the country would be as badly afflicted with the scourge as some regions of the old continent.

A few quotations from a recent and a remarkable work on trachoma by a German army surgeon, Dr. Boldt, translated by Dr. J. H. Parson and Dr. T. Snowball, will demonstrate the propriety of all prohibitive legislation against trachoma.

In the translator's preface we read that the book of Dr. Boldt embodies the results of many years' experience in one of the hotbeds of the disease, and contains the most complete list of statistics which has yet been collected, and they further state that "trachoma in England is an alien disease, imported by aliens, propagated amongst aliens, and handed over to the native population by aliens."

Dr. Treacher Collins, who wrote the introductory chapter to the English edition of Dr. Boldt's book, states that, out of all the confusing and contradictory observations which have been made in connection with trachoma, the contagious character of the affection stands to-day clear and undoubted.

"After the evacuation of Egypt, in 1803, the English army was disbanded and spread the disease broadcast."

A large proportion of trachoma in London has been generated in its pauper schools, and this was the origin of the foundation of several Isolation School Hospitals, of which the Hanwell School seems to stand as a model. It was erected in 1889, at the cost of £3,000, and the results have fully answered the expectation of its promoters.

According to the account of Sydney Stephenson, in 1895 the number of trachomatous patients in Great Britain averaged 6 in Scotland, 9 in England and 26.4 per 1,000 in Ireland of all eye patients. The statement about Ireland seems to justify the suggestion of the writer when he says: "If trachoma is to be stamped out of Great Britain, strenuous measures will have to be taken to check the disease from the sister isle."

After detailed remarks about how trachoma is dealt with in the schools and in the army, Dr. Collins continues: "It now becomes necessary to refer to a source which is tending to its increase, viz., the importation of aliens into this country from districts where the disease is endemic."

With this end in view, a movement is now on foot to have an alien immigration bill passed by Parliament, in which provision will be made for the inspecting officers to prohibit the landing of passengers suffering from any infectious and loathsome diseases, with the intention to have trachoma included among the latter.

With a sentiment of philanthropy which has oftentime honored the British race, Sir Ernest Cassell has placed at the disposal of the Egyptian Government the sum of £40,000 (Lancet, June 30th, 1904), to be used for the benefit of the sufferers of eye diseases in that country, a special object to be kept in view being the training of native medical men in the diagnosis and treatment. of such diseases according to modern methods.

"In Australia, trachoma is chiefly introduced by immigrants, and, in the southern part, instead of the disease occurring in over-crowded districts and badly ventilated rooms, it is met in well-fed, strong, healthy farmers and their families, who are widely scattered over large areas and reside in roomy and well ventilated houses."

In Hungary, in 1886, a trachoma service was organized, the object being to ascertain every case of trachoma, insure its proper treatment, and prevent further infection. For this purpose three hospitals were erected besides those already existing.

In the Russian Empire a number of so-called "ophthalmic flying columns" were organized by the Board of Prevention of Blindness, and thousands of people received assistance from them.

Among the civil population trachoma is very prevalent also, and very few districts of Russia are quite free from it. Feur, who was officially charged by the authorities to examine the three southern districts of Torontal in 1884, found five per cent. of the whole population affected with trachoma, and he says that when the contagion has been sown among the peasant population it is scarcely possible to prevent its further spread.

In 1896 the struggle with trachoma in Prussia has been vigorously taken up by the state, aided by special Act of Parlia

ment.

Within the last decade trachoma has travelled from the infected eastern provinces of Germany and the adjoining frontier by a distinct westward tract, following the lines of trade, and it is conveyed almost exclusively by migrating workmen, agricultural laborers, etc.

Lawrentjew, the oculist of the military district of Moscow, stated at the congress held in that city in 1887, that Central Russia, which had previously been free from trachoma, in the course of years became seriously affected, owing to enlistment of trachomatous recruits from infected areas in the West. All Russian authors have for vears been urging that men affected with trachoma should be rigorously excluded. Lawrentjew also

justly asserts that trachoma was conveyed from the army into areas which were previously free.

From the foregoing remarks and information, which I believe to be impartial, I let everyone draw his own conclusions. I presume we all quite agree as to the propriety of our legislation concerning the exclusion of immigrants affected with loathsome and contagious diseases. But the consensus of opinion is not so unanimously reached when the time comes to deal with individual cases of trachoma. It causes the medical inspectors more anxiety than all other diseases combined, because on their decisions depend the success or the ruin of many legitimate ambitions. But on this subject I have very few words to say presently.

So long as a specific virus of the disease has not yet been. identified, on the one hand, and its contagious character being recognized on the other, an honest, but firm opinion must prevail from a national point of view. Whether the intending immigrants come from the mother land of the first owners of this country, or from the great empire to which, as Canadians, we actually owe so many privileges in the enjoyment of equal rights, or from any other country, they have to be judged individually as to whether they are a gain or not for us, solely in view of the development and the future prosperity of our great Dominion.

MASTER-MINDS OF MEDICINE: II-THOMAS SYDENHAM, THE ENGLISH HIPPOCRATES (1624-1689).

BY WILLIAM J. FISCHER, M.D., WATERLOO, Ont.
Author of "Songs by the Wayside."

"As long as Almighty God shall give me life, I shall still press forward to my avowed end of doing all the good I can in my calling."-Thomas Sydenham.

Medicine is a practical science, and there are two open roads that lead great, thinking minds to a better understanding of it. Every doctor, in his daily routine work, comes upon these pleasant places, and recognizes the two strong currents of thought that tend to the perfection of a science which has made wonderful strides in advancement in past centuries and the present; currents of thought at once vital and important—the one scientific, the other practical, but both necessary to the solving of problems of real benefit to the great, throbbing humanity about us. We have, then, two schools in medicine the scientific school, of which William Harvey was the founder, and the practical, or clinical, school represented by Thomas Sydenham. "The great merit of Sydenham," writes one, "was to proclaim the great truth that science was, is, and always must be incomplete; and that danger lurks in the natural tendency to act upon it as if it were complete. The practical man has to be guided not only by positive knowledge, but by much that is imperfectly known. He must listen to the hints of nature as well as to her clear utterances. To combine them may be difficult; but the difficulty is solved in minor matters by the faculty called common sense; in greater affairs, by the synthetic power of Genius."

Thomas Sydenham, then, the English Hippocrates, as he is sometimes called, occupies a unique place in the history of medicine. In the words of Horace-"medicus in omne aevum nobilis" he was a physician famous for all time. Dr. John Brown, the essayist, calls him "the prince of practical physicians" and it is said that Boerhaave, one of the most eminent teachers of medicine in Europe, never mentioned Sydenham without taking off his hat as a sign of respect and admiration.

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Sydenham's is a name," writes another, "not for England only, but for the world."

Many pleasant memories cluster around the humble little Somersetshire village, famous because it was the birthplace of this man of genius, who lived, like Harvey, at a time when his country's heart was in a state of wild unrest, and the staid old English character was being moulded into shape by these strong

influences of internal strife and disorder. Yet, withal, he emerged into the light of eminence with a character as noble as it was beautiful.

In an unknown little corner of England, at a place in Somerset called Wynford Eagle, Thomas Sydenham, the great physician, first saw the light of day. Old chronicles give the date of his baptism September 10th, 1624. Sydenham's biographers