THE Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania is threatened with an epidemic of smallpox. A prisoner who has been incarcerated for over a year has mysteriously contracted the disease, and every precaution is being exerted to protect the nine hundred fifty inmates of the prison.

THE government contemplates the erection of a $400,000 hospital for the Army and Navy. Doctor Louis de Clermont, of Washington, has secured a site of over six hundred acres of ground in Illinois, and a structure sufficiently large to accommodate three thousand patients. will be erected thereon.

MINNESOTA has a law compelling physicians to report to the register of deeds of their county, all accidents in which the victim is disabled for a period of two weeks or longer. Failure to comply with the enactment is punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars or imprisonment for a period of six months.

AN interesting case of premature maternity is reported from Bristol, Tennessee. The mother is a colored girl, ten years of age, a native of Virginia, and the infant weighs eight pounds. It is said that chances for its survival are excellent and that the mother has experienced a complete recovery from the early parturition.

SPRING BEACH, a suburb of Seattle, Washington, is to have a new $30,000 sanatorium. A four-story structure is contemplated, and as the promoters have already secured one hundred acres of land, ample grounds are assured. The institution will afford accommodation to five hundred patients, and will be under the supervision of a staff of fifteen physicians.

BROOKLYN has a novel institution in the form of a public library for the blind. Inasmuch as raised letter books are quite expensive, and as few blind persons can afford indulgence in them, the library is a very welcome acquisition to the educational system of the city. Most of the volumes deal with nature or light emotional subjects, as sightless individuals prefer this variety to works of more profound type.

THE war department has provided for the establishment of a chair of military hygiene at the West Point Military Academy. The cadets will receive sufficient medical knowledge to enable them to care for troops from a hygienic standpoint, and to administer relief in superficial injuries. The founding of the chair was doubtless prompted by the remarkable results obtained by Japanese military surgeons in the late

war.

The German Röntgen Society has issued an inaugural volume of proceedings, detailing the work of the first congress of r-ray workers. The book is divided into five parts enumerating the various features. of the meeting. The first section is merely a compilation of the physicians who were in attendance; section two is devoted to exhibits; section three contains the papers read and the discussions thereon; and sections four and five are devoted to a history of the organization, and the publication of communications.

PROFESSOR TERRIANI estimates that eighty per cent of the child criminals of Italy owe their vicious instincts to unsuitable environment and insufficient educational advantages. He further states that thirty per cent of the criminals of the kingdom have not yet reached legal age, and that of this number eighty-five per cent are thieves.

EFFORTS are being exerted toward the establishment of a medical college for the United Provinces of India, as a memorial of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to the Peninsular. The question has long been agitated and it is probable that matters have at last reached a focus, as each province is endeavoring to outdo the other in the matter of support.

THE Consolidation of the Medical and Surgical Monitor and the Central States Medical Magazine has been effected at Indianapolis, the new publication being known as the Central States Medical Monitor. Doctors S. E. Earp and S. P. Scherer will comprise the editorial staff. The Monitor is the latest acquisition to the field of independent medical journalism, and we wish it success.

THE National Association for the Study of Epilepsy has announced its intention to award a prize of $300 for the best original paper on the "Etiology of Epilepsy." Essays must be submitted for approval before September 1, 1906, as the prize essayist will be announced in November. Physicians desiring information regarding the award may communicate with the president of the association, Doctor W. P. Spratling, of Sonyea, New York.

THE twenty-ninth annual meeting of the American Dermatological Association was held in New York City on December 28, 29 and 30, 1905. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Doctor Milton B. Hartzell, of Philadelphia; vice-president, Doctor T. Caspar Gilchrist, of Baltimore; secretary-treasurer, Doctor Grover W. Wende, of Buffalo. Cleveland was designated as the meeting place for 1906.

In accordance with an order from the Commissioner of Immigration of the port of New York, saloon and second cabin passengers will henceforth be subjected to examination by the government physicians. Heretofore the order affected only steerage passengers, but owing to rejected immigrants taking advantage of legal inadequacy by returning as saloon passengers the regulations in regard to such persons were made more stringent.

BOSTON has a new hospital for the treatment of diseased horses, dogs, cats, and other domestic animals. The institution is to be equipped in the most approved fashion-operating rooms, exercising paddocks, private wards, and baths being stipulated in the architect's plans. A free clinie will be conducted weekly for animals belonging to the poorer classes. The hospital is under the direction of Samuel F. Wadswords, M. D. V., a graduate of the Harvard Veterinary School.

PAUL REVERE, the Revolutionary patriot, according to the following announcement taken from an old copy of the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, must have been a dentist: "Whereas, many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-teeth by Accident and otherways, to their great Detriment, not only in Looks, but speaking both in Public and Private:-This is to inform all such that they may have them replaced with artificial ones, that looks as well as the Natural & answers the end of Speaking to all Intents, by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Dr. Clarke's Wharf, Boston. All Persons who have had false Teeth fixt by Mr. John Baker, Surgeon Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in time), may have them fastened by the above who learnt the Method of fixing them from Mr. Baker."

RECENT LITERATURE.

REVIEWS.

COAKLEY'S LARYNGOLOGY.*

THE popularity of the two preceding editions is sufficient proof of the value of this work. In its third edition it has been revised, enlarged and brought completely up-to-date. Due to its completeness and to its compact form it serves equally well as a text-book for students and as a reference book for practitioners and specialists. The most important revision in this last edition is that of the chapter on the "Diseases of the Accessory Sinuses." This has been entirely rewritten and gives very clearly the author's standpoint upon this very important division of the specialty.

Throughout the work is well written and well illustrated and offers a consistent and satisfactory exposition of its subject matter.

*A Manual of Diseases of the Nose and Throat. By Cornelius G. Coakley, A. M., M. D., Professor of Laryngology in the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College; Laryngologist to Columbus Hospital, et cetera, New York. New (third) edition, revised and enlarged. In one 12mo. volume of 594 pages, with 118 engravings and five colored plates. Cloth $2.75 net. Lea Brothers & Company, Publishers, Philadelphia and New York, 1905.

INTERNATIONAL CLINICS.*

R. B. C.

THE latest volume of this well-known series gives us as usual a valuable collection of sound practical papers, with a few theoretic or suggestive ones. Among the former may be mentioned a very useful article on "Radiotherapy," by George C. Johnston; one on the "Symptomatic Treatment of Tuberculosis," by Noble P. Barnes; "Membranous Colic," by Alexander McPhedran; "Addison's Disease," by Edward F. Wells; "Cancer of the Bile-Duct," by F. Parkes Weber and E. Michel; "Frac

ture of the Patella," by J. Sherman Wainwright; "Ethyl Chlorid Anesthesia," by Thomas D. Luke. Richard Kretz gives a succinct account of "Cirrhosis of the Liver," in its anatomic relations. The articles of Albert Robin, on the "Action of Metallic Ferments on Metabolism and Pneumonia," and Professor Teissier on "Opotherapy in Renal Insufficiency," are interesting. Sanger Brown has a thoughtful article on the "Early Stages of Acute Poliomyelitis," so often overlooked in practice, and there are others in Ophthalmology and Rhinology. John W. Wainwright's article on "Serum Therapy" is brief to the danger point. If vaccination is to be included in such an article it would seem worth while to give some explanation of unusual views that appear, such as the one that "true animal vaccine” and “variola vaccine" are different, or are distinguished in practice, or that "pulp consists of proliferated epithelium."

On the whole the volume is not quite up to the standard of some of its predecessors, but well deserves the continued popularity acquired by the series.

G. D.

*A Quarterly of Illustrated Clinical Lectures and Especially Prepared Original Articles, et cetera. Edited by A. O. J. Kelly, A. M., M. D., Philadelphia. Volume III. Fifteenth Series, 1905. J. B. Lippincott Company.

HARE'S TEXT-BOOK OF PRACTICAL THERAPEUTICS.* THE eleventh edition of this work, enlarged, revised and largely rewritten is before the profession. Among the changes that have been made in bringing out this edition the changing of the doses of drugs to conform to the new Pharmacopeia is the most important. To the physician this is a labor-saving provision, to the patient a guarantee that his medicines are efficient and safe, and to the student a path that leads in the way he should go.

The volume contains two sections, one dealing with drugs, remedial measures and foods, the other with the use of drugs in treating disease. The book has the good points of its predecessors and several other good points in addition.

Hare's Therapeutics has come to take on some of the characteristics of a government report. A new edition is looked for yearly and the opinions and the conclusions expressed are viewed as coming from one in authority.

D. L. P.

*A Text-Book of Practical Therapeutics, with Especial Reference to the Application of Remedial Measures to Disease and their Employment upon a Rational Basis. By Hobart Amory Hare, M. D., B. Sc., Professor of Therapeutics and Materia Medica in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Physician to the Jefferson Hospital, et cetera. New eleventh edition, enlarged and thoroughly revised to accord with the eighth decennial revision of the United States Pharmacopeia, 1905. In one octavo volume of 910 pages, with 113 engravings and four colored plates. Cloth, $4.00, net; leather, $5.00, net; half morocco, $5.50, net. Lea Brothers & Company, Philadelphia and New York.