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regular physician, which the Committee of Publication was instructed to have conspicuously printed in all published documents and transactions of the Institute. It is as follows:

"A regnlar physician, a graduate of a regularly chartered medical college. The term also applies to a person practising the healing art in accordance with the laws of the country in which he resides."

This is good as far as it goes, but it scarcely goes far enough. A regular physician, we would define as a duly qualified physician practising medicine according to a definite rule or regula. Such a definition would be a fitting reply to the taunts of our old school opponents who assume to themselves the title of regular and calls us irregular practitioners. Their use of the word in this country, at least, has no reference to the legal qualification, for in that respect we are identical; it refers only to practice, and as they confess that they do not practise according to any rule or regula, while our contention is that we do, we are fairly entitled to call ourselves regular practitioners and to deny that title to them.

The address of the President is distinguished by a manly and tolerant tone. He talked in flattering terms of the International Homeopathic Convention in London in 1881, of which he himself was one of the most distinguished members. He is not quite correct in the following statement:"The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of London, some months ago, passed a resolution permitting members to consult with homœopathic physicians, while differing from them in regard to the action and administrations of drugs." There is a Royal College of Physicians of London and a Royal College of Surgeons of England in London, but neither of these august bodies passed any resolution at all like this. The College of Physicians did pass a resolution last year aimed at homœopathy, but it was so ill aimed that it entirely missed the mark, as we pointed out at the time. The President was on surer ground when he enumerated the triumphs gained by American homœopathy during the past year and when he gave an

account of the homoeopathic literature and the new hospitals under homoeopathic treatment opened, and the additions to the existing ones made during last year. He rather startles us by his revelations concerning triturations of metals, especially of gold. Professor J. Edwards Smith, of Cleveland, assayed a so-called 30th trituration of Aurum, and procured therefrom a "button" of pure gold large enough to handle and examine. Dr. Breyfogle, thinking there must be some mistake, procured from nine reputable homœopathic pharmacies, specimens of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 30th of Aurum and sent them to Professor Smith for examination, concealing from him their nominal potency. It turned out that the reported 30th and even 60th yielded the same amount of gold as the 7th decimal. The inference is that the pharmacists contented themselves with triturating up to the 7th decimal, but not beyond this, though they sold triturations professing to be 30th and 60th. Professor Smith furnishes a paper to these Transactions which gives these and many more instances of equally disreputable tricks, such as large proportions of foreign matters mixed up in the triturations. We can only hope that British homœopathic pharmacists are not so unconscientious as some of their American brethren seem to be. These revelations will probably have the effect of disenchanting American physicians with high potencies, in the trituration form at least.

We have no space to give a full account of the contents of this volume, but we cannot refrain from alluding to the papers on Koch's celebrated discovery of bacilli in tubercle. Dr. J. S. Mitchell does not doubt the existence of what the Medical Record irreverently terms "Koch's bugs," but he is inclined to think that the bacilli may be an accidental accompaniment of tubercle and not its efficient cause. Dr. Rollin Gregg, on the other hand, says he is certain that Koch's bacilli as well as the Bacterium termo, the chapletshaped and the spiral bacteria are merely the fibrils and granules which are always found in fibrin under inflammatory conditions. Any way it is not likely that the anticipations of the Lancet, Professor Tyndall, and others, with

regard to the vast advantages of Koch's supposed discovery to the treatment and cure of phthisis, will be realised.

An interesting piece of information with regard to the article on "Homœopathy" in the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica will be found at p. 115. It appears that Drs. Cooper, McClelland, and Bingaman, in July last, called upon Messrs. Black, the publishers of the Encyclopædia in Edinburgh, and stated to them that a gross injustice had been done to homoeopathy in that article, and requested that a correction should be made and justice done. "In answer they stated that they had made. an effort to have the article written by a well-known homœopathist of acknowledged ability in England, and failing in that, they had applied to an equally well-known professor in America, and failing him also, they, being short of time, were compelled to employ the person who wrote the article, or leave it out altogether." This is not an exact statement of the facts as known to us, which are as follows:-When the new edition was announced a wellknown homœopathic practitioner, whose published writings show him to be fully conversant with the history and practice of homoeopathy, wrote to the editor, and having pointed out the faulty character of the articles on Hahnemann and homœopathy in the previous edition, offered to write a true account of the doctrines and practice of the school of Hahnemann for the forthcoming edition. No notice was taken of the offer. But the editor applied to another homoeopathic practitioner, one well qualified for the task, to furnish an article on homœopathy for the new edition. This was done, we have no doubt well done, but it was not adopted by the editor, who preferred to entrust the preparation of the article to a bitter opponent of the system-and we see the consequences. Drs. Mohr, Morgan, and Guernsey were appointed a committee to wait on the American publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica and request that if amends could not be made for this injustice done to homoeopathy in the body of the work, this should be done in the American supplement, of which Professor R. E. Thompson

is editor. "Both publisher and editor have assured your committee that an article on homoeopathy would be prepared for the forthcoming supplement that would do adequate justice to our cause, and they have agreed to submit the article before it is printed to any committee the Institute may appoint for approval." This is satisfactory so far as it goes, but it will not affect the English edition, in which the article on homoeopathy will always remain as a proof of the power of prejudice over the judicial scientific spirit we have a right to expect in a great national work.

One of the most interesting of the articles is Dr. Talbot's report of the statistics of homoeopathic medical organisations in the United States. "This report embraces 284 homœopathic institutions, viz.: 1 national, 3 special, 26 state, and 103 local societies, 13 clubs, 5 miscellaneous associations, 23 general hospitals, 31 special hospitals, 40 dispensaries, 12 colleges, 4 special schools, 15 journals, and 8 directories." These are classified and tabulated in a very complete manner, and they more than anything else serve to give us an idea of the immense activity of our American colleagues.

The volume concludes with. a "Complete Code of Medical Ethics," from which we extract only the "Fundamental Principles."

"1. The great end and object of the physician's efforts should be the greatest good to the patient.'

"2. The rule of conduct of physician and patient, and of physicians towards each other, should be the GOLDEN RULE: As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise.'

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"The various articles of the Code are only special applications of these great principles."

Transactions of the American Homeopathic Ophthalmological and Otological Society, 6th Annual Meeting. Buffalo: 1882.

THIS volume contains many interesting papers on eye and ear subjects. The first paper is "Chin. mur. in Acute Inflammation of the Middle Ear," by Dr. H. C. Houghton. It is not quite satisfactory; some of the cases do not appear to us to have been otitis of the middle ear, and the best marked case of the disease does not seem to have been much helped by the medicine, but ran a rather long and severe course. The next paper is a description of a malformation of the auricle, with photographs of the ears. This is followed by an article on circum-corneal hypertrophy or spring catarrh of the conjunctiva. It is chiefly a résumé of a paper on the same subject by Dr. S. M. Burnett in the Archives of Ophthalmology. Dr. Vilas describes a case of congenital symmetrical binocular coloboma of irides and choroids and another of absence of the auricles. Dr. Buffum gives a case in which an injured eye set up sympathetic iritis of the uninjured eye, which he attempted to cure by cutting optic and ciliary nerves of the injured eye. The operation was successful for a time, but as the retinitis returned, enucleation of the injured eye had to be performed, which the operator hopes may be successful. Dr. Winslow contributes an interesting case in which sympathetic ophthalmia had caused deposit of fibrine so as entirely to block up the pupil. A tentative operation was performed, and the mass of fibrine, together with an opaque lens, was removed, and tolerable vision obtained. Our Dr. J. C. Burnett contributes a paper on the "Causes of Cataract," the causes he enumerates being salt, sugar, and drinking hard water. Dr. James recommends Dr. Walker's (of Liverpool) operation of cyclotomy. He has operated thus in eleven cases "without an untoward result in a single instance." Dr. Norton gives a paper on modern improvements in the operation for the extraction of cataract. These improvements are:-1. Making an iridectomy previous to

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