68; tuberculosis, 132; heart diseases, 37; accidents and violence,

21.

WASHINGTON.-Seattle, 115,000. Report for March, 1903: Total number of deaths, 86-7 under five years. Death rate, 8.88. Deaths from pulmonary consumption, 11; pneumonia, 11; typhoid fever, 4; heart disease, 4; Bright's disease, 6.

CUBA. Havana and environs, 275,000-72,000 colored. Report for March, 1903: Total number of deaths, 436, 9 less than in the previous month. Death rate, 20.44. No case of yellow fever, imported or otherwise, has been recorded since February. With the present month of March eighteen months have been completed since a case of yellow fever has originated within the territory of the Cuban Republic, notwithstanding the introduction of eight cases imported from Veracruz, Tampico or Progreso. Deaths from tuberculosis, 89; bronchitis, 17; broncho-pneumonia, 18; pneumonia, 9; infantile diarrhoea, 27; Bright's disease, 11; cancer, 15.

PHILIPPINES. Both plague and cholera on most recent reports are on the increase. Of the former there were in Manila, during the month of February, 18 cases and 13 deaths. Cholera is most prevalent in the southern portion of Luzon and in the southern islands at many points.

FREE TREATMENT FOR EYE DISEASES IN RUSSIA.-Commercial Agent R. T. Greener writes from Vladivostock, February 15, 1903 A Russian charitable association is sending out traveling parties of oculists to render free assistance to persons of small means. During the three months of one party's stay at Habarofsk and Vladivostock, 504 persons received free treatment and 164 operations on eyes were performed.

MINERAL LAKE IN SIBERIA-Commercial Agent R. T. Greener writes from Vladivostock, October 8, 1902: About fifteen miles from Ujoora, in the Atchinsk district, is situated a small lake, Utchoom by name, the waters of which have been found to contain curative properties. They are especially efficacious in the cure of wounds, rheumatism, scrofula, catarrh, skin diseases, and nervous disorders. The water is of a bitter, salty

taste.

SSION

CANDIDATES FOR ADMISSION INTO THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT:

BUREAU OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D. C., April 30, 1903.

A Board of Officers will be convened to meet at the Bureau of Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, 3 B street, S. E., Washington, D. C., Monday, June 15, 1903, for the purpose of examining candidates for admission to the grade of assistant surgeon in the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States.

Candidates must be between twenty-two and thirty years of age, graduates of a reputable medical college, and must furnish at least two testimonials from responsible persons as to their professional and moral character.

The following is the usual order of the examinations: (1) Physical. (2) Oral. (3) Written. (4) Clinical.

In addition to the physical examination, candidates are required to certify that they believe themselves free from any ailment which would disqualify for service in any climate.

The examinations are chiefly in writing, and begin with a short autobiography of the candidate. The remainder of the written exercise consists in examination on the various branches of medicine, surgery and hygiene.

The oral examination includes subjects of preliminary education, history, literature, and natural sciences.

The clinical examination is conducted at a hospital, and when practicable candidates are required to perform surgical operations on a cadaver.

Successful candidates will be numbered according to their attainments on examination, and will be commissioned in the same order as vacancies occur.

Upon appointment, the young officers are, as a rule, first assigned to duty at one of the large marine hospitals, as at Boston, New York, New Orleans, Chicago, or San Francisco.

After five years' service, assistant surgeons are entitled to examination for promotion to the grade of passed assistant surgeon. Promotion to the grade of surgeon is made according to seniority, and after due examination as vacancies occur in that grade.

Assistant surgeons receive sixteen hundred dollars, and surgeons twenty-five hundred dollars a year. When quarters are not provided, commutation at the rate of thirty, forty and fifty dollars. a month, according to grade, is allowed.

All grades above that of assistant surgeon receive longevity pay, ten per centum in addition to the regular salary for every five years' service up to forty per centum after twenty years' service.

The tenure of office is permanent. Officers traveling under orders are allowed actual expenses.

For further information, or for invitation to appear before the Board of Examiners, address

WALTER WYMAN, Surgeon-General, Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, Washington, D. C.

SANITARY CONGRESS AT BRADFORD.-The Department of State has received from Ambassador Choate, of London, under date of March 4, 1903, notice that the council of the London Sanitary Institute has arranged to hold, in conjunction with the local authorities in Bradford, a congress from July 7 to 11, 1903, for the purpose of discussion of various matters connected with public health. Official delegates have been appointed by various municipal authorities throughout the United Kingdom to attend the meeting, and the council will be pleased to welcome any representatives of the United States Government. The subjects to be discussed will include matters of international importance in connection with hygiene. The sections of the congress are: (1) Sanitary science and preventive medicine; (2) engineering and architecture; (3) chemistry, physics, and biology. An exhibition of apparatus and appliances relating to health and of domestic use will be held in connection with the congress. Tickets for the congress are I guinea ($5.11) each, to be obtained at the office of the local secretary, Town Hall, Bradford, or of the Institute, 72 Margaret street, London W.

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH RESORT EXPOSITION.-This international exposition is to be held at Vienna September 12 to October 20. Panoramas and views, plastic representations and other interesting details of information in regard to the watering places and health resorts of the world will be exhibited, with displays of the waters, arrangements for sanitation and amusements, etc.

BOOK REVIEWS.

A SYSTEM OF PHYSIOLOGIC THERAPEUTICS. Edited by SOLOMON SOLIS COHEN, A.M., M.D., Senior Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine in Jefferson Medical College; Physician to the Jefferson Medical College Hospital and to the Philadelphia, Jewish and Rush hospitals; one time Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, etc. Volume V: "PROPHYLAXIS," " PERSONAL HYGIENE," "CIVIC HYGIENE," "CARE OF THE SICK." By JOSEPH MCFARLAND, M.D., Professor of Pathology, Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia; Henry Leffman, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia; ALBERT ABRAMS, A.M., M.D. (University of Heidelberg), formerly Professor of Pathology, Cooper Medical College, San Francisco; and W. WAYNE BABCOCK, M.D., Lecturer on Pathology and Bacteriology, Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia. Pp. 539. Illustrated. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1903.

This is a most interesting volume, comprehending an epitome of what is essential in the Natural History of Medicine-the origin, dissemination and prevention of disease. It is divided into three parts. The first, on the "Origin and Prevention of Disease," is by Drs. McFarland and W. W. Babcock. Here are discussed very thoroughly the etiological factors concerned in the production of disease: Immunity, microbic infection, age, sex, heredity, nervous influences, abnormalities of development, auto-intoxications, physical causes, heat, light, cold, electricity, the atmosphere, climate and season. Poisons are very completely summarized and thoroughly discussed; and their relationships to the general problems of disease outlined. Under the head of sociologic causes, the authors speak of density of population, dissipation, sexual excesses and occupation.

A particularly interesting chapter is that on the extrinsic causes of disease, in which a thorough presentation of the organic factors, those of animal and vegetable origin, is given. The diffusion of disease in various ways-by the air, water, food and soil, and how the body is invaded by micro-organisms, is thoroughly treated. There are, besides, short chapters on the different diseases due to animal and vegetable parasites.

In Part II, the subject of "Civic Hygiene" is discussed by Dr. Henry Leffman. It is a very thorough and readable presentation of how a city should be sanitarily policed, what to do with the garbage and sewage, and the requirements of plumbing and ventilation. Part III, by Dr. A. Abrams, discusses personal hygiene and the care of the sick.

Altogether, it is an admirably adjusted work to the needs of medical practitioners. That is to say: preventive medicine in its just relation to curative medicine as a means of curing as well as preventing disease, and replete with diagnostic knowledge of material things and conditions in conflict with health.

DESIGNED

DISEASES OF THE HEART AND ARTERIAL SYSTEM. TO BE A PRACTICAL PRESENTATION OF THE SUBJECT FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS OF MEDICINE. By Robert H. BABCOCK, A.M., M.D., Professor of Clinical Medicine and Diseases of the Chest, College of Physicians and Surgeons (Medical Department of the Illinois State University), Chicago; Attending Physician to Cook County Hospital and Cook County Hospital for Consumptives; Consulting Physician to Mary Thompson Hospital, Hospital of St. Anthony de Padua, and of Marion Sims Sanitarium; Fellow and formerly President of the American Climatological Association; Member of the American Medical Association, etc. Pp. 874, with three colored plates and one hundred and thirtynine illustrations. Bound in cloth. Price, $6.00. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This work is based upon extensive observation and thorough mastery of the subjects of which it treats. Alike to the most important needs of the student and for the most facile use of the medical practitioner, all mere theories and speculations have been omitted from consideration; and only so much of the anatomy and physiology of the circulatory organs appertaining to their healthy conditions as deemed necessary to a better understanding of the matter in hand has been described, because an extended consideration of them was believed to be out of place in a work devoted to diseased conditions.-"Although aware that physical signs are properly a part of the symptomatology of disease and should be considered under that head, still the author has thought it best to consider them separately, for the sake of facilitating the knowledge of that most difficult subject, the diagnosis of cardiac disease."

Special attention is paid to treatment-following careful diagnosis throughout. The author evidently having availed himself