EDITORIAL.

TO SUBSCRIBERS.-We are aware that times are hard, yet we hope that subscribers will find it convenient to remit the small amounts of their subscriptions. We are under the necessity of paying cash for work and material, and our subscribers should not make it necessary for us to advance money from our pockets in order to furnish them with current medical literature. Let each one, therefore, send on the price of his subscription without delay.

LAID OVER. In the present issue of the MEDICAL NEWS appears the Valedictory Address of Dr. G. W. UNDERHILL, which we feel sure our readers will find interesting. It contains not a little matter of interest to all physicians, among which will be found the decision of a higher court in Indiana in regard to the remuneration of medical experts when called upon to give testimony.

In consequence of the address occupying so much space, we have been compelled to lay over, until next month, some articles that we had intended to appear in the present number. Among them is an interesting article by Dr.C. S. Muscroft, of this city, "On the Prevention of the Spread of Syphilis." It will appear in the April number.

THE YOUNG SCIENTIST.-This is a popular record of scientific experiments, inventions, and progress for young people. As stated by the publishers, the bane of this country is the prevalence of demoralizing juvenile literature. The way to counteract this tendency is to give the boys (and girls, too) something to do. The Young Scientist will point a way to intelligent recreation and active employment. It gives plain direction for constructing all sorts of apparatus, making tools, elucidates mechanical science, and scientific principles of every kind that are easily understood. Published monthly at fifty cents a year. P. O. Box 4875, New York City.

WM. R. WARNER & Co.'s SUGAR-COATED PILLS OF PHOSPHORUS. We are indebted to this house for a number of samples of their sugar-coated phosphorus pills. Their labors, since 1870, on these pills have achieved a perfection unequaled of pillular form for the administration of the valuable remedy, phosphorus, in an acceptable, con

venient, and potent, yet harmless form. The mass within the sugar-coating is soft, has the odor of phosphorus, is luminous in darkened places, has no lump of phosphorus as it is combined when in solution, and, finally, it is perfectly protected from oxidation or the conversion of the phosphorus into phosphoric acid. These statements are certified to by Mr. A. E. McLean, analytical chemist and microscopist, of New York.

Phosphorus is becoming to be more and more employed as a remedy. It is much more effective in its metallic state than in any other form; and the best way to exhibit it in that condition is by sugar-coated pill. In many cases of paralysis, impotency, and many other affections in which there is a marked want of nervous action, it has brought about most beneficial results. In combination with strychnia, nux vomica, iron, quinine, belladonna, and other tonics and nervines its effects are greatly improved. Messrs. Warner & Co. have numerous combinations of the kind.

We hope our professional brethren will try these pills.

HOMEOPATHY WITH MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.-It is a wellknown fact that many physicians belonging to the homeopathic school do not strictly adhere to the precepts of Hahnemann, and the Homeopathic Society of New York City has just taken an important step toward sanctioning this departure. On the 8th inst. a resolution passed by a special meeting on the 8th of February was taken up. It reads as follows:

"Resolved, That in common with other existing associations which have for their object investigations and other labors which may contribute to the promotion of medical science, we hereby declare that, although firmly believing the principle 'Similia similibus curantur' to constitute the best general guide in the selection of remedies, and fully intending to carry out this principle to the best of our ability, this belief does not debar us from recognizing and making use of the results of any experience; and we shall exercise and defend the inviolable right of every educated physician to make use of any established principle in medical science, or any therapeutical facts founded on experiments and verified by experience, so far as in his individual judgment they shall tend to promote the welfare of those under his professional care."

An earnest and practical discussion ensued. Some of the members were strongly opposed to the resolution as a "lowering of the homeopathic flag." They declared that if eclectism was adopted the eclectic doctors "would beat the homeopathic every time," and it was only by a

rigid adherence to the law and the practice, as laid down by Hahnemann, that the latter could "tower above and overshadow all other practice." On the other hand it was maintained that the progress of medical science necessitated new modes, and that Hahnemann, if alive, would be up with the times. The resolution was finally put to vote and lost by a vote of sixteen in the negative and thirteen in the affirmative. The yeas and nays being called for, a tie resulted. One member, who had not voted (Dr. Holton), was urged to save the President the responsibility of depositing a casting vote, and he complied with the request by an affirmative vote. The resolution was then adopted, though a formal protest was made by a number of physicians.

CUBIC CAPACITY OF THE SKULL. Few are aware of the great difficulties that present themselves in any attempt at measuring accurately the cubic capacity of the skull, though Professor Flower devoted nearly a whole lecture to an account of the various methods in use among anthropologists, last year, in his lectures. at the College of Surgeons. Water, mercury, sand, millet-seed, white mustard-seed, pearl barley, intracranial casts of plaster of paris, etc., have all been employed, yet none are quite reliable, and it is difficult to obtain the same numbers twice consecutively, even when the same substance is used by the same observer. Professor Wyman, measuring the capacity of the same skull with different substances, obtained a minimum of 1,193 with peas and a maximum of 1,313 with fine sand, which shows how great a variation may occur when different materials are used even by the same experimenter. The numerous investigations of Vogt and P. Topinard show that the proportion of the mean absolute capacity of the skull in the anthropoid apes as compared with man, taken as 100, is from 30.63 (Vogt) to 32.66 (Topinard), so that man has two-thirds more brain than animals; and M. Topinard remarks that, taking into account the bulk of the body, it is not three, but four or five times larger, and consequently that, even if on zoological considerations we are included in the same group with them, we are still separated by a very wide interval by the organ which ministers to our intelligence. A short account is given of the convolutions of the brain, and in the second part

he gives some very interesting particulars of the relative size of the brain in different races. A table drawn up by Parchappe gives the following relative weights in grammes, drawn from a large number of experiments: English and Scotch males 1,427, females 1260; French males 1,334, females 1,210; German males 1,382, females 1,244; African negroes 1,238, negresses 1,232. The various forms of craniometers and the description of the fixed points from which all measurements should be taken, and for which anthropologists are much indebted to M. Broca, are well given.

FOREIGN BODIES IN THE NOSE AND EARS.-In a late number of the Lancet we gather some curious information in regard to foreign bodies in the nose and ears.

Foreign bodies, such as cherry stones, locust beans, brass rings, slate pencils, screws, buttons, pieces of wood, peas, etc., are not unfrequently met with in the aural and nasal cavities of children, and even in adults. Such substances have been known to remain in one or the other of these cavities for well-nigh a lifetime, causing little or no inconvenience. Thus a case is related of a lady from whose nostrils a foreign body was dislodged during the act of sneezing; it was found to be a button which had belonged to her little brother when they were both infants. Another case is recorded in which a piece of slate pencil was removed from a woman's ear, which had been put there when she was at school "forty years before." And a third instance, a patient of Mr. Winterbotham, of Cheltenham, in which a cherry stone had been in the ear for sixty years. Mr. Hargood also recently reported the case of a gentleman, aged forty-one, from whose ear a piece of cedar wood was removed by syringing. "The patient remembered distinctly the fact of its introduction when he was a boy at school, at least thirty years before. No attempt had been made to extract it, and its presence had not troubled him until now."

But sometimes serious consequences happen, as facial paralysis. A case is reported resulting in facial paralysis, with death from meningitis.

Living larvæ have been found in the meatus of the ear. Convulsions followed the presence of the larvæ. The gentleman recovered, but remained deaf.

In 1868, a man was admitted into Westminster Hospital,

who had a swelling on the lower lip on the left side. had been told he had cancer, and sought advice on that account. It appeared that he had fallen from a scaffolding, two or three months previously, and had sustained considerable injury to his scalp and face, and his lower jaw was fractured. He had been a patient elsewhere, and stated that when he was under treatment he had fits. On examining the parts, the lip was found a good deal swollen, and rather tender to the touch. A puncture was made, when the knife impinged upon a hard substance, which proved to be a portion of the crown of the left incisor of the lower jaw, which the patient said he missed after the accident.

PHYSICAL CULTURE.-A Miss Bertha Von Hillern, a young German woman, twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, has been giving, in this city, quite recently, examples of strength and endurance, brought about by what she terms her system of physical culture. This system, we believe, consists in regularity of habits, attention to eating and drinking, and every-day exercise by walking-the distance walked each day to be kept steadily up to the point of endurance. She gave, at Greenwood Hall, two exhibitions of walking-the first time walking eighty-nine miles in twenty-six consecutive hours, without sleep, the last time walking one hundred miles in twenty-eight consecutive hours, without sleep. Each task seemed to be easily accomplished in the time allotted for it, and, to all appearances, could have been done in a considerably shorter period of time. Her first walk commenced precisely at eight o'clock on a Friday evening, and was completed a few minutes before ten o'clock, Saturday evening. On the following morning, Sunday, being a pious Catholic, she arose at five o'clock and walked to church, a distance of four or five squares, and back. Her first rest during this walk was at the end of eight hours, when she rested an hour. One other time, we believe, she rested nearly an hour. Toward the close of the walk she rested frequently a few minutes. Her miles were made in from twelve to fourteen minutes each-varying but little from first to last.

When she began her second walk, her temperature, as given us by Dr. C. O. Wright, was 984. About the middle of the next afternoon-having walked about twenty hours-it was 99°, according to the same gentleman. We