foreign countries. Let us hope that we will not have to meet such conditions in this country for many years, but should they come, let us stand together for better or for worse. IF "If you can keep your head when all about you Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream-and not make dreams your master; And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And never breathe a word about your loss; Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, THE SCOTCH IN MEDICINE. BY DR. RICHARD P. TAYLOR, WILKES-BARRE, PA. A TOAST AT ANNUAL BANQUET, JANUARY 10, 1912. Mr. President, Toastmaster, and Members of the Honored Medical Profession: In responding to the toast, "The Scotch in Medicine," if I were going to enter into detail I could keep you here till tomorrow night at this time. However, I will try to give you a condensed sketch of some Scotch physicians who to-day are co-laborers with us in the field of medicine and surgery, while others have won their laurels, and gone to their reward. The geographical boundary of Scotland is small. The people relatively considered are but a handful, but in spite of all this it has produced able statesmen, brave generals, generous humanitarians, learned lawyers, poets who are in the front rank, men of literary genius, profound theologians, and last but not least a legion of prominent Scotch physicians, who are known in every corner of our globe, and you can always meet people on whose lips you hear nothing but praise for the medical works of Scotland and her physicians. Before Vesalius, Pare, and Harvey were born, Edinburgh had established its Royal College of Surgeons, the most ancient medical corporation in the British Isles. Its first seal bears date of July 5th, 1505. In 1583 the Town's College was founded, thus beginning the University of Edinburgh. While the Edinburgh Royal College was struggling for its existence the country was in an unsettled condition, due to religious and other feudal troubles, and this struggle continued until 1603; political peace was brought about by Scotland and England being united into a mutual nation. But Scotland's renaissance of science had begun through the elder Alexander Monro. He was to Edinburgh what vesalius had been to Padua. Through his researches in anatomy and surgery, and his power as an orator and teacher of medical science which gave him international fame, students flocked to Scotland. From that day to this Edinburgh University has produced physicians and surgeons of world-wide fame. Immediately following him came Dr. William Cullen, who had received his M. D. in 1740, six years before the battle of Culloden. He taught botany, chemistry and medical practice successively in Glasgow and Edinburgh. He was among those who welcomed Robert Burns to Edinburgh, and liberally subscribed toward the defraying of the expense of the Edinburgh that is the second edition of Burn's poems. John Morgan, the founder of the U. of P., was a pupil of Cullen and was recommended to him as a student by Benjamin Franklin. William Cullen Bryant, our renowned American poet, was named by Dr. Peter Bryant, his father, as a mark of the esteem in which Cullen was held by the medical men of the United States. No medical man before Cullen displayed such faith in the vis medicatrix naturae; he was opposed to venesection, in favor of which the entire profession seemed to have gone mad. William Hunter, who was also a friend of Cullen's, became the leading anatomist of his age, and his brother, John Hunter, is unrivaled in the annals of medicine. The frog exhibit was a discovery of Dr. Thompson, of Edinburgh, the friend of Prof. Dugald Stewart, of Burn's fame. To him we owe catgut ligatures and improved method of tying arteries. Both Thompson and Hunter were great vivisectionists. It is related of Hunter that being denied the rights of a postmortem by the father of a child that had died of some obscure disease, he said to him: "Then, sir, I heartily hope that you and all your family! nay, all your friends, may die of the same disease, and that no one may be able to afford any assistance." That he did not have as hard a heart as one might infer from this remark may be seen from the words which he wrote to his brother William as a letter of introduction to a poor man who needed medical care: "He has no money and you have plenty, so you are well met." Jenner, Sir Astley Cooper, Abernethy and Cline were all pupils of Hunter. Then we have John Brown, originator of the Brunonian System of Medicine; the two Gregorys, Sir James Y. Simpson, Sir Alexander Russell Simpson, Sir Charles and John Bell, MacCewen and MacCleod, Scotch physicians and surgeons; also Sir Joseph Bell, of Edinburgh, the Sherlock Holmes of Conan Doyle, who died recently in Edinburgh. John Cheyne, born in Edinburgh, 1717; ment. Alexander P. Wilson Philip, born near Glasgow, 1772; Robert Whytt (1714 to 1766), born in Edinburgh; William P. Alison (1790 to 1859), John Rutherford (1695 to 1779). Sir Walter Scott, Rutherford's grandson, wrote of him that he was one of those pupils of Boerhaave to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished for professional talent, for lively wit and for literary acquireDaniel Rutherford, the discoverer of what has since been known as nitrogen, was the son of Dr. John Rutherford, and was born in Edinburgh 1749, receiving his M. D. degree in 1772, his inaugural dissertation being De Aero fixo dicto aut Mephitico, which owes its importance to the distinction. clearly established in it between carbonic acid gas and nitrogen. Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776), botanist, introduced the Linnaean System into America, and in his honor the latter named a new genus of plants the Coldenia. Dr. George McClellan was born at Woodstock, Conn., and was descended from an old Scottish family who emigrated to America. Studied at Yale from 1812 to 1815. Graduated from the U. of P. in 1819; later lectured at the Philadelphia Almshouse and also gave private lectures. In 1826 he founded the Jefferson Medical College and was professor of surgery there until 1838. In 1839 began to lecture in a new institution called the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College, which, however, terminated its existence about 1863. Dr. McClellan practiced in Philadelphia until his death in 1847. One of his biographers says that he was one of the most extraordinary surgeons this county has ever produced, and that he originated the clinical instruction of the colleges. Gentlemen, you will be thinking that instead of this being a reply to a toast, that I have written a history. But in conclusion, let me mention Ephriam McDowell, the father of ovariotomy; Alexander J. C. Skene, of Aberdeenshire and Brooklyn, the great gynecologist; Sir Patrick Manson, of Aberdeen, who from a study of Laveran's plasmodium pointed the way for Maj. Ronald Ross to find it in the mosquito; D. Hayes Agnew, Alexander Hugh Ferguson, of Chicago, who died a few months ago, and last, but not least, Weir Mitchell, the grand old man of Philadel |