CREMATION as a means of disposing of the dead is gaining favor in England. Nine crematories are already established in that country, and many of the laity commend this method of bodily destruction, while physicians almost unanimously endorse the method as sanitary and practical.

THE old Jefferson Medical College, which was erected in 1828, will soon be demolished to make room for the new College Hospital. The present hospital, which was established in 1877, will also be razed, as the structure contemplated will be sufficiently large to occupy the sites of both old buildings.

FANITIS is a term term coined to designate an affliction caused by the cooling breezes of the electric fan. Frequenters of summer gardens and cafes are the principal victims of the distressing condition, the subjective symptoms of which are those contemplated in the oldfashioned cold or neuralgia.

CHRISTIAN scientists desiring to practice their healing powers in Virginia will hereafter be subjected to an examination before the State Board of Medical Examiners, and will be compelled to conform to the regular requirements. The Virginia legislature recently passed a bill to this effect, and its action has been highly commended.

THE American Surgical Association elected the following officers for the ensuing year: President, Doctor N. P. Dandridge, Cincinnati ; vicepresident, Doctor Charles A. Powers, Denver; secretary, Doctor Dudley P. Allen, Cleveland; treasurer, Doctor George R. Fowler Brooklyn; recorder, Doctor Richard R. Harte, Philadelphia.

DOCTOR S. WEIR MITCHELL has expressed himself as antagonistic to the prominent position given to college athletics at the present time, and seems to think that mental development suffers as a consequence. He particularly condemns the game of football on the ground that many cases of invalidism are due to the strenuousness of the sport.

THE enjoyment of a roof garden is now afforded tuberculosis patients at the Philadelphia. Hospital. The garden is about two hundred feet long by thirty feet wide, and is commodious enough to accommodate from eighty to one hundred consumptives. The patients will live on the roof, protection against inclement weather being insured by canvas covering.

DURING the ensuing year the following officers will represent the Minnesota State Medical Society: President, Doctor Charles L. Greene, Saint Paul; first vicepresident, Doctor Charles Hills, Pine Island; second vicepresident, Doctor Jennette McLaren, Saint Paul; third vicepresident, Doctor W. L. Darling, Saint Peter; secretary, Doctor Thomas McDavitt, Saint Paul; treasurer, Doctor R. J. Hill, Minneapolis. Doctor W. A. Hall, Minneapolis, was elected a member for two years to the house of delegates of the American Medical Association, and Doctor William Davis, of Saint Paul, was chosen as holdover delegate.

Ax epidemic of dengue is reported to be prevalent in Honolulu and other parts of the Hawaiian Islands. Suspension of court was necessitated recently in Hilo on account of several lawyers and jurors being stricken with this disease, the causative factor in the transmission of which is thought to be the mosquito.

MCGILL University is the recipient of a bequest of sixty thousand dollars from the late James Cooper, who gave the money to establish a chair of internal medicine at that institution. The gift, which will not be available until two years after the demise of the testator, has been designated the Cooper Endowment Fund.

COLZI, of Florence, recently succumbed to lockjaw. The doctor was injured while enjoying a hunt, and amputation of an arm was rendered necessary. He endured the operation without an anesthetic, and volunteered advice during the procedure. Three months of great suffering, however, terminated in his demise.

THE directors of the Lebanon Hospital, of New York City, intend to erect a building in connection with that institution for convalescent patients. A subscription of five thousand dollars was lately received from the United Hebrew Charities of New York to further the project. The annex will be accessible to all classes, regardless of creed or country.

TYPHOID fever, as a result of the recent flood, is reported to be greatly on the increase in Saint Louis. Twenty serious cases are confined in Saint Margaret's Hospital, while ten cases are being attended in Saint Joseph's Hospital. Nearly all the hospitals in the city have some patients stricken with the disease, and a total of sixty-nine cases have been reported thus far.

MRS. VANDERBILT, widow of the late Cornelius, recently formally presented to the trustees of the Newport Hospital a ward, erected on the hospital property, in memory of her husband. In addition to the gift, which cost $250,000, and which is intended for needy poor, a generous endowment has been provided. The hospital has been the recipient of over $500,000 from various members of the Vanderbilt family.

THE Ohio State Medical Society met at Dayton, June 3-5, 1903. The registrations numbered four hundred nine. There are over eight thousand physicians in Ohio who are eligible to membership, but the society contains less than a thousand on its rolls. The papers were excellent but were not sufficinetly numerous to occupy a three days' session with their reading and discussion. The following officers were elected: President, Doctor Charles Hamilton, Columbus; vicepresidents, Doctors W. W. Pennell, Fredericktown, F. M. Wright, Troy, E. R. McClellan, Toledo, and H. Chisholm, Marion; secretary-treasurer, Doctor P. M. Foshay, Cleveland. Delegates to the National Council: Doctor J. S. Beck, Dayton, C. A. L. Reed, Cincinnati, and P. M. Foshay, Cleveland. The next meeting will be held in Cleveland.

THE Consolidation of the New York Medical Journal and the Philadelphia Medical Journal has been effected. The publication will be issued from New York City with branch offices in Philadelphia and Chicago. In the announcement directing attention to the change the editors state that "in bringing about the consolidation the publishers have not been actuated solely by a desire to enlarge the subscription list, though they do not profess to have been unmindful of the advantage to be derived from such accretion. They have cherished the far higher purpose of combining and furnishing to an enlarged circle of readers all the features thought to be of special value in the two journals."

RECENT LITERATURE.

REVIEWS.

REFERENCE HANDBOOK OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES: VOLUME VI.*

THIS is the largest volume of the series yet published. It embraces articles at length on Muscle, Myopia, Nasal Cavities, Nasal Hygiene, Neck, Nerves, Neurone, New-Born, Occcupation, Ophthalmoscope, Optometry, Pancreas, Pelves, Perineum, Pharmacopeia, Pharynx, Photomicrography, Pneumonia, Poisonous Plants and Reptiles, Prostate, Ptomains, Pulse, Recruits, Reparative Surgery, Resection of Joints, Roentgen Rays, and very many shorter articles on other subjects naturally coming within the alphabetical limits. A comparison of many of the articles contained by these handbooks with monographs on the same topics separately published elsewhere, results in a most favorable showing by this series.

*By various writers. Edited by Albert H. Buck, M. D., New York. Illustrated by chromolithographs and seven hundred sixty-three halftones and wood engravings. William Wood & Company, New York, 1903.

A SYSTEM OF PHYSIOLOGIC THERAPEUTICS.*

THIS work consists of a series of eleven volumes on therapeutic remedies other than drugs, the first five of which embrace the following subjects:

Volumes I and II-Electrotherapy. By George W. Jacoby, M. D. Part I-Electrophysics. Part II—Apparatus required for the therapeutic and diagnostic use of electricity. Part III-Electrophysiology and electropathology. Part IV-Electrodiagnosis and electroprognosis. Part V-Electrotherapeutics.

Volumes III and IV-Climatology-Health Resorts-Mineral Springs. By F. Parkes Weber, M. D., and Guy Hinsdale, M. D. Part

I-Physics, physiology, and general therapeutics of climate. Part II— Description of health resorts. Part III-Climatotherapeutics.

Volume V-Prophylaxis-Personal Hygiene-Civic Hygiene-Care of the Sick. By Joseph McFarland, M. D. et al. Part I-The origin and prevention of disease. Part II-Civic hygiene. Part III-Domestic and personal hygiene; nursing and care of the sick room.

In a foreword the author states that the System is the first effort in the English language to cover this department of therapeutics in a thorough and harmonious manner. It is intended to be practical rather than encyclopedic, and consequently history and references to literature are infrequent. Each volume is a compact and complete book, but is blended to form a part of the organic whole. The first five hundred pages of the series discuss the question of electricity in medicine, beginning with the fundamental conceptions of the force and proceeding to an exhaustive consideration of frictional and dynamic electricity, after which other divisions of the subject are introduced. Five chapters are devoted to the apparatus required for the diagnostic and therapeutic use of electricity. The third and fourth volumes deal with the fundamental principles underlying the application of climates, health resorts, and mineral springs in the prevention and treatment of disease. The fifth volume discusses the natural history of medicine, and gives information regarding the origin, dissemination, and prevention of disease. The volumes are thoroughly scientific and eminently practical and will afford valuable reference books for the general practician.

*A Practical Exposition of the Methods, Other than Drug-Giving, Useful in the Treatment of the Sick. Edited by Solomon Solis Cohen, A. M., M. D., Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics in the Philadelphia Polyclinic; Lecturer on Clinical Medicine at Jefferson Medical College, et cetera. Published by P. Blakiston's Son & Company, 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Price, eleven volumes, $22.00

net.

RADIUM.*

RADIUM is the title of a lecture delivered by William J. Hammer at a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Electrochemical Society held in New York City, April 17, 1903. The lecture is now published in book form by the D. van Nostrand Company, New York.

The author considers in a comprehensive way the knowledge that has been gained during the past few years on radioactive substances such as radium, polonium actinium, and thorium. He also considers. the subjects of phosphorescent and fluorescent substances, the properties and applications of selenium and the treatment of disease by the ultraviolet rays. The work is appropriately illustrated.

*By William J. Hammer, Consulting Electrical Engineer, New York City. Published by D. van Nostrand Company, New York City. Price, $1.00.

THE MOST RATIONAL METHOD OF OPERATION FOR HEMORRHOIDS.

BY EMIL RIES, M. D., CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

PROFESSOR OF GYNECOLOGY IN THE POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL.

THE methods of operating on hemorrhoids most employed at the present time and most extensively presented in text-books are the following three:

(1) Clamp and cautery.

(2) Ligature.

(3) Injection.

The last named method is the pet method of the itinerant or sedentary quack, but is also used more or less extensively by surgeons all over the world. While its migratory apostles claim for it the advantages of quick, safe and painless recovery and infallible cure, the investigations of the more critically inclined have proven these claims to be grossly exaggerated-to use a mild term. But were the cautery or the ligature blessed with all the advantages which the partisans of the injection so liberally advertise for their method, the irregulars would not have so many willing victims. It is certain, however, that the injection method has run up such an enormous bill of disasters1 that its bankruptcy is practically an accepted fact. Its use might be recommended or rather risked in a very limited number of slight cases of internal hemorrhoids, and then only under precautions which are very little less rigid than those to be observed with the other methods mentioned.

The cautery and the ligature methods, which in other and less neglected regions of the human anatomy have been obliged to abdicate, are still sovereign in this field. Their use implies that the operator wilfully 1 For this bill see the account by Andrews.