physic. And would to heaven it were so! But is it? Ah, there's the rub!

This County Society has stood watch-dog for the State Association at the Capitol of Alabama for full fifteen years. During all this time it has seen the Legislature grant to the old school almost unlimited and exceedingly autocratic power. It has always got all that it asked for and simply for the asking. But its eyes have been open to danger. It conducted the medical contest just closed at Montgomery, in behalf of its side, and it saw the substitute to the three-board bill of Colonel Quarles defeated by a decisive vote. It was present in force, also, when that gentleman's measure, which had the sanction of the Southern Homoeopathic Medical Association and of the Alabama State Homœopathic Society, came within two votes of becoming a law. It saw the justice of our attack, it saw the influence and weight of Colonel Quarles' magnificent arguments against the dogmatic autocracy and tyranny of the old school State Society, and it trembles for the future. It realizes that, as Artemus Ward would say, "something has got to be did," and hence it suggests the radical measures outlined in its memorial. And since that memorial was issued the great high priest and salaried groomer of the profession in Alabama, to whom allusion has been made, has come out squarely in favor of the scheme, the Medical and Surgical Age editorially supports it, and no doubt it will be adopted without murmur or dissent by the State Society of Alabama at its meeting this month.

As a medico-political diagnostician of some experience we cannot refrain from doubting the honesty of this reform. The admission of Homœopaths to membership in the State Society simply binds them legally to that body. It is not proposed to give to Similia Similibus Curantur a place in its councils. The consultations at the bedside are in every instance the Allopath upon the Homœopathic call, never the reverse in the organized profession. The hand held out to us is empty. There is no heartiness in its grasp. The suggestion of fraternity is openly announced to be the outgrowth of a fear of hostile legislation. "The evil day may not be near, but unless we heed the voice of warning, it will come sooner or later." No honorable Homœopath can accept concessions prompted by such selfish aims, and until a different spirit than this pervades the

truces offered us by the older sect in medicine Homœopathy has nothing left her but to stand for the truth and the right, possessing as we do an abiding confidence in the justice of the arbitrament which time will surely bring.

The Montgomery County Society will pardon the JOURNAL if we do not judge its action aright. Its change of front is so sudden, the measures it proposes are so radical and the reasons it assigns therefor are so mercenary, that we must beg to be allowed to doubt the sincerity of the society in the remarkable position it has taken. It is sincerely hoped that we do that body a wrong in thus questioning its honesty, and should it be brought to our mind that we are in error in suggesting that the Homoeopaths of Alabama will best subserve their own interests by ever keeping their eye on the gun, our humblest apologies will be contritely tendered.

THE NEW ORLEANS HOSPITAL.

THE JOURNAL experiences real pleasure in being

able to present to its readers in this issue the charter and by-laws of The New Orleans Hospital Association and it most heartily commends them to the careful and thoughtful consideration of each and every one of its readers.

The organization of this association marks a new era in the history of Homœopathy in the far South. It is our first incorporated association having for its object the erection of a public institution to be dedicated to the practice of the art of healing according to the humane and benificent methods belonging to Homœopathy, and it is the first step toward that substantial development to be secured to us only through comparisons of statistics treating with results obtained in hospital practice in the diseases of the Southern latitudes of the United States. Comparisons may be odious to some people, but no comparison has ever been made between the results obtained from hospitals in which Homœopathy and Allopathy are practiced side by side, at all odious to our wing of the profession. In every instance on record, without exception, the statistics are to the favor of Homœopathy, and it is largely through the deductions logically drawn from these results that we have been enabled to secure public institutions in Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and other Northern and Eastern States.

"Naturally the more immediate the relation of statistical information to our people the more likely we are to profit by their exhibition. Show to the citizens of Louisiana, of Mississippi, of Texas and of other Southern States that the results obtained in the treatment of the diseases of the South in the New Orleans Homœopathic Hospital are better than the results obtained in the great Charity Hospital of that city and Homœopathy will soon be accorded her full share of public patronage and favor almost for the asking. At present our data comes from points too far removed for it to have that weight and influence it should have with our people. But bring the comparisons of which Homœopathy is capable to our very hearthstone and the Southern ear will not long be deaf to their teachings.

We look upon the organization of this Hospital Association as one of the most important moves ever made for Homeopathy in the South, as we have already said, and as one which is deserving of the earnest and cordial support of every practitioner of our school in Southern territory. From it is certain in time to spring a college. Given a hospital and a college and other institutions will quickly follow, our numbers will be rapidly augmented, the people will hear more and learn more of us and our system and every Homœopathic interest will be fostered and developed as never before. It is a movement, therefore, that comes home to every one of us, a movement in whose outcome we are as deeply interested as our little band of colleagues in New Orleans possibly can be, a movement which we should all assist in every possible way.

It should be remembered that Homœopathy is not numerically nor financially strong in the Crescent City. Our force in Nashville, in Atlanta, in Louisville, in Dallas, in San Antonio, in Memphis, and perhaps in other Southern cities is fully halt as large as our force in New Orleans. When this fact is remembered it will be appreciated that the Homoeopaths of that city are deserving of very great credit for their courage in this undertaking and their hands should be upheld by the entire Southern profession.

There are many ways in which substantial aid may be rendered. Private donations or subscriptions are always in order. There are a hundred physicians in the South who could easily give the sum of one hundred dollars each in the memory of a deceased

How

father, mother, brother, sister or child. The editor of the JOURNAL has contributed this sum in memory of our departed little one to this, our first really Southern Hospital Association, and a magnificent sum could readily be obtained from this source alone if all who are able would but do likewise. beautiful it would be to have a large ward dedicated to the memory of the departed loved ones of donors to its building fund, with suitable memorial tablets in its corridors and wards, especially if the fund for this purpose and these tablets should come from every portion of the South.

Each of our Southern State Societies should obligate itself to furnish and equip a ward or a room to be named for the association furnishing it.

A small assessment upon each member would meet the requirement, and with this connecting link between the Southern State Societies and the Southern Hospital a closer fraternization of all our corporate bodies would be secured and a more compact union of Southern Homeopathic forces than now obtains would be the natural result.

In Massachusetts, county societies, city and town medical clubs and numerous other auxiliary organitions have vested rights in the Homoeopathic Hospital in Boston, with the privilege of sending patients thereto for treatment. This plan or some similar plan might with advantage be adopted in relation to the New Orleans Hospital.

Homœopathy in the South needs a hospital. She needs it in New Orleans, alongside the celebrated and much vaunted Charity Hospital of the old school. It will certainly be an entering wedge with which to widely sever the ignorance, the prejudice, the hatred so many of the physicians and people of the South display toward Homoeopathy and her tenets, and the sooner such an institution is erected and in operation the better will it be for the entire Homœo. pathic profession in Southern territory.

Read the charter and by-laws of the New Orleans Hospital Association carefully. Study especially articles eight and seventeen, and then do whatever you can to foster and develope this important interest of Southern Homœopathy from whose successful establishment all the interests of the cause in the Southern field will be substantially and quickly benefitted. Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel, and to our utmost aid our colleagues of the Crescent City in their efforts to erect a hospital on the banks

of the Mississippi that shall be a lasting monument to the enthusiasm, the patriotism and the devotion of the entire Southern profession in relation to Similia Similibus Curantur and the methods belonging to Homœopathy,

QUERIES AND ANSWERS.

AT the suggestion of a valued contributor to the

JOURNAL we have decided to institute a department of queries and answers for the benefit of our subscribers and readers who may wish to seek advice and counsel on any subject in medicine or surgery, either in their theoretical or practical de-. partments. The plan will be to refer such questions as may be propounded to the subscriber considered by the editor most capable of giving satisfactory answer thereto. It is hoped that in this way many physicians not now contributing regularly to the JOURNAL, or 'o any journal for that matter, may be brought to impart to the profession many a valuable thought or suggestion of which we may all become possessor. To the young practitioner, especially, it is believed this department will prove helpful. It certainly will if they will but take advantage of this opportunity to solve knotty problems. When desired by a questioner his query will be referred to a physician of his own choice if on the JOURNAL'S lists. Otherwise the editor will make the reference and request answer for our columns.

Such a department does not belong to any Homœopathic journal published, and it is to be hoped that it will prove sufficiently practical and interesting in the SOUTHERN to fully justify us in instituting it.

Who will be the first with a Query?

THE EIGHTH TEXAS.

Asylum and Medical Department of the State University. Plans for future action in these important fields will also be mapped out. Numerous additions have been made to our ranks within the past twelve months, new zeal has been instilled into the hearts of many until recently dormant, and altogether the outlook is much more favorable for a good and successful State society than ever before. Every Homoeopath in the State owes it to himself and fellows to join heartily in the work of the Association and to be with us at Fort Worth in May.

Come one and all, and let us commune together for at least two days in the year, and Homœopathy in Texas will unquestionably be the stronger and more prosperous because of the existence of a healthy and progressive State society.

The following are the officers and bureaux for the current year:

President, T. H. BRAGG, M. D., Austin. First Vice-President, T. G. EDWARDS, M. D., Blanco.

Second Vice-President, M. J. BLIEM, M. D., San Antonio.

Secretary, R. H. EDMONDSON, M. D., Austin. Treasurer, G. G. CLIFFORD, M. D., San Antonio.

COMMITTEE ON UNIVERSITY:

DRS. J. W. BARNETT, G. G. CLIFFORD, F. HINES, T. H. BRAGG, W. M. MERCER and H. C. MORROW.

COMMITTEE ON SOUTHWESTERN ASYLUM:

DRS. M. J. BLIEM, T. H. BRAGG and C. LOWRY.

COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION:

DRS. T. H. BRAGG, S. W. COHEN, G. G. CLIFFORD and C. LOWRY. COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION: DRS. T. G. EDWARDS, T. MARKS and C. E. FISHER.

MATERIA MEDICA:

DRS. G. H. SHERBINO, H. C. MORROW, M. A. A. WOLFF and S. W. COHEN. PRACTICE:

DRS. C. LOWRY, M. J. BLIEM, G. G. CLIFFORD and J, R. POLLOCK,

SURGERY:

DRS. C. E. FISHER, JOS. JONES, T. MARKS, F. HINES and R. H. EDMONDSON.

OBSTETRICS:

DRS. T. H. BRAGG, Mrs. A. T. HALL, T. G. EDWARDS and W. F. BAYLESS.

PEDOLOGY:

DRS. R. H. EDMONDSON, P. STAMMER and H. B. STILES.

OPHTHALMOLOGY;

DRS. H. F. FISHER, E. E. DAVIS and W. F. THATCHER.

ELECTRO-THERAPEUTICS:

DRS. H. B. STILES, R. H. EDMONDSON and W. M. WILKIE.

TENNESSEE'S MEDICAL LAW.

THE JOURNAL presents its readers with two articles in its legislative department on the medical law of Tennessee, one from Dr. W. L. McCreary, of Knoxville, the other from Dr. J. P. Dake, of Nashville, from which a correct knowledge of the present law of that State and of the legislative situation in Tennessee are to be had.

THE JOURNAL made the error in a former issue of naming Tennessee among those States that required text-book examination of all applicants for license to practice medicine. In this we are indeed glad to be in error. Dr. McCreary gives a synopsis of the law from which it is to be seen that graduates of reputable colleges are granted license by submitting their diplomas for authentication to the member or members of the board representing the school of practice to which the applicant holds allegiance; the Allopathic, Homœopathic and Eclectic denominations all being represented on the State board.

Only non-graduates are required to submit to examination and the board is authorized to issue license to persons passing its examination, who then stand on the same footing as regularly educated physicians.

If we are to have examining boards at all and especially if we are to be compelled to submit to a mixed single board, the arrangement practiced in Tennessee, that is, the authentication of diplomas by one's fellow pathist, is about as fair a law as can be devised; and as Dr. McCreary says, no Homœo

path at all entitled to the right to practice medicine need fear to enter that State in search of a location.

But, fair as the law may seem it is highly objectionable in two very important particulars. It is an outrage on the people at large and on the regularly educated profession to grant to any set of men in Examining Board capacity the right to issue license to men who pick up the profession. Certainly this is a disgraceful lowering of the standard of medical education. Of what avail is it for the American Institute of Homœopathy and the American Medical Association to continually raise the standard of requirement in the colleges if legislatures are to make license mills in every State in the Union. Medical Colleges and Hospitals are the proper training schools, and the time is long past when County or District, or State boards should be authorized to place the lives and health of the people in the hands of men who have but a smattering of medical learning and who are without the education and training to be acquired only in the lecture room, the amphitheatre and the wards of the hospital. This feature of the law is highly objectionable and should be repealed, the reputable diploma alone standing sponsor for the applicant for license to guard and conserve the public health.

The other objectionable feature is the mixed composition of the board and the minority representation given Homoeopathy thereon. The board is composed of six members, four Allopaths, one Homœopath and one Eclectic. We are told that the Homœopathic member passes upon the parchment of the Homœopathic graduate and determines and conducts the 'examination required of nongraduated Homœopathic applicants. And so with the Eclectic representative. This is all wrong. Homœopathy has attained a degree of greatness and solidity that should entitle her to equal representation with any and all schools of practice in the eyes of the law. Our colleges are the best in the land, Our hospitals and asylums give the best results and our practitioners are intelligent, educated, cultivated physicians as a rule, And our patrons are of the better classes of people, people of education, refinement and wealth. Homopathy is too far along in the world to play second fiddle to any sect and never should our profession be satisfied to have such a feeble minority representation as that on the Tennessee board,