WATERBURY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.-The regular monthiy meeting was held at the Waterbury Club House, on the evening of February 3, 1896, Dr. C. S. Rodman in the chair.

A committee presented a list of books and periodicals, which it was voted to request the agents of the Bronson Library to purchase.

Dr. T. L. Axtelle gave an able discussion on the subject of Fractures of the Skull, exhibiting a patient from whom he had removed large fragments and who had recovered after months of unconsciousness, and in spite of other severe injuries and complications as well as loss of brain substance. There had been

very extensive reproduction of bone tissue in the cicatrix.

A paper on Multiple Neuritis was read by Dr. Castle, who discussed minutely the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. Both papers were followed by general discussion.

Doctors Goodenough and Graves agreed to provide papers for the March meeting. Meeting then adjourned.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

At the annual meeting of the Directors of the New Haven Hospital, the following physicians were re-appointed:

Attending physicians-Dr. Henry Fleischner, Dr. Louis S. DeForest, Dr. S. D. Gilbert, Dr. W. G. Daggett, Dr. C. J. Foote.

Senior Attending Surgeon-Dr. Francis Bacon. Junior Attending Surgeons-Dr. W. H. Carmalt, Dr. T. H. Russell, Dr. W. W. Hawkes.

Laryngologist-Dr. Henry L. Swain. Ophthalmologist-Dr. Henry W. Ring. Pathologist-Medical Examiner White. Chemist-Herbert E. Smith.

Thos. Hooker resigned as a member of the Prudential Committee, after a term of fourteen years. Resolutions were passed in appreciation of his services.

The General Hospital Society of New Haven, in its annual report, states that while there was an increase in the amount of work done at the hospital during the past year its growth was hardly commensurate with the growth of similar institutions in several of the neighboring cities. This is owing to the fact that hospitals have been erected in some of the neighboring towns from which formerly many patients were received. Another hospital has been built in New Haven and some cases have been cared for at Springside Home.

The daily average number of patients fell from 113 in 1894, to 111.8 in 1895, but at the same time the total number under treatment rose from 1,024 to 1,084. The largest number on any one day during the year was 131. There were 135 deaths during the year, the death rate being under twelve and one-half per cent. Deducting thirty-seven patients received in a moribund condition, twenty-three of whom died within twenty-four hours and fourteen within forty-eight hours, the death rate of the remainder was nine per cent.

Dr. Haffkine of India has made 70,000 injections for preventing cholera in the last twenty-nine months on 42,179 persons, without a single mishap.

The Government of Hungary has issued an order that women be allowed entrance to the medical schools connected with the Universities of Buda-Pesth and of Klauberg.

Japan has erected a statue to Dr. Muller, the first German professor at the Tokio University, as an evidence of their appreciation of his services.

The Harvard Medical School has five hundred and nine students. This year's graduating class will be the first that has taken the four year's course.

The Boston City Hospitals are being supplied with diphtheria antitoxine, by the bacteriological laboratory of Harvard College.

The mark for a degree in the Harvard Medical School depends on three elements: First, clinical conference papers, which are prepared by each member of the class and criticized by an instructor and members of the class; second, report of hometreated cases; third, the examination papers. There are now in the Harvard Medical School courses for graduate students covering almost all the departments of research and practical medicine.

The New York State Senate Committees on Cities is considering the proper site for an isolation hospital in New York City exclusively for scarlet fever cases, $100,000 having already been subscribed by private citizens for its erection.

The Ainsworth law, by which $35,000 in the City of New York alone, are spent for books on the action of tobacco and alcohol, which passed the Legislature last year, is likely to suffer an early repeal. Earnest efforts have been made in that direction.

A recent epidemic of one thousand cases of typhoid fever in Duluth, Minn., is attributed to the fact that the in-take of the city water is about eight hundred feet from a large sewer, and when examined was itself in a very filthy condition.

The Board of Health of New York has adopted resolutions in keeping with scientific conclusions that phthisis is highly contagious. People are, by notices posted in suitable places, requested to expectorate in receptacles which will be carefully looked after and cleaned.

The Mortality Report for January has been received from one hundred and sixty-seven towns in this State. There were one thousand one hundred and twenty-one deaths reported in the State during the month. This was five more than in December, and one hundred and ninety-nine less than the average number of deaths in January for the five years preceding the present.

The death rate was 16.3 for the large towns; for the small towns 16.8, and for the whole State 16.4. The deaths from zymotic diseases were one hundred and five, being 9.3 per cent of the total mortality.

REGISTERED PRACTITIONERS IN JANUARY, 1896.

Jas. P. Cleaver, M.D.

Ed. F. Horr, M.D.

Lester B. Griffin, M.D.

Univ. of Penn.

Phys. and Surg., Columbia Col.

N. Y. Hom. Med. Coll. and Hosp.

Luella K. Gorham Beecher, M.D. N. Y. Med. Coll. and Hos. for W.

Greenwich. Wallingford. Bridgeport.

Univ. City of N. Y.

Danbury.

Bowdoin M. C. and Bel. Hos. M.C.

Yale Med. Dept.
Jefferson Med. Coll.

Norwalk. Thompson. New Haven.

Greenwich.

There were one hundred and ninety-two practitioners, including

mid-wives, registered during the year 1895.

MEDICAL PROGRESS.

SENGER (Deut med Woch 1894, No. 37), is convinced of the danger of apoplexy to old people during anaesthesia, and believes that poor diagnosis is responsible for no statistics on the subject. He relates a case of which there was no doubt but that the patient suffered a partial hemiplegia during an operation. He believes that chloroform is better in such cases, other things being equal, than ether, because in the former the blood pressure is not sustained as long.

WILLIAM FREW, M.D., (British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896), records the case of a young lady who, stung by a wasp on the angle of her lower jaw, died in fifteen minutes. The symptoms were: faintness, weakness, choking, vomiting, pains in the chest and abdomen, insensibility, and followed each other in quick succession. After her death, Dr. Frew found the neck, mouth and tongue much swollen. A few such cases have been recorded before, where the poison was injected directly into the vein, as in this case.

ORCHITIC EXTRACT.-Dr. H. Gray Edwards (British Medical Journal), has given the extract in a number of cases with excellent results. All cases of nervous disorders without organic lesions which are benefited by potassium bromide treatment, will give much more favorable results with the orchitic extract. Especially among old men where the system suffers from the want of the vital fluid secreted by the testicles this extract is of great value, enabling them to devote themselves to business with increasing vigor, and to endure much more physical labor than they were capable of undergoing prior to taking it.

Drs. E. Fletcher Ingalls and Henry G. Ohls (N. Y. Medical Journal, September 7, 1895) say: "From the treatment of goitre and exophthalmic goitre by thyroid extracts and desiccated thyroids," we can deduce the following-"1st, That thyroid extracts have a very important influence on the nervous system and on the blood; 2d, that desiccated thyroid glands appear as active as the liquids and more stable; 3d, that they are as efficacious when taken internally as when injected. In exophthalmic goitre the remedy causes a rapid reduction in the size of the glands. In the cases of goitre, improvement or cure may be expected in seventy-six per cent of cases."

AN editorial in the Medical News February 1st, 1896, advances the best theory thus far to explain why the tonsil is almost invariably the point of attack in diphtheria. The germ no doubt is deposited in many different parts of the larynx but develops much more vigorously on the tonsil than anywhere else. This may be explained by the fact that here is the most favorable situation for the micro-organism to get a strong current of air, for it has been found that the diphtheria germ develops rapidly under such conditions. It has been found that the tonsil is

the point of attack in 80 per cent of all cases.

PERFORATION OF AORTA BY A BONY OUTGROWTH FROM THE SIXTH RIB. (Lancet, January 12). E. A. Lightbourne reported the sudden death of a healthy boy. A postmortem examination disclosed the fact that all the organs were perfectly healthy with the exception of a small part of the left lung lapping over the neck of the sixth rib on the left side. Further examination revealed the presence of a bony outgrowth from two to three inches in length springing from the anterior surface of the sixth rib at a point between the neck and tobrosity. This spiculum had penetrated the lung and thoracic aorta, causing almost instant death from hemorrhage in the left pleural cavity.

TREATMENT OF PHTHISIS PULMONALIS.-(Medical Record, N. Y., February 8). Dr. Cyrus Edson details the results of his experiments which led to the discovery of Aseptolin. Reasoning from the proposition that inasmuch as the secretion of phenol in the system is abnormally developed under certain pathological conditions, and knowing the effect of phenol upon phthisis, he believes that phenol is elaborated in disease to counteract the effect of the bacterial toxin. Up to the present time no solution of the drug or method of treatment was available by which an effective dose could be continued for any length of time. The good effect of creosote upon pulmonary tuberculosis, he believes, is due to the phenol it contains. The serious objection to the use of creosote has been that it caused digestive disturbances. Dr. Edson experimented in the hopes of discovering a solution. of phenol which would fulfill the requirements of his proposition. The result of the experiments was Aseptolin. The analysis of Aseptolin by Prof. Henry A. Mott is as follows: