by those delvers into the problem who desire some recognition from the world at large for clarity of vision and a sanity unalloyed by foolish prejudices. There, our moral reformers would see that men are not like Thoreau who "ate no flesh, drank no wine, never knew the use of tobacco; had no temptations to fight against, no appetites, no passions," but the victims of a false education which is not so much the result of separateness of their doctors' knowledge of diseases from their early training, as the foolish and accepted idea which, especially, obtains in this country that boys have the right to choose their companions from the walk of life which appeals to them. In this respect Otto Ernst, the well-known German writer, makes some apposite remarks in an article "Von der Sexuellen Aufklaring" (As to Sexual Enlightenment) in a recent number of the Vienna Neue Freue Presse. "In my opinion," says Ernst, "what is more important than sexual instruction is the duty which should devolve on all parents to see that their children associate only with those persons whose mentality is of a high order-pure, noble and exalted. If my mind was detached from all thought of sexual matters, even after I had passed my callow days, it was because of association with men and women of this caliber, and my earnest attention to scientific and literary subjects."

MEDICAL NEWS.

THE DEATH OF DOCTOR CHARLES DENISON.

DOCTOR CHARLES DENISON, of Denver, Colorado, died of gangrene, following cholecystitis, on January 10, 1909. The doctor obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Vermont in 1869. He entered practice in the east, and while in Hartford about the year 1873 suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage which was precipitated by tubercu losis. The disease caused his removal to Denver, where he achieved distinction as physician, teacher, author and inventor. For fourteen years he was affiliated with the University of Denver as professor of diseases of the chest and climatology. He was the author of "Rocky Mountain Health Resorts," a work of great worth on the climate of Colorado; and of a series of Climatic Maps of the United States; besides being the inventor of a stethoscope. He was likewise a successful practician.

ANOTHER ANTI-TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION.

AN anti-tuberculosis mass meeting was held in the Medical building at Ann Arbor, Friday evening, January 29, 1909. The purpose of the gathering was the organization of a local anti-tuberculosis association. The meeting was conducted by Doctor Victor C. Vaughan, who announced a number of prominent citizens as speakers for the occasion, among them

being Doctor Aldred S. Warthin, Professor John W. Glover, Judge H. Wirt Newkirk, Reverend Father Kelly, Reverend Carl S. Patton, Doctor Albion W. Hewlett, and Mr. Ottmar Eberbach. An association was perfected with the following officers: President, Reverend Carl S. Patton; vice-president, Miss Fandira Crocker; secretary, Doctor Aldred S. Warthin; treasurer, Ottmar Eberbach.

ANN ARBOR MEETING OF THE TRI-STATE MEDICAL.

THE Northern Tri-State Medical Association held its thirty-fifth semiannual meeting in the Medical building at Ann Arbor on Tuesday, January 12, 1909, under the presidency of Doctor William A. Dickey, of Toledo. Pending arrival of the president, Doctor Charles B. G. de Nancrede, the vicepresident, called the meeting to order promptly on time. The forenoon session consisted of three clinics, from 9 to 12. Doctor Carl D. Camp conducted a Neurologic clinic; Doctor Albert M. Barrett conducted a Psychiatric clinic; and Doctor Reuben Peterson conducted a Gynecologic clinic. In addition to this array of clinical instruction, ten papers were listed on the program for the afternoon and evening sessions, and every author was present to read his contribution. Luncheon was provided for the visiting doctors at noon, and a banquet was tendered them in the evening, both being served at the Michigan Union Club and tendered by the Ann Arbor Medical Club. The meeting was a pronounced success. The next gathering will be in Toledo, July 13. Several of the papers will be published in future issues of this journal.

CONCERNING THE TUBERCULOSIS CONTINGENT.

FIFTEEN thousand beds and six hundred thousand patients, or four hundred consumptives for every bed, is a statement made today by the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis in its investigations as to the need of beds for destitute consumptives in the United States.

Gathering statistics from every State in the country and from every hospital in which any provision whatever is made for tuberculous patients, it has been found that the total number of beds provided both by public. and private resources, is less than fifteen thousand. Over against these figures, the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis has placed the fact that there are, according to the estimate of the United States Bureau of the Census, at least six hundred thousand living cases of tuberculosis in this country and that at least two hundred thousand persons die from this disease every year.

When analyzed as to their geographical distribution, New York State leads the list with three thousand five hundred and fifty-six beds, while Pennsylvania comes next with over one thousand five hundred. Colorado and Massachusetts each have over one thousand two hundred and fifty, while New Mexico, the next in order, has nine hundred and fifteen beds

for consumptives. Several States provide less than twenty beds, among these being, Delaware, Kansas, and South Carolina, while some of the States, such as Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, make no provision whatever for tuberculous patients, either in private or public hospitals.

The Adirondack region in New York State; Colorado, and particularly the regions about Denver and Colorado Springs; New Mexico, Arizona, and the Southwest; and North Carolina, are the principal resorts for consumptives. The recent demonstrations of experts, however, that tuberculosis can be cured in any climate, has led to a considerable distribution of the bed capacity and has called into existence a large number of small sanatoria, hospitals, and day camps, some of them with a capacity of only six beds. This is shown by the fact that, while the number of sanatoria during the last four years has more than doubled, the increase in the number of beds has been only about fifty per cent.

The most striking fact emphasized by the investigation is that, while the lack of beds for all classes of consumptives is so manifest throughout the country, the number of beds needed for advanced cases is far greater than the number needed for all the other stages put together. Of the fifteen thousand beds at present available for all classes of consumptives, less than five thousand are for advanced cases. Computing that there are at least two hundred thousand living cases in the advanced stages of tuberculosis in the United States at the present time, the need for a large number of additional beds for this most deserving class is evident. Doctor John S. Billings, of the Health Department of New York City, estimates that about sixty to seventy per cent of the advanced cases are unable to provide for their proper care at home. This means that over one hundred and twenty thousand beds in hospitals for advanced cases should be provided. The need for accommodation for advanced cases is further emphasized by the fact that every expert and specialist has agreed on this conclusion, that consumption will never be eradicated until the advanced cases of the disease are isolated, either in their homes or in institutions. Doctor Koch says,

"Every case of tuberculosis should be isolated as long as bacilli are there." Doctor Arthur Newsholme, one of the best English specialists on tuberculosis, says that the only way in which the death rate from consumption. can be reduced is by segregating all advanced cases, because these are the centers of infection from which the disease spreads.

It is not difficult, the National Association affirms, to cure consumption in its early stages, but it is impossible to effect a cure in the latter stages, of the disease, and, consequently, these cases should be removed or isolated in their homes in order to prevent the infection of persons living with them. But they cannot be removed or isolated unless hospitals are provided for that purpose; and with this end in view, a campaign to secure more accommodations for advanced cases of tuberculosis is being carried on all over the country. When enough beds are provided, it is estimated that the death rate from consumption will be cut in half and there will be an annual saving to the country of one hundred thousand lives.

MINOR INTELLIGENCE.

CHICAGO recently shipped five thousand cats to Japan for the purpose of fighting plague-infected rats.

NEW YORK CITY has two hundred and twenty six hospitals, the oldest one being the New York Hospital, which was founded in 1776.

PROFESSOR VON STRUMPELL, of Breslau, has accepted the chair of medicine at Vienna recently made vacant by the death of Professor Von Schrötter.

ACCORDING to report of Surgeon-General Wyman, San Francisco is now free from plague. There is no evidence of the disease either in humans or rodents.

THE yearly cost of tuberculosis to the State of New York is estimated at sixty-three millions. This amount includes the item of producers lost to the commonwealth.

DOCTOR W. ERNEST JONES reports that five thousand fifty-two insane persons are included in the population of Victoria, Australia-one to every two hundred fifty inhabitants.

DOCTOR JOHN W. TRUEWORTHY, of Los Angeles, will receive fifty thousand dollars from the estate of E. J. Baldwin, of Arcadia, California, for professional services rendered.

THE Northwestern University Medical School of Chicago loses the services of Doctor Arthur William Meyer, who has accepted the chair of anatomy in the Leland Stanford University.

YOUNG physicians desirous of entering the army should communicate with the Surgeon-General, Washington, as fifty-nine vacancies in the medical reserve corps were recently reported.

PERMANGANATE of potassium is thought to be practically a specific for snake bite in India. Only twenty-three deaths have occurred in one hundred ninety-eight cases treated with this medicament.

THE Columbus (Ohio) Academy of Medicine recently unanimously adopted a resolution praying the legislature to disregard the senate bill which provides for a state board of examiners for opticians.

DOCTOR JOHN GORDON WILSON, of Rush Medical College, has been appointed professor of otology in the Northwestern Medical School to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Doctor Frank Allport.

SENATOR BEATTY recently introduced a bill in the Ohio legislature appropriating ten thousand dollars for the instruction of children in the public schools along the line of cause and prevention of tuberculosis.

VERA CRUZ, Mexico, reports eight hundred seventy-two births during 1908. Tuberculosis claimed four hundred seventy-one of the two thousand one hundred sixteen deaths that occurred in that city during the same year.

THE Vienna College of Physicians will celebrate the centenary of the death of Auenbrugger, the inventor of percussion, on May 18, 1909. memorial tablet will be placed on the house in which he breathed his last.

LONDON instances a woman "specialist" who was recently fined five hundred pounds for failing to remove smallpox marks from a patient's face and for disfigurements that followed the "harmless method" employed.

DOCTOR LEONARD WARREN, of Marietta, Ohio, has been fined twentyfive hundered dollars for alleged violation of the local option law. The sum is said to be the heaviest penalty yet imposed in the Buckeye State for this offence.

MEDICAL assistants who worked in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, under Doctor T. S. Coulston, from 1873 to 1908, have presented him with a silver Vikingship. It weighs one hundred ounces and is of tenth century design.

THE California ground squirrels not only spread disease but also cause a yearly loss of ten million dollars to agriculture, and hence the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service has inaugurated a movement to rid that state of the pests.

DOCTOR ROSWELL PARK was recently presented with a silver service by the senior class of the medical department of the University of Buffalo, the occasion being the twenty-fifth anniversary of his occupancy of the chair of surgery in that institution.

THE efficiency of the army isolation hospital recently established at Fort Myer, Virginia, has proven so satisfactory that a similar one will soon be established at Fort Slocum, New York. Hospitals for contagious diseases at military posts will likely be further increased.

FAILURE to comply with the New York ordinance prohibiting expectoration in public places recently caused the arrest of two hundred men in one day, by the police of that metropolis. The offenders were fined sums ranging from fifty cents to three dollars.

FAILURE of the authorities to furnish sufficient supplies of medicine and food recently precipitated a strike of the doctors and nurses in the hospitals. at Caracas, and as a consequence thereof three hundred patients were left starving and in need of the necessities of life.

An epidemic of yellow fever is reported from Barbados, and dispatches are to the effect that the situation is rapidly growing serious. Twelve deaths have already occurred and quarantine of Barbados and Martinique is being enforced by both the Dutch and French governments.

DOCTOR WILLIAM J. GOODHUE, of Kalaupapa, Hawaii, has been selected United States representative at the World's Leprosy Congress which meets at Christiana, Norway, this year. The doctor has been physician at the Leper Settlement of the Hawaiian Islands for the past four years.