suited for use as an impervious luting in joining chemical apparatus; it will adhere to glass, porcelain, or metals, will harden even under water, and will withstand a temperature of over 500° F. It is adapted, therefore, to a wide range of applicatoins, which will suggest themselves at once to those interested in such matters. A French paper asserts that the use of hair-dyes makes lunatics. The "American Chemist" believes that none but lunatics dye their hair. MEDICAL NEWS. Meetings of Medical Societies.-The American Medical Association meets at San Francisco, Cal., May 2, 1871. The Georgia State Medical Society meets at Americus, Ga., April 12, 1871. The North Carolina State Medical Society meets at Raleigh, N. C., May 9, 1871. The Texas State Medical Society meets at Houston, Texas, June 14, 1871. The West Virginia Medical Society meets at Martinsburg, W. Va., June 7, 1871. The Baltimore Medical Bulletin.-Physicians will learn with regret that this journal has been suspended or consolidated with the "Baltimore Medical Journal," which last work is now published under the following title: "The Baltimore Medical Journal and Bulletin." The editors, Drs. E. L. Howard and T. L. Latimer, will no doubt manage this enlarged work in the future with the ability they have so far manifested in the development and conduct of the "Baltimore Medical Journal." Their consolidated work will be well conducted, and it deserves a full and generous support. Dr. Edward Warren retires from the editorial field. He has labored there with ardor and ability, and those whom he has left in this laborious and trying arena part with him with regret; offering him their best wishes in his retirement, and hoping that he may be as be as fully appreciated in the great field of practice and teaching as he has been in the editorial field that he has so faithfully cultivated. The Medical Schools of Louisville have completed their sessions, and a large number of students have graduated. The medalists in the Louisville Medical College are as follows: Gold medal (first honor prize), G. F. Smith, Alton, Ind.; thesis medal, A. U. Evarts, Shamburg, Pa.; anatomical medal, C. K. Roe, Decatur, Ill.; medal for highest standing in surgery, Hardeman H. H. White, Yazoo City, Miss.; for highest standing on materia-medica and therapeutics, W. B. Furman, Henderson, Ky.; for highest standing on principles and practice of medicine, James R. Loury, Glenville, Va. NOTE. The names of the medalists in other schools will be published if sent to this journal. Department of Chemistry, Therapeutics, and Pharmacy.— The editor of this journal has for a long time felt that its supporters should have the benefit of all that is new or valuable in the great fields of chemistry, therapeutics, and pharmacy. He is glad to announce that Dr. Thomas E. Jenkins, of this city, will take charge of this department, and when this gentleman undertakes work, it is safe to guarantee its performance. Dr. Jenkins is an accomplished chemist and a practical pharmaceutist; he is a regular graduate in medicine and pharmacy, and has received honorary and complimentary degrees in both American and European schools. There is no doubt, whatever, but that he will conduct this department with skill, judgment, and fidelity. Dr. Edmund Andrews, Professor of Surgery in the Chicago Medical College, is the author of the very able article on the comparative dangers of chloroform, ether, and nitrous oxide, which was published in this journal in June, 1870. The article appeared originally in the "Chicago Medical Journal,” and it is a source of regret that the facts here given were accidentally omitted. EDITORIAL. "Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri."-HOR Venaesection. It will be observed that in the present number much space is given to a consideration of this almost obsolete method of clinical ministration. A method, indeed, so nearly obsolete, that the lamented Prof. George T. Elliot, of New York, states, in the last recorded thoughts of his life, that having prescribed venæsection in a case at Bellevue Hospital, he had to perform the operation himself; for in the large house-staff of that monster institution there was not one who had ever seen venæsection practiced; that no one present knew how to execute the simple operation necessary. An operation so nearly obsolete, that Prof. Fordyce Barker mentions, in an admirable paper on "Bloodletting in Obstetrical Practice," that having, in a case of puerperal convulsions, determined to open a vein, he had to send for a lancet, and it was found impossible to obtain one in a large instrument-maker's establishment immediately contiguous; that the messenger was compelled to make a long journey across the city to the office of Dr. Barker to obtain one of these rare and curious weapons! If it is difficult for a physician of this generation to realize the unquestioned existence of such a condition in the practice of the present day, what would a past generation have said in commentary upon such statements. There can be no doubt, if the heroic bleeders of a past period could have anticipated that such disastrous calamities would befall a modern benighted community, they would have been. reconciled to their departure from a world which contained such professional apostates; and with all the classic, (and now almost obsolete), dignity which graced the profession, each would have been willing to depart, and gladly: "like one who wraps the drapery of his couch around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." No one who observes the facts and teachings of modern medicine, can fail to see that there is a growing tendency or disposition to reconsider the whole subject of the lancet, and to restore in part to the resources of the physician this one of the most powerful, most abused, most dangerous, and at times most valuable of his weapons. The subject is one for most serious, impartial and analytical study, and it is pleasing to see that it is fully and fairly receiving this; that venæsection will surely, as the result of patient and scientific investigation, be accorded its just and true position in the clinical ministration of the future. A chief part, and most reliable part, of this modern scientific investigation is the subjecting of all the elements of the physiological and pathological problems involved in venæsection and its results to a rigid system of analytical induction. Indeed, all of true and reliable progress in modern medicine, as compared with medicine in the past, is due to the fact, that at present results are by an honest induction traced to demonstrable causes, while in former periods certain agencies or causes were rashly accepted as competent for the accomplishment of noisily claimed results. Medical facts inductively considered (traced to primary causes) tend to make the sick room a haven of rest and safety, while the older and earlier method of anticipating special results as the necessary effects of specified causes made a golgotha of the field of medicine. In former generations certain agencies in practice were assumed to accomplish certain effects; these agencies were used, and if recovery resulted, the treatment was accepted, trusted, and defended. Physical manifestations, including expression, decubitus, pulse, and minute objective phenomena, were watched and recorded with wonderful skill and marvellous dexterity, (indeed modern observation of objective clinical phe nomena is infinitely inferior to that recorded in earlier years,) but this whole method of investigation was erroneous and frequently disastrous. Clinical observation is priceless in value if carefully recorded and accepted as the basis for the investigation of causes, but used as it was used during centuries past, to sustain hypotheses and support assumptions, it becomes unreliable and defective. Clinical observation can, at best, be but the test of discovery. It can never be the pioneer or leader in the medical field; it must be the follower and the subordinate; the servant and not the master; the touchstone for the precious metal of discovery, but never the mine from which this springs. The great danger and inefficiency of one of the results of clinical observation is the reasoning by deduction, the error of so many centuries; while the modern inductive method of medical investigation gives of certainty all that can spring from logical reasoning, based upon facts for premises. Illustration here is easy. Deduction has been endless in the history of digitalis, but where is the evidence yet of truth or progress in our knowledge of its properties? Observation claimed it long and dogmatically as a depressant, now observation claims it as a tonic. Induction gave to medicine chloral, and at once defined its properties, its nature, and its effects. Observation, then, when continued through centuries, is of error and contradiction. The claims for the curative effects of venæsection rest almost solely on observation, and the time has arrived when these claims are to be scientifically analyzed and investigated. manifestly often the parent In a paper like the present (written cum currente calamo) the arguments, the evidences, the surrounding conditions, and reliable results in connection with venæsection cannot of course be presented; but it is useful if not instructive to present some of the curious phases and queer facts which stand recorded in this amusing and wonderful history. Thirty years since the medical mind was in a condition of perfect complacency in regard to the merits of venæsection, and was skeptical in regard to all statements which militated in any respect against its omnipotent and |