ties hold district meetings occasionally. At the same time let each member endeavor to persuade one homeopath to join this society and work in every way possible to advance homeopathy, we will then have the largest and probably the best organization of the kind in the Union, which would then be commensurate with the dignity of the State.

Another matter that I feel it incumbent upon me to call your attention to at this time, is the tendency to commercialism in the medical profession. Men are resorting to various questionable methods for personal aggrandizement that would not have been dreamed of a few years ago. The quack and the charlatan are to be found on all sides, and very often appearing in sheep's clothing, with suave manner, or brass trumpets to attract and hold the gullible public. This has been. caused very largely by two influences, viz., the overcrowding of the profession with men who desire to gather in the shekels more rapidly and an attempt to overcome the detrimental influences of the abuse of the hospital and dispensary, which are so frequently managed largely by laymen who have no thought or regard for medical ethics, because they cannot estimate the importance and bearing of it. Hence, there is a great amount of work being done in these institutions under the role of charity, for individuals and corporations who are quite capable of paying a reasonable sum in compensation, but the attending physician or surgeon must of necessity render professional skill free because he is a member of the staff. In other words, the profession is very greatly imposed upon.

Commercialism of questionable methods is so rampant in the business world, as is shown by Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, under "Frenzied Finance" in a popular magazine in recent numbers, -that it creeps into the professions (legal, clerical and medical) until men come to feel that anything, or anyway will do so long as you gain the desired object. As a certain business man put it, if you see a five dollar bill, get it, if you must trample down your own brother in so doing.

The club or lodge organizations which employ physicians for a paltry sum to attend their members, are growing, and will become the more numerous unless the medical profession stamps them with the hand of disapproval, and brands the physician who would belittle himself and the profession by so doing. This, however, makes it the more important that the better class of physicians should endeavor to be the more thoroughly ethical in all their professional relations and conduct; particularly in the management and work of institutions.

We should endeavor to cultivate in the profession higher and loftier ideas, separating more from the low and sordid commercial methods, although not thereby neglecting the upright, straightforward

buisness side of the profession, which is thoroughly proper and legiti-

mate.

There is no agency by which this can be accomplished more effectually than through our State and County societies. Our college curriculum should contain a special course of instruction to the students, relative to medical ethics, and the legitimate business side of the profession, the relation and conduct between physicians and their patients. Many times these breaches between a physician, his brother practitioner and the patient are due simply to ignorance as to what is proper and right. If it is true that "good manners are equivalent to a bank account," it is doubly so here, where the close relations exist, as must be, between brother physicians and their patient.

Indeed, with all the educational training the newspapers and magazines are giving the public, it would seem that a valuable field has been overlooked, for they might render good service by enlightening the public as to their privileges and duties toward one who must be so familiar in the household as the physician,-who many times holds the closest secrets of the family: at least teach them to practice the "Golden Rule."

The practical, up-to-date physician must be constantly on guard for the public, and in doing his duty will not infrequently meet with objections. How often are we importuned to conceal contagious or infectious diseases, or to report the case as other than what it really is. But we cannot yield and be honest. It is not fair to friends and neighbors. As a rule, with little explanation and solicitation on our part, the American public will yield to law and reason.

We must constantly uphold the "Board of Health" and it is a very hopeful sign of the times to see them taking the stand regarding the contagion of consumption, requiring that all such cases be reported and as far as possible isolated; and disinfectants used in order to avoid the spread of the dread disease, as is being done in my home. city.

The outdoor life for consumptives should be encouraged and we should do our part in the work of establishing these settlements of tent life, urging cities, counties and the State to take up the work, in order to get the consumptive removed from his hovel or home where he is constantly infecting the children and others who are around him, for there is no doubt but that consumption is rapidly becoming the American scourge, and if not checked will prove ruinous to the race.

Municipal hospitals for the treatment of scarlatina, diphtheria and measles should likewise be urged, for the ravages of these diseases are almost as greatly to be dreaded as is small-pox.

We should urge the next Legislature to pass a bill regulating the manufacture and sale of firearms and explosives for Fourth of July celebrations, thus calling a halt in willfully crippling and maiming children, thereby making them objects of pity and charity for life, even worse at times, death ensues directly, or through the development of that dread disease, tetanus, causing a frightful and shocking end. If in any sense we are our "brother's keeper" it surely applies here.

Again, it has long since been a question in my mind whether State or National Legislation should not be enacted prohibiting the marrying of criminals and degenerates, thus endeavoring to prevent the propogating their kind, as with such an inheritance, and the subsequent environments for a child, it is next to impossible for aught but a vilain to develop, and this poor, miserable creature will live a life of shame, proving of no earthly benefit to himself or the community. If blood tells, or heredity counts for aught it surely does here, and if we propose to reform the race, let us begin at the root of the evil.

In conclusion, let me urge all members. of this society to enter earnestly into the work before us. We extend a most cordial invitation to all visiting physicians in attendance, regardless of system or school practiced, to take part in the discussions, and be one with us during this session.

THE NORTHEASTERN OHIO HOMEOpathic medICAL SOCIETY.

The fall meeting of this live organization occurs Wednesday, October 19th, in the main lecture room of the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College. It will be an all-day session, beginning at nine o'clock in the morning, and the following program will be presented:

Potentized Remedies Illustrated by Facts, by W. H. Kirtland, M. D.; The Pupil as an Aid in Diagnosis, by W. H. Phillips, M. D.; The President's Address; Dilatation of the Stomach, by W. B. Hinsdale, M. D.; The Materia Medica of Convulsions, by Alvan L. Waltz, M. D.; Motor Insufficiency of the Stomach, by E. O. Adams, M. D.; Gynecological Clinic, by James C. Wood, M. D.; Surgical Clinic, by W. T. Miller, M. D.; In Memoriam-for Dr. Morrow, Gaius J. Jones, M. D., for Dr. Hayden, J. A. Rockwell, M. D.; A Case of Extremely Low Temperature, by J. T. Carter, M. D.; Bryonia and Baptisia Compared in Typhoid Fever, by M. M. Catlin, M. D.; First Stage of Labor, by E. H. Jewitt, M. D.; The Local Treatment of Uterine Diseases, by P. B. Roper, M. D.

All the Laboratories of the College will be open and demonstrators in charge to show visitors the character of the work being done.

Lunch will be provided by the host of the occasion, the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical Society.-A cordial welcome is extended to all.

Cleveland Medical and Surgical Reporter.

A Journal Devoted to the Science of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery. Published Monthly by the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College, 226 Huron Street, Cleveland, 0. JAMES RICHEY HORNER, A. M., M. D., Editor.

HUDSON D. BISHOP, M. D., Managing Editor.

The Reporter solicits original articles, short clinical articles, society transactions and news items of interest to the profession. Reprints of original articles will be furnished authors at actual cost of paper and press-work, provided the order is received before the publication of the article. If authors will furnish us with names before their article is published, copies of the journal containing it, will be mailed free of charge (except to addresses in Cleveland) to the number of 100.

The subscription price of the Reporter is $1.00 per annum in advance. Single copies 10 cents. The Reporter has no free list. but sample copies will be given on request.

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THE MEDICAL AND SURGICAL REPORTER,

762-4 Rose Building, Cleveland, Ohio.

Editorial

THE STUDENT.

And with the opening of the College comes the student-quite naturally so, don't you think? and the teacher faces for eight months the problem of instruction and development and moulding. To the conscientious teacher this is truly no easy task. To the teacher without a conscience in his work teaching becomes a dread. Why? Did you ever think, dear reader, that the student of to-day and the teacher of to-day are different from those of twenty years ago? The teacher of twenty years ago was set upon a pedestal and few of his sayings were questioned. He was a high-mukity-muck, as Brother Kraft would say. Of the hundred and fifty students perhaps two or three would question assertions and ask for the why and wherefore and the balance of the class would first gaze with wonder and amazement, then laugh as the professor would "turn down" the students and after the lecture hour would guy the audacious ones most unmercifully. And there is a change. The professor meets the student, wondering what next he will ask he makes no assertions founded on his imagination. He is careful to have his landmarks laid out and he sticks to his text. And why? Because if he doesn't he may have to answer some very embarrassing questions and explain things which are hard to explain. No

this is not because the student of to-day is better than the student of twenty years ago-or that he knows more or relies more on himself— it is simply because the professor is no longer elevated on a pedestal. The student and professor are more nearly comrades than they were and with this comradeship and familiarity comes a lack of fear of disturbing the dignified one's serenity. (We had nearly written "lack of reverence" but that's not it. The student of to-day reveres and respects the average good teacher just as much as did the student of twenty years ago.)

And this freedom of thought and questioning and criticism applies about as much to the student's relation to his books as to his relation to his professor. We pity the man who reads page after page of a text-book and swallows all of it without a question. Here is an editorial from the pen of one of the great old world writers:

"To a young man fresh from school the greatest danger of the early years of medical study lies in his disposition to take the word of his teachers for law. The tradition of all scholastic establishments is to magnify the pedagogue and to keep the pupil under, so that the latter comes to regard the opinion of his instructor as the last word to be said on each particular subject. So, too, with his books. The authors of the commentaries and treatises on which he is nurtured are mystic abstractions who knew all about the matters of which they write. If the student is ever to become a scientific man in the true sense of the word, he must, from the start, cultivate a respectful disrespect for everybody's word about the phenomena he observes, and never accept any statement that he is not able either to verify himself, or to find cogent evidence in favor of. Every fact in chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and medicine is capable of verification by observation or experiment, and in so far as in him lies the student should not let one pass without endeavoring to satisfy himself that it rests on a solid foundation. Dogmatism has no place in medical study. The student may have a high regard for the opinion of his teacher, but he should never be satisfied till he has followed all the steps through which that teacher's mind passed before arriving at the final conclusion. A schoolmaster may be very impressive in enunciating a law in mathematics, knowing that his position is unassailable-the law is an old one that has been demonstrated over and over again; but the scientific teacher is at the mercy of his pupils if he is 'cock-sure' about anything without having proved it for himself. The darkest period of medicine was from the day of Galen to the day of Harvey; the period when all