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DISEASES OF THE BLOOD AND NUTRITION, AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES; being Vol. IV. of "A Handbook of Practical Medicine," by Dr. Hermann Eichhorst, and Vol. XII. of Wood's Library for 1886 (completing the set; price of set, $15). Illustrated. New York: William Wood & Co.

407 pp.

The range of diseases treated of in the present volume is so extensive that brevity in discussing each is a necessity. Literary style is thus somewhat sacrificed to condensation, but the essential points in the etiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment are not neglected. Treatment, indeed, as is not unusual in the school. to which he belongs, is the weak point of the author. The relative importance of diseases, as indicated by the space devoted to their treatment, is bewildering in the extreme; yellow-fever being disposed of in five lines, and gonorrhoea receiving four pages.

This volume closes the issue of Wood's Library for the year just ended. The publishers and the owners of the twelve volumes which it comprises are alike to be congratulated upon its substantial worth.

HOW TO STRENGTHEN THE MEMORY. By M. L. Holbrook, M.D. New York: M. L. Holbrook & Co. 152 pp.

No class of men can more strenuously desire a firm and facile memory than do the members of the medical profession. How to acquire such a memory is, therefore, for them, a subject of very practical interest; and it is a subject which they will find most helpfully discussed in this modest little volume. The chapters are terse, direct, scholarly; the rules given are so few, simple, and sensible, that they can be easily mastered, and should be faithfully practised. We cordially commend Dr. Holbrook's treatise to all those who count self-culture as among the possibilities and the duties of mature life.

ROLAND BLAKE. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1886. 379 pp.

Dr. Mitchell's standing in the foremost rank of American litterateurs is freshly assured by every fresh novel from his pen. His mastery of literary technique grows with practice; and if one misses from his later works something of the graceful tenderness of sentiment, the tonic hopefulness, which so endeared his earlier ones to the public heart, one admits with a sigh, that neither of these qualities is greatly fostered by observation of those sorrowing and perplexing aspects of life to which a physician's attention is so constantly directed. "Roland Blake" though not perhaps a more powerful novel than its predecessor, "In War Time," is certainly a pleasanter one, since its central

figure is a man faithful and successful, while the central figure of " In War Time" was false and a failure. And for even a gleam of cheer in a modern work of fiction, the reader is as pathetically grateful as is a New-Englander for a glint of sunshine on a March day; too many of our modern novelists working in the morbid idea that the real is only synonymous with the sordid and the sorrowful.

The character of Octopia Darnell is, to the apprehension of every physician who has ever been called to the treatment of nervous diseases, most evidently and skilfully studied from life; the life not only of an individual, but of a class. It is a character study, by which the medical practitioner may benefit as a lesson in pathology, and the neurasthenic woman as a lesson in morals.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for January opens the year most worthily. A paper on "The Intermingling of Races," by John Reade, goes far to suggest that the nations of the earth will eventually become of one blood, as we are theologically told they were originally made. "Science in Religious Education " is something of a plea for the abolition of all forms of worship in the public schools. Dettey Von Geyer has an interesting study of the "Voices of Animals." The editorial department is, as always, able and suggestive. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

THE January number of the CENTURY gives promise that the new year shall be as fruitful in the good things of literature as was the old. The present chapters in the history of Lincoln deal with his career in Springfield, his marriage, the Shields duel, and the campaign of 1844. The "War Papers" still picture Gettysburg; there is a vivid sketch of an Indian horse-race, by Lieut. Wood; a most thoughtful essay on the "Strength of Nations," in the delightfully crisp and nervous English of Edward Atkinson; and other tempting reading, beyond our space to enumerate in detail. New York: the Century Company.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE HOMEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1886.

A TEXT-BOOK OF MEDICINE FOR STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS. By Dr. Adolf
Strümpell. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1887.

MANUAL OF OPERATIVE SURGERY. By Joseph D. Bryant, M.D.
D. Appleton & Co., 1887.

New York:

PRACTICAL URINALYSIS, WITH CLINICAL HINTS. By J. B. S. King, M.D. Chicago: Boericke & Tafel.

THE CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF TEETH. By C. S. Weeks, Dentist. New York: Fowler & Wells Co., 1886. Price, 10 cents.

ON CERTAIN MOOTED POINTS IN GYNECOLOGY. By Thomas Addis Emmet,
M.D. Reprinted from The British Medical Journal, Nov. 13, 1886.
CERTAIN HEREDITARY AND PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA IN INEBRIETY. By T. D.
Crothers, M.D. Reprint from The Alienist and Neuralogist, October, 1886.
REST FOR PAINFUL EYES: IS THIS ADVICE ALWAYS GOOD? By Julian J.
Chisolm, M.D. Reprint from The Maryland Medical Journal, January, 1887.
THE RELATIVE INFLUENCES OF MATERNAL AND WET-NURSING ON MOTHER
AND CHILD. By Joseph Edcil Winters, M.D. Reprint from The Medical Record,
Nov. 6, 1886.

MISCELLANY.

ABOUT TO CHANGE HIS PROFESSION. -"Trampin's played out," said a sadlooking specimen of hts tribe, as he hugged the red-hot stove in the station; "trampin's no good any more, an' I'm goin' to change my perfeshun."

"What are you going into?"

"I'm goin' to be a mind-cure doctor." - Chicago Herald.

FATAL EFFECT ASCRIBED TO COLLODION IN SMALL-POX. — Comby recently described before the Société de Chirurgie of Paris the case of a woman suffering from small-pox, whose face was covered with collodion to avoid cicatrization. The eruption was at first retarded, but soon diffuse suppuration took place under the collodion, and after a few days of great suffering and high fever the patient died. The fatal ending of the case was attributed to the application of the collodion. Medical Times.

I,

PERSONAL AND NEWS ITEMS.

DR. W. H. STONE has removed from 97 to No. 133 Orms Street in Providence. DR. F. W. MANN has removed from Burrillville, R.I., to Milford, Mass.

DR. W. F. FRYER has located at Middleborough, Mass.

DR. E. I. HALL, R. U. S. of M., class '81, has located at Attleborough, Mass.

DR. H. E. SMALL has removed from No. 3 Marble Street to Hotel Parthia, suite

No. 690 Shawmut Avenue, between Madison and Sterling Streets.

DR. EDW. B. HOLT has removed his office to Room 7, Wyman's Exchange, corner of Merrimack and Central Streets, Lowell.

A RECENT issue of "The Canadian American" contained an interesting biographical sketch of one of our Boston homeopathic physicians, Dr. Prosper Bender. Among the pleasant facts to be learned from this sketch, is that of Dr. Bender's service as surgeon in the late civil war, where he was attached to the branch of the army in Virginia, under command of Gen. Grant; and also that the doctor is littérateur no less than physician, certain of his books on Canadian history and literature being among the prize volumes for distribution in the public schools of that province.

THE inhabitants of the beautiful town of Bristol, Vt., desire to secure a homoeopathic physician. It is a growing place five and a half miles from the New Haven depot on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. The town has good schools and many well-to-do families. The nearest homoeopathic physician is located at Vergennes, a distance of ten miles. For further information address Otis Clapp & Son, Boston.

AT a meeting of the Washington Homœopathic Medical Society, held in that city on the 7th ult., Dr. E. B. Kankin was formaily expelled from the society, for unprofessional conduct in advertising to sell certain medicines prepared by him, and claimed to be specifics; Dr. Rankin at the same time advertising himself as

an attending physician at the National Homeopathic Hospital and the Homœopathic Dispensary, though his connection with both these institutions had been definitely severed.

A FATHER can give his young son no better present than a year's reading of "The Scientific American." Its contents will lead the young mind in the path of thought, and if he treads there a while, he'll forget frivolities and be of some account; and if he has an inventive or mechanical turn of mind, this paper will afford him more entertainment, as well as useful information, than he can obtain elsewhere. Copies of this paper may be seen at this office, and subscriptions received. Price, $3 a year, weekly.

MEDICAL LITERATURE. Under the general title of Medical Literature, Mr. Stewart Challeu of New York is preparing classified lists of medical publishers, in uniform octavo form, with an alphabetical index in which all books will be under author, subject, and title, with the price and publisher. Also a list of all medical periodicals, with their subscription price, etc. Authors as well as publishers of medical books will consult their interest by furnishing data, and buyers of medical books can obtain valuable information by addressing the publisher.

OBITUARY.

IN the death of ALVAN EDMOND SMALL, M.D., the homoeopathic profession loses one of its oldest adherents and its most honored exponents and practitioners. Not only the West, which has been the scene of his labors and successes for the past thirty years, but the entire country, will mourn the loss of one who was to homœopathy as a father in Israel. Dr. Small died of apoplexy, at his residence in Chicago, on the last day of the year lately ended.

DR. A. LINDSAY of Laconia, N.H., died on the 13th of December, 1886. He was one of the pioneers of homeopathy in New England. We copy the following sketch from the columns of the Laconia paper :·

"Dr. Lindsay was born in July, 1822, in the town of Wakefield, N.H., where his grandfather, Dr. Thomas Lindsay, was the first and for many years the only resident physician. At two years of age his parents removed to Lincoln, Me. He was studiously inclined, and being detained on account of ill health from attending school at regular terms, he spared no moment when his health and duties would permit from the perusal and study of such books as could be obtained at that time.

"At the age of fifteen he was thrown upon his own resources, and learned cabinetmaking at Bangor, Me. A few years afterwards he moved to Newburyport, Mass., and married Miss Elizabeth F. Somerly.

"In 1846 an acquaintance with Dr. C. B. Matthews of Philadelphia, Penn., resulted in his study of the homoeopathic system of medicine, beginning his reading with Dr. F. A. Gordon, who had for some time been interested in the young man. He afterwards moved to Springfield, and entered the office of Dr. G. W. Swazey (an uncle of his wife), and remained with him up to the time of attending lectures at Brunswick, Me. He finally graduated in 1851 from the Homœopathic Medical College of Philadelphia. Upon receiving his diploma he returned to Massachusetts, and commenced a more than ordinarily successful practice in Roxbury (now Boston Highlands).

The east winds of the Massachusetts coast were too severe for a person in his feeble health, and five years later he was compelled by illness to remove to a more genial climate. After some search he settled in Laconia; and save for a few months when business called him to a short residence in Nashua, N.H., his figure has been a familiar presence upon our streets. He was of a benevolent and kindly nature, open-hearted and charitable, with a heart filled with good-will and kindness towards all. He loved his profession for its opportunities of doing good; and it may be truly said, 'None knew him but to love him, none named him but to praise.'

MR. EDWARD PAGE SPALDING, father of Dr. H. E. Spalding of Hingham, died on Thursday, Jan. 20, aged eighty-three.

THE

New-England Medical Gazette.

No. 3.

MARCH, 1887.

VOL. XXII.

Contributions of original articles, correspondence, personal items, etc., should be sent to the publishers, Boston, Mass.

EDITORIAL.

CONCERNING LAC CANINUM.

THERE are certain substances which at the present day serve as a somewhat boggy battle-ground, on which mild civil war is waged between the two factions of the homoeopathic school, which, in moments of good humor, refer to each other as "highpotentists" and "low-potentists," and in moments of wrathful candor as "Hahnemaniacs " and "mongrels." One small spot in this battle-ground is that known as lac caninum; the one faction claiming it as an entirely safe and solid bit of ground on which to pitch the tent of clinical reliance; the other, that it is far too swampy a spot to sustain the substantial tread of even a single scientific thinker. Metaphor aside, lac caninum may, without danger of hasty generalization, be taken as a type of the many so-called "remedies" over whose efficacy the factions of our school most ardently disagree. It is significant of the fruitlessness of such discussion, that it is oftenest a mere matter of tu quoque retort, rather than an impartial presentation on the one hand, and examination on the other, of the claims of the substance to be classed and trusted in as a remedy. Such a presentation, however, of the claims of lac caninum, — a presentation which one may safely look upon as reasonably complete, occupying as it does sixty-four pages of type, — appears in the January issue of "The Medical Advance."

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