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This journal is devoted solely to the advancement of medical science and the promotion of the interests of the whole profession. Essays, reports of cases, and correspondence upon subjects of professional interest are solicited. The editor is not responsible for the views of contributors.

Books for review, and all communications relating to the columns of the journal, should be addressed to the Editor of THE AMERICAN PRACTITIONER AND NEWS, Louisville, Ky.

Subscriptions and advertisements received, specimen copies and bound volumes for sale by the undersigned, to whom remittances may be sent by postal money order, bank check, or registered letter. Address JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY, Louisville, Ky.

1826-DAVID W. YANDELL, M. D., LL. D.-1898.

Dr. David W. Yandell, the eminent surgeon, physician, and editor, died at his home in Louisville on the 2d instant, after an illness of nearly four years' duration.

Dr. Yandell was a many-sided man, and of such intellectual endowment as fitted him for success in any line of endeavor. As surgeon, physician, and medical writer he rapidly attained and easily held a place in the first rank, while over and above these attainments towered a personality which only genius can bestow, and which made him a commanding figure in matters medical, political, and social. Truly in his death medicine loses a master spirit.

The estimate which the public placed upon the life and labors of Dr. Yandell during the war and his long service to this community as surgeon and physician has been abundantly set forth in the daily press. His standing with his colleagues and among the medical profession of the city is attested in the following.

At a meeting of the Faculty of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, on the 3d instant, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:

In the death of our eminent colleague, Prof. David W. Yandell, the Faculty of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville is conscious of an irreparable loss, for among the conspicuous names that adorn

the professorial roll of this venerable institution there has been none so illustrious as the name of the great surgeon whose death we mourn to-day.

The son of one of the distinguished founders of the University of Louisville, and the grandson of an eminent practitioner of the healing art, Dr. Yandell inherited those rare gifts which, ripened by study and the rough experiences of military life, made him sage and foreseeing in the sick-room, logical, eloquent, and clear in the lecture hall, and facile princeps at the operating-table.

Dr. Yandell introduced clinical teaching into the Southwest, and for more than thirty years, by the brilliancy of his lectures, the cunning of his hand, and the power of his pen, enhanced the fame of his Alma Mater, to which was devoted the prime of his splendid manhood.

No professor ever came into the University with higher natural endowment or better acquired equipment, nor has it been the privilege of any of our professors to do greater work for science, humanity, and medical education. Therefore,

Resolved, That in the death of Dr. Yandell this faculty loses a great and beloved colleague, our students a pre-eminent teacher, surgery an illustrious exponent, the State a famous citizen, and the sick an able counselor and a kind and sympathetic friend.

Resolved, That our sympathy and condolence be extended to the family in this their hour of deepest bereavement.

Resolved, That the halls of the University medical building be decorated with the insignia of mourning.

Resolved, That this faculty attend the funeral of Dr. Yandell in a body: Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be published in the daily papers and medical journals of the city, and that a copy be sent to the family of our deceased colleague.

J. M. BODINE, Dean.

W. O. ROBERTS.

J. A. OUCHTERLONY.

H. A. COTTELL, Secretary.
TURNER ANDERSON.

WILLIAM BAILEY.

H. M. GOODMAN.

R. B. GILBERT.

J. M. RAY.

I. N. BLOOM.

The physicians of the city met on the same day and thus paid tribute to his memory:

Your committee, with the entire medical profession of our city, our State and our country, is painfully sensible that a great man has gone out from among us to-day; that a great light in medicine has ceased to shine. Go where you would upon this continent, during the last quarter of the century, it was to find the name and the fame of Yandell proclaimed by all

men, while to the professsion of Great Britain and Continental Europe no American surgeon was better known.

Fame met him early in life, and at the age of thirty-five years we find him medical director of an army corps in the Confederacy: at forty-four years president of the American Medical Association, and in his maturer years presiding officer of the American Surgical Association. Few men have received greater honors, or have worn them more gracefully or worthily. Therefore, be it

Resolved, That in the death of David W. Yandell the medical profession of Louisville has lost its chiefest ornament; her medical schools their ablest and most brilliant teacher; Kentucky a most honored citizen; the South its most widely known and illustrious surgeon, and the sick an ever kind and sympathetic friend.

Resolved, That the condolence and sympathy of the profession be extended to his bereaved widow and daughters in this their greatest affliction. Resolved, That the medical profession of Louisville be requested to honor the funeral of Dr. Yandell with a full attendance.

Resolved, That a copy of this preamble and resolutions be printed in the daily papers and medical journals of the city; and that a copy be sent to the family of our deceased confrère.

W. L. RODMAN, Chairman.

H. A. COTTELL.

EWING MARSHALL.

WILLIAM BAILEY.

GEORGE W. RONALD,

GEORGE W. GRIFFITHS.

JOHN A. LARRABEE.

C. W. KELLY.

JOSEPH M. MATHEWS.
FLORENCE BRANDEIS.

The obituary of Dr. Yandell presented to the Kentucky State Society will appear in an early issue of this journal, and the memorial address on behalf of the Faculty of the Medical Department of the University of Louisville will be published in due time.

Notes and Queries.

VARICOCELE. The following from a clinical lecture, April 14, 1898, at Kentucky School of Medicine, by Prof. William L. Rodman is of uncommon interest:

"The case that I now bring before you is one of varicocele, which is unusual in one respect; it is in a man, thirty-one years of age, who has been married a year and a half, and notwithstanding the change in his social state the varicocele has not disappeared, but on the contrary he thinks it is larger than before. It is now one of the largest varicoceles I have ever seen. Not only is the varicocele of great size, but there is also a very appreciable atrophy of the testicle on that side, then again he has most pronounced mental symptoms. He is a mental hypochondriac, as all these cases become in time, and therefore we are not only justified, but it is our imperative duty to step in and remove the cause of his trouble and unload his mind.

"Varicocele, as you know, is as a rule a condition of adolescence; it evidently has a very close relation with the sexual apparatus, because of the fact that it never occurs before puberty and practically never occurs after thirty-five; in fact the vast preponderance of cases will occur in young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, who are leading a continent life. Those who functionate regularly, as when early marriage is begun, are practically free from varicocele. Now it is a fact worthy of mention that varicocele and the mental disturbances incident thereto are very generally cured as soon as the sexual function has been regularly established and maintained. A few cases will persist in spite of this change in social condition. Within the past year I have operated upon three or four cases of varicocele in young married men. This will make two hundred and thirteen cases of varicocele upon which I have operated, and in that rather large series of operations I think that I have come across at least a dozen in married men. I have seen more cases in married men within the last year than previously, and without going over my records carefully I am certain that I have seen varicocele in ten or twelve men who were married immune to varicocele. In my series of two hundred and thirteen cases I have never seen a varicocele in the negro. In more than five hundred operations for varicocele that I have been able to trace in Louisville, there has not been a single operation done for this affection upon the full blooded negro. One has been done upon a mulatto. Now when you reflect that in the population of Louisville there is one negro to every five white men, when you further reflect that nearly all of our dispensary cases and at least half of our hospital cases are negroes, you can see what that statement

means. It means that it must be very rare not to have been encountered in the practice of any of the surgeons of Louisville.

"There has not been a single case of varicocele in the negro race at any of the surgical clinics in Louisville since the records have been kept. Why is that so? I have my own reasons. I was talking in Philadelphia a few days ago with Professor White, the author of the work on Venereal Diseases and also the author of many other works in this line, and he said in several hundred operations for varicocele which he had performed he had never seen a case in the negro, and remarked that it was surprising to him, though he had not thought of it before. He says, "How do you explain it?" I told him there was both an anatomical and physiological reason for it; that in the first place the negro while he has a large penis he has rather small testicles and scrotum, and especially that the scrotum is not loose and lax like that of the white man. The scrotum of the negro is short and tight so that the testicles are held up close to the body and have a better support than in the white man. That is the anátomical reason beyond any doubt. As to the physiological reason: As I have just stated varicocele is common in young men who lead a continent life, that it is nearly always cured by marriage. The negro never leads a continent life; there is no period of continence in the negro from the time of puberty until he dies. So then, as the negro begins his sexual life early, and as he is made in a mechanical way rather stronger than the white adult, we have, I think, good reasons why he should enjoy this very exceptional immunity to varicocele."

Dr. Peter GuNTERMANN. This popular physician and genial gentleman died on the 1st instant at his home in Louisville after a brief illness. Dr. Guntermann was born in Germany. His parents came to this country while he was in minority. It was here that he received his education and acquired a sympathy with our institutions and a patriotic love of our conntry which made him the rival of the warmest descendant of the revolutionary heroes.

Dr. Guntermann received his rudimentary medical education at the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, from which he graduated in 1869. Since that time till the day of his death he practiced with brilliant success his profession in Louisville. He was simple and sincere in life, earnest and diligent in study, deliberate and painstaking in practice, independent and open in opinion, a doctor, a gentleman, and a scholar.

The physicians of Louisville, assembled on the second instant to pay tribute to the memory of the dead physician, passed the following preamble and resolutions:

WHEREAS, It has pleased an Allwise Providence to remove from our midst Dr. Peter Guntermann:

Resolved, That in the sudden death of our esteemed friend we have sustained a great loss; he was a true man in all his relations with his medical brethren. He lived

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