Department of Pharmacy and Adjunct-Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacology in the Medical Department, University of Buffalo. 12mo, 265 pages. Cloth. Price, $1.00 net. Lea Brothers & Co., Philadelphia and New York, 1906.

Prophylaxis and Treatment of Internal Diseases; Designed for the use of practitioners and advanced students of medicine. By F. Forcheimer, M. D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical Medicine, Medical College of Ohio, Department of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati; Physician to the Good Samaritan Hospital; Member of the Association of Physicians, American Pediatric Society, Etc. Cloth, 652 pages. Price, $5.00 net. New York and London: D. Appleton & Co. 1906.

of party affiliations, give them the undivided assistance due them as medical men and our representatives."

During the coming session of the state legislature there will be bills presented in which the medical profession should be interested; if we do not take an interest in them, no one will. The Colorado Medical Legislative League has been busy working for candidates who are pledged for decent medical legislation, and from now until the end of the session, will have much work in communicating with legislators, personally and by letter, in the interests of such legislation.

The amount of work done by the League depends upon the support of the medical proThe fession, both morally and financially. officers are giving a great deal of their time, and some of them have advanced considerable funds to keep the work going. The League needs the help of every medical man. If not a member, will you not send, at once, the yearly dues of $2 to the Secretary-Treasurer, M. N. McGiffin, Academy of Medicine building, Denver, and a membership card will be mailed to Old members should pay back dues now. All money received by the League is expended for stenographic work, printing, stamps and stationery. M. N. McGIFFIN, M. D., Secretary-Treasurer Colorado Medical Legislative League.

HUMOROUS.

CORRESPONDENCE

Editor Colorado Medicine:

At the biennial meeting of the Colorado Medical Legislative League, held at the Albany Hotel, October 10, 1906, the following resolutions were adopted:

"Since Dr. W. W. Rowan of Ouray, is a candidate for United States representative from the Second Congressional District of Colorado, and Dr. P. J. McHugh of Fort Collins, for state senator from Fort Collins, Colo., and as the medical profession does not often have an opportunity to aid such worthy members in a contest for place in our law-making bodies, it is resolved by this League that we pledge our support to these candidates, and request that the medical profession in general, irrespective

Wanted Definite Directions.

Captain-"Do you see that captain on the bridge five miles away?"

Tar-"Ay, ay, sir."

Captain-"Let him have one of those 12-inch shells in the eye."

Tar-"Which eye, sir?"-Deseret News.

Evidence "The evidence shows, Mrs. Mulcohey, that you threw a stone at Policeman Casey."

"It shows more than that, yer Honer, it shows that Oi hit him."-Minneapolis Tribune.

VOL. III.

EDITORIAL COMMENT

INSANITY AND THE LAW.

If there is one law in the State of Colorado which needs revision, and needs it badly, it is the lunacy law. There are few physicians, to say nothing of the public, who have any idea of the vast number of unfortunates who are consigned to places of detention in this country, or in our state, who have been put under the charge of the state and forgotten, dismissed as if consigned to the grave, irre

coverable and lost to the world.

At the close of the year 1903, there were confined in the United States, 150,151 persons, or 186.2 per 100,000 population, and an increase of over 68 per cent in 12 years. In Colorado at the close of 1903, there were 754 cases, or 128.9 per 100,000, an increase of 71 per cent over the same period. These cases require more consideration in more ways than one than they receive, and particularly the incipient ones who have a possibility of recovery were it not necessary to crowd them together in institutions already overcrowded with chronic and incurable cases. But there is still another phase of this subject, which, as physicians, concerns us more particularly. The consideration, from the standpoint of the law, which is accorded Examiners in Lunacy is well nigh ridiculous. The medical man occupying this position is at present simply subject to the courtesy of the jurist and the petty lay jury by reason of reputation or personal regard and esteem, rather than from his ability to testify upon the

No. II

mental state in question arrived at as a result of study and based upon experience. Of what avail is experience and study, when the public, the newspapers, osteopaths and self-assumed, self-styled and newspaper-supported metaphysicists proclaim the mental integrity of the alleged insane, to the satisfaction of the court, jury and public, and to the danger of the medical expert; yet, such was, in the main, the situation during a recent trial in the County Court of Denver.

It is possible, under the present law, to adjudge only the obviously insane, in which case an expert opinion is not necessarily required, since they are to the eye and opinion of the inexperienced so evident; a raving mania, an advanced dementia or an unimpressionable melancholia, provokes no question. This is for the most part due to the lay jury, and the influence brought to bear upon them and the court by public opinion, newspaper reports and by unprincipled attorneys, who are actuated by personal gain rather than the safety of the public.

A person whose mind is so at fault, that when viewed by laymen and a lay jury and is unanimously conceded to be "crazy," certainly and of necessity requires no expert opinion so far as the advisability of legal restraint is concerned; but the border-line mental states, and most particularly and emphatically, paranoia, or delusional insanity, with their hyperreasoning power, accurate memory and a consciousness of the inconsistency of a certain train of thought (or delusion) which is the subject of controversy between himself and his fellow men—and by reason of

which he often successfully conceals his false beliefs-all render it essential, if the safety of the public is to be safeguarded, that he be examined by one skilled in mental disorders, and when so examined, is not our lunacy law in error when it permits the possibility of setting aside of such opinions to the whims of a newspaper, a lay jury inspired by an enthusiastic but misguided attorney, or our para-medical

friends?

We have reason to expect that the gentlemen of the law have profited by the costly experience of our nation in the past as a result of the freedom of these persecutory delusionists. When one of this type strikes, it is usually a life of impor

tance that is sacrificed to which such men as President's Garfield and McKinley and Mayor Harrison could bear testimony were they with us.

It is too late to adjudge a man insane after a homicide has been committed, and particularly so for the victim. Opinion and judgment on this question should be weighed upon an equation similar to the following: "When a man by evidence, testimony and expert opinion, is so mentally disordered that were he charged with manslaughter he could be acquitted on the plea of insanity-he is insane enough to be adjudged and confined."

It is high time that this matter should be presented by our constituents to the law-makers from their respective districts with force sufficient to enlist their interest and excite them to action.

TYPHOID EPIDEMICS.

For several years the medical eye has been directed to the various cities of our state in which there have been more than a relative proportion of cases of typhoid fever. This year our metropolis is conspicuous in this regard.

Ever since the researches of Eberth,

Koch and Gaffsky have shown that the bacillus typhosus was to be found constantly in the intestinal tract of those suffering from the disease, we have been con"From fronted with the question: whence did they come?" The water supply of municipalities has had more than an appropriately proportionate criticism in view of the fact that it is the most important source; but not necessarily is it due to the presence of the germ in the water supplied for potable purposes. Some strange correlated facts have been brought to light as a result of investiga

tion.

In Washington, D. C., the appearance of typhoid fever after the completion of a three-million-dollar filtering plant and with a thorough and systematic inspection of the milk supply, occasions not a little surprise. At Evanston, Wyoming, it was traceable to the water supply. At Rocky Ford, La Junta, Florence and Canon City, in Colorado, suspicion was justly directed to the Arkansas river. In Chicago the source was traced to the washing of milk cans with polluted wa

ter.

In Denver there were reported in the month of September, 247 cases, and up to October 23, there were 104 cases recorded, making a total of 351 cases in less than 60 days; of these a certain percentage occurred in individuals who had been in the city but a short time, and that the infection took place elsewhere is probable.

Of those cases in which the likely source of infection had been investigated by the attending physician, the water supply would seem to occupy a place of lesser importance. The occurrence of several cases on the route of one milk dealer led to the inspection of the dairy, and here it was found that while city water was used for domestic purposes, ditch-water or water from a condemned well was used

ir the cleansing of the milk cans. In the words of the Health Commissioner, "the average milk is clean, but the average milk-man is dirty."

The vegetable gardener began to attract attention in that the articles of food which were usually served without cooking were in large part irrigated and washed in water taken from the river at a point below where the sewage of the city entered.

Bacteriologists admit that negative examinations of drinking water are small evidences in excluding the water supply as a source, but it seems that repeated and constant negative findings should in a measure strengthen such evidence and as well our efforts in running down those series of cases which would point to a more direct and apparent cause, and possibly uncover other articles associated with contaminating influences, which are reaching the intestinal tracts of the victims.

Before anything like satisfactory work can be done in the line of this important. question, the active co-operation of every medical practitioner in the city and state must be gained in aid of the Health Departments.

The blank form recently devised by the Health Department of the City of Denver and sent to each physician for the purpose of obtaining data regarding the cases under their care is commendable. The headings under the report were: "Month," "name." "address," "city, well, mountain or artesian water used," "milk used, and what dairy?" "Has the patient been out of the city?" "Is there a cesspool or well on the premises?" "Remarks."

Of the returns received, Dr. W. H. Sharpley, Health Commissioner, states that "the majority don't know anything about the milk supply and little regarding the water, and a few who know nothing at all regarding the data solicited."

Rather than resign ourselves to the conviction of the water supply as the cause, and rest with indifference upon this conviction, let us unite our efforts in inquiring into the source of food supplies of the households in which these cases develop and report the same, and then see to it that the data are compiled, tabulated and investigated. When we as individual practitioners have done this, our part, prompt results could reasonably be expected, and if not forthcoming we will then be in a better posiition to know why. It is well to bear in mind that one case with such data will sink to insignificance when fifty or more cases from various sources attract our attention to an unseen and unsuspected source of pollution.

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE THIRTY-SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE COLORADO STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY, DENVER, COLORADO.

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES.

[It has seemed wise to omit the incorporation of the lengthy correspondence and resolutions in the following report, and to insert in lieu thereof a brief abstract of the subject matter.-Editor.]

OCTOBER 8, 1906.

Meeting called to order at 9 p. m., by the President of the Society, Dr. H. G. Wetherill, of Denver.

The President congratulated the members of the House of Delegates on the interest shown in their attendance at this meeting, as it was something new in the history of the Colorado State Medical Society to have so full an attendance at the first session of the House. He complimented the members from the distant counties of the State for the interest they had taken in the Society and its welfare.

minutes of last year.

The Secretary said the minutes had been approved with the exception of those of the last session of last year.

It was moved and seconded that the reading of the minutes be dispensed with. Carried.

The Secretary presented his annual report, as follows:

SECRETARY'S REPORT FOR THE YEAR

ENDING OCTOBER 8, 1906.

I regret to report that we have lost by death the following members: Dr. D. K. Smith, of Colorado Springs, Dr. Donald Kennedy, of Denver; Dr. Jessie M. McGregor, of Denver; Dr. C. R. Knox, of Boulder; Dr. Sherman T. Brown, of Denver, and Dr. J. L. Edwards, of Flor

ence.

On December 10th last, I delivered to Dr. S. D. Van Meter the engrossed resolution, as directed by this House at its last session.

On the 31st of April, at the request of the Scientific Committee, I wrote a letter to Dr. Richard Cabot, of Boston, inviting him to deliver an address before the Colorado State Medical Association at this meeting, and told him that the Society would pay his expenses. A favorable reply was received from Dr. Cabot, and his name was accordingly placed upon the program.

[The letter, signed by Dr. Graves, of Dodge City, Kansas, calls attention to the adoption of resolutions by the societies of Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, and asking that they be brought before the Colorado State Medical Society. A copy of the resolutions is attached. They refer to the exploitation and use of nostrums, etc.]

On January 16th, I mailed a letter as follows, to the secretary and president of ench constituent society, together with a copy of the new constitution:

[The letter is a copy of the one sent to each society in the state January 16, 1906, accompanied by a copy of the constitution, approved by the House of Delegates in 1904, and calling attention to the fact that it will be taken up for final adoption, at the meeting to be held in Denver in October, 1906.]

On February 2d, President Wetherill appointed the following members to form a Committee of Medical Education: Dr. C. K. Fleming, chairman, Denver (3) years), Dr. William P. Harlow, Boulder (2 years), Dr. Sol G. Kahn, Leadville (1 year).

This committee was appointed at the request of the American Medical Association Council of Medical Education.

[The letter, signed by the president of the Kress & Owen Company, of New York, states that they were members of the Proprietary Association of America, but had resigned their membership, and requests that this fact be brought to the attention of the Society.]

I desire to submit the following letter

been largely due to non-payment of dues to the constituent societies. The dues of a large number of these members will be collected by these societies before July 1st of next year, but in the meantime we have lost their financial assistance for the year, their presence at this meeting, and they have forfeited their membership in the American Medical Association. I should