himself or of his excellent journal, does not hesitate to state in his paper that he, the aforesaid editor, has been elected a corresponding member of this Society, and return his thanks for the honor; but we confess we shrink from such public acknowledgment on our part. We are glad to chronicle the organization of this Society, and we honestly wish it useful success. Our Boston friends have done one good thing -settled the orthography of gynecology-for the word flowing through a Gallic channel had lost its diphthong with many of our authors, and these wrote e instead of a. Now will Boston have the goodness to give us a pronunciation as it has an orthography of the word more in accordance with its etymology? Even the poorest Grecian would be astonished to find, after declining yuva, Tuvazos etc., that when an English word was formed from it, it became jinny, thus jinnycology, he would be apt to decline again. If any of our readers point to the analogy between this word and gymnastic, we acknowledge the force of the reasoning, but suggest that the two consonants immediately following the y may change its quantity, and furthermore inquire what is to be done with gyrations-must the y be short there too? At any rate, we don't see why, with a christian tongue, when we take woman out of a heathen language we should make a jinny of her:

DR. BISHOP, of Sheridan, New York, writes to the Medical and Surgical Reporter, April 10th, the following in reference to the use of arsenic in hemorrhoids. Some of our readers will remember our first calling attention to this therapeutic value of arsenic, (Cincinnati Journal of Medicine), March, 1866:

"I will say for the benefit of the Reporter, that I have tried the above remedy in twenty cases of piles, and in not a single case have I been disappointed in removing the difficulty. The dose, of course, is to be varied to suit the age and constitution of the patient. I hope physicians will try it."

DR. T. W. BELCHER, of Dublin, well known to the profession as a dermatologist, is about entering the Episcopal ministry.

MR. JAMES, of Exeter, England, died on the 17th of March last. He had been a most able and industrious contributor to surgical literature, and was quite advanced in years.

ROBLEY DUNGLISON, emeritus professor in Jefferson College, died on the 1st of April. Professor Dunglison was in his seventy-second year.

THE FOLLOWING changes have recently taken place in the Medical College of Ohio. Prof. M. B. Wright, who thirty years ago was first called to a chair in the College, and whose name is a household word in obstetrics, with the profession of the West, has resigned the professorship of obstetrics, and has been appointed "Emeritus Professor, and Clinical Lecturer on Obstetrics and Diseases of Women." Prof. Comegys retires from the chair of "Institutes," and accepts that of "Clinical Medicine." A professorship of "Physiology" is substituted for "Institutes," and Dr. Edward Rives is appointed to it. Dr. R. is the son of one whose name is familiar to many of the older graduates of the School, to whose instruction they had the pleasure of listening long years ago, Prof. L. Rives, and has himself lectured with great acceptance during the past winter, in the Dental College, Cincinnati. We anticipate for him in his new field of labor, eminent success and usefulness. The chairs of "Obstetrics," and of the "Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women," have been consolidated, and the recent incumbent of the latter been selected to fill this new position. Dr. James T. Whittaker, whose letters from Europe our subscribers read with so much interest, and whom we regard as one of the ablest young men it has ever been our good fortune to meet in the profession, will be his assistant. Dr. Whittaker, we wish to say in addition, has talent, learning, industry and sterling principle, and will one day, if his life is spared, be known wherever Medicine is known.

DR. LIONEL S. BEALE has resigned his chair-Physiology and Pathology-in King's College. It is almost as remarkable that he should retire from this position when still in the vigor and prime of his days -for if we are not greatly mistaken, he is but about forty years of age -as that he was called to it when but twenty-four years of age. Few men, at even three-score years and ten, have done more for medical science than has Dr. Beale, and we trust that his work as a teacher, by no means terminates with the termination of his connection with King's College.

M. VOISIN has observed several forms of eruption to follow the administration of bromide of potassium. They have been, acne; large, indolent, and painful pustules; an eruption resembling that of urticaria or erythema nodosum; punctes; and eczema. He describes the first two with great care, as having characteristic symptoms and appearances-British Medical Journal.

M. MATTEI, Académie de Médecine, read a paper upon the causes of urinary retention after confinement. To the two causes generally recognized, viz: The swelling of the urethra, consequent upon contusion, and vesical atony, the author added a third, the abrupt shortening of the urethra; and he thus explains the occurrence of this cause of retention: During the last months of pregnancy, the bladder being drawn up with the uterus, the urethra is elongated, while after accouchement, the uterus at once descending, the urethral canal must become shorter by tortuous and irregular folding upon itself-thence the retention of urine. It is difficult to always prevent this accident; however, from fifteen to thirty grains of ergot, given after accouchement, will augment the vesical as well as the uterine retraction. When catheterism is necessary, always permit the instrument to follow the temporary tortuosities of the canal.-Arch. Gén., April, 1869.

M. PERSONNE, before the same body, as we learn from the Archives, proposes oil of turpentine as an antidote for phosphorous. From experiments upon animals, he was convinced of the efficacy of this remedy when taken immediately or very soon after the ingestion of the poison. He says phosphorous does not exert its toxic power until absorbed; then by depriving the blood of its oxygen, it prevents hæmatosis. The oil of turpentine prevents phosphorus from burning in the economy in the same manner as it prevents its combustion in the air at the ordinary temperature.

Now, this may be a valuable discovery; but we almost think it a pity that the poor woman, whose case is recounted below, as we find it one of our English exchanges, and who met with a punishment in kind, though not in degree, similar to that of the eagle which stole meat from the altar of the gods, did not know it—she might have taken a bottle of turpentine, and thus kept her phosphorous andher body intact:

"An elderly widow, while waiting in the surgery of Mr. Leslie, at Nine Elms, stole a piece of phosphorous from a bottle and placed it in her pocket. It ignited and burnt her so badly in the side that, by the advice of a surgeon, she was conveyed to the nearest hospital."

MAURICE H. COLLIS, Surgeon to the Meath Hospital, Dublin, the author of a valuable work upon Cancer and Tumors, died a few weeks since from pyæmic poisoning consequent upon a slight scratch received by him whilst removing an upper jaw in the operating theater of his hospital. Mr. Collis was in his forty-fifth year.

PROF. BOWLING, of the Nashville Journal, whose intelligent devotion to Medicine no one can question, expresses himself thus as to the "Ohio Doctor Law:"

"What medicine can not do for itself will go undone. Every now and then an unfortunate doctor finds himself out of practice and in a Legislature; and feeling out of place, and that his former brethren will think so, concludes to 'bring in a bill' to 'elevate' the profession he has abandoned, so that his old friends may see that he is still working for them,' and who ought to continue to think well of him. Our Legislature here in Tennessee has done many queer things, but it has let the learned professions alone to take care of themselves. When did law ever benefit religion? It has been hammering on it many centuries-for about eighteen hundred years-and the more it hammered the worse it made the job. Finally, the Government of the United States was made by a people wise enough to see this, and they said in their government religion shouldn't be hammered at all by politicians, but that as the people were civilly free they should be religiously free, and so this Government started, to the astonishment of all christendom.

"This Ohio law that so tickles many of the Ohio doctors, Georgia enacted a long time ago—every practitioner should be a graduate. Immediately all sorts of Trustees to all sorts of Institutions were chartered, who made all sorts of faculties, and diplomas were as plenty as old clothes in slop-shops, and about as good and as cheap. Regular medicine received a blow by that law that it will never recover from in that State. The law made all sorts of quackery not only legal but respectable-respectable like liquor shops-because sanctioned and protected by law!

"One fellow opened a college there, and filled all the professorships himself; held commencements opened by prayer, and closed by benediction in the most fashionably approved style. The graduated were 'charged' to the brim 'upon that occasion,' and bore away their diplomas in triumph. It is devoutly to be wished that hereafter, should any legislative M. D. essay to tinker with the profession of medicine, that he would take a fit-to the dismay and utter consternation of his 'fellowservants' of the 'people.'"

DR. A. C. WHITE, of Springfield, Tennessee, (Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal, April), mentions the case of a negress, thirtyfour years of age, who has given birth to twenty-four children.

THE LEGISLATURE of Minnesota passed a law, March 4th, determining the qualifications of those who are permitted to engage in medical or surgical practice in that State. The law is, in some respects, an improvement upon, while in the main, similar to the Ohio law. This whole question of medical legislation has not, as yet, been so thoroughly canvassed in our State societies and in our journals, that the profession have arrived at any community of opinion as to what sort, if any, legislation would be both just and practicable. Only the other day, we read in one of our foreign exchanges of a fellow in New

Zealand, calling himself a homeopathic doctor in virtue of a diploma conferred upon him in absentiâ, by a Philadelphia homoeopathic school, through a London agent of the diploma-pedlars, for the trifling consideration of fifty pounds, who was arrested and fined ten pounds and costs, for practicing without "being duly qualified and registered." Now, a general medical law for the United States, which would be as stringent as this which prevails in a British colony, would be a great blessing to the people and to the profession.

AN OHIO correspondent makes the following suggestion: Allow me to suggest to your subscribers that they can bind, and thereby preserve their medical journals, with no expense and but little trouble, by procuring from a tinner strips of thin brass or copper, (tin is too brittle), about six inches long by one-fourth of an inch wide, then bending it double so as to make a shoulder in the middle, the two ends meeting; then with the pointed blade of your knife punch two holes through the journal, one near the upper and one near the lower margin, pass a strip through each hole; then on the receipt of every journal, attach it to those already accumulated, turning down the ends of the strips each time, until the end of the year, when the ends of the strips can easily be fastened. A volume will thus have been preserved -not neat, but in a form handy for reference and as replete with good practical suggestions as any of the standard octavos. For fifteen years past, I have thus preserved all my medical periodicals, and I find this part of my library quite as useful and more interesting than any other.

JAMES WARDROP, Esq., F. R. S., who died in London last February, in his eighty-seventh year, won his first professional fame as an oculist; but will be especially remembered as having, in a work on aneurism, proposed tying the artery on the distal side of the aneurismal tumor, and having successfully carried this into practice: Prof. Valentine Mott, so states the British Medical Journal, said that this improvement had conferred on Wardrop the highest honor and the most lasting fame.

DR. ALEXANDER H. STEVENS, one of the most eminent of American physicians, who died in New York on the 30th of last March, was eighty years of age.

A MEDICAL JOURNAL, we learn from the Michigan University Magazine, will probably be established by the Faculty of the Medical Department of the University.