HYSTERICAL delusions and their dupes seem to be valued at their due worthlessness by the New York press to judge from the following editorial in the "New York Commercial Advertiser:"

A woman of Bedford Park, in this state, having informed her husband that her physician, Dr. Le C. Dowe, had been guilty of ungentlemanly and unprofessional conduct toward her, that worthy called a convention of his friends and related the story. Thereupon three of these wise and upright men called upon him as a committee and informed him that he must forthwith leave the town. Dr. Dowe declared his innocence and declined to depart. He now proposes to fight the matter out, and he will begin by suing the officious Whitecappers for damages. He insists that he is a victim of hysteria or delusions. The fact that he didn't "vamoose the ranch" when ordered to do so is pretty good evidence of his innocence, and he is entitled anyhow to credit for resistance of the mob spirit which would condemn him without trial. If guilty as charged Dr. Dowe is amenable to law. If his guilt were legally established he would not long be able to live in sacred Bedford Park, for nobody would employ or trust him. The committee which attempted to "jump" him out of town represented the spirit of lynch law. It was the expression of the mob-three against one-which ignores private rights and all legal forms. It was the very incarnation of the Whitecapper, who, at night and in disguise, thrashes some offender of society and notifies him to "leave the diggins." The committee which waited upon Dr. Dowe to tell him that he could no longer reside in Bedford Park was a committee of bulldozers. There is too much of this lawlessness in this country. We are glad to know that Dr. Dowe is not intimidated by his lawless neighbors and that he proposes to give them an opportunity of legally explaining their effort to deprive him of his rights as a citizen before the law.

THE "Medical Record" with much force and humor takes up the cudgels as follows for the medically beneficial effects of novel reading:

Thousands of men and women, says the London "Spectator," use novels as mental sedatives, and read them to steady their nerves. Busy brain-workers, or those who otherwise exhaust their nervous energies, want some form of mental sedative. They cannot rest

while doing nothing. In order to quiet the thinking machine it must be kept gently at work, the easier and more mechanical that work is the better, but the mental process must just be kept running. A douche of fiction quiets them, so novels are poured over the weary in a gentle easy stream. This physical need creates the novel market. To one accustomed to use fiction to soothe his mind, there comes a positive craving for novels, like the craving for any other sedative. Hence the demand for fiction, good or bad, of a kind that does not obtain in other forms of literature. And if the novel is in a foreign language, be it said in passing, the sedative effects are complete.

of The prejudices against medical uses the novel thus pointed out chiefly originate in cant and avarice such as led, during the fourth to the seventh decades of the present century, to a disproportionate amount of insanity among the women of the farming population. Ruskin is psychologically correct in his opinion that the weakest romance is not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting literature and the worst romance is not so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or false political essays.

ACCORDING to the August 18 “Medical and Surgical Reporter," the "British Journal of Dermatology" contains a paper on "Typhoid Treatment of Skin Diseases." The editor who has been trying lately to educate the medical stenographer seems to need tuition.

THE "Lancet-Clinic" states that a man was recently tried in France for illegal practice of medicine because he sold Mattei's "magnetized" water. He entered the plea that he employed a remedy which physicians had declared to be nothing but water and entirely innocent of therapeutic effect, and that he could not therefore be accused of practicing medicine in the ordinary acceptance of the term. The learned tribunal admitted the force of the prisoner's plea, and set him at liberty. Had he been tried for obtaining money under false pretenses he would have received most exemplary punishment, and the electro-homoeopathic quack protegé of the "Medical Rec's" friend Stead (Mattei) would have received another exposé in the French press.

THE "social purity" abnormalities of London succeeded in inducing the hysterically religious viceroy of India to order the abolition of registration of prostitutes. The "Lancet" recently cited some terrible results of this, among others the case of a young Cantonese girl who tried to commit suicide because one of her brothers, a speculator in slaves, threatened to sell her to another brother, also a speculator in slaves. In speaking of this case the "Lancet" says that since the system of state protection has been abandoned the only possible release for these poor creatures is death. Labouchère, who points to this ("Truth") as an illustration of the folly of well-meaning women and silly men, says an officer high in command in the army in India gives him data of the most startling character, the conclusion of which is that out of 71,000 British troops in India over 23,000 are regularly rendered useless from one cause alone. The effective strength of the army is thus reduced in numbers below 48,000. In view of these facts Labouchère logically asks, "Can those who have allowed disease full play, and consequently involved the empire in peril, suggest any way out of the difficulty?"

THE Rev. Cotton Mather, of Salem witchcraft epidemic fame, was much interested in medical topics. He introduced the practice of inoculation into New England at the risk of his life, and published a popular work on medicine which, as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes thus points out ("Medical Essays"), proves him to have been what to-day would be called a bacteriologist:

One of his capsulas (chapters) is devoted to the animalcular origin of diseases; at the end of which he says, speaking of remedies for this supposed source of our distempers: "Mercury we know thee: But we are afraid thou wilt kill us too, if we employ thee to kill them that kill us. And yet for the cleansing of the Small Blood Vessels and making way for the free circulation of the Blood and Lymph-there is nothing like Mercurial Deobstruents.

THE "Medical Age" indulges in the following lucubrations anent venereal disease in fiction:

The medical profession is quite familiar with the infectiousness of gonorrhoea and with the injury done to innocent wives by marriage to such sufferers. Uncured gonorrhoeas are the cause of many cases of chronic pelvic troubles, endometritis, salpingitis, etc. Instances in which men who have had syphilis have communicated the

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disease to their wives and children are painfully These familiar in every physician's practice.

very unpleasant but extremely important facts have been utilized lately by a lady novelist in a book entitled "The Heavenly Twins," which teaches that men who have led worldly lives are extremely liable to have been infected with venereal disease at some time in their premarital career, hence ought not to marry. Furthermore, young ladies should be made acquainted with the habits and the code of morals of young men, and should not allow themselves to fall in love with characters who are dangerous physically even if they are reformed morally. No amount of mutual love will last if the husband proves to be specifically infected, or if the wife develops the ailments associated with chronic disease of the uterus and appendages. The sterility of the male as a result of venereal infection, and the consequent inability to gratify the maternal instinct, is an argument upon which the limitations of polite fiction probably made it impossible to

dilate.

GIBBON, the historian, had (Toledo "Medical Compend") a hernia for thirty years. Suddenly the abdominal aperture widened and allowed all the intestines but the cæcum and pylorus to pass out of the abdominal cavity into the hernial pouch. He lived but a few days. Sir Astley Cooper made the autopsy.

TIGHT-LACING, the supposed vice of the nineteenth century only, was as prevalent and as much denounced in the eighteenth. In 1791 the fashion, for what were then called "babywaists," was so prevalent that the following parody on a popular song was written thereanent:"

Shepherds, I have lost my waist,
Have you seen my body?
Sacrificed to modern taste,
I'm quite a hoddy-doddy.
For fashion I that part forsook,
Where sages place the belly.
'Tis gone, and I have not a nook
For cheese, cake, tart and jelly.
Never shall I see it more,

Till common sense returning,
My body to my legs restore.

Then I shall cease from mourning,
Folly and fashion do prevail

To such extremes among the fair.
A woman's only top and tail

The body's banished God knows where.

THE "Lancet-Clinic" states that at the International Medical Congress in Berlin among continental physicians drunkenness was the rule at the banquets, while at the Pan-American Congress in Washington over 900 physicians sat down at a dinner at which wine and punch flowed freely, and yet no American arose from this meal the worse for liquor.

THE "Medical Age" in its desire to attack the "expert" has been gulled into the following strange comments.

The "Medical Press and Circular" is authority for the statement that at an inquest recently held in one of the counties of England the verdict returned was as follows:

Owing to decay one part of the heart had become detached, and traveling up the main artery it had reached the head where it completely blocked the cerebral artery. No medical skill could have saved her life.

Doubtless this incomprehensible decision arose from evidence too technical in character, as given by some pedantic medical man.

This is a very good description of the phenomena of embolism as seen by a layman. The physician who gave testimony deserves credit for his clearness.

THE leading Chicago "faith healer" is dead. Dr. McFadden who died recently had a reputation in certain Chicago "faith cure" circles. His method of treatment was laying on of hands and swearing at the evil spirit until it had left the patient. His cursing was genuine billingsgate of the unrevised version. He was once detected giving drugs "on the side" a la Teed of "Koreshan" fame. In 1889 he had an institution similar to Teed's "heaven," and several paranoiac inmates of the state insane hospitals were sent from "heaven."

THE "Lancet-Clinic" cites the following decision involving the questions of confidential communications and malpractice:

In the case of Bicknell vs. Hosier, recently before the Indiana Appellate Court, the evidence tended to prove that after a physician, charged with malpractice in failing properly to treat and set a dislocated hip, had treated the patient for about two months, it being apparent that his treatment was not proving successful, he recommended that the patient should go to Indianapolis, where the surgeons were better prepared and equipped to treat such cases; that the physician went with his patient to that city, and a certain doctor there and others assisted by him made a careful examination of the patient's condition and advised him as to the proper course to be pursued. On the trial the physician offered to prove, by himself and the consulting surgeon, what occurred at this examination, and the condition of the patient's injury at this time. Objection was made, upon the ground that these were confidential communications, and the evidence was rejected.

The general rule is well settled in Indiana, by statutory enactment and decisions of the courts, that a physician is not permitted to disclose confidential communications made to him by a patient, nor the result of observations or examinations made by him on the person of his patient, unless done with the consent of the latter or unless the privilege is waived by the patient. When the patient, however, sues the physician for alleged malpractice in the treatment of the injury then, says the court, the privilege is waived as to all matters connected with the treatment of this injury in which the physician participated. It would be most manifestly unfair to establish any other rule. Nor can it, the court further holds, be successfully asserted that the physician should not go into this particular transaction at Indianapolis because it was disconnected with the remainder of his treatment, and because the patient had not gone into it himself. According to the physician's theory of the case, as supported by some evidence at least, this examination and consultation were but steps in the effort to accomplish what he had all the time been seeking the cure of his patient. It was not permissible to the latter to select out certain portions of the treatment of his physician, or certain visits and examinations, and, by detailing them, limit the physician's evidence to those particular occurrences. For these reasons the court holds that the physician sued for malpractice in this case was entitled to prove, both by himself and by the surgeon consulted as narrated, anything occurring at that examination in which the former participated which was pertinent to the issues involved in the cause. On these grounds, and because of certain defects in a special verdict for $1,500, the court reverses a judgment for that amount and orders a new trial.

THE "New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal" has just completed its semi-centenary. I maintains its high reputation as an honor to American medical journalism.

THE superintendent of the South Carolina insane-hospital during the carpet-bagger era ran the institution chiefly on the products of its farm and the industries of its inmates as its appropriation was systematically stolen by the carpet-baggers and negro-politicians who then dominated the "prostrate state." A similar state of things exists in Spain as the officials of the Alicante insane-hospital have to raise funds for the institution by concerts given by the inmates at Madrid.

THE testimony of Dr. H. P. Wey before the Elmira Reformatory investigating committee seriously reflects on the medical management of that institution. Referring to the case of an inmate who was sent to an insane asylum, Dr. Wey said it was his belief that the man was insane when he came to the reformatory. He, however, did not discover insanity until about a week before removal to the asylum. The man had been in the institution nearly a year, and in that time had been frequently paddled and had been in solitary confinement for seventy-two days. The investigation has brought out but very little except this to the discredit of the institution. It is to be regretted that the nepotism of the chairman of the board of managers should have led to the appointment of such a tyro in psychiatry as this evidence shows the reformatory's chief medical officer to be.

DR. R. LEFOUR ("Edinburg Med. Jour.") after interesting experiments on the influence which knots on the cord have on the foetus. He comes to the conclusion that Cazeaux's statement that they never bring about the death of the foetus must be accepted. In the majority of cases, however, they have, thanks to the energy of the heart, no noteworthy influence on foetal vitality. It is more likely that a fatal result will be brought about if the influence of the knot is increased by that of compression exercised upon it. Death may be due either to simple mechanical obstruction in the funnicular circulation or to a thrombosis following this vascular alteration.

IN the case of the state of Iowa vs. W. M. Bain the defendant was indicted for publicly professing to treat diseases while an itinerant vendor of drugs, nostrums, etc., without license, in violation of the pharmacy law. The trial court sustained demurrer to the indictment on the ground that no sales were effected or that the drugs were offered for sale and that the pharmacy law is unconstitutional because it abridges the right to free speech. The Iowa Supreme Court overrules these objections and holds that the mere fact of the defendant's being an itinerant vendor and professing, by printed matter, to cure or treat by any drug, was sufficient to establish his guilt under the law. The lower court is held to be in error in sustaining the demurrer, but as the appeal is by the state the appeal cannot be reversed. This decision settles allied questions in the medical practice act.

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HERMAN V. HELMHOLTZ, the greatest medical physicist the world has seen, was the son of a professor in the Gymnasium of Pottsdam, in which town he was born August 31, 1821. After studying medicine in the military institute at Berlin, and being attached for a time to the staff of one of the public hospitals there, he returned to his native town as an army surgeon. In 1848 he was appointed professor of anatomy in the Academy of Fine Arts at Berlin; in 1855 professor of physiology at Königsberg, whence he removed in 1858 to Heidelberg, where he also filled the chair of physiology. He was afterwards appointed professor of physiology at

Berlin. The works of Professor Helmholtz have reference principally to the physiological conditions of the impressions on the senses. Among which may be mentioned: "On the Preservation of Forces," 1847; "Manual of Physiological Optics," 1856; and "Theory of the Impressions of Sound," 1862. His "Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects" were published in London in 1883, and his work on "Sensations of Tone, as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music," appeared in 1875. More than 120 scientific papers of his have been read before the Royal Society; and December 1, 1873, the Copley medal of the Royal Society of London was awarded to him. In 1883 he was ennobled by Kaiser Wilhelm I. "in recognition of his eminent services to science."

TINCT. BENZOIN Co. is of especial value according to Dr. J. L. G. Sherrill ("Amer. Therapist') in abrasions of the skin, in conditions such as chapped hands, lips, fissured nipples, etc. It is also of service in eczema where there is a tendency to cracking. The peculiar benefit to be derived from its use in such conditions lies in the fact that after evaporation the gum forms a thin coating over the abraded surface, in this way protecting it from external influences, and also from infection. The surgical use of compound tincture benzoin should be more widely extended. In case of injury about the hand-whether it be slight incision it which suture would not be necessary, or whether it be excessive laceration and contusion, and especially injuries occurring in the use of machinery-he has found the application of compound tincture benzoin to be especially useful. The manner in which it should be used is as follows: After carefully cleansing the wound, removing all foreign substances, irrigat ing the wound with an antiseptic solution if there is any chance or indication of infection,

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applied the compound tincture benzoin is poured down next the surface of the wound, saturating the cotton immediately surrounding the injured tissues. This drug, after undergoing evaporation, will form a coating with the cotton which will hermetically seal the part, thereby rendering it perfectly aseptic. Benzoin in itself is an antiseptic, although of inconsiderable strength. There will be some slight smarting upon the application of this tincture, which, however, will not seriously inconvenience the patient, and which is due entirely to the fact that it is carried by an alcoholic medium.

LOSOPHAN IN SYCOSIS.-Cases of sycosis ("Internl. Jour. of Surg."), especially those of the parasitic variety, frequently tax all therapeutic resources. The difficulty is that the parasite, the trichophyton tonsurans, penetrates deeply into the hair follicles and cannot be effectively attacked by many of the dermal antiseptics in common use. Successfully to destroy the organism the remedy selected must not only penetrate the skin readily, but must be powerfully antiseptic while devoid of irritating qualities. Losc