sum of our capital stock at $200,000-an amount necessary to open to our agencies all the States as well as the Canadas. -we permitted parties in Cleveland and vicinity to subscribe, not to exceed three-fourths thereof, reserving at least $50,000 to be taken by the friends of homeopathy in other parts of the country. Finding, however, that the offering of our subscription list to parties abroad was not rightly understood, and that it might lead to doubts as to our inherent or domestic soundness, we allowed the balance to be taken in Ohio. Before the close of October, our institution, known as "The Hahnemann Life Insurance Company," was organised for business.

As its representative, I have visited the chief cities of the country, presenting its purposes and plans to the members of the homœopathic profession, and am happy to report that our efforts have been met with favour on every hand.

Owing to the diversity of laws in the several States regulating life insurance, and a lack of necessary experience and energy in the early management at our Home Office, we have been delayed much beyond our expectation in the establishment of agencies in all parts of the country. I am pleased, however, to announce to you that we have fully complied with the requirements of New York, Massachusetts, and other States, and are now prepared to operate everywhere as fast as competent agents can be obtained.

With regard to the soundness of our institution, I wish to add that it is perfectly satisfactory, and unsurpassed; there being not only a paid-up cash capital of $200,000, but also the personal obligations, under the laws of Ohio, of our stockholders for as much more in case of the exhaustion of the entire capital by losses.

Our board embraces some of the ablest financial managers in the country, while in the office of secretary we have an experienced life-insurance officer, in administrative ability unsurpassed, and scarcely equalled anywhere.

With this brief history and outline of our institution, permit me to assure you that the ruling motive which occasioned its origin was a determination to have a sound and liberal company that should not only provide for the widows and orphans of the dead in the usual manner, but one that should also save the patrons of our superior healing art from paying the unjust higher rates of premium required of those under less certain and more hazardous modes of medical treatment.

The underwriter in fire insurance examines not only the interior heating apparatus of the building he is called upon to insure, but also carefully surveys its connections and surroundings, in order to fix his rate of premium thereon.

The underwriter in marine insurance examines not only the hull, machinery, outfit, and cargo of the vessel he is about to insure, but he also carefully inquires as to the waters in which the craft will sail and the ports she will enter, in order to judge of the dangers she may encounter and the rate of premium he is to demand.

The underwriter in life insurance inquires into the physical history and condition of one applying for a Policy nor does he neglect to ascertain the residence and occupation as well as the character and habits of the applicant. If he has lost both parents at an early age with consumption, or if he be drunken and dissolute, he cannot be insured. If he be a powder manufacturer, a pilot, an engineer or fireman, he can be insured only by paying an extra rate of premium.

Since it has thus been deemed important to examine every element or item of risk by fire, storms, hereditary taint, accidents, and habits, we are unable to see why the results and hazards of medical treatment should not be also taken into consideration.

I have no hesitation in saying, that where one man is blown up with gunpowder, twenty are killed outright by destructive doses of drugs; where ten die by alcoholic stimulants, at least twenty others die by narcotic and irritant medicines, prescribed, as the doctors say, "secundum artem;" and for all who perish by going below the southern boundary of Tennessee, or beyond the Rocky Mountains, more than an equal number fall short their period of expectation for the want of appropriate remedial agents when sick.

From an extensive gathering of medical and mortuary statistics, I am fully satisfied there is at least 10 per cent. less mortality among the sick under homœopathic treatment than among those under allopathic.

In fact, I am convinced that no medication at all is better than allopathic, with all the light that collateral branches of science have shed upon its pathway from the days of Hippocrates down.

In making up our rates of premium, I have found it necessary to go back to the proper starting-point, and with the advice and assistance of Prof. Elizur Wright, of Boston, to make up a new

table of mortality. The Carlisle, Northampton, and Combined Experience Tables do not suit our purpose; and Prof. Wright has just finished what we shall be pleased to call the HAHNEMANN TABLE OF MORTALITY, upon which all our tables and rates will be based, making a difference in premiums in favour of patrons of homœopathy of from six to fifteen per cent.

In regard to the division of profits to policy-holders, we shall not follow the example of The London General Provident Company, which strives to insure both homoeopathists and allopathists by putting them in separate sections. We raise our banner high and throw it boldly to the breeze, uttering no doubtful voice in favour of homœopathy, and asking no favours from its opponents. We have but one section, one box into which our profits go, and from which dividends will be paid to our policy-holders.

If allopathists think our plan of reduced premiums in favour of homoeopathy an experiment—if they are dubious and think it better to be in a separate section, we respectfully refer them to such institutions as may be more anxious for their patronage and less confident in homoeopathy than we are.

In conclusion, I wish to remind the members of the Institute that the Hahnemann stands as the first life-insurance company in the world, offering a discount from ordinary premium rates to the patrons of homœopathy; that it is the only company that does not seek allopathic patronage; and that its interests are so thoroughly identified with your practice, that through all coming time they must rise or fall together.

Our system of agents spread over all the American field will serve as an efficient propaganda of your faith, seeking practitioners for every needy place, making sensible the influence and power of your noble and numerous patrons, gathering statistics, watching progress, and from time to time noting upon the world's great bulletin board the triumphs of homoeopathy.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Vivisection, is it Necessary or Justifiable?

Prize Essays of

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. London:

Hardwicke, 1866.

New Remedies, by EDWIN HALE, M.D. Second Edition, Parts I and II. Detroit Lodge, 1866.

Prostitution Medically Considered, by Dr. CH. DRYSDALE. London: Hardwicke, 1866.

Cancer, its Treatment by means of Paste and Incisions, Reviewed, by J. WELDON FELL, M.D. London: Boyd, 1866.

The Scientific Character of Homœopathy, by J. GILES, M.R.C.S.L. Auckland, 1866.

Domestic Treatment of Diseases of Children on Homœopathic Principles, by HENRY R. IRWIN. Birmingham: Corfield and Perry, 1866.

What to do in Case of Cholera, by H. V. MALAN, M.D. London: Turner.

Directions for the Homœopathic Treatment of Cholera, by Jos. KIDD, M.D. London: Urell, 1866.

Seventh Annual Prospectus and Announcement for 1866 and 1867 of the New York Homœopathic Medical College. 1866. Hahnemannian Monthly, No. I.

Epidemic Cholera, its mode of Treatment, &c., by JOHN F. GEARY, M.D. San Francisco, 1866.

The New York Citizen, June 23rd, 1866.
The Indian Daily News, July 21st, 1866.
Medical Gymnastics, by C. EHRENHOF.
The Hahnemannian Monthly.

The New England Medical Gazette.
The Monthly Homœopathic Review.

The North American Journal of Homoeopathy.
The American Homœopathic Observer.

The Western Homœopathic Observer.

The Chicago Medical Investigator.

L'Art Médical.

Bulletin de la Société Homœopathique de France.
El Criterio Medico.

Neue Zeitschrift für Hom. Klinik.

INDEX TO VOL. XXIV.