THE JOURNAL is much indebted to Dr. and Mrs. J. B. S. Holmes, of Rome, for their kind invitation to be present at the "twentieth anniversary of their wedding, Monday evening, June 26th." It would have given us much pleasure to be present. We beg Dr. and Mrs. Holmes to accept our hearty congratulations, with the wish that they will enjoy many more happy anniversaries.

THE third annual meeting of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association will be held in Chicago September 12, 13 and 14, at Apollo Hall, Central Music Hall Block. Members of the medical profession interested in electro-therapeutics are cordially invited to attend. AUGUSTIN H. GOELET, M. D., President.

MARGARET A. CLEAVES, M. D., Secretary.

FIVE thousand little graves are dug each year in Philadelphia for little babies, and 5,000 little headstones are yearly set up over their graves, all due to deaths traceable to the diseases which spring from wrong feeding. In the overwhelming majority of instances the poor food of which the babies die is bad milk, diseased milk, or skimmed milk.—Annals of Hygiene.

THE new medical department of Johns Hopkins University will be opened October 28, 1893. A four-year course will be required. Applicants for matriculation must have had preliminary training in physics, chemistry and biology, and, besides, be able to read French and German and elementary Latin. In the first year anatomy, including normal histology, physiology and physiological chemistry, will be taught. Anatomy will be continued in the second year, with pharmacology, general pathology, bacteriology and the general principles of medicine and surgery. In the last two years

clinical instruction will begin in medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology and the special branches. Practical work in the laboratories will also be required. The fees will be two hundred dollars per year. Both men and women will be admitted.

RECEIVED, READ AND "REFUSED."

To steal is dishonest, to cheat your fellowman is dishonest, to lie for gain is dishonest; yet, there is another road to dishonesty equally as reprehensible as either of the above, viz.: To receive and read a journal, for years, and then when called upon to pay for same, after having promised to do so, or even having acted in acquiescence with published requests to notify the journal if same was not wanted, to then go to the postmaster (without having nerve enough to write to the journal) and have him forward to the office a "refused" card, is as dishonest as stealing that much direct from the pocket of the proprietors of such journal. In fact, it is worse. It is a betrayal of confidence, is a sneaking and villainous trick of which no gentleman will be found guilty; and any man who will do such a thing would steal from his grandmother's ghost. If a subscriber is not able to pay, then it is quite another thing, and in all such instances he should so inform the proprietors of the publication, instead of having the P. M. mark on the cover of the journal "refused," and also send the proprietor a card marked "refused." All men who thus attempt to beat publishers should be held up to the public to be seen in the true light. This would be an unpleasant task, but we feel equal to the emergency.-Texas Health Journal.

BOOK REVIEWS.

DISEASES OF THE SKIN, THEIR DESCRIPTION, PATHOLOGY, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SKIN ERUPTIONS OF CHILDREN. By H. Radcliffe Crocker, M. D. (Lond.), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London; Physician for Diseases of the Skin in University College Hospital; Late Physician to the East London Hospital for Children; Examiner in Medicine in the Apothecaries' Hall of London. Second edition, revised and enlarged, with 92 woodcuts. Price, $5.00. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co., 1012 Walnut street.

The first edition of this work was published in 1888, and has been exhausted for some time. The present edition, the second, appeared early this year.

The first edition was soon the acknowledged standard, and the second is even better.

The omission of a description of the anatomy of the skin is to be regretted. It should have been included to match the excellent pathological descriptions given throughout the work.

The first edition has received a number of alterations to correspond with the progress of dermatology to date. Besides common diseases of the skin, we find described also, those peculiar to certain localities. The style and type are attractive, the explanations clear and the author's views decided. The matter is so arranged as to render the book easy to be employed either as a manual for beginners or a more full reference book for practitioners.

The illustrations are excellent. Enumeration of the subjects treated would be superfluous. One will find the whole field covered. Medical journals and teachers of dermatology have almost unanimously recommended the book.

The writer has used the first edition for several years as the best work of reference, and the best for the preparation of lectures on dermatology, and indorses the statement of the New York Journal of Cutaneous and Genito-Urinary Diseases, that this second edition is the best work on skin diseases in the English language.

M. B. H.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF DISEASES OF THE SKIN. By P. H. Pye-Smith, M. D., F. R. S., F. R. C. P., Physician to the Department of Cutaneous Diseases in Guy's Hospital, London. In one handsome 12mo volume of 407 pages with 28 illustrations, 18 of which are colored. Cloth, $2.00. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co., 1893.

This is a neat little work of about four hundred pages, by an English physician. It is intended simply as a manual, and the writer bases much of the description upon his own experience. He gives various classifications of diseases of the skin, which are as likely to confuse as to instruct the learner. The most common inflammatory diseases are first described, then affections of the "hair-sacs" and skin glands, then "ringworm."

Peculiar features of the book are drawings of the microscopic appearances of diseased skin, the affected part being in a reddish color, and pictures of the naked man upon which is shown, in red, the usual localization of the disease under consideration. These are rather good features, but the localization cannot always be definitely fixed. There is a description of "symptomatic febrile rashes" covering what are usually called the exanthemata. Under this head we find erysipelas and the "roseola syphilitica." An occasional eruption in cholera and the skin manifestations in influenza are mentioned. He says ringworm of the scroto-femoral region is very hard to cure. A case resisting all other remedies was rapidly cured with half a drachm of pyrogallic acid in an ounce of benzoated lard. (Note: Pyrogallic acid fifteen grains, collodion one ounce was invariably successful in the cases mentioned by the writer of a paper on "ringworm," read before the Atlanta Society of medicine in January, 1892, the writer having accidentally discovered the virtue of the remedy.)

The final chapter is on the "practical classification and diagnosis of diseases of the skin." The usual formulary closes the work.

There seems to be no end to the making of books on skin diseases, both by general practitioners and dermatologists, and nowhere do we see the saying "doctors disagree " better proven than in the mass of these books; of course, however, chiefly in points of classification.

M. B. H.

THE ANATOMY AND SURGICAL TREATMENT OF HERNIA. By Henry O. Marcy, M. D., LL. D., of Boston; Surgeon to the Hospital for Women, Cambridge, Member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Late President of the American Medical, Association, etc. D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3 and 5 Bond Street, New York. In this book the whole subject of hernia is presented in the most complete and pleasing manner. The distinguished author has devoted much time and labor to the study of this important condition, and his published work will long be one of his rewards. Dr. Marcy believes that there exists a necessity for the better instruction of both surgeon and general practitioner upon the anatomy and surgical treatment of hernia. The illustrations in this volume are excellent. They have been copied from the classic monographs of Astley Cooper, Scarpa and Cloquet, and many beautiful plates have been taken from the works of Longenbeck, Bougery, Cruveilhier, Guthrie, Gay and others, modified and improved by the processes of modern art. The anatomy, pathology and etiology of the different hernias are first clearly and concisely described. very interesting chapter relates to the development of the truss, and the history of the search for the suitable mechanical support for a reducible hernia. Dr. Marcy warmly advocates the animal suture, and in a special chapter he gives its history, its place in surgery, mode of application, advantages of, etc. But the most important and instructive chapters of all are those which relate to the history and description of the operative measures for the relief of hernia. The methods practiced at the present day are fully discussed. The author's own operation attempts to restore the obliquity of the inguinal canal by the buried tendon suture.

One

This is a magnificent work which cannot be commended too highly, and those who wish to "read up" on hernia cannot get a better. The mechanical execution of the publishers is in every way excellent and attractive.

THE SURGERY AND SURGICAL ANATOMY OF THE EAR. By A. H. Tuttle, M. D. The Physician's Leisure Library. Geo. L. Davis, Detroit.

This little work by Dr. Tuttle is one of the best that has ever appeared in the Leisure Library series. It is a treatise adapted for