abound in the city and country, but who have hitherto not availed themselves of the advantages of combination. The convenor of the meeting was the Rector of Upper Hyford, the Rev. C. H. Pilkington. Mr. Pilkington issued a circular in January last setting forth his proposal and he received so many favorable replies that he felt justified in calling together the meeting which was held, as above stated, on March 10th.

In an interesting speech Mr. Pilkington set forth the aim of the association, and concluded by moving the first resolution: "That an association be formed to be called the Oxford Homœopathic Association, for the purpose of promoting Homœopathy in Oxford, Oxfordshire, and the adjoining counties, at a minimum subscription of one shilling annually."

The resolution was seconded by the Rev. W. Probyn-Nevins, who made excellent use in his speech of the Tracts of the Homœopathic League. The second resolution proposed the appointment of a provisional committee, consisting of the Revs. C. H. Pilkington, W. Probyn-Nevins, and H. Barter, Lady Mary Dashwood, Messrs. Railton, Dixon, Blackball, and Payne Both resolutions were carried unanimously. We heartly congratulate our Oxford lay friends on the movement they have made They are acting on the lines of the Homœopathic League and we doubt not will receive much assistance from its publications. Homœopathy has always depended for its support and propagation largely on lay enthusiasm. In fact, it is only by the encouragement derived from this source that Homœopathic medical meu are able to hold their own. The cry is always for more Homœopathic physicians and surgeons; but it is only when that cry comes

I have many times written about the necessity that exists for every Homœopathic chemist to verify what he uses. Aconitum napellus was the plant "proved," and I have pointed out that the only way to insure its genuiness is to grow it oneself. The necessity of this will be apparent to all when I say that the dried imported roots are what are generally used for tincture making, that these roots are collected by ignorant peasants who cannot (if they would) distinguish one Aconite from another; in most of the various kinds the roots are alike in shape and size, that there are a hundred or more species of varieties growing wild in Europe, that some have yellow flowers, others various shades of blue (the roots are collected after flowering), some are bitter to taste, do not produce tingling because they contain no Aconitine, other plants (flowers and foliage) are almost exactly the same as the Aconitum napellus in botanical characters, but also contain no Aconitine.—ALFRED H. HEATH, M. D., F. L. S.-Hom. World.

In other words, "Gentlemen of the Homœopathic and Eclectic persuasions, if you need us in consultation, with the fee attachment, it is all right, and we are yours; but as to fraternization with you in the societies, oh, no! Excuse us, if you please!"

The JOURNAL took occasion to remark last month, its issue being held until after the Huntsville meeting, that the hand held out to us is empty, that there is no heartiness in its grasp, that Similia is not invited to a seat in the councils of the (un) Godly, or *See The Alabama Reformation," pages, et seq.

words to that effect, and the action of the Alabama State Society completely supports us in this view.

In truth, the Montgomery Society was scared. It had had a sudden awakening to a realization of the fact that Homœopathy and Eclecticism are camping upon Allopathy's trail in Alabama, and, apprehending our full recognition at an early date by the Legislature, it surprised itself, the profession of its State and Homœopathy and Eclecticism everywhere by boldly proposing to absorb us, nolens volens, in order to avoid our separate recognition in law.

Its proposition did not imply a recognition of Homœopathy because of the merit it possesses, nor of Eclecticism because of the good there may be in it. It did not say to the State Society "these men are good men and true, educated equally with ourselves and honestly striving to attain the same great ends with us, the alleviation of suffering and the saving of life; they are our brethren; come, let us shake them by the hand and bid them Godspeed in their work; let us sup together, learn of them and teach them of our way that humanity may have the benefit of all that they and we may know." No such high and noble motives prompted their action, if we may judge from the record; 'twas a move of expediency, a flank movement in medico legislative battle, a heapening of coals of fire upon our devoted heads that our brains might be consumed-only this and nothing more. Its own pleading proves it, the State Society's verdict doubly proves it.

Did this most extraordinary movement grow out of an honest and sincere desire for peace and harmony between the schools the SoOUTHERN JOURNAL would warmly welcome it as an omen for good which should be received with fervor by all true Homœopaths. For, while we appreciate the incongruities of Allopathy and the incompatibility between the therapeutic measures of the three sects in medicine, and the all but absolute fruitlessness of therapeutical consultations between practitioners of the different sects, yet we confidently believe that fraternization at the bed side and the union of all the sects in one would early result in the general adoption of Homœopathy and its methods by the medical world, surely a consummation devoutly to be wished. But so long as the old school deals with this great question from the standpoint of expediency and self-interest, we cannot be blamed for looking with absolute disfavor upon the proposition

as presented by the Montgomery County Society and upon the verdict of the State Association of Alabama, nor can we be justly censured for cautioning our colleagues against mercenary intrigues laid to disarm them in their contest for right and truth before the law.

The time has almost arrived when the old school must open its doors to Homeopathy because of its merits, and to Eclecticism because of the good that is in it. Science should not be fettered by tradesunion rules. The field of medicine is as broad as the world itself. At best it is an uncertain art and he who would close its doors to the honest searcher after truth is unworthy of a place in its realm. It may be desirable to have sects in medicine as in religion, art, politics and other walks in life. Aye, we believe it is desirable. But no iron-clad rules, no hide-bound ethics, no trades union slavery should find place in so noble a profession. When the Alabama State Association is prompted by high-minded, pure and upright motives to take down the barriers that make it a close corporation, a medicopolitical association, or machine, and tenders the hand of complete fraternization, of honest fellowship and of brotherly love to its now boycotted colleagues of other schools it will find them ever willing to accept the olive branch of peace and to vie with it in honorableness of effort toward the attainment of a heavenly good-will not expected by the JOURNAL this side of Paradise. Until then Homœopaths have nothing left them but to stand by their colors.

THE FUTURE OF HOMEOPATHY IN THE SOUTH.

THE recent successes attending the efforts of the

Homœopathic profession against sectarian and harmful medical legislation in several of the Southern States, together with advances made in other lines of development, augur most hopefully for the future and speak volumes for the possibilities which open out before us as we look ahead into the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Ten years ago Homeopathy was an unknown factor in the medical affairs of the South. Not an organization of any name or nature did we have in operation. Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee had had embryonic State Societies, but all three had lapsed into inocuous deseuetude. There were, pos

sibly, a half a hundred Homœopathic physicians widely scattered over an immense territory, and this was all. As stated, we had no organization of any kind. We had no journal, no hospital association, no college, no dispensary. In nearly every State we were but a little struggling band of medical practitioners, endeavoring to introduce our system among the most medically-benighted people in the United States. And not only were our people ignorant of our methods but the partizan prejudice and hatred of Homœopathy entertained by the old school profession had permeated the entire social fabric of the South. Furthermore, naturally nearly all the early practitioners of the new school had to come from the North and not all of the prejudice which the sections had entertained against each other so viciously had yet worn away. That this fatricidal spirit inured to the disadvantage of many a Homeopathic physician pioneering in Southern territory will be attested by many against whom it operated disastrously. Taking it all and all, the introduction of Homœopathy among the Southern people was attended with much more difficulty and with greater trials than characterized its introduction in other portions of the Uuion. But times and things have changed. The little handful of brave hearted practitioners were but the leaven that was to set aside the old order of things and lift Homœopathy to the more substantial and exalted position she has now attained. First come the predecessor of the JOURNAL, the Pellet, soon to be followed by organization in Texas Louisiana quickly fell in line with her Hahnemann Association. From the latter body and the JOURNAL sprung that most needed, most useful and most successful society the Southern Homœopathic Medical Association. Kentucky followed with a State Society but a year or two later and Florida took on the contagion in reasonable time.

Awakening to the spirit of progress abroad in the South, Tennessee revived her State organization last year and Alabama effected organic union during the last meeting of the Southern Association. Arkansas, and Mississippi have also faintly undertaken to organize their forces, and doubtless ere long State Societies in those States will be an accomplished fact

In the legislative line too, most excellent accom. plishments are to be recorded. Six years ago Homœopathy won a desperately contested struggle in

Texas and paved the way for easy victory for all time to come in this State. Again, this winter, after emphatic contest, our forces have conquered and have defeated objectionable legislation. In Florida, four years ago, the Allopaths attempted to engraft objectionable clauses into their constitution but were foiled in a hard-fought battle by Homœopathy's forces. Again, last year our votaries in that State so changed the Allopathic medcal bill as to secure equal rights before the law. In Georgia, but a few years ago the old school's favorite plan, the examining board scheme, was defeated and Homoeopathy's favorite plan, a registration law, was enacted. In Arkansas all efforts to drive Homœopathy to the wall by adverse legislation have been beaten in open contest. In Tennessee, while the law is not all that is to be desired nor what the State society of that State asks for, yet Homœopathy has representation sufficient to protect her from harm at the hands of the old school legislationists. Iu Kentucky, in West Virginia and in Maryland our rights are safe before the law, and in nearly every instance made so after hard fought contests in which the lines have been closely drawn.

Only in Virginia, the Carolinas, Mississippi and Alabama are we under the ban. In the Old Dominion the law is fairly satisfactory, and in Alabama we came so near winning this spring that every Homœopath conversant with the situation feels like shouting hallelujahs.

In hospital lines, too, the ice has been broken and the leaven is working. In New Orleans an association has been organized and the plans are being laid for the opening of a hospital in that city. In Baltimore a Homeopathic hospital is now in successful operation and a college will open for work this fall.

With this much already accomplished in a short space of time and under such difficult surroundings' what may not the future have in store for us if we but labor for its full fruition? Not only in Baltimore and New Orleans, but in Richmond, Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Little Rock, Dallas, San Antonio, Galveston and other cities of the South, the time will surely come when we inust and will have hospitals wherein our sysmay be practiced and exemplified. Dispensaries must come in every Southern city, and a college at Naw Orleans, with Homœopathy being taught,

too, in the medical department of the University of Texas, must surely follow ere many years.

Asylums for the insane must be secured to us. We pay our taxes, we certainly have a right to a share of State patronage and when we show to governors and legislatures that Homœopathic treatment possesses great advantages over other methods of treatment in mental and nervous diseases and that we can care for the State's afflicted at less expense than under Allopathic management and drugging, we will get our rights, perhaps not at once, but surely in time.

There is work ahead for us, Homoeopaths of the South, and there are great things in store for us if we but strive for Homœopathy's interests in concerted, intelligent and persistent action.

The State society meetings, all over the South, nearly, are close at hand. In union there is strength. Go to your State meeting and become a stone in the builder's hands. The earnest effort of every Homœopath in the South is absolutely needed in order to place Homeopathy on the substantial footing occupied by her elsewhere, and through association work alone can we hope to overcome the captious criticisms, the unscrupulous opposition, the aggrandizing selfishness of our old school foe. Let everybody join in the work of the State societies and of the Southern Association,and Homoopathy's future in the South is assured beyond question.

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE AS A

BEGGAR.

THE SOUTHERN JOURNAL is in receipt of a circular and letter from Dr. H. M. Paine, of Albany, N. Y., Chairman of the Committee on Legislation of the American Institute of Homœopathy, which places that association in the very unenviable light of a beggar at the hands of the profession, and which, in our humble judgment, had better never have been written, for more reasons than one.

In the first place the American Institute is composed of the brain and wealth of Homœopathy in this country. Our great men and prosperous men to the number of about a thousand compose its membership. They are amply able and have always been found willing to meet all the expenses they have found it necessary to incur in carrying on

the legitimate work of the Institute. It is humiliating to every Homœopath who is proud of his national organization to see it holding forth its hand as a pauper, and since there is absolutely no neces. sity for it the act is deserving of severe condemnation.

In the next place, the Institute is not in harmony with Dr. Paine's views on the subject of Medical Legislation and it has repeatedly rejected his Examining board scheme as an un-American, unnecessary and undesirable form of medical control. Only last year at its Waukesha meeting after a most thorough and impartial consideration of the whole question the Institute almost incontinently sat upon Dr. Paine's legislative plannings. All of the committee of which he is chairman signed a majority report on legislation directly in opposition to his views, which carried by a large majority. At that meeting he endeavored to secure an appropriation of five hundred dollars for the purpose of printing and distributing his Examining board literature but the Institute refused it because opposed to the method of controlling the profession which he proposes, Subsequently he suggested to his fellow committee-men that a subscription be solicited for the purpose of dissementing the documents he had prepared, but they very properly declined to consent to such a course, as the Institute had emphatically opposed Dr. Paine's views and as none of them were in accord therewith; and, furthermore, as that body had refused money for this very purpose. Under the circumstances it seems to the SOUTHERN JOURNAL that Dr. Paine has quite overstepped the bounds of propriety and has broken faith with the Institute in thus soliciting money for the purpose of disseminating his views on legislation against the wishes of that body, which has honored him with the Chairmanship of the important Committee whose prerogatives he thus most clearly abuses. If he doesn't like the Institute's position on Medical Legislation he should surrender his place asChairman of its Legislative Committee to some one in accord with those views. Ile should certainly accept and abide by its decision so long as he retains the posi⚫ tion. As it is he essays to speak with the authority of the Institute in favor of measures which it has several times rejected, thus positively misrepresent ing the position and policies of that body on the subject of Medical Legislation to the confusion of

the profession, the manifest indignity of the Institute and to our positive disadvantage in more than one of our commonwealths, according to the Institute's way of thinking.

It is not pleasant for this journal to thus have to discuss and condemn the abuse of important trust by one who has been highly honored, and not without cause, among his fellows, but the course being pursued by Dr. Paine is so at a variance with the policies of the American Institute, to which we owe allegiance, that no other course is open. The SOUTHERN JOURNAL is forced by the inexorable logic of facts to look upon Dr. Paine's action as an abuse of the confidence reposed in him as Chairman of the Institute's Legislative Committee and it sincerely hopes that that body will take steps at its approaching meeting to guard against a repetition of this abuse by any one hereafter occupying this most important position.

THE PROPOSED KANSAS BILL.

THE JOURNAL presents in this issue an ac

count of the situation in Kansas, from the pen of its valued friend and contributor Dr. Henry W. Roby, of Topeka, and gives also the medical bill recently proposed before the Kansas Legislature as sanctioned by a joint committee of the three medical sects.

In some respects the bill is a most admirable one in others an equally objectionable bill. It is admirable in that it recognizes Allopathy, Homœopathy and Eclecticism equally, in that it imposes a heavy tax upon the peripatetic travelling charlatan, and in that it proposes a board to examine graduated physicians in school-boy text-book fashion, but to examine, review, inspect or vise their diplomas, looking after the authenticity, reputability, etc., of parchment.

It is objectionable, highly objectionable in its fourth section which provides for the granting of license to non-graduates in medicine who shall apply for and pass an examination by the board, thus placing three State Examiners of medico political selection on an equal footing with the Medical College faculties of the land, and their licentiate on an equal footing with the most learned and thoroughly trained college and hospital graduates.

From the JOURNAL'S way of thinking, it is a course