American Medical Review

A Monthly Review of

Current Medical Literature.

DANIEL LEWIS, A. M., M. D., EDITOR. GEO. B. BRADLEY, M. D., ASSOCIATE.

PUBLISHERS

THE R. N. PLUMMER COMPANY,

106-8 Fulton Street,

NEW YORK.

December, 1895.

SALUTATORY.

The AMERICAN MEDICAL REVIEW, of which this is the initial number, presents itself as a candidate for professional support, with a confidence which springs from definite plans and purposes.

Our readers will find in this and succeeding numbers a comprehensive epitome of the medical literature of the month, arranged with special reference to the requirements of the active practitioner. The most concise and practical abstracts will be published from all the special fields of medical research, and while not entering the race as rivals of journals already established, we will bring to the physician the means of knowing from month to month the progress of medical science as published in the columns of all the medical publications of the day.

With this object in view an Index Medicus of all articles appearing in American medical journals of the preceding month will be found in each

number, which will be of great value to every student of contemporary medical literature. This index will render the REVIEW an indispensable supplement to the list of journals, for the medical field is so rapidly extending that no one journal, however old and liberally maintained, can do justice to all matters of professional interest.

Under the heading of Professional Opinion, will be found the views of well-known medical men on topics of the time, and these interviews will prove of especial interest and importance to every busy practitioner.

Original articles will also regularly appear, as well as reports of proceedings of societies, especially prepared for the REVIEW.

This journal will be to the medical literature of the day what the Review of Reviews is to the world of letters, and, with all the vigor of youth, will strive to occupy a worthy position among the numerous medical periodicals of America.

The policy of the REVIEW will be to promote every interest of the profession, with an independence which recognizes no master and an unimpeachable loyalty to every principle which should prevail in journalism; and upon this platform we present ourselves, and bespeak a just measure of professional favor.

WE have no fads, not even a medical theory.

We give an index and condensation of the multitudinous other medical publications each physician would like to read, if it were possible for him to devote his entire time to that almost impossible task, and if he had the means to pay subscriptions aggregating between four and five hundred dollars a year.

The AMERICAN MEDICAL REVIEW presents its first issue under the date of December, instead of November, as announced. The change was necessitated by the enormous task involved in gathering and condensing articles, preparing an Index Medicus, and arranging in proper form the literary and scientific material which go to make up this initial number. For the future subscribers may expect to receive the REVIEW at the beginning of each month, and we trust it will prove a welcome guest.

PROGRESSIVE and practical practitioners will appreciate and approve the AMERICAN MEDICAL REVIEW. It will enable every physician to keep abreast with the times. Let the busy doctor send in his dollar for the monthly which contains the gist of two hundred medical publications.

LOUIS PASTEUR.

THE results of Louis Pasteur's scientific investigations have proven of such inestimable importance to the student of medicine and the physician,

that his death is as serious a misfortune as would have been the loss of the most

conspicuous of the many illustrious medical men of the present day. The practical applications of his discoveries have been of such a character, that it is not strange the public generally have regarded him as a member of the medical profession instead of a professor of chemistry. It is not our purpose to review his work in the study of fermentation and its practical results, which were of such transcendent value to the industries of France and every other country. Neither need we repeat the fascinating story of the discoveries which led to the final adoption

of the belief in the germ 'theory of disease, or the brilliant experiments in proving that a murderous virus may be so attenuated that its injection will prevent disease, which culminated in the famous experiments at Melun, for all these have been long familiar to every physician. But the application of this principle of inoculation in the case of patients exposed to rabies may profitably be reviewed.

The efficiency of the treatment is today pretty generally accepted, and has practically been assigned a place among the slowly increasing list of absolute facts in the science of medicine. While it is uncertain how many who have been bitten by a rabid animal would have developed the disease if the immunizing had been neglected, one thing is certain, that some of them would have been affected, and the freedom from apprehension of future danger to al is of sufficient importance to entitlel M. Pasteur to the gratitude of mankind. The question has often been raised as to the number of cases requiring these vaccinations for rabies. We find a table, compiled from the reports of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, by Miss Tarbell, in a recent number of McClure's Magazine, which is a partial answer to the query, giving the number treated for several years and the mortality from rabies among them,

as follows:

number applied for treatment, as rabies is fortunately a very rare affection in America.

If the fame of Pasteur were to depend only upon his discovery of the treatment of hydrophobia, it would be secure for all time.

WE are indebted to the Review of Reviews for the artistic portrait plate of the late M. Louis Pasteur which forms the frontispiece of this issue of the AMERICAN MEDICAL REVIEW.

THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE. THE progress of medical science formed the topic of the Anniversary Address delivered at the New York Academy of Medicine on November 21 by Dr. E. G. Janeway. The review was comprehensive and complete, as might be expected from one of the leading consulting physicians on the continent. In the course of a comparison between medicine to-day and thirty years ago, he pointed out that marked advance had taken place in bacteriology, neurology and the treatment by antitoxins. Improved medical education, the appointment of a permanent board of vaccinators and the development of hygiene were considered matters for congratulation. Dr. Janeway, however, frankly confessed that more pronounced and permanent strides had been made in surgery than in medicine, this being due to the asepsis treatment now commonly pursued. Referring to the examination of medical experts in the courts, he expressed the opinion that some plan would ultimately have to be devised by which only a certain number, if not indeed certain specialists, would be put on the witness stand. The infectiousness of

tuberculosis, he considered, was now established, and the danger of this disease in crowded localities, and even among the occupants of the manystoried business blocks in New York and other business centers, was apparent. Dr. Janeway suggested the addition of a pathological laboratory to the Academy. If the suggestion should be indorsed by the 800 members now on its roll, little trouble doubtless would be experienced in securing the necessary funds.

TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS.

WE are not prepared to accept as typical the account of the examination of a medical expert (!) who, upon his direct examination, finally was led to declare that he was an alienist, and upon being then asked for a definition of an alienist, said it was a man who was opposed to foreign immigration, who believed in America for Americans. The laying of this scene in a California court in no way affects the credibility of the story. It recalls to mind, however, the suggestion made by Dr. Seneca D. Powell, during his presidency of the Medical Society of the County of New York, that measures should be at once adopted by members of the legal profession and our own to reform the present practices regarding expert evidence. have not heard of the appointment of a committee by the Bar Association of this city and the County Medical Society to consider the question.

We

In the meantime the farce continues to be repeated, in important criminal cases, of an expert employed by the people swearing to one thing, and an equally well qualified man, in the interests of the defendant, giving the most positive evidence on the other