having a bactericidal intent for their proximate purpose. The study of the lifehistory of the bacillus may eventuate in the discovery of its origin, which would be distinctly serviceable to science. Were the observation of it to confirm or annul our belief in the infectiousness of influenza, it would do something toward settling our opinions as to whether isolation be a wise or needful sanitary regulation.

Influenza has now re-appeared three times within a short period of time. Why it comes is unknown, and why it begins is as unintelligible as why it ends. That it is a dangerous disease is indisputable. That it has a distinct malignity toward the aged is unfortunately well-proved. That those whom it attacks, if they be over the age of sixty, are likely to die with pneumonic complications, is sadly certain. Yet we can suggest no avenue of escape. We cannot even assure those who may not have been stricken that there is comparative immunity in temperate living, in hygienic surroundings, or in faultless plumbing, for the heir to a throne, living habitually encompassed with all the advantages that science and art can suggest, seems just as liable to succumb to the malady, as the humblest citizen in the most unsanitary dwelling.

EDITORIAL BREVITIES.

THE RAILROAD IN SURGERY.

THE railroad is a better field of experience for the surgeon than the battlefield. In 1890 twenty-five thousand men were killed and injured in the railroad service of the United States. This is a greater slaughter than occurred at Sedan or Gravelotte or Gettysburg. Statistics show that for the year ending June 30, 1889, among all railway employes there was one death in every three hundred and thirty-seven and one injury for every thirty-five, whilst among trainmen alone, there was one death for every one hundred and seventeen and one injury for every twelve. This mortality is more than double what it is in England. There seems to be imminent need of some reform in car-couplers. The old pin and link contrivance is responsible for much, and has made more cripples than the bloodiest of wars.

MEDICAL HOSPITALITY DURING THE WORLD'S FAIR.

A CONJOINED meeting of representatives of the various medical societies of Chicago was held a short time ago for the purpose of organizing some scheme for the entertainment of the medical profession during the world's fair. The opinion was common that the Chicago profession should extend general courtesies to the visiting physicians, and in some instances furnish special hospitality to members of the medical fraternity. The profession will doubtless hail with satisfaction this early expression of cordiality by the Chicago profession, and will be willing to leave themselves in the hands of such hospitably-minded hosts.

THE PHYSICAL DETECTION OF CRIMINALS.

In the New Englander and Yale Review, Mr. A. McDonald discusses the question of criminology as a department of sociology. Among the characteristics which he enumerates as frequent in criminals are the following: (1) a frequent persistence of the frontal median suture; (2) a partial effacement of the parietal

or parieto-occipital sutures; (3) a frequency of the wormian bones in the regions of the median and lateral posterior fontanelles; (4) the development of the superciliary ridges, with the defacement, or even frequent depression, of the intermediary protuberance. Among other peculiarities are mentioned left-handedness, feeble muscular tone, a tendency to alcoholic and epileptic degenerations. A microcephalic head, asymetry of the orbits, division of the iris, duplication of the skin in the corner of the eyes, are regarded as less frequent characteristics of criminal tendency.

A DANGEROUS REMEDY.

THE Western Druggist has reported a case of death from misadventure which occurred in Bay City. A physician of that city wrote a prescription for "hydrargyrum lactatum." He desired to prescribe a proprietary article called lactated mercury, which is a combination of mercury and bismuth. The druggist to whom the prescription went ordered his wholesaler to send him some lactate of mercury, and in response received a supply of Merck's hydrargyri lactas or mercurous lactate. This was administered and the patient died. The case illustrates the folly of prescribing proprietary remedies of doubtful nomenclature and composition.

THE REMEDIES FOR MORBID FEARS.

THERE is a curious article in the December number of the North American Journal of Homeopathy on the treatment of morbid fears. It is as good as a piece of fifteenth century medical writing. The writer describes several wellknown forms of agoraphobia, and other imperative conceptions, but the treatmen of these indefinite psychological states has been brought down to exquisite exactness. For fear of being alone give: ars., calc., camp., con., dros., elaps., R., sep., stram., etc. For fear of being in the dark give: acon., bapt., calc., lyc., puls., stram., valer. For fear of society give: hell., etc. For fear of death give: arg., n., ars. The writer gives no treatment for fear of the doctor. The boy who, walking in the woods, was afraid that "he almost saw a snake," could be treated very successfully by the methods recommended by our homœopathic friends.

MEDICAL NEWS.

CHOLERA is prevalent in China.

BUFFALO has a lady undertaker.

DR. J. M. SMITH, of London, Ontario, is dead.

THE Annals of Surgery will hereafter be published in Philadelphia.

A TENDER-HEARTED mother gave her son chloroform before she whipped him. NEW YORK will have a new up-town hospital to be opened on Fordham Heights.

MATRIMONY IN ENGLAND.-There is a marked decline in the marriage-rate in England.

DR. LYMAN HALL, one of the organizers of the Society of Surviving Surgeon of the Civil War, died at Champaign, Illinois, recently, aged seventy-four years.

THE University of Toronto is about to inaugurate a post-graduate course in medicine.

THE INFLUENZA BACILLUS has been discovered by Dr. A. Pfeiffer, a son-in-law of Dr. Koch.

ALGER COUNTY is said not to have had a physician residing in it since it became such.

THERE are nine hundred and eighty-six students studying medicine at the University of Dorpat.

THE Hot Springs (Arkansas) Medical Journal is the name of a new candidate for professional favor.

DR. WALTER WYMAN has been confirmed as Surgeon-General of the United States Marine Service.

GRATUITOUS medical services are annually dispensed to over half a million people in New York City.

DR. FRANKLIN M. DUMAS has been appointed a city physician of Detroit, vice Dr. Erwin Wright, resigned.

DR. H. B. BAKER says that a small city should pay its health officer two thousand dollars per annum.

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, complains of the pollution of its drinking water by the valley villages along the river.

A MEDICAL student was recently fined one hundred dollars in Chicago for practicing medicine without a license.

A SANITARY CONVENTION under the auspices of the State Board of Health will be held at Holland, March 3 and 4.

FRANCE is still menaced with depopulation. Thirty-eight thousand more deaths than births were reported during 1890.

A SECRETARY OF PUBLIC HEALTH.-The American Medical Association is agitating the appointment of a cabinet officer.

EVERY case of typhoid fever is a case of water-poisoning, says an exchange. This is a good thing for the public to bear in mind.

A CONGRESS TO STUDY PROSTITUTION. - An international congress for the study of this subject will be convened in Paris in 1893.

DR. C. G. COMEGYS, of Cincinnati, is in Washington laboring for the passage of the bill to establish a Department of Public Health.

DR. GRAVES, the hero of the poisoning episode in Colorado, has been reprieved, while the supreme court reviews his case and sentence.

DR. HOWARD MCCULLOUGH recently died of chronic Bright's disease, at Fort Wayne, Indiana. He occupied the chair of physiology in the Fort Wayne Medical College.

A SUCCESSFUL PORRO'S OPERATION.-A successful Cæsarean section by the Porro method was recently made by Dr. J. H. Carstens. Mother and child at last accounts were both exemplifying the beneficence of abdominal surgery.

AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION.-The association will meet this year in Mexico under the presidency of Dr. Felix Formento.

PROFESSOR BOHN, director of the Vienna General Hospital, has had a patent of nobility conferred on him by the Emperor of Austria.

PHYSICIANS have shown their estimate of the value of life by contributing the highest percentage of suicides during the past ten years.

MARY J. SAFFORD, a prominent physician of Boston, the first woman in the United States to administer relief on the field of battle, is dead.

ROOSEVELT HOSPITAL, of New York, has received an endowment of five thousand dollars from Mrs. Mariah E. Hotchkiss, lately deceased.

DR. THOMAS COLLINS, of Yale, died on February 7, of pneumonia. He was seventy years of age, and is survived by a widow and several children.

DR. J. B. HULL, of Lansing, read a paper before the State Superintendents of the poor at their convention held at Grand Rapids, February 23 and 24.

DR. NICHOLAS SENN has been invited to address the British Medical Association, at its next meeting, on intestinal obstruction and intestinal anastomosis.

A CASE of violent insanity is reported to have resulted from the Keeley treatment, the subject being Dr. James M. Miller, of Bloomington, Illinois.

By recent legal enactment the police of Saint Petersburg are made responsible for the fee when a physician is called to attend accident cases in the streets.

A SANITARY EXHIBIT will be made at the Columbian exhibition. Conjoined effort of various state and local boards of health will be directed to this end.

BOUCHOT, the originator of intubation of the larynx, is dead. His essay, "Du traitment du croup par le tubage du larynx," is likely to make him famous.

THE Pan-American Medical Congress has created a section on medical pedagogics, the chairman of which is Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, of New York City. THE late Dr. Buckminster Brown, of Boston, has bequeathed forty thousand dollars to Harvard University for the foundation of a professorship of orthopedic

surgery.

SIR GEORGE PAGET, M. D., eighty-three years of age, died in London, January 29. He received the title of knight in recognition of his medical and scientific attainments.

MENSTRUATION AND THE LARYNX.—Dr. von Klein says that it is possible to tell when a female singer is menstruating by the fact that her voice is lower in tone than usual.

WASHINGTON CITY seems to have a fair percentage of physicians for its popu lation. There are four hundred and forty-four regulars, thirty-six homœopaths, and two eclectics.

DR. ROBERT P. BUSH was elected speaker of the New York State Assembly on January 5. He was chosen by the unanimous vote of his party, and is the first physician to hold this high office. He is about fifty years of age, and a graduate of the medical department of the University of Buffalo, class of 1874.

DR. MARY P. JACOBI, of New York, and Dr. Mary Woolsey Hoxon, of Washington, are each said to earn over forty thousand dollars a year in the practice of their profession.

TYPHUS FEVER has appeared among Russian immigrants in New York City. A large number of cases have been discovered in lodging houses of the United Hebrew Charities.

OVERLYING OF CHILDREN.-There are over eight hundred deaths a year in London, from mothers lying on their children. Drunkenness figures largely among the causes.

THE SWAIN HOME FOR NURSES.- Mrs. Eleanor J. Swain, of Detroit, has donated twenty thousand dollars to Harper Hospital for the purpose of erecting a home for its nurses.

THE PRESIDENT, in his annual message to congress, alludes to that fertile cause of injury, the car-coupler. He recommends the compulsory introduction of automatic couplers.

DR. W. J. P. KINGSLEY, of Rome, New York, is the inventor of a hypodermic needle that will not clog. It has a conical channel, the small opening being attached to the syringe.

A CHANCE FOR PRIZE WINNERS.-The Paris Society of Medicine offers a purse of fifteen hundred francs and a gold medal for the best essay on tuberculosis, to appear before the end of 1892.

CHILD CRYING IN UTERO.-A writer in the Medical World was called upon to correct a presentation, and was much surprised to hear through the imperfectly dilated os, the stifled cry of the baby.

DR. J. C. SHAPARD, of Winchester, Tennessee, died of heart failure, aged sixtyeight years. He was a highly educated physician, and as a medical writer enjoyed a reputation beyond the state.

THE eleventh congress for internal medicine will be held in Leipsic, Germany, April 20, 21, 22, and 23, under the presidency of Professor Curschmann. The programme announces some important papers.

RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE is to have a pathologist, the salary of whom will be five thousand dollars per annum. The selection will be made by a committee consisting of Virchow, Koch, and Metschnikoff.

THE MICHIGAN STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY will hold its annual meeting in Flint, May 5 and 6. Members are urged to prepare their papers and communicate their titles to the secretaries of the sections.

DR. ZEOVIA OWEN-MCDADE, of Kenyon, Minnesota, recently died of pneumonia. The doctor graduated from the University of Michigan, class of 1888, and later married a classmate, Dr. C. W. McDade.

THE Ohio State Board of Health has prepared two bills regarding sanitary legislation which are to be introduced in the legislature of that commonwealth. One of the bills provides for the protection of health in the rural districts by making township trustees boards of health. The other bill requires additional regulations in the transportation of dead bodies that contagion may be prevented.