influences of timidity on the part of a young doctor, blended with the conviction that the Almighty could do more for this poor fellow than I could. I believe the sequel proved the wisdom. of my conclusion, for had I yielded to a heartless ambition or pride of self-sufficiency, and performed the amputation that the rigid demands of military surgery seemed to call for, or would at least have justified, that poor boy's body would long since have been mingled with the dust of Old Virginia.

Now, of course, gentlemen, the action taken in this case must not be adopted as an unvarying precedent in practice, but it does. serve in large measure to illustrate the wonderful recuperative power of nature, and should at least serve, in part, to encourage us to pause in the presence of unpromising operative interference, rather than to precipitately proceed with almost certain death staring us in the face. How many hapless human beings have thus been sent to a premature grave, no man can tell.

Obituary.

WM. J. MCMURRAY, M. D.

DR. MCMURRAY was born in Williamson Co., Tenn., Sept, 22, 1842. His father was John McMurray, a school-teacher, and his grandfather Sam McMurray, one of the pioneer settlers of the Cumberland Valley section, and was killed by the Indians near Donaldson Station, March, 1792.

John McMurray died when his oldest son William was only ten years of age, but he with that true, indomitable courage that marked his whole life bravely took upon himself the arduous duties of aiding his widowed mother in caring for the younger children, six in number. The work on a farm afforded but limited means of obtaining an education, which he only completed after the close of the war between the States. He became a member of Company B, Twentieth Tennessee Regiment of Infantry at its organization, as a private, was made corporal in Oc

tober, 1861, and two months later second sergeant, serving most of the remainder of the first year as Orderly Sergeant. At the re-organization of the Twentieth, just after the battle of Shiloh, he was made second lieutenant of his company, and promoted to first lieutenant in 1864. He was wounded severely four times, losing his left arm near the shoulder on the 5th of Aug., 1864, in front of Atlanta. On two previous occasions he was so severely wounded that he was left on the field for dead. After recovery

from the wound occasioning the loss of his arm, he was assigned to post duty until the close of the war, being paroled with Forrest's command at Marion, Ala., May 17, 1865.

Returning home he completed his education, taught school for a short time, and commenced the study of medicine, graduating with honor at the Medical Department of the University of Nashville in 1869, and practiced first near Nashville, moving into the city in 1872. He was for a number of years physician to the County Jail. In 1874 a member of the City Board of Health, and 1876 a member of the Board of Aldermen. He was one of the Charter Members of Frank Cheatham Bivouac, one term its President. He was one of the first members of the Board of Trustees of the Confederate Soldiers' Home, and remained on the Board as one of the Executive Committee or President of the Board until his death. He was physician to the Tennessee Industrial School for twelve years. He was appointed a member of the State Board of Health in 1897, remaining on the Board until his death, being then President of the Board. He was a member of the Nashville Academy of Medicine and of the Tennessee State Medical Association; a member of the Tennessee Historical Society, and chairman of its Historical Committee. He was a member of the Elm Street Methodist Church. He wrote the sketch of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment in Lindsley's "Military Annals of Tennessee." He had been for ten years Surgeon-General of the corps of Confederate Veterans commanded by Gen. S. D. Lee. He was chairman of the Committee of Publication of the "History of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment," and was a most earnest and sincere worker in the interests of the Confederate soldier.

In 1873 he married Miss Francis M. McCampbell, a daughter of Hon. Thos. G. McCampbell, State senator in 1845. She with an only daughter, Mrs. C. L. Ridley, Jr., survive him. He became an Associate Member of the Association of Medical Officers of the Army and Navy of the Confederacy in 1900. He was true and trusty as a citizen, brave as a soldier, and brave in the hour of his death, which resulted from a brief attack of pneumonia, at his residence in Nashville, Dec. 4, 1905.

He was buried at Mt. Olivet, with military honors, rendered by his comrades of Frank Cheatham Bivouac, and Company B Confederate Veterans, on the Wednesday following.

From the Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Dec., 1905, we quote:

"The sudden and unexpected death from pneumonia of this distinguished member of our profession, which took place in December, has cast a gloom over his fellow-practitioners of this city, and spread sorrow among his large clientele. Dr. McMurray was a successful and laborious practitioner. He was a progressive, public-spirited citizen, and one who was always to the fore when matters that involved the interests of the city were at stake. He was an ardent ex-Confederate, and no one did more than he to commemorate the brave deeds of his fellow comrades in the late war. He was at the time of his death President of the State Board of Health, and his death will be a distinct loss to that distinguished body. We are sure the entire body of practitioners in the city of Nashville will join us in deploring his removal, and in laying this tribute, all too brief and imperfect, before our readers. His life was one of great usefulness. His death was a distinct loss."

EDWARD A. COBLEIGH, M. D.

EDWARD A, COBLEIGH, M. D., Atlanta (Ga.) Medical College, 1872; A. M., LL. D.; one of the founders and dean of the Chattanooga Medical College (Medical Department of Grant University), Chattanooga; professor of the principles and practice of medicine, dermatology, and clinical medicine, and lecturer on

physical diagnosis at the same institution since 1889; chief of staff at Erlanger Hospital, Chattanooga; member of the Chattanooga and Hamilton County Medical Society, Tennessee State Medical Association, Tri-State Medical Society of Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, American Public Health Association, and American Medical Association; for nine years physician of McMinn County, Tenn.; for one year secretary of the Chattanooga Board of Health, and for four years member of the local board of pension examiners, died at Erlanger Hospital, Chattanooga, November 29, after a short illness, from a complication of diseases. He had practiced in Chattanooga since 1887, and made a success by indefatigable study, untiring activity, and a natural adaptability for his vocation. Resolutions of respect were adopted by the faculty of the Chattanooga Medical College, the student classes of the college, and the Chattanooga and Hamilton County Medical Society.

Editorial.

THE BEGINNING OF OUR TWENTY-EIGHTH VOLUME. IN commencing our editorial labors for 1906, we can point with a pardonable degree of pride to the seven hundred and thirty-two pages of choice, select, and fresh reading matter presented to our many readers in the year just closed. While we have endeavored to give a record and resume of all the important features having a bearing on our art and science derived from the entire world, we have endeavored to give special attention to all that pertains to our own particular section, so that we may keep in full accord with our cognomen assumed nearly three decades ago. Southern medicine and surgery has been no laggard in the field, and the workers therein are well worthy association and comparison with their co-laborers in any section or clime. In this number we have given a large part of our space to the recent meeting of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, founded by a citizen of our own goodly city of Nashville, whose son now holds and for some years has held the responsible position of Secretary, having taken up and discharged most faithfully and commendably the work laid down by the lamented Davis.

In the preceding twenty-seven volumes of this Journal will be found a faithful record of the advances of medical and surgical science during

the years of its existence, our own State Medical Society and affiliated local organizations coming in for the greatest share of our attention, although kindred organizations have claimed so much of our space as we could afford to accord them. In this period our science and art has been almost completely remodeled and rewritten. Preventive medicine has come well to the front; sanitary measures, local, municipal, State, and National, although not yet arrived at full fruition, have greatly added to the triumphs and effectiveness of general medicine; while "Asepsis," almost unknown when our first number was issued, has so perfected the work of the surgeon that operative measures for the saving of life and prolongation of days before undreamed of, have opened wide vistas of usefulness to the glittering scalpel that would have aroused the greatest

degree of astonishment and highest TM from a Gross, a

Lister, or any of their compeers and predecessors Gynecology, at its infancy when our first editorial was penned, the joint child of surgery and obstetrics, has assumed a prominence and a precision which may be added the wonderful results of abdominal surgery, a past and parcel of this particular special field, that that time would have been regarded as belonging alone to the domain of the larie

alone of miracle.

or the result

While much that has proven most useful and beneficent has been added in all lines of our art and science since the first number of this journal was issued, many fads, fallacies, and fancies have also had their little day and hour, and have dropped into oblivion and now scarcely remain as a memory. Thus has it ever been, and doubtless always will be, the members of our profession, early imbued with an innate desire to benefit their fellow-man, often hastily jump at conclusions, and without carefully weighing all points, rush into print with a new measure or device, which if not founded on rational and correct lines soon is relegated to that wide, wide field of unsatisfied desires and unaccomplished hopes. With a number of these, it has been our province to early sight a flaw or point out a fallacy.

We cannot attempt at this time to enumerate or even briefly specify the marked advantages we of to-day have over our predecessors of a generation ago. Having passed my threescore years, two thirds of the time modestly and humbly engaged in the practice of the "healing art," I can but wonder with both awe and astonishment at my efforts to arrest disease, relieve pain and suffering, and prolong life in my earlier days. The standard text-books of that day- Watson, Wood, Stokes in medicine; and Druitt, Erichsen, and even Gross, in surgery, while containing much that is both useful and invaluable to-day, and will be so long as mortal man shall live; but how could one practice medicine or surgery to-day with such authorities or their predecessors alone?

Ah, but these recollections of by-gone days are only too tempting to our editorial pen, and are apt to lead off into realms of thought