that a full and fair tariff of fees should be maintained; but we cannot recommend young men without sufficient private resources to enter the profession. It is because a serious mistake has been too often made in this matter there are in our ranks many hundreds of able but distressed practitioners who contend with eagerness among themselves for appointments of almost any class which seem to offer the means of bare sustenance. The profession labors under great disadvantages resulting from its crowded state and the impecuniosity of its members. One, though not the only, reason why the scale of payments for public services-for example, attendance on the sick poor, is so low, will be found in the number of eager applicants for any vacant post, let the emolument be small as it may. Parents, and young men of narrow means, will do wisely to be warned, and look elsewhere for a vocation which brings adequate rewards. There is not a word of exaggeration in the statements which have been recently made on the subject, and we trust they will have a deterrent effect. - Lancet, London.

CHLORAL HYDRATE IN DIPHTHERIA.-Dr. Rokitansky, after using the ordinary means, without avail in this disease, made a local application of a fifty per cent solution of hydrate of chloral. It was applied every half-hour, and after a few hours the membrane shrivelled and fell off. When the underlying tissue appears, a weaker solution is to be used.-Ex.

THE BRILLIANT RESULTS OF MODERN SURGERY. - Within four and a half years, seventy-five complicated fractures, in seventy-three patients, between the age of forty and seventy years, have been treated by the antiseptic method at Prof. R. Volkmann's clinic at Halle. Of this number not a single one proved fatal. Volkmann considered the mortality in compound fractures of the lower third of the thigh, before the antiseptic era, to be 38.5 per centum. He also shows that by this treatment old people with severe wounds, provided that no considerable loss of blood follows, endure them as well as younger persons. — Ex.

Dr. VON DURING'S REGIME FOR DIABETES. - Three, or, at the most, four, daily meals, of 80-120 grains of rice, wheat flour, barley, or buckwheat grits, more seldom the oaten grits, because the latter become easily soured. Also, two hundred and fifty grains of fresh meat, and the inner portion of cooked apples, plums or cherries, ad libitum. The meat may be used raw, smoked (ham or beef), or roasted. Eggs when the condition of the stomach permits. The fruits and grains should be well washed the evening before, placed in a vessel, and covered over with water. After remaining all night, they should be slowly cooked over a moderate fire, without changing the water. The fruit should cook one hour and a half; the grains five hours; and the rice four hours. To a pound of plums or cherries is added half a teaspoonful of the bicarbonate of soda, and thoroughly stirred. The skin of the plum is not to be used. Morning: Milk, with a little coffee (without sugar). For the prevention of acidity, lime water should be added. Noon: A glass of red wine, diluted with water, or a large cup of milk containing a tablespoonful of limewater. - Ex.

ANIMAL PARASITES IN THE EGGS OF THE HEN. - A worm has been noticed lately in fresh eggs, which had a dark disjointed body, of the size of a lentil. It was by some considered as of a sucker type, while others were uncertain whether the creature in question was not a distoma, which, as a parasite, lives in the larger gut of the hens, and of which the species D. ovatum had been noticed in the eggs. Whether the parasite can become dangerous to man is not certainly known. -Ex.

REMARKABLE INFLUENCE of the LightnING STROKE. It is known that upon those struck with lightning is found a distinctly marked perfect image of a definite figure, generally of a tree, and of a reddish-brown or scarlet color. Some explained it through the influence of the light; others thought, that inasmuch as the majority of these accidents took place while the persons were out in the air, the lightning photographed, as it were, some neighboring tree upon the body of the stricken one. Now it happened lately that in the county of Leicester, England, a man was killed by a stroke of lightning, upon whose back was found, en relievo, the picture of a bush with numerous branches, of a brilliant scarlet color, and as wonderfully traced as if done with a needle. The whole appearance resembled a fern with several branches. There was no similar bush or shrub near the place where the body was found, so that the former explanation of the phenomenon was no longer of use. Recent physical investigations have, however, through repeated experiments, demonstrated that the

clear tree-forming tracings upon the bodies of those struck by lightning depend entirely upon the direct natural influence of the elecric spark, which strikes upon this spot of the body, and, after going in different directions, leaves behind, upon the skin, a picture like that mentioned. The physicist Planté, at Paris, has obtained, by means of a very strong galvantic battery, a similar effect. He used a battery of eight hundred elements, and with it was able to observe a spark twelve cms. long. At the moment when this spark, for example, was passed over an isolated portion of a mixture composed of one tenth paraffine and nine tenths resin, which was spread upon a piece of glass, it left behind the picture of a beautiful tree or shrub, which resembled each impression that had already been found upon the bodies of those killed by lightning. All these cases depend, therefore, not upon a photographic influence, but upon a natural effect in the resistance to the transmission of the electrical spark. — Ex.

EFFECTS OF SMOKING ON THE HEART. - Some years ago M. Decaisne drew attention to the fact that tobacco smoking often causes an intermittent pulse. Out of eighty-one great smokers examined, twenty-three presented an intermittent pulse, independent of any cardiac lesion. This intermittency disappeared when the habit of smoking was abandoned. He also studied the effects of smoking on children from nine to fifteen years of age, and found that it undoubtedly caused palpitation, intermittent pulse, and chloroänæmia. The children, furthermore, became dull, lazy, and predisposed to the use of alcoholic drinks. Recently he reported to the Société d'hygiène the results of his observations on the effects of smoking on women. Since 1865, he has met with and observed forty-three female smokers. Most of them suffered from disturbances of menstruation and digestion, and eight presented very marked intermittency of the pulse without any lesion of the heart. He gave detailed accounts of these eight cases, in which all treatment directed against the intermittency proved utterly useless, while the suppression of tobacco was invariably followed by improvement and very often by complete disappearance of the phenomenon. Gazette Obstétricale.

PERSONAL AND

NEWS JTEMS.

DRS. A. L. KENNEDY and HORACE PACKARD, of Boston; T. M. DILLINGHAM, of Augusta, Me.; and L. H. KIMBALL, of Bath, Me., all graduates of the Boston University School of Medicine, are spending the winter in Vienna. After the horrible massacre in the conflagration of the Ring Theatre, they at once telegraphed home and relieved the suspense of their friends in regard to their safety.

LEVI T. HAYWARD, M. D. (’74), has also gone to Vienna.

GEORGE R. SOUTHWICK, M. D. ('81), has completed his examinations at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, and gone to Dresden.

ADALINE B. CHURCH, M. D. ('79), and KATE G. MUDGE, M. D. ('80), have returned from their studies in Europe.

EDWARD O. Eckert, M. D. ('81), has located at Marshfield, Mass.

REMOVALS. GEORGE A. CAMPBELL, M. D. ('81), from Allston, Mass., to Manchester, N. H. GEORGE H. MARTIN, M. D ('81), from Milwaukee to 427 Gary Street, San Francisco, where he is associated with Dr. C. B. CURRIER. C. W. GERRY, M. D. ('78), from Roxbury to 230 East State Street, Trenton, N. J. O. B. SANDERS, M. D. ('79), from 511 to 459 Columbus Avenue, Boston. R. W. SOUTHGATE, M. D. ('81), from Dedham to Rockland, Mass. E. B. HOLT, M. D., from Brookline to Lowell, Mass.

BUSHROD W. JAMES, M. D., has returned from his extended and eventful trip abroad. He went out in the "Brittanic," which ran ashore off the Irish coast, and had a tempestuous passage on his return.

J. P. DAKE, M. D., of Nashville, Tenn., who was very ill after his return from Europe, has recovered.

ARTIFICIAL FEEDING.

So long as there are mothers who cannot, and other mothers who will not, nurse their offspring, this subject demands the most careful consideration. Pavy, Routh, and Jacobi, in their treatises on infant food, have done much to enlighten the profession on this subject, and scattered through our obstetrical and pædological literature will be found much useful knowledge; but that a perfect substitute for human milk is not yet attained, all agree, and to the individual practitioner is left the question of what must be used. That cow's milk- its purity and freshness being presupposed should form the basis of all infant's food is conceded; but as to how much or how little it should be diluted, opinion is divided. It would seem that the difference between the coagulation of cow's milk and human milk, if properly understood, forbade the use of clear milk; but that experience proves its utility. pared, is strongly commended by as strongly opposed by Pavy, Jacobi, and many others. Says Lusk, in his recent work on "Midwifery": "I have seen a number of children exclusively fed upon it, after passing through apparently a blooming infancy, develop symptoms of rickets at the end of their first year. I have, however, been in the habit of allowing its habitual use during the first three months of existence, and in the city during the hot months of summer." Ever since Liebig first introduced his infant's food, which purported to

Corson and others maintain Condensed milk, rightly presome, — notably Ellis, — and

fill exactly the physiological requirements, innumerable foods have been brought forward, each claiming superiority. Many, like Jacobi and Chambers, consider them worse than useless; while Ellis, Smith, and Lusk recommend one or other of them, as their experience in their use teaches "Sensible people," says Dr. Chambers, "will be content to leave the recipe of Liebig's food for some coming race who may prefer art to nature." With reference to the merits of these foods, and to prove how far their claims are warranted by microscopical examination, Dr. Cutter has written an article, which appeared in the American Medical Weekly for Jan. 7. That the work has been well done, the writer's reputation is a sufficient guaranty; and his investigations sustain the claims of Mellin's and Hawley's Liebig's Food, and prove the absence of gluten in many which are generally supposed to contain it. Circumstances may and do occur where a change of food is imperative; and how to supply a food rich in nitrogen, and as free from starch as possible, often perplexes the physician. At such times, Dr. Cutter's conclusions may be of service; for the majority of physicians have not the time, if the opportunity, to make such investigations for themselves.

VACCINATION.

"IF," says Marson, "a little operation, little apparently in practice, but very important in its results, well performed, can save many lives, as most certainly it can, and prevent much suffering and sorrow, it should surely always be done with the greatest care and in the best known way." To physicians, at the present time, these words furnish food for much reflection. Jenner himself insisted that for the proper performance of this operation, not a general knowledge, but a particular knowledge of vaccine inoculation was needed. How many physicians have conformed to this requirement? We dare say, without fear of contradiction, that the proportion of those qualified would be pitiably small. The reason for this is not far to seek; the simplicity of the operation explains it all. That this excuses the physician, no one will admit ; and though the penalty of his neglect is slow in coming, it is none the less sure. A careful study of Seaton's" Hand-Book of Vaccination," and a half-day at a vaccine

establishment, would do much towards dissipating the prevailing ignorance, the adoption of greater care in the method of vaccinating, and a more careful discrimination between the true and false vesicle. †

A GOOD MOVE.

IT has long been the custom at the opening of the London School of Homœopathy, for one of the professors to deliver a lecture upon some subject pertaining particularly to our school of medicine, or its peculiar tenets; and a most cordial invitation was extended to all physicians to attend. The result has been to diffuse information, not otherwise attainable, upon many difficult points, and to stimulate all to a more thorough study of the fundamental principles of homoeopathy. At the Boston University School of Medicine, a course of lectures with the same ends in view has recently been started, and "physicians and those interested in medical science are cordially invited." That they will prove interesting and instructive, no one who knows the physicians who constitute the corps of lecturers will question; and every physician in Boston and vicinity should make a strenuous effort to be present. Much as has been written upon the dose, the limitations of homœopathy, etc., differences of opinion do and will exist; but it is none the less profitable to hear from others the reason for the faith which is in them. t

SOME CASES AT THE ROTUNDA HOSPITAL, DUBLIN.

BY G. R. SOUTHWICK, M. D.

DURING the last few months of my stay here, a number of rare and interesting cases have occurred. Have sent reports of a few, thinking they might be of interest to the readers of the GAZETTE. No one knows positively but that the next case he attends may be a similar one. Thus a knowledge of their treatment by the Dublin school might prove of service. There are few comments made. The facts are stated as they occurred, leaving it to the reader's judgment to form his own opinion. Will first relate a fatal case of post partum hemorrhage in a primipara.

Lucy McCrum; age, nineteen; admitted into the hospital Oct. 25, was delivered Oct. 26, at 11.15 A. M. She was an anæmic,