The season at Bath this year promises to be a very fashionable one, many who have previously gone to the Continent for treatment are already staying at home for the "cure." By recent additions the whole of the "Nanheim method" of treatment in cardiac affections is carried out. The old Roman bath has been judiciously restored, and the town authorities are busying themselves to provide amusements for the visitors.

"Memories of Seven Campaigns," is a record of thirty-five years' service in the Indian Medical Department, by Dr. Thornton, in India, China, Egypt, and the Soudan. It contains descriptions of many Indian towns and stations, and the author's travels in different parts of the country, and of his voyages to and from India, China, and Africa. Besides his surgical experience Dr. Thornton describes his civil employment as jail superintendent, with various matters of general interest, such as Indian social life, the habits and customs of the hill tribes, the fairs, canal irrigation, the opium question, etc., which have given him the opportunity of describing humorous incidents and adventures.

A deputation from the Inebriates Legislation Committee of the British Medical Association, the Society for the Study of Inebriety, and the Homes for Inebriates Association, have waited upon the Home Secretary for the purpose of bringing before his notice several important suggestions in regard to the law relating to the treatment of habitual drunkards. It was pointed out that the difficulty of dealing with the non-criminal habitual drunkards was very great indeed, and it would be of the greatest importance to the country if something could be done to strengthen the system of treatment of inebriates in homes, so long as the liberty of the subject was safeguarded. As to criminal inebriates, some six thousand women of that class are at the present time imprisoned, but it would be a saving to the country if they could be cured. It is hoped further legislation on the subject will shortly be undertaken.

LONDON, November, 1895.

PURE COW'S MILK should have a specific gravity of 1030. It should not become viscid on the addition of ammonium hydrate. Milk should yield from ten to fourteen volumes per cent of cream, and never less than three per cent by weight, according to the modern methods of analysis. On microscopic examination, pure milk should contain myriads of beautifully-formed globules of fat, entirely soluble in potassium hydrate. The normal amount of water should be about eighty-seven per cent. The total solids will vary from twelve to fifteen per cent, according to the age of the cow, its food, etc. Pure cow's milk should contain about four per cent of casein, including one half to one per cent of serum albumin, and about four per cent of sugar of milk, with a little over one half per cent of the salts of sodium, potassium, and calcium chlorides and phosphates.—The National Board of Health Magazine.

THE AMERICAN PRACTITIONER AND NEWS.

Vol. 20.

"NEC TENUI PENNÂ."

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1895.

No. 12.

D. W. YANDELL, M. D., LL.D., and H. A. COTTELL, M. D., Editors.
JOHN L. HOWARD, M. D., Assistant Editor.

A Journal of Medicine and Surgery, published every other Saturday. Price, $3 per year, postage paid.

This journal is devoted solely to the advancement of medical science and the promotion of the interests of the whole profession. Essays, reports of cases, and correspondence upon subjects of professional interest are solicited. The editors are not responsible for the views of contributors.

Books for review, and all communications relating to the columns of the journal, should be addressed to the Editors of THE AMERICAN PRACTITIONER AND News, Louisville, Ky.

Subscriptions and advertisements received, specimen copies and bound volumes for sale by the undersigned, to whom remittances may be sent by postal money order, bank check, or registered letter. Address JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY, Louisville, Ky.

THE VISITING LIST.

As the new year gets nigh at hand the physician's meditations upon squaring accounts with the old year and opening new books with the new must be literal as well as metaphorical, some questions relative to the visiting list must be answered in a week or two. And these questions are: What shall it be, and how large shall it be?

The year of grace 1895 has not made a brilliant showing in collections perhaps, but people have fallen sick much as they did in flusher times, and the worthy physician has added new lands to his tillage if he has not found new realms to conquer. So we may hope that the graduate of last year who, on swinging his first shingle to the breeze, purchased a “list" with space for "twenty-five patients per week," will now have to order one for fifty, and that his senior by a year or two will require one for seventy-five, while he whose labors stretch over the space of a decade will easily see that one for a hundred must be had to meet the demands of his ever-growing practice. If we be asked what are our hopes for the veterans of twenty years and upward, we shall expect them, of course, to provide lists for the above numbers daily" instead of "weekly."

These expectations do not contemplate the extinction of hygiene, nor have we been praying for an epidemic. The foregoing, therefore,

must be taken as merely a gush of good will for our brethren of the guild without ill will for the people.

The question of kind is perhaps more easily settled, since there are a good number of worthy candidates for favor in the market. Prominent among these is the old favorite, "The Lindsay-Blakiston's List." It is now in the forty-fifth year of its publication, and, having been repeatedly revised and refitted to suit the doctor's needs, it is as near perfection as a book can be. The prefatory reading matter in former editions contained only such items as a doctor might need on the instant, and since this was sufficient nothing has been added to it.

The spaces for special memoranda on every page of the visiting list proper is a feature of great convenience and will be duly appreciated. The book is neat, light, full, and complete. Moreover, it is the father of the visiting list as a book for the doctor's exclusive use.

The Medical Record Visiting List is a marvel of beauty, compactness, and convenience. The prefatory printed matter has been reduced in the interest of space without lessening the value of the book. "The most important change is in the list of remedies and their maximum doses in both apothecaries' and decimal systems, and the indications of such as are official in the United States of America."

This list has also spaces for special memoranda opposite the space for each patient's name.

There are many more visiting lists in the market, each presenting its own peculiar claim to the doctor's favor; but the aforementioned, in our opinion, leave nothing to be desired.

The old physician needs no advice in the matter, and if young physicians should ask us how to select a visiting list, we should say:

First. Select the book which presents the least bulk.

Second. The book which contains the smallest amount of, but the best, selected prefatory matter.

Third. The book which is spaced so that patient's address, with remarks, etc., can be placed opposite each name.

Fourth. Remember that a visiting list is not and never can be a substitute for a medical library, a ledger, or a case-book.

DR. CAREY B. BLACKBURN.

On the 4th instant this well-known physician died at his home in Louisville. His disease was pneumonia, and his death was sudden.

Dr. Blackburn was the son of the late Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, exGovernor of Kentucky, and of blessed memory because of his philanthropic ministrations to the suffering during the yellow-fever epidemic of 1878. The son was in every way worthy of such a father, and had his life been spared he might have "added lustre to ancestral fame.”

For more than a quarter of a century Dr. Blackburn has practiced in the front rank of his profession, and while not a few of the well-todo and wealthy were among his clientele, his best time and his best skill were ever at the disposal of the poor, whom he served without remuneration, and with a devotion and a sympathy which will cause his name to be held in sacred memory among them till this generation shall pass away.

He was

Dr. Blackburn was a soldier in the Southern army. wounded in one of its battles and carried the visible signs of the incident to the grave.

After the war he studied medicine with Dr. D. W. Yandell, and was one of his associates in the old Green Street Dispensary, the first dispensary founded in the city. He entered the Medical Department of the University of Louisville in 1868, and took the doctorate in the spring of 1870. Since then he has practiced unremittingly his profession in this city.

Dr. Blackburn was public spirited, and served his town for many years, some time in the lower and some time in the upper board of the City Fathers. His personal popularity kept him ever in office.

Dr. Blackburn was high-minded, true-hearted, simple and sincere. Once a friend he was always a friend, and if he had enemies none knew it for aught he said of them.

Dr. Blackburn never married. Why, his best friend never knew; but possibly some simple inscription in some village churchyard might tell the secret. Be this as it may, since his coming here his profession has been his spouse, and the hearts of the poor his home.

Notes and Queries.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE ON THe Source of MALARIA. The investigation on the source of malaria has had the writer's attention for over two years, and in that time a large amount of clinical testimony has been collected from all known malarial districts in North America; the final report, however, will hardly be ready for publication before next year, but from the work already completed certain facts have been obtained which will be embodied in this short notice.

The introduction of artesian wells, first by the railroad companies who desired a larger supply of water than had hitherto been available, and the accidental use of that water by the people in the immediate vicinity soon produced a marked diminution of malarial trouble in those localities. The artesian supplies were, on the whole, so satisfactory to the railroads that their introduction became very rapid, and in a few years most of the South Atlantic lines depended upon this source of water supply.

The evidence that in the exclusive use of the deep-seated waters there was entire immunity from malarial trouble was apparently so incontestable that I determined upon a critical examination of all waters known to produce malaria and those that in malarial districts were proof against it; this examination is not only chemical, but biological and pathological.

In the present state of our knowledge we do not expect to be able to draw a sharp line between waters that produce malaria and those proof against it by purely chemical analysis, nor, on the other hand, can we hope to identify by biological examination the protozoa producing that trouble; but we may by the former succeed in isolating certain toxic products peculiar to those waters only, and by the latter a certain line of testimony that, in conjunction with the chemical investigation, will yield very valuable results. The work thus far has proven satisfactory beyond expectation, and from the work already done and the character and amount of evidence before me, I am justified in stating that the long-current belief that the source of malaria is in the air is in error.

The germ, which is of soil-origin, is strictly a protozoa and reaches its highest development in low, moist ground with a favorable temperature. Surrounded by the proper soil-conditions, this protozoa passes from one stage of life into another with considerable rapidity; so that in the present state of our experimental knowledge it is impossible to identify it, nor is it probable that by culture we shall be able to produce the accepted Laveran germ outside of the human system.

As a rule, the potable water from the malarial districts is derived from driven wells not over twenty-two feet deep, in soil with clay or some other