not work an injustice on our patients is a knotty problem. Nothing should be more sacredly guarded in court and out of court than the communications given us by our patients in consultation or treatment of their diseases. We should regard them with the strictest honor, nor should we fail in the same secrecy in our general conduct and conversation. The law, however, not only thwarts justice in many instances, but often works a great injustice and makes the doctor an accomplice. To open up a discussion on the subject and if possible learn how the law might be improved upon, especially with reference to syphilis, gonorrhea and marriage, is the object of this paper.

Biography.

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

Dr. Arthur Richard Elliott, born June 2, 1869, Belleville, Ontaria, Canada. His preliminary education was received at the Belle

Dr. Arthur Richard Elliott, President.

practiced in Chicago. He was married November 21, 1901.

During the past ten years he has contributed many articles to current medical literature, principally on diseases of the kidney, circulatory diseases and diseases of the thyroid gland.

He is Attending Physician to the PostGraduate Hospital and Chicago Charity Hospital, Consulting Physician Provident Hospital, Professor of Medicine and head of Medical Department of the Post-Graduate Medical College of Chicago, and Vice-President of its faculty. His specialty practiced is internal medicine.

ville Academy and High School, and he obtained the degree in medicine at Queen's University Medical College, Canada, in He 1889, being the medallist at that time. served as an interne at the State Hospital for Insane of Danville, Pa., in 1890 and 1891. He did extensive post-graduate work in London in 1904. The early period of his practice was in Canada, but he has resided and

Dr. Elliott is a member of the American Medical Association, American Urological Society, Chicago Medical Society, Illinois State Society, Chicago Medical Examiners' Society, Chicago Urological Society, Chicago Academy of Medicine, Chicago Tuberculosis Society, Chicago Society of Social Hygiene, Corresponding Member Société Français d'Urologie, Paris, France.

NEWS NOTES.

Washington, D. C., is threshing out the vaccination question through the public press.

Dr. Arthur P. Derby, of Newport News, Va., will shortly remove to Fayettesville, W. Va.

The twenty-six ward physicians and school inspectors of Cleveland, O., have asked for an advance in salary.

Dr. Walker Morrison has formed a partnership in the management of the Intermont Hotel, Appalachia, Va.

Dr. John C. Wills has moved to Tampa, Fla.. from Gainesville. Dr. Wills has purchased a part interest in a drug business.

Dr. J. W. Conklin, of Ft. Wayne, Ind., was seriously injured November 24, by a street-car. He is lying in Hope Hospital with a fractured skull.

Medical inspection of schools was begun in Dallas, Tex., Novemer 23. Friction is anticipated here as elsewhere until the profession and public understand the scope and intention of the work.

A school for the medical officers of the Indiana National Guard has been organized. A feature of the school will be talks by physicians of Indianapolis who were former medical officers of the guard.

Dr. W. C. Baird, of Beaumont, Tex., entered a plea of guilty to a charge of improper use of the mails. Dr. Baird had advertised and sent out literature of a substance he termed "Protoplasm," he claiming it would prevent conception.

Drs. I. Hanson and B. F. Stout, of San Antonio, Tex., have investigated the sanitary condition of the cows and milk of that city and reported to the Board of Health. A better milk supply will soon be demanded by an enlightened public opinion.

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In the literary magazines, to show the paucity of thought among correspondents, often some mediocre work is recommended for perusal by some would-be critic as coming classic." We hear much about "the hundred best books," "books that you should read," etc. As a matter of fact, while authorities may agree as to what is the standard of good literature, we must not pay too much deference to their dictum. A book ought to appeal to us just as a friend would do. We do not follow the dictates of selfappointed authorities as to the choice of our friends; they come to us, we do not go to them. Seek all we please the companionship of some man or woman of genius, unless we possess a kindred culture, we might as well seek the society of Australian aborigines as far as the practical benefits are concerned. It is so with books. A highly cultivated intellect will absorb ideas from a book which to a mediocre person are foreign and cold. We require guides, to be sure, to point out the good things certain books contain; but to buy and peruse them because of this is folly. In medicine, the book reviews in the best journals assist us to find our own. Defects in our knowledge, instinctively felt, can be remedied in this way; but we must know what is necessary, not the reviewer. A ponderous work on psychology may leave us unmoved; a monograph may give us visions

not lose again for a fortune.

* *

How kaleidoscopic is the view one obtains of medical literature these days! Hundreds of affirming, positive characters have written down for inspection their views on every conceivable medical subject. There they are, dressed in buckram and leather and cloth, illustrated, illuminated, brought to a focus with your mental eye, grandiose, positive, tentative -you are the arbiter, the supreme judge of all this performance. By your selection, according to your needs, you create a demand, you make possible revisions, enlargements, additions you are as surely making medical history as if you had yourself effected great advances and discoveries. If your selection has not been false, based perhaps upon the recommendation of what others would have you read, then you are a writer of medical works, though you rarely see fit to use a pen. Study your real needs, supply them with care, and you are one of an army to winnow the false from the true; and the future of medicine is safe because you are safe.

* *

How simple it is to go a step farther in these considerations, and apply them to our everyday life. In choosing to do what is positive, what is advancing, we render possible a higher civilization everywhere. The shrinking, negative person, led by every chimera and will-o'-the wisp, is out of tune with truth in nearly every instance. Perhaps his mental and moral growth has been dwarfed by a persistent underestimating of his own ability, perhaps he is immature and is simply testing his powers as does the child with his toys and his imagination. and his imagination. As long as he is no pretender there is still hope that the growth of his spirit will bring him in touch with the immortal truth. But frequently he cannot select the best, because by disuse this faculty of wise choice is atrophied. He has been en rapport with the ordinary and vulgar so long as to habituate him to a lower sphere. You and I have met these persons in our daily rounds, though they are rarely found in the ranks of our own profession. Perhaps

in this case the attrition with a superior mind may lead these timid, uncertain souls to find the higher realm to which they should aspire. Sympathy should be accorded them, and encouragement. That is all. They must seek their own salvation.

* * *

It is true, as has been said, small successes suffice for small souls. And "small success" may be applied to the mere acquisition of wealth, and position, and prestige. Some, in all stages of their medical career, want to acquire skill without study, mastery without apprenticeship; they desire to occupy chairs in our colleges and clinics without the intermediate steps, everyone of which is painful and difficult. They wish for success, hope to hold it securely; and opening their hands they discover failure therein. You have entered the well-equipped laboratory of some confrère, have observed the polished microscopes, and the numerous reagents, and the various pathological and physiological specimens in evidence. You have noted the shallowness of all this pretence because the master of all this glitter informed you of it, not by word of mouth, to-be-sure, but by it being writ large over his countenance, over his attitude of mind, over his attempted performance. That is truly a cheap success, and intimidates no one with half an eye. You have perhaps been called for advice by a brother practitioner, have noted the folly of his pretended knowledge, and, provided you yourself were not so small as to be led by pretense and jealousy, you knew it was pretense, because the man was a make-believe and a fraud. He aimed to fool you as he tried to fool the patient. Success? If failure spells success then was he great in results. Slowly, laboriously, we learn day by day that nothing succeeds permanently that is false. Real efficiency, true mastery will win as surely as truth will prevail. Pretense never made a discovery, found a remedy, suggested a new thought in medicine or anywhere else. But truth did, because it is real. Success based on what is right, cannot avoid being success, though we care not to achieve it. And the physician who seeks not success,

but deserves it through true merit, will be crowned with laurels, none the less real because invisible.

POLITICS AGAIN.

Dr. William Gillespie, in the issue of November 30, says history tells us that Douglas, of Illinois, was a great politician, a statesman, and a great debater. He further relates how Douglas was once discomfited by Ben Wade asking him the perennial question, “What are you going to do about it?" The paragraph concludes by stating that Douglas depended upon oratorical pyrotechnics to work his audience into a frenzy of appreciation, and having had the spell broken, his sophistry stood alone in its nakedness.

According to the American Encyclopedic Dictionary, a statesman is "one who is versed in the arts of government; one eminent for political ability, a politician." Politics is

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sagacity and prudence adapted to promote the public welfare;" also as sagacious, sharp or clever in devising and carrying out measures to promote one's own interests without regard to the morality of the measures adopted or the object aimed at; crafty, artful, cunning." Sophistry is defined as "fallacious reasoning, unsound argument, quibbling, fallacy." "Statesman" and "politician" in the sense first defined above are hardly compatible with "sophistry," however much it may be needed as stock in trade by "politicians," as defined in the second in

stance.

Lincoln, Douglas' great antagonist, Washington, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick the Great, Gladstone, Garibaldi, Virchow, Huxley, and other master minds who were statesmen, never dealt, or had occasion to deal, in sophistry, and were rarely at bay in debate, except when they wished to further inform themselves in the premises.

Socialism is a term rather loosely used by many, and is generally intended to convey opprobrium. Any measure proposed or argument adduced to in any way alter the established order of things, from the mildest protest to the wildest nihilistic rantings, are placed in the same category. Radicalism should

always be differentiated from socialism. The majority in power is always conservative, and the minority is always radical. Each have their function to perform, and are necessary in a republican form of government. The majority should govern and conserve, but would die of dry rot if not prodded continually by a strongly protesting minority. If the majority will not heed the voice of the minority, and adopt the best that is in their contention, it will be ousted from power either by evolution or revolution. Progression is

the eternal law of nature.

Dr. Gillespie states that he is far from denying the right of the medical profession to go into politics, and then repeats Ben Wade's question. The answer lies with every individual composing the body politic. In a republic, it is the privilege and duty of every citizen to take an active part in the government of his city, county, State and country. The government rests with the people, and upon an intelligent and fearless citizenship depends the moral and physical welfare of the nation. If the dictum, "From every man according to his capacity, to every man according to his needs," is true, the medical profession certainly has been wofully derelict in its political duty to the nation.

gramme.

It is not intended by those advocating politics to the profession that all physicians should be either office-seekers or office-holders; neither should medical bodies devote themselves exclusively to petitioning or lobbying for special legislation. Each of these forms of political activity have their place, but they are only incidents in the general proIt is intended rather that every physician do his full duty as a citizen. He is as much affected by the policy of the dominant political faction as every other member of the community, and much as he would like to shut out the fact, he must still recognize that "the injury of one is the concern of all." He is, in an especially large meashis "brother's keeper," as he, more than the members of any other profession, knows the true physical and moral condition of the community. Because of this full knowledge, and the influence of his voice in

ure,

No man, unless he be a pachyderm, can be insensible to approbation. The cutaneous nerve-filaments are so delicately constructed as to immediately make one conscious of external heat or cold, mental or physical. The editor of THE LANCET-CLINIC appreciates the words of encomium he has received from various sources, particularly from the International Journal of Therapy. It is to be hoped that he merits the suggestion, "He is preaching the gospel of good-fellowship among men who are devoting their lives to the noblest of all callings. He is advocating the cause of true culture. . . . He is bound to inspire those who think as he does, but are faint-hearted."

There is a vast work to be accomplished in medicine throughout this broad land of ours, in a narrower sense throughout the State of Ohio, and only incidentally in the city of Cincinnati. Charity begins at home; and every true lover of his city wants that city to represent the best that is possible in every department of human activity. In most towns the medical problems which confront us locally have for years been solved. Others have outstripped us in many respects; so that to the disgust of progressive men we have been viewed with a sort of scorn, as being too weak to help ourselves. Whatever be the cause, whether, as the editor of the International Journal of Therapy suggests, this has been due to "men who seek their own aggrandizement and care nothing for the profession as such," whether it be the indifference and apathy of the local profession, or to mutual jealousy, or to the absence of progress-that will be interpreted according to one's point of view. It is true beyond peradventure that our county society is wofully lacking in enthusiasm and interest. THE LANCET-CLINIC has already gone on record as to one of the causes of this lamentable

condition. The society must be awakened · from its lethargy. It is supine; it must be placed on its feet; it must be stimulated to a genuine interest in its own progress. But this stimulation must come from within and not from without. The component cells must each do its part, and the entire organism will flourish. This can only be accomplished by removing impediments as in a physical body. The emunctories must cast off everything that clogs and inhibits. Elimination of toxins of various degrees of virulence must perforce be attempted at once. The cells working harmoniously without obstruction, health and vigor and virility will accomplish things that will cause other organisms to sit up and take notice. Cincinnati will again win the respect which she once possessed as a medical centre.

To this most imperative regeneration THE LANCET-CLINIC will devote its energies. Being subservient to no faction and no clique, it is most favorably situated for the work it has in view. Beginning with the anemic, neurasthenic, auto-intoxicated Academy of Medicine, the other things will follow as a matter of course. The erection of a suitable home for the Academy and the medical library; branch societies in various part of the city, the nuclei of which are already in existence; a bringing together of various so-called "schools" of medicine, which differ only in the matter of therapeutics and the application; a merger in the not too distant future of the two dominant schools, "a consummation devoutly to be wished; the establishment of a great graduate school of instruction; non-partisan management of all that pertains to the health of the people, which includes the proper building and maintenance of hospitals. That is a programme which seems rather formidable. However, when we consider that other cities have achieved vastly more, then we realize how puerile it all seems-this farreaching programme.

Whether the editor of the International Journal of Therapy is right in his prediction that THE LANCET-CLINIC can inaugurate this movement and win support from the

"high-minded, warm-hearted men who see in their neighbor not a rival, but a colleague," remains to be seen. We trust that in this instance promise does not outrun performance. But THE LANCET-CLINIC will not fail-depend upon it!

EDITORIAL NOTES.

It is a pleasure to begin in this issue a series of biographical sketches of the Executive Committee of the Mississippi Valley Medical Association. This committee is composed of the present officers and past presidents. The Association is unique in possessing one of the most harmonious and forceful executive committees of any medical society in the country. The series will be continued weekly. A portrait will accompany each biography.

H. AUGUSTUS WILSON, in an article on "Modern Tendencies in the Treatment of Bone Tuberculosis," in the current American Medicine, voices the consensus of opinion that "the result of the various methods of treatment during the past twenty-five years has been to draw the attention to the necessary feature of prophylaxis." We are, fortunately, leaving that period of our ignorance when the beginning symptoms of joint tuberculosis were denominated "growing pains," "rheumatism," "natural synovitis incident to development," and other absurdities. The above writer very properly says that “if the disease can be recognized and arrested prior to the time when the tuberculosis has extended outside of the narrow limits of the initial field of the invasion, no joint deformity need be feared as a result of the disease."

He had no time at his disposal to prepare a short paper, so he wrote a lengthy one. This ought in very truth to be the apology of practically everyone who presents a paperfor the consideration of a medical society these days. To crowd a paragraph into a sentence, to omit adjectives as useless verbiage, to ruthlessly cut out digressions and ramified discussions is a very, very difficult matter. And yet a few simple, direct souls have