psychosis, according to which the souls of ignorant and unworthy practitioners pass into the animals upon which vivisection is performed.

Probably the Indiana legislature has concluded to rely upon this mode of punishment, but chloroform was discovered after Raimon evolved the idea, and, were he living, he would be compelled to "rub his brow and scratch his ear" again for some additional means of punishment, because the "frog or salamander, Guinea pig or dog" now lie unconscious, while their nerves are irritated, their plexuses cauterized, their ganglions pierced and their muscles galvanized. If this solution of the question is accepted, we will have a demand for more medical colleges to use up the material.

It is sometimes objected that medicine is not a science, because it is uncertain, and that it has not developed the source and laws of life, and can not, with precision, administer for its preservation.

We admit and lament the lack of knowledge on many subjects, but, remembering past progress and present advantages, we are justified in expecting much of the future, as Byron expressed it,

"The best of prophets of the future is the past."

What science is perfect? "Gold amalgamates but does not oxidize;" iron crystalizes, and often disastrous results follow; chemical affinity exists, yet the chemist has not been able to reach the ultimate explanation of any of these. The identity of coal and diamond is admitted, but not understood; yet the one is not rejected as fuel nor the other despised as the most precious jewel.

No one discredits the news of yesterday because transmitted by that undefined force of nature-electricity. No one 'refuses to eat because it is not explained how, through assimilation, the tissues and delicate organs of the body take from the same pabulum substance for nourishment and repair. Who refuses to live on this earth because its interior is not known? or to gaze into infinite space because we cannot comprehend it?

Light, the supporter of animal and vegetable life, exists—we only know it by its properties and effects. The chemist may analyze its rays, and show its wonderful composition of beautiful colors. Its vivifying action works wonders in a delicate and myste

rious manner.

The myriads of flowers owe their brilliant hues and fragrant perfumes to it. Seeds are planted in faith, that by its influence they will grow and ripen into food for the million. It is correlative with, if not the source of heat and motion, and Tyndall has contributed much to its study; yet, beyond this we know little, except we are told that the fiat went forth : "Let there be light, and there was light." Religion, aided by revelation, has not been so entirely free from inaccurate knowledge as that all see its purity, its loveliness, its divine attributes, through the same mental vision, and yet, in its Christian light, it is acknowledged the great civilizer of the world.

The dream of the alchemist is still unrealized, that which he sought belongs only to the Infinite, and we are compelled to admit that there is a limit to our knowledge, and leave to Him who created all things, that which we can not comprehend.

SANITARY PROGRESS.

J. W. COMPTON, M. D., EVANSVILLE, Ind.

Disease and death blight man's happiness and retard the prosperity of nations.

Pestilential epidemics may sweep in wide waves of desolation over our country, produce the most profound alarm, paralyze the industries of every kind, and greatly diminish public revenues and private incomes.

From the suspension of business and the interruption of travel in the year 1878, the loss to business alone has been estimated at one hundred and seventy-five million dollars, from yellow fever, at several places, from the gulf to Gallipolis, Ohio. How can we estimate in dollars and cents the anguish and agony, the blighted hopes and desolated homes caused by disease and death? That was a conflict between commerce and human life. Both paid a fearful, a costly penalty!

The protection of human life and the preservation of health not only claim the attention of sanitarians, but call forth their deepest and most earnest solicitude.

Whatever destroys life or impairs health, they regard as public enemies, and their combined energies should be called into requisition to utterly destroy such enemies or render them powerless to inflict injury. In all conflicts between commerce and public health, the health and lives of the people should have the preference. When these are secured from danger, business and trade should be recognized and protected.

To license or permit a business to be carried on which is

flagrantly and largely detrimental to the lives and health of the great mass of the people in the vicinity, is inhuman; yet we find our law makers more ready to enact laws to protect the lives of the fishes, the birds, the cattle, the sheep, the hogs, and even the dogs, than to protect the lives of men, women and children.

The Scientific American thinks it a pity that babies have not a market value like hogs. A death rate among the pigs, less than one-third the death rate among children in our large cities, moves the government to costly investigations of the cause, and to diplomatic correspondence with foreign nations, while produce exchanges get excited on the subject, and all the newspapers join in the discussion. The babies die by the thousand in New York and other overcrowded cities, and scarcely any notice is taken of the fact.

"Is it of greater importance to legislate for the cattle on a thousand hills than for man, who owns both the cattle and the hills ?"-Dr. J. J. Speed.

The legislature has carefully enacted laws to protect the people against impostors and swindlers, whose only aim is to become unlawfully in possession of the people's money or property, while it seems almost impossible to have laws enacted to protect the people against a horde of medical impostors, who not only become possessed of the people's money, but greatly endanger their health and lives.

The laws will not permit a man to take charge of an engine on any of our railroads, or even on the most insignificant steam boat or saw mill, without first acquainting himself, by study, with the intricate workings of steam machinery, and undergoing an examination touching his qualifications entitling him to a license. Still, unscrupulous so-called doctors are permitted, year after year, to take full charge of the much more delicate and complicated human organization, utterly ignorant of the complicated mechanism of the human frame; utterly ignorant of the laws of physiology or pathology, to say nothing of anatomy, chemistry, and materia medica.

Nostrum venders are permitted to do the same, with nothing but a good singer, a glib tongue and a painted wagon to recommend their worthless medicines.

Why is it that the engineer is required to exhibit a license? Is it because railroads and steamboats carry property as freight? Or is it to protect the lives of the people who travel on them? If the latter, why should not the lives of the people be protected against the unqualified and ignorant doctors?

When watches or pianos get out of order, no one thinks of placing them in the hands of unskilled workmen, unacquainted with their wonderful and accurate mechanism.

The people are not always so careful, when human life and health, so sacred and precious, must pay the penalty of unskillful medication.

Sanitarians who have labored long and faithfully to lessen the prevalence of epidemic and preventable diseases in our good State, may well feel a flush of triumph that our Legislature has enacted a law creating a State Board of Health for the purpose of, recording vital and mortuary statistics, which, once collected and compiled, will show in what portions of the State certain diseases have the greatest prevalence. This once fully ascertained, investigation may be instituted in each particular locality to discover the direct cause of such prevalence, and the remedy at. once be applied..

The good to be accomplished in money-saving to the State, by this law properly carried out, can scarcely be estimated too high.

This law does not create one board of health alone, but nearly a hundred boards of health; for each county in the State, by virtue of this law, has a board of health; the county commissioners, the assessors and the trustee of each township become a board of health, with a health officer directly on the ground to investigate the causes of disease in each particular locality, and recommend and enforce the remedy.

The wisdom of the law is manifest. It gives us a State board with supervision of the whole State. Then county commissioners, with supervision of entire counties, with power to ditch low lands, improve roads, etc.; township trustees and assessors, whose field of observation and work is limited to the township in which they reside, and which usually consists of an one-eighth, or one-tenth, or one-twentieth of a county; with a secretary of each county board, who becomes the health officer of the county.

With judicious appointments to fill the various places on the