Monument to the Memory of DR. W. E. B. DAVIS, Birmingham, Ala.. erected by the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Society, unveiled August 12th, 1904. Reproduced from the BIRMINGHAM NEWS by courtesy of the Birmingham News Publishing Company; photo by Covell. Birmingham, Ala. For biography, see Vol. XXVII, p. 187.

increasing demand for such officials.

Heretofore, special facilities for special training in matters pertaining to public health have been very inadequate. To meet the needs of such instruction the University of Pennsylvania will introduce into its curriculum, beginning October 1, 1905, a course in public health including the following subjects: Sanitary Engineering, impressing the subject of water supplies, sewage system, street cleaning, disposing of waste, etc.: Sanitary Legislation, a study of the movement for sanitary reform, and of the laws enacted relating to public health, and the methods of enforcement employed in Great Britian and the United States; Inspection of Meat, Milk and Other Animal Products, the methods of preparation and preservation of the same, the conduct of dairies, creameries, etc., and demonstrations of the diseases of animals transmissable to man; The Sanitary Engineering of Buildings, including demonstrations of systems of heating, ventilation plumbing and drainage, the study of plans, etc.; Social and Vital Statistics in the United States, an examination of statistical methods and their results, with special reference to vital statistics and to city populations; Practical Methods Used in Sanitary Work, including water, air and milk analyses, studies in ventilation and heating, investigation of the soil, methods of disinfection, sterilization, etc.; General Hygiene, as applied to the community, including lectures upon the causation of diseaseexciting and predisposing, methods of prevention—including isolation, quarantine, natural and acquired immunity, protective moculation, vaccination, and the antitoxic state, methods of house disinfection and the means employed, suggestions for the organization of sanitary work, the influence of water supplies and sewage disposal on the public health, etc.; Personal Hygiene, including the physiology of exercise, the adaptation of exercise to the various physical requirements, the use of exercise for the prevention and correction of deformities, the methods of examination and record keeping, the routine physical examination of growing children and the relation of air, food, bathing, etc., to health and development; the hygiene of the school room. Such instruction in our leading universities will do much for the public good. It will insure more efficient work by health officers, dignify this important branch of medical science.

SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF NARCOTICS.

The American Medical Society for the Study of Alcohol and Other Narcotics was organized June 8, 1904, by the union of the American Association for the Study of Inebriety and the Medical Temperance Association. Both of these societies are composed of physicians interested in the study and treatment of inebriety and the physiological nature and action of alcohol and narcotics in health and disease. The first society. was organized in 1870 and has published five volumes of transactions and twenty-seven yearly volumes of the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, the organ of its association. The second society began in 1891 and has issued three volumes of transactions and for seven years published a Quarterly Bulletin containing the papers read at its meetings. The special object of the union of the two societies is to create greater interest among physicians to study one of the greatest evils of modern times. Its plan of work is to encourage and promote more exact scientific studies of the nature and effects of alcohol in health and disease, particularly of its eiological, physiological and therapeutic relations. Second, to secure more accurate investigations of the diseases associated or following from the use of alcohol and narcotics. Third, to correct the present empirical treatment of these diseases by secret drugs and so-called specifics and to secure legislation, prohibiting the sale of nostrums claiming to be absolute cures containing dangerous poisons. Fourth, to encourage legislation for the care, control and medical treatment of spirit and drug takers. The alcoholic problem and the diseases which enter and spring from it are becoming more prominent and its medical and hygienic importance have assumed such proportions that physicians everywhere are called on for advice and counsel. Public sentiment is turning to medical men for authoritative facts and conclusions to enable them to realize the causes, means of prevention and cure of this evil. This new society comes to meet this want by enlisting medical men as members and stimulating new studies and researches from a broader and more scientific point of view. As a medical and hygienic topic the alcoholic problem has an intense personal interest, not only to every physician, but to the public generally in every town and city in the country. This interest demands concentrated efforts

through the medium of a society to clear away the present confusion, educate public sentiment and make medical men the final authority in the consideration of the remedial measures for cure and prevention. For this purpose a most urgent appeal is made to all physicians to assist in making this society the medium and authority for the scientific study of the subject. The secretary, Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Conn., to whom we are indebted for the above data, will be pleased to give any farther information.

PROFESSOR SHIBASABURO KITASATO.

Dr. Kitasato, of Tokio, Japan, the discoverer of the tetanus bacillus and of the bacillus of the Bubonic plague, recently visited this country, and attended the meeting of the "National Science Association," which met at St. Louis in the latter part of September.

After graduating from the Imperial University Medical College, Tokio, Dr. Kitasato was sent by the Japanese government to Germany to further prosecute his medical studies. His discovery of the cause of tetanus will make his name immortal. From an interesting sketch of his life we quote the following from the "Medical Age:"

"After his return to Japan he established the Institute for Infectious Diseases, the object of which is to investigate the cause of infectious diseases and devise prophylactic and curative methods. This institute was opened in 1892 to the public, and since that date it has been under Kitasato's control.

"In 1894, when plague broke out in Hongkong, the Japanese government appointed Professor Kitasato and his associates to proceed there and investigate the cause of this terrible disease, of which the world had hitherto had no practical knowledge. A few days after his arrival at Hongkong Professor Kitasato discovered the bacillus which was the cause of this disease. On account of this meritorious service to the state he was honored by His Majesty, the Emperor, with the Decoration of the Third Order of the Rising Sun. This valuable discovery made him the leading bacteriologist in the world.

"In 1896, under the instruction of the government, he established the Imperial Serum Institute, with the object of supplying serum of better quality to the general public. Since the

establishment of this Institute he has been its director. The government appointed him the president of the Imperial Lymph Institute, which supplies the lymph universally used throughout the whole country.

"Professor Kitasato is at present the president of each of the three institutes above mentioned, which are under the supervision of the Minister of State for the Interior.

"Under the able direction of Professor Kitasato many valuable contributions have been made by these institutes for the benefit of medical science. For instance, we may point out (1) the discovery of the dysentery bacillus by his assistant, Dr. Shiga (Institute for Infectious Diseases), (2) the production, for the first time in the annals of the world, of the most effective pest serum (Serum Institute), and (3) the method of manufacturing non-humanized lymph, which is produced without passing through a human body (Lymph Institute).

"Professor Kitasato, besides, holds the following offices in the service of the government: Vicepresident of the Central Hygienic Association; adviser to the Sanitary Bureau, charged with the work of preventing the transportation of infectious diseases to Japan. He is also the president of the Japan Private Hygienic Society, and honorary member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine, and other scientific associations, domestic and foreign."

HOSPITALS FOR CONSUMPTIVES.

We find evidences on every hand of increasing efforts to provide sanitoria for consumptives. The State of Rhode Island has erected buildings for a state sanitorium in the town of Burrillville, which is the highest portion of the state, being 750 feet above the sea level. The tract includes 250 acres of timber land covered with a growth of large trees and hard wood. The buildings are on the ward system and provide for 120 patients. The buildings cost about $150,000. In Germany, the native land of the sanitorium, over $10,000,000 are invested in sanitoria for the treatment of tuberculosis, ninety of these institutions were shown by detailed plans and complete elevations and in some instances by paintings, at the World's Fair, at St. Louis. It is said that the most complete, beautiful, and hygienic exhibit at the fair was those of Germany, the cost of preparing and collecting this exhibit alone was over $10,000. It is evident that the German "loves to live, to have abundant health while he lives, and to save the life of his fellow men without regard to cost."