Are we not able to note that our medical journals-fortunately not all of them-are greater friends to such companies than they are to us? Is it not time that our Provincial or State Medical Boards name such journals whose columns and advertising pages have the almanac character? While these so-called pharmacal companies are announcing their so-called ethical goods to us, too frequently is the poor and struggling doctor called to pay out his hard-earned money for them, and learns, probably too late, that if he had studied his materia medica and other works relative to this subject in preference to the price list of such companies he would have served his patients far better.

The evidences furnished that old medicines are not totally abandoned, but becoming more studied and used, are many and encouraging. Should not we possess qualifications in materia medica equal, if not superior, to those demanded of pharmacists? If so, is such the case? Would it not be advisable that we adhere strictly to the employment of such medicines and their compounds as are named in our standard works on medicine, and not encourage preparations praised by the pharmacal company and a few well-paid officials connected with medical journals? We should prepare our own tablets and compounds; if not, our local druggist can do such work, and by so doing the interests of each other would be better conserved. Opportunities for the study of qualifications of medical students in their primary work are being afforded me in the position of Examiner in Materia Medica and Pharmacology for our College of Physicians and Surgeons.

These reflections (or, shall I name them suggestions?) are introduced for our best consideration. Heart-to-heart talks such as I so humbly present, are what we of the country and of the walled city so earnestly need. Although "each life is an existence viewing itself too much through a single medium," it is well for us to observe that medicine is a very jealous mistress, and the most difficult of all arts to acquire, and at such annual gatherings of this association, is it not but our rights to make confession by naming our sins of omission and commission, to review the past, consider our present interests, and to make attempts to look into the glorious future. For Cicero says that questions of any importance have the past, the present, and the future to consider (tria esse omnino genera quae in disceptationem cadera possint; quid fiat factum futurumve sit).

The average longevity of members of our profession is stated to be fifty-six years; if so, the average working period cannot much exceed thirty years, and we will assign the first ten years to that. period in which a young doctor becomes established in practice,

and if before the closing of this, the first decade-this bread and butter period, as Sir Andrew Clarke calls it he has married brain and wealth, his future will have less clouds, for the richest doctors with whom I am acquainted are those who, like the penniless scions of nobility. believe that wealth is but a fair gift in exchange for a title in the family, and act according to such beliefs.

The country doctor is of essential interest in any community -in fact, is he not a necessity, and so regarded? The establishment of the town-pump is equally so regarded, which is maintained and kept in order, and no one, appears willing or able to bear expenses in the repairs thereof. His practice is, of course, at times for the money consideration, and his considerations are (if he considers) that if the liveryman had made equal trips to his and been paid the usual livery rates, he would have been better off than he as regards shekels of gold and of silver. He eateth side pork with those who eat side pork, and drinketh milk with those who drink milk. At times he drinketh port or sherry with those who drink some variety of chosen border blends of mountain dew, whose merits he announces with no sour disdain when away from home; his breath is that of new-mown hay, or that of frankincense and myrrh. His experience during this first decade is such that he estimates it as passing the understanding of men, in payment for which he is paid principally in hay, oats, and other products of the farm. Apparently satisfied is he if he can meet his payments for drugs and medicines, and be recognized as popular; unfortunate, however, is he if ambition should tempt him to erect too costly a residence. Such a step he, like others in many similar cases, will have reason to regret.

Perchance he hears of the success of a former fellow graduate, and his ambition, too, is exercised to adopt a specialty. Such prospective work occupies much of his thoughts during idle moments, and he is the best material from which the safe specialist emanates, but it is needless to state, such a hope is very seldom realized. He becomes more fixed to his locality, and becomes a specialist in more than one department; and the second decade finds him still there apparently afraid to move, yet anxiously looking for a government appointment; in fact, any appointment wherein there is a surety of a good living. Tired out is he, worn out really in too many instances, and really when he has become experienced, and thus more useful; but, strange to state, such is not the belief of his people. They want a change, yet he is always with the dear people, and a quarter of a century passes by. Verily, the thirty-year limit is being rapidly reached, and he is having for pastime the raising of the earliest potatoes, or the biggest

beets and cucumbers; or, perhaps, reaches the presidency of the county or district cattle show, or becomes the master of the village. Masonic lodge. In quiet moments he feels inspired, and is anxious to give the world-the medical world-many foolscap pages of his experience, but as those who look out of the window become darkened and desire fails, the world loses much, yet he forgets not those days when the usual "Hello, hello, doctor," was answered "All right" by him, and a few hours found him. ten miles from home in the Bethel Settlement doing a successful version, and succeeding in overcoming much and protracted inertia. How pleasant was it to arrive home, wearied in body and soul, to find in reviewing his books that he succeeded so well. Inwardly he feels as if he were a god among the people. The scene changes when he hurriedly opens a note from the editor of his best medical journal, which invites his best contribution on the financial aspect of medicine, and his wife requests a few shekels to pay her subscription to the Central Asia Missionary Society. The poetry of life and the romance of medicine suddenly vanish, for he reflects that, although the laborer is worthy of his hire, his account in the Bethel Settlement has not been paid him, and the prospects of reward are not too inviting. Such thoughts do not long disturb him, for he is rushed to the third concession to do some sewing on Jim Sharp-the reaper has run away, as Whitcomb Riley describes it. He fashioneth splints from the rail fence, and taketh dinner with the men. He sayeth grace, and pronounces the pork, potatoes, and onions, and gelatinous pie equal to the best. The open cylinder threshing machine, or the more modern wind stacker, relentless, ever starved and insatiable, does some work for him ere the evening shadows fall, and before he rests he has heard confessions that would break up whole families and neighborhoods. He recommends balsamics to the deacon, and terms his disorder nephritis, yet both know better, and probably it will never be known-" Domine salve nos." These illustrations are those seen by the country doctor-the most revered, the most useful man, he who has the heart within and the God overhead impulses-" he has seen old views and patients disappearing one by one, and is entitled to a furlough for his brain and for his heart."

We cherish the memory of the old village doctor, the old country. May he ever exist.

What greater birthright can any intelligent or ambitious man claim and cherish than that his name is in the list-the long list of Esclepiadæ, of the healers of men-a list, says Oliver Wendell Holmes, which stretches unbroken to the days of gods and demigods, until its earliest traditions blend with the story of the

brightest of the ancient divinities. Can crowned heads claim a
lineage more noble? Can the Church, with its apostolic succes-
sion traditions, its lives of patriarchs, of apostles, and martyrs,
claim a greater or more honored progeny? Are not such reflec-
tions, and the statements that coronets have been placed on the
heads of many of our learned brethren, quite enough to fill our
cup of ambition? Who then among us is not, or has not been,
ambitious to be the least among them, the country doctor?
In the words of William Cullen Bryant:

"We seek not the praise of the love-written record,
The name and the date inscribed on the stone;
The things that we do. let them be our story,
Ourselves be remembered by what we have done."

These words are equally expressed by the immortal Hufeland, and are more directly appropriate to our profession: "Thine is a high and holy office. See that thou exercise it purely, not for thine own advancement, not for thine own honor, but for the glory of God, and the good of thy neighbors. Hereafter thou wilt have to give an account of it." The country doctor, having time for reflection, recognizes these truths amid surrounding disadvantages and trials, lights and shadows, and, like virtue, a country practice is its only reward.

SOME CLINICAL INDICATIONS FOR THE USE OF THE ELECTRIC-LIGHT BATH.*

BY T. D. CROTHERS, M.D.,
Superintendent Walnut Lodge Hospital, Hartford, Conn.

THE use of the electric-light bath as a sudorific and tonic, or remedy for the restoration of deranged metabolism, is practically new in therapeutics. A number of experimental studies have been made in this direction with most encouraging results. The sudorific action of electric light is prominent, and evidently superior to the hot-air bath in rapidity of action and duration of effect.

How far the electric-light bath promotes healthy metabolism, destroys bacteria, and adds new force or vigor to the functional activities of the body, is yet to be determined. Hot-air baths, in nearly all forms of neuro-psychoses, have proved so valuable that further researches, with improved means and methods, give promise of most practical results.

The patients who come under my care suffer from toxic insanities due to spirits and drug-taking. They also suffer from sclerotic conditions of the heart, liver, kidney, and blood-vessels, particularly of the finer arteries. Associated with these pathological changes are various degrees of vaso-motor paralysis, organic cell changes with disturbances and palsies of co-ordination. Anemia, hyperanemia of the nervous system, and the unknown conditions described by the terms neurasthenia and cerebrasthenia, are always more or less prominent. As a remedy for these conditions, I have used the electric-light bath for over a year, giving from thirty to fifty baths a week, exclusively to spirits and drugtakers in all conditions and degrees of addiction.

The bath consists of a room five feet square and six feet high, lined with tin, on which are arranged ninety incandescent lights of sixteen-candle power. The patient, taking a bath, sits on a chair in the centre of this room with the entire body exposed to the light, the head being covered with a napkin.

It was found from experience that the action of the electric light dried out the oil in the hair, leaving it dry and husky, hence it was thought that the intense action of light would impair the growth of the hair and otherwise injure the scalp. These effects

*Read before the Electro-Therapeutic Society.