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nervous motility. The continuous sessions in some high schools from 9 to 1.30 is entirely too much of a strain on mind, nerves and vision. It would be, in my estimation, an advantage for the health of the child if the studying of lessons at home was largely curtailed for the older children, and totally abolished for children under 10 years of age. It is a mistake to require a young child of seven or eight to prepare any lessons at home, and for a child of tender age to study in the evening by artificial light is an abomination.

While children should not be kept at one subject so long as to tire their interest in it, the variety of subjects taught in the public schools is often so great that the child is overburdened with facts his mind is unable to assimilate. Overtaxing the memory with lists of dates, arithmetic tables, etc., is one way to prepare for mental breakdown and nervous exhaustion. Fact cramming should be avoided. at all events when leading, as often is the case, to mental confusion, which is shown sometimes in the supposedly ridiculous answers to examination questions. These mistakes of children are far from humorous to the physician, since they indicate invariably mental overstrain due to improper forcing of the immature mind of the child. Better far to abolish all examination tests than that a single child should be tortured into mental breakdown.

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him asthenopia and defective eyesight. Much of this impairment of vision is caused by the printing of textbooks in too small letters and by the use of too highly glazed paper.

Books even for young children have type of varying sizes, the smaller being usually utterly unfit for a child to read. Cohn of Breslau has said that any type is injurious to the eyes in which the height of the "n" is less than 1.5 mm. and its down stroke less than .25 mm. thick, or in which the interlineage is less than 2.5 mm., and yet I have seen textbooks in which a large part of the subject matter was so printed. For younger children, of course, the minimum size is much too small. E. R. Shaw of New York University advises in his book on school hygiene that for the first year the size of type should be at least 2.6 mm. and the width of leading 4.5 mm. For the second and third year the letter should not be smaller than 2 mm., with a leading of 4 mm. For the fourth year the letters should be at least 1.8 mm., with a leading of 3.6 mm. For all years above the

fourth the smallest size of letters should be 1.6 mm. and the narrowest leading 3 mm. Another source of eye strain is the length of the line of print. Other factors being equal, the shorter the line of print the easier to read. Cohn would prohibit any line over four inches, and for children it is best to be at least an inch less. Maps with names in fine print and crowded to

need but to be mentioned.

It is unfortunately true that the eye-gether and illustrations in half-tone are sight of the majority of the children pass- other prolific sources of eye strain which ing through the public schools is more or less impaired by the stress of school life. The child with normal vision in kindergarten by the time he has reached the high school or even the grammar grade in many instances has developed myopia or astigmatism sufficient to give

Of course, the eyes of all school children need careful attention at the first symptom of eye strain, and the present medical inspection of schools has shown the importance of compelling the correction of refractive errors. The child is

forced by law to go to school; he should therefore be put in a condition where school work will not harm either his mind, his body or his eyes.

In New York city the Association of Women Principals of the public schools has been considering the remedial causes of eye strain in present school conditions. With the advice of a number of noted oculists the following suggestions were presented to the Board of Education by the Committee on Children's Welfare:

I. That hereafter no calendared or coated paper be. permitted in the textbooks given to children, as the dazzle of such paper is injurious to their eyes.

2. That half-tone pictures be not permitted in school books, but that simple, easily seen outline pictures be substituted for them.

3. That the length of lines in school books be of a minimum of two and onehalf inches to a maximum of three inches, with a space between the lines of not less than 3 mm.

4. That in reading the child be advised to hold his book at an angle of approximately 45 degrees, and that in oral reading they be required to look up frequently.

5. That after a lesson demanding close work the children be asked to look up at the ceiling or out of the window to

change the focus of their eyes and rest the muscles of accommodation.

6. That classrooms be equipped with loose chairs of different sizes, so that the children may sit in seats that fit them and placed where they can see best.

7. That in the first two years of school all writing be upon blackboards instead of upon paper.

8. That all rooms where artificial light is burned continually be closed. That no part-time classes be permitted to occupy any room in which the light is not entirely satisfactory.

9. All electric-light bulbs used in lighting classrooms to be made of frosted glass, and that clusters of such bulbs be provided with pale amber shades to screen the pupils' eyes from the direct rays of the light.

These recommendations have not yet been acted upon by the Board of Education of New York city, but they are being carefully considered, and probably will, with modifications, be adopted. If they are put in force in the near future a very great advance will be made in the precautions surrounding school life in New York city, and children's eyes will be in the future much safer from damage than they have been up to the present time. 616 Madison Avenue.

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

Surgical Rights of the Public.-Dr. John C. Munro of Boston read a paper with this title before the Canadian Medical Association, in which many questions are discussed. The paper appears in the Canada Lancet, September, 1908. Concerning vivisection the author says:

"To enter upon the relation of animal

experimentation as applied to the development of surgery is very tempting. Its bearing on the principles of surgery and on surgical technique is of tremendous. import so far as the great mass of the people is concerned. The latter has learned to trust in the unselfish honesty of the medical profession, and the responsibility

is far more serious than the anti-vivisectionists can realize if humane surgical advance is checked by the indiscriminating and narrow bigotry of ignorant partisans. I believe that if a deliberate and thoughtful expression of views of the practical surgeons of the world were taken today an overwhelming majority would gratefully acknowledge its obligations to animal experimentation, as instanced in the daily relief of suffering and prevention of disease. It is almost pathetically comical that we should be confronted time and again by the ignorant and probably thoughtless views of two defunct and famous surgeons upon this subject. Both men lived at the very dawn of modern scientific surgery; neither was young enough to grasp the significance of the new surgical discoveries, while each one had been a too-dominating power in certain narrow lines of surgical advance to be willing to accept the broader teachings of others. One directed his genius to mechanical problems; the other demonstrated advancement by means of human experimentation, all of which had to be worked out at a later period by laborious scientific research. The thoughtless and possibly hasty views of these men have been hurled at the thousands of modern surgeons by the opponents of animal experimentation, but I am confident that if Bigelow and Tait were alive today their-dominating geniuses and grasp of the truth would enroll them as most enthusiastic and powerful allies in the struggle against the anti-vivisectionists. The layman, as a potential surgical patient, is more keenly interested in this controversy than he realizes. When the surgical thunderbolt strikes him or his family he wants and demands as his right the use of every nicety that will diminish risk and lead to

recovery. I know, and you know as practical surgeons, that we daily use the results of laboratory research, and that if we were deprived of all that has been handed down to us as a result of animal experimentation our surgery would lapse back to a degree frightful to contemplate. This is the side that the layman must seriously consider when he is urged to oppose the profession that has always worked and struggled on behalf of suffering mankind and that will fight for the principle of animal experimentation because. it knows it is just, humane and merciful."

The Samuel D. Gross Prize.-The conditions annexed by the testator are that the prize "shall be awarded every five years to the writer of the best original essay, not exceeding 150 printed pages, octavo, in length, illustrative of some subject in surgical pathology or surgical practice, founded upon original investigations, the candidates for the prize to

be American citizens."

It is expressly stipulated that the competitor who receives the prize shall publish his essay in book form, and that he shall deposit one copy of the work in the Samuel D. Gross Library of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery, and that on the title page it shall be stated that to the essay was awarded the Samuel D. Gross Prize of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery.

The essay, which must be written by a single author in the English language, should be sent to the "Trustees of the Samuel D. Gross Prize of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery, care of the College of Physicians, 219 South 13th street, Philadelphia," on or before Janu

ary 1, 1910.

Each essay must be typewritten, distin

guished by a motto, and accompanied by a sealed envelope bearing the same motto, containing the name and address of the writer. No envelope will be opened except that which accompanies the success

ful essay.

The committee will return the unsuccessful essays if reclaimed by their respective writers or their agents within

one year.

The committee reserves the right to make no award if the essays are not considered worthy of the prize.

WILLIAM J. TAYLOR, M.D.,
RICHARD H. HARTE, M.D.,
DEFOREST WILLARD, M.D.,
Trustees.

Death of Dr. Edebohls. Dr. George M. Edebohls, the distinguished surgeon and gynæcologist, died in New York city, of which he was a native, August 8, 1908, aged 54 years. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in the class of 1875 and became a prominent figure in his chosen field of professional activity soon afterwards. At the time of his death he was consulting surgeon to St. Francis Hospital, consulting gynæcologist to St. John's Hospital, Yonkers, and to the Nyack Hospital, and gynecologist to the New York Post-Graduate Hospital, and professor of gynecology to the medical school of the hospital. As a teacher he was admired by his pupils and as an op

erator was brilliantly successful. His reputation was world-wide, especially on account of his advocacy and bold application of his operation of decapsulation of the kidney for disease of the kidney. After being declared useless by many surgeons, the operation has gradually but surely become recognized, and the reports of successful cases have accumulated until Edebohls' operation is considered to be one of the great achievements of modern surgery. We are indebted to the PostGraduate for the portrait here published.

College of Medicine of Syracuse University. Commencing in 1909, students entering the College of Medicine must have satisfactorily completed one full year, and on and after October, 1910, two full years, in a science or arts course in a college recognized by the regents of the State of New York, and in that course and in their preparation for it a competent course in physics, chemistry, Latin, one modern language and biology must be included. The equivalent of this requirement-that is, evidence of having passed college examinations for admission to the sophomore or junior class in a recognized college by a student possessed of a medical-student certificate from the State Educational Department-will be accepted. Hereafter all chemistry except applied chemistry will be taught in the new Bowne chemical laboratory of the College of Liberal Arts instead of in the College of Medicine as heretofore.

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