work, with a room for deliveries. In a screened-off portion of the ward are the babies, each carefully tagged, maternal instinct sometimes requiring this reinforcement.

Mr. George R. Howard has been elected first vice-president of the Board of Trustees.

Mr. Arnold Watson has been chosen to fill the place of his father, the late Henry M. Watson, who was for eighteen years a member of the Board of Trustees.

On the first of July, Dr. Ross takes possession of his new residence, on the southwest corner of Linwood Avenue and Ferry Street. The superintendent's house on the hospital grounds is to be sold and removed. Its present site will then be improved, in accordance with a general plan for the development of the hospital grounds.

The Radiological Department

IT has been the good fortune of those interested in the Hospital, to see during the past year many additions to the working equipment which have largely increased the efficiency of the institution and its staff. Among others, the department of radiology has been enlarged and improved, and there is now available an apparatus for r-ray diagnosis, of the most modern and approved type.

This particular field has been extended of late and the department now is a most important factor in the conduct of any firstclass hospital.

This method of diagnosis has long been of the greatest value to surgeons in the investigation of injuries and diseases of the osseous system and in the location of foreign bodies as bullets, needles, and the like, that have found accidental entrance into the human economy. Now through the perfection of details in the operative technic, and in the apparatus itself, we are enabled to extend our researches into chest and abdominal conditions, and to approach more nearly a state of accurate knowledge in a given case, a result much to be desired.

While skill and experience on the part of the personnel of the department is necessary, much depends on the apparatus at hand. In the new equipment recently supplied by the hospital little is left to be desired, and the hospital may now call for, and expect to get, as good r-ray work as can be found anywhere.

This new instrument is capable of producing a current of the proper sort of such intensity that with correct handling a radiograph may be made of the adult pelvis in less than one second, or what may be termed a snap shot radiograph. The outfit consists of three units-transformer, control stand, and operating table.

The two latter are of conventional design plann

ed to facilitate rapid and safe work and have proved their worth in actual use. The chief unit is the transformer, a very good example of an ingenious and well built electrical machine. A five horsepower rotary convertor is the actuating element and, in combination with an open type transformer and rectifying switch, produces a current of sufficient heat and pressure to excite an x-ray tube to the degree necessary to obtain skiagrams under the most difficult conditions in the shortest possible time.

The radiological department is in general use by all other departments of the hospital and a rough estimate would place the number of examinations at about twelve hundred during the year. New methods have increased the demands in this direction, and the expense of upkeep has likewise risen. Farsighted executives have met this problem with a policy of generous appropriations and thanks to their attitude this important function of the hospital is now being carried on in an efficient, scientific and systematic manner. The department is in charge of Dr. Plummer and Dr. Schreiner.

The Training School

THE graduation exercises took place Monday evening, June 12, under most favorable conditions. The address of the evening was given by the Reverend William H. Boocock. Dr. James W. Putnam presented the badges and Mr. C. W. Pardee the diplomas. An inspiring feature of the evening was the administering of the Florence Nightingale Pledge by Mr. Pardee, the graduating class standing during its recital in witness that they accepted it.

The entire class with a number of former graduates took the Regents' examinations in June to qualify as registered nurses.

This class illustrates well the differentiation which is creeping into the field of nursing; several members intend to take up institutional work, one will devote herself to the care of children and another whose preference is for obstetric cases hopes to return to the Buffalo General Hospital for further training in that direction.

At the time of graduation seven of the class had enrolled for Red Cross work and most of the others intended to do so. For this service nurses from registered schools only are eligible, and they must have the official endorsement of their school or of some authorised association of nurses. The Red Cross Society desires a large enrollment as, except in case of war, nurses are not required to respond to the call of the Red Cross if it interferes with other work. Nurses who are not Americans, if called on for war service, take an oath of allegiance to the United

States. The General Hospital is well represented on the Red Cross lists.

Some changes in the training school are under way. system of twelve-hour duty for graduate nurses on special duty in the Hospital went into effect July 1, such nurse to receive twenty-one dollars a week or three dollars a day. This does away with the nurse who, at twenty-five dollars or more a week, was on duty or "on call" for the full twenty-four hours. It has been objected that this change means greater expense for the patient, but such instances will be exceptional. For ordinary cases, the twelve hour service will suffice; while for a patient in a critical condition requiring constant attention, two nurses are always necessary. The new arrangement lightens even that expense when it is inevitable. The training school will keep a list of nurses who desire hospital work, but this will in no way interfere with the present arrangement for registering nurses for private duty, nor will the Training School be limited to its own list. Calls must frequently be made upon the registry as heretofore in order to meet the demands. It is further arranged now that all special nurses are engaged by the hospital, instead of by the patient directly or by his physician. While this leaves both patient and physician as free to choose their nurse as they have been in the past, it brings the nurse herself into a better relation with the hospital.

Probationers will in the future be received in March and September instead of four times a year. This permits improvements in the curriculum as the time which must now be devoted to class work for probationers will be diminished one-half. Probationers will probably be accepted about the fourth month and will be in full uniform before the arrival of the next class. While the Buffalo General Hospital has perhaps had less difficulty than many hospitals in securing a sufficient number of desirable applications, it is a deplorable fact that many well qualified young women cannot take up the work because of lack of means. Uniforms and textbooks are provided, but the fact that there is no remuneration during the three years of study shuts out much good material. A loan fund to meet the needs of such women has been started by one generous gift and when the terms under which such a fund will be administered have been defined, it is hoped that material additions to it will be received. Such gifts would share the distinction of the benefactions which have made possible the maternity service where comparatively small amounts applied at a strategic point have yielded results of high value.

BUFFALO MEDICAL JOURNAL

A Monthly Review of Medicine and Surgery

EDITOR

WILLIAM WARREN POTTER, M. D.

All communications, whether of a literary or business nature, books for review and exchanges, should be addressed to the editor, 238 DELAWARE AVENUE, BUFFALO, N.Y.

VOL. LXVI.

No. 12

JULY, 1911.

Joseph Price

IN

N the death of Joseph Price the world has lost one of its most brilliant abdominal operators and a man of force and character whose individuality and work will remain monuments to his memory as a gynecic surgeon.

Joseph Price had firmly fixed ideas regarding methods and manners of operating and whatever opinion any individual may have formed regarding his procedures there could be no question concerning his ability as a diagnostician in his chosen field of endeavor or his success as an operator. From the day when, as resident physician at the Philadelphia Dispensary, he laid the foundation of his fame by a large series of operations with uniformly successful results, until the day of his tragic death, Price occupied a position of enviable prominence. By his worth he demanded recognition while still a young man and he maintained his position to the time of his death on June 6, at his home in Philadelphia.

For two weeks Dr. Price had been ill and was confined to his bed most of the time. The day of his death he was informed that a girl patient whom he had previously cared for had been received at his hospital suffering with appendicitis. He rose from his sick bed and did an appendectomy on this patient. Within an hour after the completion of the operation he complained of pain and informed his assistants that he was suffering with acute appendicitis and that an immediate operation was imperative. He superintended the preparations for the work and in a short time was operated. A few hours later he died not having recovered from the shock of the operation.

Joseph Price was born in Rockingham County, Va., January 1, 1853. His early education was received in local schools and

in New York state. He entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania being graduated with that famous class of 1877 which contained so many men who have achieved great prominence in medicine and surgery. He became resident physician of the Philadelphia Dispensary and was later placed in charge of the department of gynecology. It was during this time that he pointed for his prominence as a gynecologist and abdominal surgeon. He performed a great many operations in the alleys and tenements of Philadelphia under the most adverse circumstances and achieved brilliant successes. The long, almost unbelievable number of cases operated and the large number of recoveries reported brought to him a fame which has never dimmed. Later he was resident physician at the Preston Re

treat.

Shortly after he entered upon private practice he established the Gynecean Hospital for the care of his patients and it became one of the best known institutions in this country. He was one of the founders of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and its president in 1896.

In spite of the demands upon his time by his practice as a surgeon and consultant Dr. Price contributed much to the literature of appendicitis and gynecology and his writings are accepted as authority in these branches.

Although he visited Buffalo infrequently Dr. Price had many friends in this city and was the teacher of several Buffalo physicians who took special courses in gynecologic surgery at his private hospital in Philadelphia.

A widow and seven children survive him. A brother, also a well known gynecologist, Dr. Mordecai Price, died in 1904.

University of Buffalo, 1846-1911

THE Commencement exercises of the University of Buffalo were held at the Teck Theater on June 1 and the four departments graduated 153 students divided as follows: Medicine 41; pharmacy 50; law 35; dentistry 27. There were eight women in the classes, four in medicine, two in pharmacy and one each in law and dentistry.

The theater was filled to its capacity and was handsomely decorated with American colors and the University blue and