It is our plain duty to so treat this unfortunate race as to fit them as far as possible for the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship, which cannot be taken away from them. The negro is here to stay, and the idea of deporting the entire race from this continent is an idle dream. In all history there have been only two great National migrations. The first is described in that wonderful Book of Exodus, which tells the story of forty years' wandering through the wilderness by the children of Israel, carrying with them the ark of the covenant, on which rested by day a pillar of cloud and by night a pillar of fire. The Jews to-day, scattered throughout the world, behold in the clouds that whirl and eddy around the Northern pole and in the fire of an equatorial sun, the eternal promise of an eternal GOD to them and their children. The second great National migration was that of the Moors, who during 400 years had inhabitated the mountains and valleys of Aragon and Castile, and who were driven from Spain by religious fanaticism and kingly greed. This refined and wealthy people, whose beautiful homes and heroic struggles are pictured by Washington Irving in the Alhambra, and the Conquest of Granada, were at last driven from the Spanish Kingdom, and one hundred thousand of them-men, women and children-were carried to the Northern coast of Africa, where they perished from climatic diseases or beneath the lances of the Bedouin Arabs. The attempt to colonize the negroes of the United States has been a failure in the past, and will not succeed in the future; the colony of Liberia has disappointed its promoters and friends, although the eloquence of Henry Clay defended the project. A short time before his death Mr. Lincoln endeavored to colonize some 2,000 Southern negroes on an island in the West Indies, and the attempt was a miserable failure. Mutual forbearance, kindly treatment and patience can alone solve the racial problem in the South. Booker Washington, by far the greatest leader of his race in this country, has struck the keynote, and he should have the support of every patriotic citizen, both North and South. Manual training schools and industrial progress can alone improve the condition of the negro. He must be taught that self-support and self-respect go together; and until he is divorced from designing politicians and taught to think for himself there is no chance for his social elevation. The white men of the South, in whose veins flow the Anglo-Saxon and Norman blood, can never be dominated by an inferior race. There are some animals which cannot be domesticated, and in the human family there are races which cannot be subjugated nor enslaved. The white people of the South will never submit to the control by their former slaves. I have said this much because I consider it the duty of every intelligent and patriotic citizen in the South to testify personally against the injustice done to the Southern people by the inexorable rule I have mentioned, which gives to the victors alone the history of our great war. Another injustice growing out of this rule that success is the criterion of merit-is better known to those of us who were surgeons in the Confederate Army than to any other portion of the Southern people. The Medical and Surgical history of the War has been published by the Government of the United States, and is a valuable contribution to the medical profession; but the history of the difficulties and obstacles which were encountered by Confederate surgeons is unwritten and exists alone in the memories of those of us who survived that conflict. The struggle of human skill and science against pain and death is an unequal one when the physician and surgeon has all the means and appliances which are necessary in such a contest; but when the struggle must be carried on without medicine, surgical instruments or hospital facilities, the task is indeed well nigh hopeless. Of all the men now living we saw more than any other class the suffering and horrors of the great Civil War in this country. The soldiers of the Confederacy who fought and died in the Civil War were sustained in the hour of conflict by the companionship of their comrades, and by the fierce joy of battle. We who served in the medical department were forced to stand oftentimes alone, helpless and empty handed, without even the most ordinary appliances and remedies to alleviate pain, or to save life; while the wounded and dying lay upon the battlefield beneath the moon and stars, and suffered the agony of amputation without anesthetics, far from wife, mother and the comforts of home. We, too, of all men living are the best witnesses to the heroic fortitude of the soldiers who wore the gray. We saw them when tortured by wounds or disease give up their lives without complaint in defense of a just and holy cause. It must be a source of supreme satisfaction to each one of us that we have lived te see an era of better feeling and kindlier relations between the people of the Northern and Southern States. Thirty-five years have elapsed since the close of the Civil War, and not even the most extreme optimist could have expected that in one third of a century the President of the United States, Mr. McKinley, would have declared that the graves of the Confederate dead should be cared for by the National Government as are those of the Union soldiers, and that the old veterans of the Civil War coming from both sections should stand side by side in the armies of the Union against a foreign foe. We have lived to see the bitter animosities of civil strife buried in the graves of the gallant men who fell upon either side in that conflict, and we have read from the pen of the Vice President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, in his "Life of Thomas H. Benton," that the soldiers who followed Robert E. Lee were equal, if not superior, to any who ever fought upon any battlefield; and that their great leader was superior to all the generals of the English speak. ing people, not excepting Marlborough and Wellington, nor his last opponent-Ulysses S. Grant. It is something to have lived long enough to read this testimony from the highest official authority in the United States, and to know that we can transmit to our children the heritage of glorious deeds, although the cause for which their fathers fought was decided against them by the arbitrament of battle. The graves of our dead heroes on hillside and in valley are unmarked save by the finger of God, and above them are no exotics, but only the wild flowers of the South; nor does martial music sound their requiem. "By fairy hands their knell is rung, To bless the turf which wraps their clay; CORNEAL ULCERS.* BY HILLIARD WOOD, M.D. Professor Diseases of the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat, University of the Ear, Nose and Throat, University of Tennessee, If the eyes of a large number of blind people are examined it will be found that the lesion producing the blindness is situated in the cornea more frequently than in any other tissue. If the corneal lesions are further examined it will be found that in the vast majority of the cases they are due to ulceration of the cornea and its sequelae. So that I do not hesitate to say that ulceration of the cornea, whether primary or secondary, is the cause of more blindness than any other single condition that affects human vision. Etiology. In their etiology corneal ulcers are divided into two classes: primary and secondary. A primary ulcer is one which is not preceded nor caused by any other disease. Such primary ulcers are usually traumatic. They occur as a result of septic matter getting into some wound of the cornea, whether such wound be accidental or intentional. That a clean wound of the cornea will not ulcerate is proven by the results of aseptic operations, as cataract operations, etc. Septic matter on the cornea will not produce an ulcer unless it is inoculated into the cornea. Against this inoculation the epithelial layer upon the anterior corneal surface forms a barrier. So long as this epithelial layer is intact no septic absorption takes place. This we often see in cases of mucocele. But if there be a wound or an abrasion of the corneal epithelium, septic matter, if present, will enter through this open door and ulceration results. So that primary ulcers of the cornea are usually traumatic, and are due to a wound, plus sepsis. A secondary ulcer of the cornea is one which is preceded and caused by some other disease. Such causative disease is usually a conjunctivitis. This conjunctivitis may be catarrahl in char *Read before the Upper Cumberland Medical Society at Cookeville, May 28-29. acter; or it may be purulent, as in gonorrhoeal ophthalmia, and ophthalmia neonatorum; or membranous, a3 in diphtheritic and croupous conjunctivitis; or granular, as in granular lids. The various inflammations of the conjunctiva, whether local or general, are fruitful sources of blindness; and their mode of producing blindness is by ulceration of the cornea. Treatment. In discussing the treatment of corneal ulcers I shall take up the different measures that are used, and consider them seriatim. 1. The first indication is the removal of the cause. If this is a foreign body in the cornea it should be removed. If it is an inflammation of the conjunctiva, that inflammation should be treated by vigorous and appropriate remedies. The development of a corneal ulcer during the course of a conjunctivitis does not call for any change in the treatment of the conjunctivitis per se. But the better the conjunctivitis is treated, and the sooner it is controlled, the more favorable will be the prognosis of the ulcer. 2. Atropine has long been a standard remedy in the treatment of corneal ulcers, and this notwithstanding the fact that atropine has no direct effect upon the ulcer itself. But it mitigates the irritation, the pain, the photophobia and the lachrymation. In corneal ulcers, especially of the more violent type, there is always great danger of a complicating iritis, which in the end may prove more destructive to vision than the corneal trouble. For this reason atropine does much good by preventing iritis, or by controlling it if it does occur; and by dilating the pupil it lessens the amount of iris which is prolapsed in case of the ulcer perforating the centre of the cornea. 3. Curetting an ulcer is often of much service, especially in the case of foul or progressive ulcers, and in those which heal slowly. This is best done under cocaine anesthesia in the case of adults, and under chloroform in nervous children. For this purpose we use a delicate curette, a small bistoury, or Graefe's cataract knife will do. The sides and base of the ulcer are to be thoroughly scraped and all necrotic tissue removed. With ordinary care there is little or no danger of perforating the cornea. 4. The cauterization of progressive corneal ulcers is the greatest step that has been made in their modern treatment. The reason for this cauterization is based on the fact that these ulcers |