The mere knowledge of homeopathic therapeutics will not make a homeopathic physician. He must practice homeopathy; not necessarily as you do, or as I do, but according to his ability to apply Hahnemann's dictum. Let him use his adjuvants according to the tradition of the fathers, or as he has inherited them from his predecessors, or has acquired them by right of discovery, but his remedies must be selected according to the law of similia.

But I hear some one say: "This is the meaning of the definition." Then the specific declaration should be there. A definition which has to be defined is much like a man-made creed that needs to be laboriously explained before it can be made to comport with the teachings of the Bible.

The spirit of this definition is correct, but I do not believe that its present form voices the exact sentiment of the institute; nor, as I am authorized to state, does it express the full meaning of its distinguished author, who will be glad of an opportunity to reframe the definition so as to emphasize the manner of selecting the remedy.-Dr. C. E. Walton, Homeopathic Envoy, February, 1902.

SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE. Common talk about "schools of medicine" is too often allowed to go unchallenged because we do not emphasize the fundamental standpoint of scientific medical work. "Regular" physicians belong to no "school of medicine;" they are thus differentiated from those who hold certain tenets. That they are not "allopaths," that, in fact, there is no allopathic school, needs perennially to be insisted on. Allopathy or heteropathy, vide Webster, are synonyms invented by Samuel Hahnemann to designate a scheme of treatment which pro

duces symptoms opposite to those from which the patient suffers. If such a rule of practice ever flourished, it has long since fallen into disuse. The teachings in the "regular" medical schools include no a priori generalizations about the causes of disease or actions of remedies. Teaching and practice are based, not on preconceived or inherited ideas, but on the logical principle of induction-first the gathering of facts enough to probably eliminate error, and then the drawing of conclusions from these facts. The method has been the same for all great investigators of nature, Bacon being its. first exponent. Scientists whose work is firmly established on careful thinking and adequate results are often indifferent to lack of appreciation and misunderstanding outside of their immediate. circle. They make little attempt to educate the public to any conception of the value of the best scientific efforts. The result of such neglect by medical men is apparent to the practitioner. He finds that the opinion and patronage of even the intelligent public are far more influenced proportionately by what this or that well-organized and skillfully advertised "school of medicine" has to say, than by all the painstaking research. which has built up modern scientific medicine. Jour. Amer. Med. Assn. Ed., February.

A DISASTER.

On the third of January, 1902, the venerable and historic building in Allentown, Pa., that sheltered the first homeopathic medical college in the world, was burned to the ground. The building was erected in 1834, and in April, 1835, the college was founded as "The North American Academy of the Homeopathic Healing Art." The first faculty consisted of Dr. Constantine Hering, president, and Drs. William Wesselhoeft, E.

Freytag, John Romig, J. N. Pulte and H. Detwiller. It flourished six years, and then collapsed through the failure of its treasurer, John Rice, who was cashier of the Northampton bank, which suspended.-North Am. Jour. of Homeo., February, 1902.

CHANGE OF NAME.

Two more homeopathic journals have dropped the name Homeopathic or its equivalent from their titles. Dr. Kraft is now editor of The American Physician and the old Cleveland Homeopathic Reporter becomes The Cleveland Medical and Surgical Reporter. Both journals have attractive, newly-designed covers, and are filled with interesting material. We congratulate the editors on their enterprise.-North Am. Jour. of Homeo.,

February, 1902.

THE SENSE OF SMELL.

Bernard says that, apart from the excretions, an abnormal odor of the skin tends to draw the flies, and that, however little noticeable it may be, it denotes death is near; and Boerhaave held that a cadaveric odor always presages death. Althaus tells us that Skoda was hardly ever led into error by this inclination, and Compton also laid great stress upon this as a clinical symptom.

In gout the skin secretions take a special odor which Sydenham compared to whey; it is sour, or at least sourish, and there is an excess of ammonia. In rheumatism it is acetoformic, particularly in the regions of engorged articulations (Monin); it is a sour-smelling, acid perspiration.

In diabetes the smell is sweetish and mawkish, as of hay, according to Latham, "acetone," says Picot, and "midway between aldehyd and acetone being due to a mixture in variable proportions

of the two bodies," according to Bouchardat.

A musky odor pertains to several maladies, notably peritonitis, jaundice or icterus; and a stale, sour-beer odor to scrofulosis.

The pyemic has a sweet, nauseating breath, with perhaps the flavor of newmown hay.

In milk-fever the smell is distinctly acid; in typhoid, musty, often with the odor of blood; in typhus, ammoniacal and mouse-like, which latter also obtains in favus; in intermittent, the odor is that of fresh-baked brown bread; yellow fever has a cadaveric smell, or like the washings of a dirty gun barrel.

In measles it closely resembles freshpicked feathers; in diphtheria, is sickening and gangrenous-an odor that is absolutely pathognomonic; in small-pox, according to severity and stage, it ranges from that of the fallow deer to the dreadful one of the whole menagerie, or it may be that of burning horn or bones.

Hysteria usually developes an odor of violets or pineapples; sudamina, that of putrid straw; scabies, moldy; anemia and cholera, ammoniacal.

Otorrhea has a peculiar, clinging, long-lasting odor that once observed will never be forgotten, so, too, is the odor of a henroost that arises from ozoenas and bad chronic catarrhs. grene has an old, dead-meat smell, as have some cancers at certain stages.

Gan

At the onset of the plague the odor is sweet, or honey-like, according to Doppner.-Medical Record.

ELECTRIC LIGHT AND THE
EYES.

A Russian doctor has decided that, contrary to the general opinion, electric light plays less havoc with the eyes than

other forms of illumination. He bases his deductions on the fact that disease and damage to the eye is proportioned to the frequency of closure of the lids. He has found that the lids close in a minute 6.8 times with candle light, 2.8 times with gas light, 2.2 with sunlight, and 1.8 times with electric light. While this fact may be true for the external portion of the eye, it is clinically proved that retinal and muscular asthenopia are greatly increased by electrical illumination and the reflex conjunctivitis and blepharitis are made worse.

CHEMISTRY OF TEARS.

Tears have their functional duty to accomplish, like every other fluid of the body, and the lachrymal gland is not placed behind the eye simply to fill space or to give expression to emotion. The chemical properties of tears consist of phosphate of lime and soda, making them very salty, but never bitter. Their action on the eye is very beneficial, and here consists their prescribed duty of the body, washing thoroughly that sensitive. organ, which allows no foreign fluid to do the same work. Nothing cleanses the eye like a good, salty shower bath, and medical art has followed nature's law in this respect, advocating the invigorating solution for any distressed condition. of the optics. Tears do not weaken the sight, but improve it. They act as a tonic on the muscular vision, keeping the eye soft and limpid, and it will be noticed that women in whose eyes sympathetic tears gather quickly have brighter, tenderer orbs than others. When the pupils are hard and cold the world attributes it to one's disposition, which is a mere figure of speech, implying the lack of balmy tears, that are to the cornea what salve is to the skin or nourishment to the blood.

The reason some weep more easily than others, and all more readily than the sterner sex, has not its difference in the strength of the tear gland, but in the possession of a more delicate nerve system. The nerve fibres about the glands vibrate more easily, causing a downpour from the watery sac. Men are not nearly so sensitive to emotion; their sympathetic nature-the term is used in a medical sense-is less developed, and the eye gland is therefore protected from shocks. Consequently a man should thank the formation of his nerve nature when he contemptuously scorns tears as a woman's practice. Between man and monkey there is this essential difference of tears. An ape cannot weep, not so much because its emotional powers are undeveloped as the fact that the lachrymal gland was omitted in his optical makeup. The Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette.

A NEW TREATMENT FOR CONSUMPTION.

Physicians who are thoroughly up-todate have little faith just now in the efficacy of medicine in dealing with pulmonary consumption. The chief reliance of the profession today is fresh air and plenty of it. It is recognized, however, that the diet is a matter of importance, and at some sanatoria the patients are required to take a specified quantity of food. Further than this, though, the progressive specialist deems it inexpedient to go. Under these circumstances most doctors regard with skepticism and impatience the new "cures" for tuberculosis which are continually being announced. A remedial agent recently devised by Dr. John F. Russell, of this city, however, may prove an exception to the rule. Being convinced that fats. and oils exerted a beneficial influence on

the victims of this disease, he undertook some experiments three or four years ago, to ascertain which of these were most readily assimilated. As a result of that investigation, he has been using a compound of beef fat and the oils of peanuts, cocoanuts and cloves. Inasmuch as his own testimony concerning the virtues of that preparation might not be unprejudiced, a committee representing the Post-Graduate Hospital was invited to look into the matter. The committee reports favorably concerning the system, though without going into the philosophy of it. One can readily perceive, though, that the fundamental idea is nutrition, and not medication. Moreover, it operates in very much the same way as the use of cod liver oil, which at one time was administered freely to consumptives, though perhaps the new treatment is more efficacious.-Editorial.-N. Y. Tribune.

IS PNEUMONIA CONTAGIOUS ? The occurrence of several cases of violent pneumonia among the boys in the school attended by young Roosevelt, at Groton, Mass., and the talk of closing the school has led to conjecture as to whether pneumonia is an infectious disease, contrary to the general belief.

The New York Herald, in calling attention to that matter, says that infec

tious pneumonia of this character is not uncommonly met with in schools, prisons, factories, and barracks, and is supposed to be caused by an extraordinary virulence of the microbe causing the trouble. "It then often becomes more a question," says the Herald, "of general and overwhelming systemic poisoning than the mere localization of pulmonary inflammation. Thus the brain and spinal cord may receive the full force of the virus, producing meningitis, or the heart may become affected, or the peritoneum be involved in the affection, the lungs. themselves being only insignificantly attacked. From such a view of the situation it is always sound sanitary science. to close schools, hotels, or prisons, and take no chances in temporizing with threatening conditions."

At the Groton school, however, young Roosevelt and his companions appear to have invited severe colds, at least, by running out in all kinds of weather, bareheaded and without coats, for the purpose of "toughening" themselves. That may easily account for the development of several cases of pneumonia among the students, but according to the general belief pneumonia is a germ. disease, and there may, after all, have been some local condition responsible for the development of particularly virulent microbes of the disease.

Chu Cheo via Nanking, China. January 6th, 1902.

Editor Reporter:

Dear Sir:-I thank you for both the most welcome magazine you have been sending me and also for your invitation to write some China notes for publication. I enclose a

draft for subscription and promise soon to write you an article.

You have brought pleasure to a good many of the alumni by carrying on the magazine and we trust it will be continued.

We have now been over three years in China. Have gained a good working knowl

edge of the language, and are trying to get a like knowledge of the people. This last summer we have built a dispensary for the daily receiving of patients. On either side are other low buildings in which we temporarily house those whom we wish to treat for a few days.

It's a queer lot that we see. Nearly all are aggravated by dirt, Chinese plasters, Chinese acupuncture, and neglect. Half of the cases have tibial ulcers from every variety of cause. It is hard to say why so many occur below the knee.

This week our assistants brought in a week-old girl baby thrown out by some mother rendered heartless by poverty. It had been exposed for some hours to a temperature below freezing and we only succeeded in lengthening its life by a few hours.

The opium breaking cases are the most interesting in some ways. The opium habit is China's curse. Probably over one-half of er population is addicted or suffer from this curse. We usually stop the opium short off and only add a little as necessity demands. In the November, 1899, number of the North American Journal of Homeopathy was a most excellent article on this subject.

But we did not intend to give China experiences, but to congratulate the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College. That the homeopathic forces are again united in Cleveland and running smoothly means much to our plea. There is no reason why the school should not be as strong a one as those in New York and Chicago. We hope to visit the familiar halls again in about four years and possibly spend some little time there.

We might add that two days ago, January 4th, 1902, we received another boy into our family. He is a 91⁄2 pound one, "without spot or blemish." This is our second boy. Both mother and baby are in good condition. At least this is what is usually said and this case is no exception.

Wishing much for the old college and trusting the Reporter will continue to increase in excellence, I am,

Yours in His service.

Elliott I. Osgood. P. S.-Please address all communications to Nanking, China, as Chu Cheo has no postoffice.

E. I. O.

724 Spruce St., Phila., Pa.

Editor Medical and Surgical Reporter:

I sent my application for a position in a foreign field to the Foreign Missionary Board of the Reformed Presbyterian church and am hoping to get the appointment. I am, however, sure of one position if I do not get this one, for since I made the application I have had a request from Dr. Hess and a friend of hers, who wish me to represent them in India, and will guarantee my support. They wish me to go independent of any church board. They also want me to I stay another year in the hospital here. do not know yet what I shall do. They asked me at the other hospital, at 20th and Susquehanna, if I would consider an appointment there. Dr. Harpst-Jackson, '00, is there now; expects to be there two or three months, I believe. She and Dr. Frank Jackson both took and passed the December State Board..

I am getting quite a good deal of obstetrical work, but all the cases are so perfectly normal and the recoveries so uneventful that it seems as if I'm not getting much, unless it I was be confidence in managing cases. sort of scared at my first case, though it was perfectly normal; the last one was a footling and I was almost ashamed how coolly I took it. I presume I'll get frightened effectually sometime when I'm not expecting it though. The Reporter, with its "new dress and name," was received and read with interest. Very sincerely,

Ida M. Scott.

Chagrin Falls, O., Jan. 25, 1902. Editor Cleveland Medical and Surgical Reporter:

Dear Sir:-I shall take pleasure in responding to your kind request to contribute to the columns of your magazine under its new dress and management. The fact that so many practitioners read and rely much on current literature is a sufficient reason why every journal should be of the high class to which your magazine aspires. The interdependence of all social institutions precludes the possibility of confining as formerly studies of the question of public health to mere treatises on materia medica. "Many streams flow into one sea." and thousand facts and conditions have to do with the existence and preservation of the

a