(U. S. M. H. S., Passed Assistant Sanitary Inspector, Health Officer of the port of Genesee, N. Y.), of Rochester, N. Y. His results were embodied in a report to the Rochester Pathological Society, which promptly passed a resolution recommending "that the communion ordinance of churches should be so modified as to lessen the liability to the transmission of contagious diseases which attaches to the prevalent method of observance." It was he who also devised what is now known as the individual communion chalice or cup.

Dr. Forbes found in the dregs of the ordinary cup contamination from both the mouth and clothing; from the former, epithelial cells, mucus and various bacteria and spores; from the latter, fibrous material. All of which showed the possible danger of the common cup. Two epidemics of diphtheria, one occurring in 24 families in Rochester, and one in San José, California, were traced to a common communion cup, the wipings from the rim of which showed microscopically the Loeffler bacilli.

Two months later, my own studies on a similar plan revealed tubercle bacilli in two out of five specimens, as well as some pus staphylococci, pus cells and oral epithelial cells. Such facts are incontrovertible; the inferences and conclusions to be derived from them are not less obvious to us all, in their vital and far reaching importance.

September 26, 1894, the writer read a paper on the need of prophylaxis in churches by the adoption of individual communion cups, before the Philadelphia County Medical Society (since published in the Vol. XV, Transactions for that year). The historical, rational (both inductive and deductive), and practical argument for the abolition of the common and the substitution of the individual cup was stamped with the Society's approval, by a virtually unanimous vote in favor of resolutions recommending the individual cup system for general adoption in place of the common cup, wherever now used; and believing that the change, if effected,

would afford a clean, safe and reliable means for preventing the spread of contagious disease from such a source as may reside in the ordinary chalice.

During the first year, just elapsed, of this sanitary communion reform, so many churches have practiced the individual cup method of administering the communion wine, that it is difficult to estimate their number throughout the United States.

The first church in Christendom to adopt the modification was the North Baptist Church, in Rochester, N. Y. It began the use of individual communion cups, using over 2000, on Sunday, May 6, 1894. "The time consumed in distributing, partaking and collecting cups was a trifle less than eleven minutes. The old way required nearly forty-five minutes." The pastor, who was first opposed to the innovation, has been delighted ever since. "They" (the cups) he says, "are beautiful, chaste, rich, refined and decidedly cleanly."

Within one month thereafter, fourteen churches in that city had made the change and six more had signified their intention to do so. These included the Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist denominations. After the writer's investigations, the Fourth Baptist Church of Philadelphia adopted the individual communion cup. One Presbyterian, one Methodist and one Reformed Church have followed. Several pastors of some of these denominations have agitated the subject before their respective ministerial and synodical associations with favorable results. My own efforts, supported by Drs. Griffith and Ely before the Philadelphia Baptist Minister's Conference, in the same direction, met with gratifying comments, and the individual cup was recommended.

The movement is progressing with an undoubted vigor and rapidity quite wholesome and substantial, which argues well for its ultimate prevalence among the churches. Individual communion cups are now in use in several New York City and Brooklyn churches, besides those referred to in Rochester; also in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Illinois, Mis

MEDICAL PROGRESS.

HYPNOTISM.-There seem many signs, says the Lancet, that we are witnessing the decay of hypnotism. The stream of hypnotic literature would appear to be gradually subsiding-not, perhaps, before it was time-and the interest in the subject, both public and professional, is evidently on the decline. The claim of hypnotism to take rank, not as a curious psychological phenomenon, but as a recognized branch of therapeutics, is now pressed with much less insistence and sincerity than was the case a few years ago; and it would seem that history is once more repeating itself, and that the periodic burst of attention and curiosity evoked by the subject has for the present, as on former occasions, spent its force. To our readers such a course of events will be in no way surprising. While admitting that modern hypnotism presented some new developments and refinements, we have always maintained that in essence it was identical with the mesmerism, Braidism, animal magnetism, and electro-biology of former times, and that in due course it would be found to be barren, if not noxious, in the field of medicine. Students of psychology must always be interested in the curious phenomena of hypnotism, but we feel more than well justified in having resisted the intrusion of hypnotic doctrine and practice into the domain of medical science. The dangers of the proposed new departure were evident and grave, its advantages at best problematical, at worst illusory and deceptive. It may not be amiss to recall some of the salient features of a controversy which, we suspect, is nearing its predestined termination.

A cardinal point, ab initio, was, Are hypnotic phenomena normal or abnormal, physiological or pathological? It has been alleged that the phenomena were perfectly normal and natural, and some of the apostles of the movement have even gone so far as to assert that more than ordinary strength and balance of mind were necessary to constitute anyone a thoroughly good subject for hypnotism. It was said that the power

of sustained concentration of attention was the most essential point in securing the success of the experiments, and that such a power was the very antithesis of hysteria or morbid neurosis. On the other hand, the more general and gradually prevailing opinion has been that the hypnotic trance and all the curious attendant phenomena were of the nature of disease and showed a mind not abnormally strong or even normally sane, but to a more or less extent temporarily off its balance. This latter view is, in our judgment, most in accord with recorded fact and most consistent with theory. The hypnotic subjects who abounded in Paris and Nancy did not seem to most dispassionate observers to be good examples of sane and vigorous intellect. On the contrary, the atmosphere of morbid introspection, display and more or less charlatanism seemed to cleave to these practiced performers and all their curious evolutions. Ordinary experience of life teaches us that one of the most potent forces in human nature is the love of notoriety and the desire to become the center of interested attention. Possunt quia posse videntur is a principle of very wide application. Granted an atmosphere of excited interest and a strong expectancy of certain results on the part of subjects and operators, and the most astonishing effects can easily be produced. Again, if it is of the essence of hypnotism that the subject should yield his will to that of the operator, and more or less merge his personality in that of another individual, we think such a condition much more likely to be associated with mental weakness than with mental strength. We by no means assert that conscious imposture was usual in these experiments, although we believe it had often a considerable share in the results, and we quite admit that hypnosis is a genuine phenomenon-as genuine, for example, as somnambulism; but we believe it to be essentially morbid, and associated with feebleness of will and unusual impressionability. The most probable theory of its causation has always seemed to us the view that was put forward by Heidenhain and other good physiolo

gists-viz., that the hypnotic trance is the result of an inhibition of some portions of the cerebral substance, the remaining portions acting abnormally and giving an extraordinary response to ordinary stimuli.

The second great controversy had regard to the question, Granting that hypnosis is real and can be evoked according to definite rules, is it capable of being turned to useful account in the field of therapeutics? When we reflect upon the strong claims that were put forward for hypnotism as an anesthetic, an analgesic, a nerve stimulant, and what not, it must seem not a little surprising that so potent an agent should be allowed to rust in the not overstocked armory of treatment. We suspect the marvelous results alleged to have been attained have not well withstood the crucial tests of time and wider experience. There was a stage in the annals of this curious history when even grave organic maladies-e. g., hemiplegia, Bell's paralysis, etc.-were alleged to be submissive to hypnotism. We are not sure that even tumors were not alleged to have vanished on the waving of the magic hypnotic wand. But by degrees one claim only was insisted upon-namely, that hypnotism was a potent remedy for "functional" nervous affections. Every experienced physician knows that these maladies constitute the most illusive of all fields for therapeutic experiment. The victim of functional nerve disorder not infrequently gets well with any. treatment or no treatment. Above all is it clear that any strong impression on the nervous system, whether produced accidentally or by deliberate therapeutic endeavor, frequently results in the cure. of such cases. That hypnotism is one wayof producing such an impression we fully grant, and its beneficial effect might be freely admitted if there was no reason to suspect that the cure might be worse than the disease. To drive out neurasthenia by inducing the hypnotic state is a procedure fraught with so much peril, both on the moral and the physical side, that it can only be undertaken with grave apprehension. The broken-down nervous systems that form

the bulk of neurasthenic cases are bad material for doubtful psychical experiments. Rather should we commend in such cases the old and well-tried methods of treatment by rest, change, fresh air, diet, tonics, modification of unwholesome environment, suitable occupation, and recreation. These methods often succeed, and it can at least be said that their failure does not make the case of the patient worse than the first.

Hypnotism is undoubtedly worthy of study, but we suspect that more and more it will be handed over to the psychologist, perhaps sometimes to the alienist, and that its interest for the practical physician will steadily wane. Until the evidence of its utility is a hundredfold more conclusive than it at present appears we shall not regret having striven to preserve medical science from identification with doctrines and methods which are tainted with charlatanry.

num

CEMETERIES AND TYPHOID FEVER.The Sanitary Record says: Whether a burial ground shall or shall not be a danger to the health of the surrounding population depends on a ber of conditions and circumstances some of which may not be easily determined in any particular place, and others may change in course of time. When interments are carried out with proper care, and the ground is covered with grass and trees, there is no danger to be apprehended from emanations; even in the ground air the predominant gas is carbonic acid. The chief danger consists in the probable contamination of the ground water and water supply, and this is directly connected with the nature of the soil as regards its permeability to air and water, and its richness or otherwise in the bacteria of nitrification. In light, sandy loams decomposition and the resolution of the corpse into salts and gases proceeds so rapidly that almost every trace of the soft parts is gone in a dozen years or less, with little or no offence; while, on the other hand, in a cold, stiff clay, a putrid, stinking mass remains for fifty years or more, and in a dead earth, such as one