may be taken as evidence that the British male out-patient is not yet acclimatized to the presence of medical students of the other sex and his feelings have to be reckoned with, especially in a private clinic, at which his attendance is purely an act of grace. Why the modesty of the British working man should be so much more susceptible than that of his wife or sister, it is difficult to conceive, but he has yet to learn that science is asexual and regards the malady and not the man. It is greatly to be regretted that this course should have been deemed necessary, for it places yet another obstacle in the way of the acquisition of clinical knowledge by women, Doubtless, in the near future, the public will become as accustomed to women as clinical observers as to

women

cyclists, and will abandon foolish protests against the one as they have ceased to objugate the other. There is no valid reason, however, why some prominent medical woman should not forthwith inaugurate a clinic of her own at which female patients will object to undressing before men. That would be the reductio ad absurdum.-Med. Press.

THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF PAIN. READ AT THE JUBILEE OF ANÆSTHESIA OCTOBER 16, 1896.

BY S. WEIR MITCHELL, M. D.
Forgive a moment, if a friend's regret,
Delay the task your honoring kindness set.
I miss one face to all men ever dear;

I miss one voice that all men loved to hear.
How glad were I to sit with you apart
Could the dead 'master' use his higher art
To lift on wings of ever lightsome mirth
The burdened muse above the dust of earth,
To stamp with jests the heavy ore of thonght,
To give a day, with proud remembrance
fraught,

The vital pathos of that Holmes-spun art
Which knew so well to reach the common
Τ
heart.

Alas! for me. for you, that fatal hour!
Gone is the master! Ah! not mine the power
To gild with jests, that almost win a tear,
The thronging memories that are with us
here.

The Birth of Pain! Let centuries roll away;
Come back with me to nature's primal day.
What mighty forces pledged the dust to life!
What awful will decreed its silent strife!
Till through vast ages rose on hill and plain,
Life's saddest voice, the birthright wail of
pain.

The keener sense, and ever growing mind,
Served but to add a torment twice refined,
As life, more tender, as it grew more sweet,
The cruel links of sorrow found complete
When yearning love to conscious pity grown
Felt the mad pain thrills, that were not its

own.

PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS. -Members of the State Medical Society desiring to attend the PanAmerican Medical Congress in the City of Mexico, November 16th to 19th are requested by the International Executive Committee to bring credentials, which will be furnished on application to the Secretary, Dr. Robert D. Jewett, Wilmington, N.C.

What Angel bore the Christ-like gift inspired!

What love divine with noblest courage fired
One eager soul that paid in bitter tears
For the glad helping of unnumbered fears,
From the strange record of creation tore
The sentence sad, each sorrowing mother
bore,

Struck from the roll of pangs one awful sum,' Made pain a dream, and suffering gently dumb!

Whatever triumphs still shall hold the mind,

282

Whatever gift shall yet enrich mankind, Ah! here, no hour shall strike through all the years,

No hour as sweet, as when hope, doubt and fears,

'Mid deepening stillness. watched one eager brain,

With God-like will, decree the Death of Pain.

How did we thank him? Ah! no joy-bells rang,

No pæans greeted, and no poet sang, No cannon thundered, from the guarded strand

This mighty victory to a grateful land!

We took the gift, so humbly, so simply given,
And coldly selfish-left our debt to Heaven.
How shall we thank him? Hush! A gladder
hour

Has struck for him; a wiser, juster power
Shall know full well how fitly to reward
The generous soul, that found the world so
hard.

he was <

Hospital Service. Some years since ppointed to the station at Chicago, which is considered the most desirable station in the service. It is the rule of the Service that no officer shall remain more than four years at the same station, but it is said that there was some understanding that Dr. Hamilton should be given two terms at Chicago. However, a few days since he was ordered to take charge of the station at San Francisco. He made official protest, but his protest has been overruled. Evidently the private interests that the ex-Surgeon General has established in Chicago overbalance the benefits of a position in the Service.

A competitive examination of ap

tion of Assistant Surgeon in the Marine Hospital Service will be held in the city of Washington on February 3, 1897. Candidates are required to be not less than twenty one years of Full inforage, and not over thirty. mation may be obtained by addressing the Surgeon-General, M. H. S., Washington, D. C.

ing present only the immediate relatives of the deceased artist and author. The wooden shell in which the body was enclosed was covered with silvergrey plush, and on its lid were three beautiful wreaths from the widow and children. After cremation had been performed, the ashes of the deceased were placed in a casket and removed to Hampstead, where they were buried on Tuesday, October 13th, in the parish churchyard, in the presence of a numerous and distinguished gathering of mourners and friends. During the last few weeks, the remains of Dr. L ngdon Down and Surgeon-General Sir William George Moore have been cremated at the crematorium of the Cremation Society of England, near Woking.-Br. Med. Jour.

CHANGE OF NAME. -The editors of Mathews' Medical Quarterly announce that with the January issue of that publication its name will be changed to "Matthews' Quarterly Journal of Rectal and Gastro-Intestinal Diseases." This is a change which has been deemed necessary for some time, as it is essential that the title of a medical journal should convey to the reader an idea of its contents, and this has not been the case with its name from the beginning.

There will be no change in the policy of the journal in the least. As it will continue to be the only English publication devoted to diseases and surgery of the rectum and gastro-intestinal tract, the articles which will appear in it will be limited to these subjects. The journal will con

tinue to be edited by Drs. J. M. Mathews and Henry E. Tuley, and published in Louisville, Ky.

A

DIED BECAUSE HE COULD NOT BECOME A MOTHER.--Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that a young man died because he could not become a mother. At a meeting, May 5, of the Acadamie de Medicine a strange case was reported. young man submitted to an operation for the purpose of having a large abdominal tumor removed. The tumor proved to be an encysted female fetus as large as is usual at five months. The report says that the young man did not survive the opertion--that he died in ignorance of the existence of the fetus in his tumor. The ovum in the cyst had lain latent until puberty, when it started to grow. So, had the young man lived to becon e a mother, his daughter would have been his sister.

SLUMBER SOUND IN PHILdelphia, The current belief that insomnia is unknown in Philadelphia will be strengthened by an incident related by the correspondent in that city of The Lancet. He writes that a hypnotist had been giving exhibitions in one of the theatres, and as a "special feature" he put a victim into a sleep that was to last seventy-two hours, placed him in a store window in a prominent thoroughfare, and offered $100 to anyone who could rouse the sleeper before the time named. One man, anxious to earn the money, failing to make any impression on the victim by tickling, prodding, etc.,

became desperate and struck him some heavy blows with his fists, without accomplishing his object, however, but injuring him severely. Just

at this juncture the "professor" arrived. He was ordered to arouse the man, which he did, when it was found necessary to remove him to a hospital.

J. L. Ridley, M. D., Huntersville, Ala., says: I have used S. H. Kennedy's Extract of Pinus Canadensis, both White and Dark. I can frequently cure gonorrhea without any other remedy. I use either as an injection, and prescribe the Dark internally, where there is irritability about the mouth of the bladder. have learned to regard it as a specific. In chronic cystitis I have derived great benefit from it, and in leucorrhea it relieves when many other remedies fail. It is a valuable remedy, and I have had marked success with it.

I

WALKER GREEN PHARMACEUTICAL Co.-Permit me to say that I have dispensed from my office many bottles of your Elixir Six Iodides, for the simple reason that my patients were unable to obtain the preparation from the retail druggists, and for the more important reason to prevent substitution or sophistication, which, although not generally practiced, are unfortunately too frequently met with. The druggist's interest being to sell

all the drugs he can, for therein lies his bread and butter, while the physician's lies in an entirely different direction, and that is, to cure his patients as soon as possible.

The fact remains patent that I have found in this particular preparation a desideratum which no other combination seems to possess. As a typical case I shall mention one of necrosis of the sternum in a young man, with no history of syphilis, where every other means had failed to arrest the destruction of bone tissue or structure. He had been under treatment at one of our best hospitals in this city, and undergone a surgical operation, "Scraping the Bone," etc., which proved useless. The discharge continued, and as a dernier resort he came to me. Three weeks after the institution of "Six Iodides," the ugly sinus had completely dried up. Nor has there been any sign of imperfect cure. Patient reports himself as being perfectly well.

WILLIAM A. ARMSTRONG, M.D., 1808 Park Avenue, Philadelphia, Penn.