The Western Journal of Medicine

condition of affairs, because they are not rigorous enough in graduating the candidates for the degree of Doctor of Medicine."

DR. J. J. ROOKER, of Castleton, Marion Co. Ind., proposes to prepare some statistics, showing the effects of balls retained in the human body. Any one having cases of such injuries from firearms, and willing to report them, will be furnished with blank forms upon application to the doctors

WE think we can promise our readers that the January number of the JOURNAL, will be quite worthy of their perusal Among the original articles that will appear in it will be one by Prof. Wright of Cincinnati, on the Constitutional Treatment of Dysmenorrhea; one on Hepatic Disease, by Dr. Carson; Local Anaesthesia, by Dr. Weist; Medical Progress, by Dr. Comingor; Quinine, Iron and Chlorate of Potash in Scarlatina, by Dr. Griswold, of Circleville, O.; Primary Causes of Prostitution, a translation from the French of Parent-Duchatelet, by Dr. Wm. Mason Turner, of Philadelphia; a review of the Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society, by one of the ablest of the medical writers of our country; bibliographical notices of the recent editions of West and Byford, of Rev. Dr. Todd's WOMAN'S RIGHTS, and of Dr. Storer's Is IT I? etc., etc.

IN THE CINCINNATI JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, Au ust 1866, we published some translations that we had made from the Annuaire de Therapeutique, etc., Par A. Bouchardat, Paris, 1866, among which was one on Lortet's use of ether as a remedy for tape worm. And now we find some of our exchanges, eastern and western, especially the former-publishing this method of treatment as a recent thing. We care no more about the credit of having first called the attention of the profession in our country to this novelty, than the credit of having first presented, in a review of Bernutz and Goupil's Clinique Medicale, etc., AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES, July 1867, some views of Guérin upon the value of the uterine speculum, and which we saw a few weeks since doing duty in a contribution to one of our exchanges, without any acknowledgment of the source from which they were obtained, but we do think fourteen or fifteen months rather too long, even if the weather were constantly cool, to keep such an ether-item entirely fresh and without evaporation.

THE STUDENTS of the Medical College of Ohio have done an excellent thing in publishing Prof. Gobrecht's Introductory delivered at the commencement of the present lecture term. It will do them good to have in a permanent form such clear views of true medicine and the mode of teaching it, such manly protest against some of the heresies that are

intruded upon us in these days, such high appreciation of the dignity and importance of the physician, and judicious counsels as to study and deportment. We may add also, that no member of the profession can read this address, and not be grateful to Dr. Gobrecht for writing it, and to the students for having it published.

OUR READERS will be interested in the remarkable views in reference to Phthisis, entertained by Dr. Budd, and found in this number of the JOURNAL. They are destined to attract no little attention on the part of thoughtful physicians, especially as they are promulgated just when the experiments of Villemin as to the inoculability of tubercle have been in the main successfully repeated. If science should now accept the contagiousness of pulmonary tuberculosis, it would be simply verifying a popular belief. And here we can not but observe that we might be guided towards the acquisition of truth, as we certainly would be rendered more catholic in spirit, by accepting as a fundamental principle, that human beliefs prevalent and continued generally contain some portion, greater or less, of the true. In the words of one of the great thinkers of our age, Herbert Spencer, "Entirely wrong as they may appear, the implication is that they germinated out of actual experience-originally contained, and perhaps still contain, some small amount of verity. More especially may we safely assume this, in the case of beliefs that have long existed and are widely diffused; and most of all so, in the case of beliefs that are perennial and nearly or quite universal." We believe that the views here expressed have a relation to this subject, to the investigation of which an increasing value attaches in consequence of the converging lights of clinical experience and physiological experiment.

The views of Dr. Budd do not escape criticism. In the LANCEt, Nov, 2, Dr. Cotton, for so many years physician to the Brompton Hospital for Consumption, enters the lists, combating from the statistics of that institution, the contagion-theory-if this were true, then the attendants in such an hospital ought to manifest peculiar liability to tuberculous disease; but they do not, and therefore the theory is not true. Dr. Wilks in the last number of the LANCET, Nov. 9th, takes similar ground.

For the present at least, possibly too, for a long while in the future, the whole matter must remain sub judice.

BY REFERENCE to our advertising columos it will be seen that the Long Island College Hospital, has had a partial reorganization of its Faculty. Our friend, Professor Armor, whose ability as a clear and polished lecturer is so well known, now has the chair of theory and

practice and materia medica; Professor Ford, one of the two best lecturers on anatomy in the United States, lectures in his favorite department. Add to these the names of Hamilton, of the Flints, and those of the other gentlemen comprising the Faculty, and it will be seen at a glance that this School presents both great reputation and ability on the part of its corps of teachers.

THE ITALIAN government has been the first recognize by law the devotion and disinterestedness of the medical profession in their attendance upon cases of cholera. By a recent law the Chambers have provided that an annual pension of four hundred francs shall be paid to the widow, and a thousand franes to the children of any physician who dies from such exposure. The pension of the widow ceases if she marries again, and that of the children on attaining majority.—Boston Medical and Surgical Journal,

DR. J. V. C. SMITH, of Boston, and DR. J. H. GRISCOM, of New York, have been adjudged the successful competitors for the "Prize Essay on the Physical Signs of Longevity," for which $500 was offered some time ago by the American Popular Life Insurance Company. The essay of each of the gentlemen was so good that the committee could not determine which was the better, and the prize was awarded to each.—Med. and Surg. Rep. Phila.

IF WE are correctly informed, Mr. Syme has bid adieu to the use of the ligature, save in the tying of the larger arteries. He employs torsion; and after this operation is completed, he clears out the wound, using a weak solution of carbolic acid and water (one part to thirty,) and covers the whole over with a paste containing carbolic acid, chalk and other ingredients. London Lancet, Nov. 16.

WE REGRET to announce the death, at New Haven, of DR. WorthINGTON HOOKER, a name well known to the medical profession in the United States. DR. HOOKER was a native of Springfield, and since 1852, Professor at Yale Medical College. The Springfield Republican says that he was a graduate of Yale College in 1825, and of Harvard Medical School in 1829. He had attained an eminence fully worthy the position he filled for fifteen years in Yale College, and did much to render his difficult science one of popular use and knowledge. Several valuable works, treating of medicine and chemistry, and their practical combinations, came from his pen, and have been extensively used as school text books.-Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Nov. 14.

ERRATUM. The types make the author of the remarks upon Veratrum Viride (as given in your JOURNAL of November, page 657,) to say"The force of the heart's contractions will bear an INCREASE ratio to that frequency" which is contrary to the ideas attempted to be advanced, and which should read "INVERSE ratio to that frequency."