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TOPICS OF PUBLIC INTEREST.

Civil Service Examinations for the State and County Service.

THE State Civil Service Commission announces general examinations to be held March 11, 1905, including among others the following positions: assistant in geology, State Museum; bridge draughtsman, State Engineer's office; fireman; foreman of broom shop, state prisons; junior bridge draughtsman, State Engineer's office; matron, state hospitals for the insane; orderly (male nurse), Erie County Hospital; steward (woman), institutions for women; supervisor of farm cottage, Rochester State Industrial School; taxidermist, State Museum; veal inspector; woman physician, state hospitals and institutions.

Applications for these examinations must be made on or before March 7. Full particulars of the examination and blank applications may be obtained by addressing the chief examiner of the Commission at Albany.

Army Medical Corps Examinations.

PRELIMINARY examinations for appointment of assistant surgeons in the army will be held on May 1 and August 1, 1905, at points to be hereafter designated. Permission to appear for examination can be obtained upon application to the Surgeon General, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C., and from whom full information concerning the examination can be procured.

The examinations will be held concurrently throughout the country at points where boards can be convened. Due consideration will be given to the localities from which applications are received, in order to lessen the traveling expenses of applicants as much as possible.

For the examinations of May 1, applications must be complete and in possession of the Surgeon General on or before April 1, and for the examination of August 1, on or before July 1.

A NEW charter of the American National Red Cross has been passed by both houses of Congress. This charter, which puts the organisation practically under the control of the government, was drawn by two former secretaries of state-Mr. Richard Olney and Mr. John W. Foster.-Med. Age.

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 284 FRANKLIN ST., BUFFALO, N. Y.

VOL. XLIV.-Lx.

MARCH, 1905.

No. 8

Medical Society of the State of New York

NINETY-NINTH ANNUAL SESSION.

R. HAMILTON D. WEY, president of the society, has ample reason to feel great satisfaction in the ninety-ninth annual meeting of the Medical Society of the State of New York, held at Albany, January 31, February 1 and 2, 1905. Could the fathers who organised this body in 1806 have looked down upon it while in session during the closing of the first century of its existence, they surely would have been justified in exclaiming, Behold the work which we founded! Verily, we builded better than we So, too, would the distinguished father of the learned president, who occupied the chair in 1872, have been justified in exclaiming, Well done, good and faithful son!

Some special features of the program deserve mention, first of which was the report of the committee of conference. This was presented by the chairman, Dr. Henry L. Elsner, of Syracuse, who gave a summary of the work relating to amalgamation done during the past three years. In the course of the report it appeared that the Medical Society of the State of New York and all its constituent societies had unanimously ratified the propositions of the committee, but that in the Association there was opposition. from the county of Onondaga. The legal technicalities were considered and it was stated to be the conclusion of the committee that, to avoid all such in future, it would be best to reratify, and this was done at a special meeting held on Thursday noon after the adjournment of the regular session.

At the conclusion of Chairman Elsner's report, Dr. D. B. Saint John Roosa offered the following resolution, which was passed unanimously: That the committee of the society hereto

fore appointed for the purpose of bringing about consolidationnamely, Drs. Henry L. Elsner, Abraham Jacobi, Albert Vander Veer, George Ryerson Fowler and Frank Van Fleet, be and they are hereby continued as such committee with full power and authority to do whatever may be necessary to carry the agreement into effect.

Dr. John H. Pryor's report on the work done at Raybrook, and his paper on the Recognition of incipient pulmonary tubercu losis, together with the symposium on Cerebrospinal meningitis participated in by W. T. Councilman, H. L. Elsner, A. Jacobi, Charles G. Stockton, A. E. Davis, Morris Manges, DeLancey Rochester, E. Libman and E. D. Fisher, were among the interesting features of Tuesday.

In the evening Dr. Charles Harrington, of Boston, delivered an address dealing with the origin and development of the various Massachusetts state laboratories and giving in detail what they are accomplishing for the public health. Following this, Dr. Hamilton D. Wey delivered the president's anniversary address, which is published elsewhere in this issue of the JOURNAL. These ceremonies took place in the senate chamber.

The principal feature of Wednesday was a symposium on Prostatism and its treatment, participated in by L. Bolton Bangs, George Ryerson Fowler, Willy Meyer, Charles H. Chetwood, Howard Lilienthal, E. Wood Ruggles, Albert Vander Veer, Samuel Alexander, Willis G. Macdonald, Parker Syms, and (by invitation) Paul Thorndike and Francis H. Watson, of Boston, and Hugh H. Young, of Baltimore. This constituted the most extensive presentation of this topic yet made in a general medical society in this country.

The banquet on Wednesday evening was as usual very largely attended and the speech of Dr. Roosa may be regarded as the special feature of that occasion. The dinner to the ex-presidents, given by Dr. Willis G. Macdonald, at the Fort Orange Club, Monday evening; the dinner by Dr. Vander Veer to the state medical examining board, and the reception by Dr. Neuman on Tuesday evening were among the other social functions of interest. Dr. Neuman's reception was planned as a compliment to Dr. L. S. McMurtry, president of the American Medical Association. Unfortunately, however, Dr. McMurtry was prevented from attendance upon the meeting and participating in its social and scientific functions on account of illness. Telegrams and messages of sympathy, expressing regret at his absence, were duly dispatched to his home at Louisville.

The following-named officers were elected to serve for the ensuing year: president, Joseph D. Bryant, New York; vice-presi

dent, Herman R. Ainsworth, Addison; secretary, Frederic C. Curtis, Albany; treasurer, O. D. Ball, Albany.

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JOSEPH D. BRYANT, M. D.,

President Medical Society of the State of New York, 1905-6,

President-elect, Joseph D. Bryant, is too well known to the medical profession of the world to need formal introduction to

any medical congress or assembly. He is one of our best-known surgeons, being famous as a teacher and author, as well as a clinician. His great work on surgery in two imperial octavo volumes is to be found in the library of every surgeon, and is an accepted textbook in most American medical schools. When it appeared in a new edition a few years ago the JOURNAL said: "Bryant is a forceful writer and makes himself clear in all operative technic. . . . He tells how to control hemorrhage in a way that cannot mislead even the novitiate. . . . His treatise is a distinct addition to a surgical literature, already rich in quantity and quality."

Dr. Bryant ranks as one of the distinguished citizens of the Empire state, prominent in its civic, medical, and social affairs, and his administration of the business interests and scientific

work of the society during the current year may be anticipated with a confidence in its successful accomplishment. His experience is large, his acquaintance numerous, and his views broad. It ought to be possible, during his term of office, for Dr. Bryant to unite the medical profession, represented in the society and the association, into a compact harmonious body.

T

The State and the Osteopaths.

HROUGH the courtesy of Dr. Frank Van Fleet, the efficient chairman of the committee on legislation of the Medical Society of the State of New York, we have received a copy of senate bill, No. 298, introduced by Senator Davis, which is entitled, an act regulating the practice of osteopathy. This bill would create an additional schism in the practice of medicine, and give the state the confusion and complication incidental to five sets of state and county medical societies where there should be but one. The bill is informing and should be conclusive as to the nature of osteopathy, and from its provisions we are told that "osteopathy means that science or system of healing which treats diseases of the human body by manual therapeutics;" and, further, that "osteopathists when duly licensed and registered in accordance with this act shall have all the rights and privileges and be subject to the rules and regulations that govern other physicians."

This is in exact harmony with the facts in the case, and corresponds with the ideas we have had upon the subject for years; moreover, it seems to establish the fact, at least, so far as the osteopaths are able to do so, that osteopathy is the practice of

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