recent attention. Menzer believes that pneumonia, measles and scarletfever are acquired by way of the tonsil. Packard shows that endocarditis, and Baumgarten that tuberculosis may be tonsilar in origin. Diphtheria, erysipelas and acute rheumatism are without doubt to be included in the list, and Forchheimer, in a recent paper, describes two cases of appendicits and five of catarrhal jaundice in which a preceding streptococcus, staphylococcus or mixed infection of the tonsil made it evident that that was the place of entrance.

The observation that bacteria, often pathogenic bacteria, live for weeks or months in the mouth and throat is an old one. Every epidemic of diphtheria with symptoms is evidence of a wider epidemic of infection with the diphtheria germ without symptoms. In other words in every epidemic some of those infected are sick, others show no symptoms, but carry and may spread the disease. The pneumococcus is sometimes carried in the mouth for months, and to the man who harbors it the death-sentence is impending; its execution may be merely a matter of wet feet.

The inference is obvious, old, but neglected. Sore-throat, diphtheria and consumption, to a lesser degree rheumatism and jaundice, make the rounds of a family. To recommend an efficient antiseptic mouth-wash and gargle, for use by every member of the household, is the physician's first duty when called in a case of any infection of the mouth, throat, nose or lung.

The inefficacy of antiseptics in many contagious diseases has no bearing on their use in prevention. To take a single example, the germ of diphtheria, even when localized in plain view and within easy reach, is, in the developed disease, entrenched in living tissue. Noncorrosive antiseptics have no chance. On the other hand germs loose in the throat can escape no more easily than if they were in a test-tube.

Another point should be emphasized. Throat cleanliness, though desirable and more important to health than removal of dust from the skin, may be difficult to bring into general favor. The physician is often, however, called on to advise in regard to the care of children and sometimes of older people who are fragile and the cause of anxiety. Many such lives might be spared by the use of simple means at our command.

MEDICAL NEWS.

THE PASSING OF AN EMINENT GYNECOLOGIST. DOCTOR THEODORE GAILLARD THOMAS, of New York City, died at Thomasville, Georgia, on the 28th instant, the cause of his demise, which was sudden, being cardiac disease. The doctor was a native of South Carolina, having been born on Edisto Island, near Charleston, November 21, 1831. His father was a clerygman, and a lineal descendant of Reverend Samuel Thomas, who was sent to South Carolina by the

Church of England in 1700. His mother was Jane Marshall Gaillard, who could trace her ancestry to Theodore Gaillard, a Huguenot refugee, who appeared in South Carolina on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Deceased graduated from the Medical College of Charleston in 1852, subsequently pursuing clinical study abroad, and afterward (1855) locating in New York City, where he rendered service as resident physician in the Bellevue and Ward's Island hospitals, and finally became associated in practice with the late Doctor John T. Metcalfe. Eventually he received the appointment of professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, soon thereafter becoming a noted teacher and consultant. Gradually he relinquished the chair of obstetrics but retained that of diseases of women. As an operator his brilliant work while attending surgeon to the Women's Hospital brought him international repute. He not only achieved a reputation as teacher, operator, and consultant, but was likewise a writer and speaker of acknowledged ability. Manuscripts contributed to societies and journals bore the fruits of his experience and ingenuity, but the work that became a classic was that on "Diseases of Women," which was probably the most popular book on gynecology ever published in the world, having been translated into a dozen languages, including the Chinese. "Abortion and its Treatment, from the Standpoint of Practical Experience," being a series of six lectures delivered in his collegiate capacity, also gained a wide circulation. The presidencies of the New York Obstetrical Society and the American Gynecological Society were among the positions to which he had been elevated. He enjoyed an extensive hospital connection, and at the time of his demise was emeritus professor in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical department of Columbia University. As a physician, he was regarded the most eminent and thoroughly representative member of the profession in New York.

MINOR INTELLIGENCE.

DOCTORS FRANK B. and H. O. WALKER have removed their offices from 27 Adams avenue, east, to 612 Washington Arcade, 257 Woodward avenue, Detroit.

DOCTOR AND MRS. CHRISTIAN A. HERTER, of New York City, have given $25,000 to the Johns Hopkins University for the establishment of a lectureship in medicine.

RABIES is said to have become extinct in England and Australia, owing to the strict precautions which have recently been exercised. Animals landed in these countries are quarantined under the attention of experts for several days.

THE will of A. C. Hutchinson, of New Orleans, who died several months ago, bequeaths the major part of an estate valued at about $900,000, to Tulane University. A brother of the deceased recently instituted proceedings to annul the will.

EIGHT pavilions of steel and glass will be constructed in connection with the Philadelphia Hospital and dedicated to the treatment of consumptives. The estimated cost of the buildings is $125,000.

THE board of health of the state of Maine has memorialized the senate of that commonwealth for the appropriation of $10,000 for the construction of an Emergency hospital for contagious diseases.

DOCTORS H. L. NIEBERT and L. Rassieur presented a patient at a recent meeting of the Saint Louis Medical Society of City Hospital Alumni, who had recovered from a gunshot wound of the heart.

MUNICH physicians discontinued the practice of reporting 'sickness to the health office of that city, on January 1, because of the refusal of the municipality to supply postage. The doctors announce that reports will be resumed when postage is forthcoming from the authorities.

THE trustees of the Massachusetts Hospital for Epileptics, located at Monson, have asked for $50,000 with which to construct a group of farm buildings to relieve congestion in the institution buildings proper. There are over three hundred patients in the hospital, the weekly cost of maintaining whom is $4.31 per capita.

RESOLUTIONS were recently passed by the New York Academy of Medicine recommending that the medical officers of the isthmian canal have ample powers to execute practical sanitary measures at the seat of operations during the construction of said canal, and that the commission include a sanitarian in its membership.

M. ADOLPH DEUCHER, a member of the medical fraternity, has been elected for the third time to the presidency of the Swiss Republic. At an early age he became interested in politics, and gradually rose from the lower offices to the dignified position of chief executive. The meager salary of the president, £720, is illustrative of Swiss simplicity.

THE establishment of a postgraduate school of Hygiene and Medical Jurisprudence in connection with the University of Turin has been authorized by the Italian Minister of Public Instruction. It is intended for medical graduates who wish to obtain the title of sanitary officer and for others who may wish to become proficient in sanitary science.

PROFESSIONAL nurses are seeking protection in Illinois. A bill has been presented to the legislature by the State Association of Graduate Nurses which contemplates the licensing of members of this guild. In order to prevent unqualified persons from assuming and working under the title of "graduate" or trained nurse a state test is the desideratum.

ALBERT J. AKIN died in New York City on the 12th ultimo, in the one hundredth year of his age. When ninety-six years old this centenarian suffered the fracture of a femur as the result of falling from a carriage. The bone united perfectly. A year later he sustained concussion of the brain and several fractures as the principal in another carriage accident, this time astonishing physicians and friends by an excellent recovery.

MADAM A. VASSILIADES, M. D., enjoys the honor of being the first woman physician to receive appointment to public office in Greece. She was recently made physician to the prison for women at Athens.

SENN Hall, the building recently added to the equipment of Rush. Medical College of Chicago, largely through the beneficence of Doctor Nicholas Senn, was recently dedicated, Sir William Hingston, professor of clinical surgery in Laval University, Montreal, delivering the address of the occasion. The building was constructed at a cost of $130,000.

THROUGH the instrumentality of Bishop Brent, of the Philippines, a movement has been inaugurated to establish a large nonsectarian general hospital in Manila. The government has been petitioned to further the enterprise by an appropriation. If sufficient funds can be procured the institution will probably be modeled after the Boston City Hospital.

THE President of the Saint Louis Exposition Commission, on the recommendation of Howard J. Rogers, Director of Congresses, has appointed an executive committee to make arrangements for an International Medical Congress to be held in Saint Louis in 1904. Doctors F. J. Lutz, W. E. Fischel, L. H. Laidley, K. Tubolske, and W. G. Moore are members of the committee.

THE sale of adulterated phenacetin was recently detected in New York City. The inspectors of the health department procured three hundred seventy-three samples of what was sold for this product in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, and analyses demonstrated that three hundred fifteen of them were more or less adulterated, in some instances the powders being utterly devoid of phenacetin.

DOCTOR COLLINRIDGE, chief medical officer of London, has reported contamination of the Thames fisheries with the bacilli of typhoid fever. Whitebait, shrimps, smelts, and cockles are condemned, as well as oysters from the Whitstable oyster beds, twenty per cent of which were found infected. Shellfish obtained from points on the coast which supply the London market evidence sewage pollution in even greater degree.

THE legislature of Pennsylvania is about to attack the business of insuring the lives of minors. Two children are supposed to have been poisoned in order that insurance money might be obtained, and their parents, charged with having perpetrated the crime, are confined in prison awaiting the action of the grand jury. Several suspicious cases have since been disclosed and the insurance commissioner has undertaken to solve the mysteries connected therewith.

THE author of the best essay on "The Differential Diagnosis of Typhoid Fever in its Earliest Stages" will receive the Enno Sander Prize of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States for 1903. Information relating to the contest may be obtained from the secretary of the association, Major James Evelyn Pilcher, M. D., of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The board of award consists of Doctor Austin Flint, of New York, Colonel Calvin DeWitt of the Army, and Doctor Victor C. Vaughan of Ann Arbor.

THE Western Opthalmologic and Oto-Largyngologic Association. held its eighth annual meeting in Indianapolis, April 9, 10 and II, 1903, under the presidency of Doctor William L. Ballenger of Chicago. A joint meeting of the practicians in the two specialties was held at the morning session of the first day, and the afternoon session of the last day.

HENRY PHIPPS, of Philadelphia, who has acquired immense wealth through pursuit of the steel industry, offers a gift of $1,000,000 to found in the heart of the Quaker city a special hospital for consumptive patients, but the laws of Pennsylvania prohibit the erection of hospitals in thickly-settled portions of its cities. There is a bill in the legislature which contemplates the repeal of this enactment, and unless it passes the donator will probably transfer his project to New York City.

THE Germans are diggers in sand as well as delvers in science. The announcement is made that Doctor Rudolph Horzog recently discovered the temple of Aesculapius, for which excavators and archeologists have long been searching. The temple of the father of medicine was found situated beneath an old Byzantine church on the island of Cos, in the Ægean Sea, the birthplace of Hippocrates and the center where Aesculapian doctrines were taught. Among other objects of interest in the temple there posed a statue of Hygeia accompanied by an image of her serpentine companion.

DOCTOR S. WEIR MITCHELL has been instrumental in inducing Mr. Andrew Carnegie to offer the College of Physicians of Philadelphia $50,000 to expend in improvements on the library of the college, on condition that the authorities of that institution raise a second $50,000 to make the $100,000 required for the purpose. Messrs. F. W. Vanderbilt and Clement A. Griscom recently subscribed $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. This library already stands second in importance only to that of the Surgeon General's office in Washington.

THERE are six hundred members in the Medical Association of the Greater City of New York, one hundred twenty-three applicants having been elected during the past year. At the annual meeting, which was held January 12, Doctor Ransford E. Van Gilson, of Brooklyn, was elected to the vicepresidency; Doctor Arthur C. Brush was elevated to the chairmanship for the Borough of Brooklyn; and Doctor P. Brynberg Porter was reelected recording secretary. The necrologic record showed that ten deaths had occurred during the year.

THE practice of drug substitution was severely condemned in a set of resolutions adopted at a largely attended meeting of the New York College of Pharmacy, which was held on the 20th ultimo. The declaration was made in the preamble that the deceptive practice is "increasing at a rate which threatens serious professional and commercial difficulties." The members of the college pledge their individual and corporate efforts to prevent not only substitution in the dispensing of prescriptions but in the sale of physicians' armamentaria as well.