Editorial Department. EUGENE H. PORTER, A.M., M.D. } EDITORS. Contributions, Exchanges, Books for Review and all other communications relating to the Editorial Department of the NORTH AMERICAN should be addressed to the Editor, 181 West 73d Street. It is understood that manuscripts sent for consideration have not been previously published, and that after notice of acceptance has been given will not appear elsewhere except in abstract and with credit to the NORTH AMERICAN. All rejected manuscripts will be returned to writers. No anonymous or discourteous communications will be printed. The Editor is not responsible for the views of contributors. A THE NEW YEAR. "A mighty Hand, from an exhaustless Urn, ND in this "roar of mingled noises" we are apt to forget the years that are past, forget that they still roll on in mighty sweep and gather up again and preserve all great and noble deeds. and works. And if this is true of individual lives, as the poet has said, that have been overwhelmed and lost to sight, if these are borne by that great current in its onward sweep, it is none the less true of professional life and endeavor. That which has been worthily achieved, that which is honest and true, will stand; the rest will perish from our sight. In these days of strain and superficiality, of fads and pretenders, of cant and mediocrity, it is necessary to search for firm footing. One must not mistake a mirage for paradise. Cicero asserted that there was no folly which philosophers had not uttered. Suarez struck out "philosophers" to write "theologians." Thus neither philosophy, the profane, nor theology, the sacred, have been spared the rude touch of hostile criticism. Nor have law and medicine escaped. Has the legal profession degenerated? Is medicine a trade? Both these miserable interrogatories, as Webster might phrase it, have been in these closing days of the old year definitely answered in the affirmative by eminent authorities. A chorus of indignant denials has arisen. But to the individual doctor the question is: Have you reached the dead-line? If you have, so far as you are concerned, the profession is degenerating, and you are fast ripening to rottenness. The dead-line is not a matter of destiny, and is not drawn by time. It is a limitation which we impose upon ourselves and is drawn by habit. It defines itself when freshness is lost in routine and forceful honesty of purpose exchanged for customary dealing. When this occurs the doctor's power begins to ebb-he enters upon his decline. Some men never reach a dead-line, others reach one early in life. No profession can decay if individual members never reach the dead-line. And medicine is no exception to this rule. And blessed also is that physician, as the new year opens, who has his follies and indiscretions in practice to look back upon and not forward to. And finally, in moralizing, as in other things, let us have peace. If, as an excited and somewhat incoherent allopathic journal recently remarked, the homœopaths have increased to over one thousand in number in New York City alone, and have the very cream of the practice, there can be no objection raised to our offering the allopathic cat the curds. For the new year which is upon us the NORTH AMERICAN has made no little preparation. The various departments will be well supplied and a number of important special articles, many of which are already secured, will appear during 1898. The JOURNAL will celebrate the new year by a complete new dress in type from cover to cover. It may be of interest to our readers to know that in the last fifteen months over 1,200 names have been added to our subscription list. The NORTH AMERICAN wishes all of its friends and readers a very happy and prosperous New Year. T AN IMPENDING DANGER. HE medical press is calling to arms against the hospital and dispensary abuse. Medical benefit clubs, as found pre-eminently in St. Louis, are equally the objects of attack. The degradation of medicine from a profession to a trade is declared imminent. The laws of the bargain-counter are gaining ascendancy! A crisis is upon us! And in all agitation of this tenor the medical press is more than justified. A crisis is upon us. Few men can practice long without at least a suspicion that there are abuses requiring attention. But many are inclined to think that a tempest is being raised with very slight provocation. They are but moderately affected by the evils assailed, and prefer not to disturb their serenity by investigation. It would profit this class of selfishly-placid practitioners to take a course of reading in the news columns of the British Medical Journal. The resulting enlightenment would be a rude and, let it be hoped, salutary shock to their equanimity. They would learn that the lot of the English physician is as distinctly inferior to that of his American brother, as is the average foreign laborer's condition degraded when compared with that of the American workman. For such a purpose the "Answers to Correspondents" should be first examined. There, among information regarding fees, etiquette, bicycle sundries and medical jurisprudence, will be found numerous hints relative to the woes of the "qualified practitioner." This class of men, graduates from a rigorous five, or more often six, years' course, serve an established practitioner as clerk and general utility man for from three to seven or more years. They do the bottle-washing, dispensing, night work and charity practice, receiving therefor $350 to $400 a year and board, or else $600 to $750. Such a position, on such a salary, they cling to in preference to risking starvation in independent practice. That the latter is a risk emphasized by the paragraph calling a physician to account for lowering the status of the profession by offering to do the dispensary work for a town in Ireland for $10 a month. Then let the skeptical reader turn back to a column which appears weekly entitled "The Battle of the Clubs." He will there. learn of the universal existence of clubs in which medical assistance is a prominent feature. The club doctor usually receives $1 a year from each member, furnishing all required services. One man reports that in three years' work for a club of male adults he made 974 calls and 1,400 consultations, for which he received $700, an average of 30 cents per treatment. Small as this seems, he confesses that the same services at regular rates would only have brought twice as much. When women and children belong to the club the calls are more numerous, but the compensation remains the When we note that the club doctor is not usually the struggling beginner, but the wealthy and long-established practitioner, whose underpaid and overworked assistant does all the club work; and that the club membership is not restricted to the deserving, except in rare instances, the evil of the system becomes more manifest. same. Finally, references to the news columns of the same journal will show reports of numerous meetings called to combat the hospital and dispensary abuse. The conspicuous feature is the intensity of feeling displayed in the earnest efforts to find a common ground on which to establish the reform. The difficulty of the problem shows how firmly rooted is the evil, both in the doctors who serve and the people who maintain these institutions. We live in a new country where changes are easy and frequent. England is old, and there customs are practically laws. Can we not see in England's situation the danger of neglecting these medical abuses, and the necessity for prompt measures of reform? In England the battle is for existence, and is waged openly against a firmlyintrenched enemy. With us in America the danger is the same but more remote. The country is invaded, masked batteries are being erected, important positions quietly secured. The call to arms is made, then, none too soon, nor can it be too frequently reiterated. Would that it might be heeded by a united profession. Notes and Comments. The State Society. The forty-seventh annual meeting of the Homœopathic Medical Society of the State of New York will be held in Albany February 8 and 9, 1898. Information received from the various chairmen of bureaux indicates the presentation of a number of exceptionably fine papers and interesting discussions. will be provided for. Important business will come before the society, and every member is urged to plan to attend the meeting. In Dr. I. T. Talbot.-The many friends of Dr. Talbot will be glad to hear of his return to Boston and of the renewal of active work. view of the large bequests lately received by the Massachusetts Homœopathic Hospital, the consequent enlargement of the work and the necessity of doing that work in a comprehensive and systematic manner, Dr. Talbot has been elected by the trustees as the Director of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hospital from January 1, 1898. He has relinquished his general practice, and will devote himself to the supervision and direction of the various departments of the hospital. He will continue to reside at Hotel Kensington, but his business address will be at the hospital, East Concord street, Boston. The Academy and Reporters.-One of the sections of the Academy of Medicine of this city, troubled by the presence of reporters, ordered their immediate withdrawal. The reporters explained that they were present because folders announcing the meeting had been sent to the editorial offices. At the next regular meeting of the academy it was decided to allow the sections to decide for themselves the desirability of admitting reporters, and at the same meeting a motion was lost to the effect that folders of the academy should not be sent to the daily papers. This shows that our old-school friends are fully alive to the advantages offered by the modern newspaper, and are not disposed to forego any of them. A Students' Hospital for Cornell.-William H. Sage, of Ithaca, and Dean Sage, of Albany, have presented to Cornell University, for a students' hospital, the mansion in Ithaca occupied by the late Henry W. Sage. The donors will not only completely equip the hospital, but will endow it with $100,000. The total amount of the gift will probably exceed $200,000. Hospital Federation in England.-A conference on hospital federation was held at Clifton, England, during the meeting of the British Homœopathic Congress. It is proposed, as early as practicable, to call a meeting of the honorary medical staffs of the English homœopathic hospitals and perfect plans for harmonious action in the future. This is a step in the right direction, and we hope it will succeed. It was stated at the conference that "the great requirements |