Dr. J. P. Sutherland read the following memorial and asked that it be passed to those present for their signatures : To the Chairman of the Committee on Public Health:

The subscribers, practising physicians, members of the local and state homœopathic societies of Massachusetts, are desirous of putting themselves on record as having confidence in vaccination, properly performed, as the one and only method of preventing the spread of an epidemic of smallpox, and of eradicating the disease from any community; and as being opposed to any modification of our existing laws which will tend to make them less stringent.

Dr. Strong, for the Standing Committee on Legislation, reported that the Committee on Public Health had held a hearing in regard to the doing away with the compulsory vaccination act. The matter was left in the hands of the committee.

There are two or three other matters to come up during the session, concerning which the Committee on Public Health may desire to make a preliminary examination. One is aimed at the Board of Registration. The petitioners want. to strike out the last line of section 9. Section 9 is the section which attempts to state what constitutes the practice of medicine. The desire is to do away with this section, and this move must be met by the profession, and not the Board of Registration in Medicine.

The old anti-vivisection question is again coming up for consideration. Its supporters seek to obtain their object through the M. S. P. C. A., their bill giving to an agent of that society the right to enter the laboratory of any regularly licensed school.

Often at these hearings it is asked, whom do you represent? and this is the reason I ask for instructions or power from the society in regular session.

Dr. Coffin I move that the committee be authorized to oppose any change in the laws regarding registration and vaccination which would tend to make them less stringent.

Carried.

SCIENTIFIC SESSION.

Photographs of cases of smallpox were exhibited.

REPORT OF THE SECTION OF MENTAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES.

Frank E. Allard, M.D., Chairman; C. V. Wentworth, M.D., Secretary; G. E. Hoffses, M.D., Treasurer.

The President appointed the following committee to nominate sectional officers for the ensuing year: Drs. J. Arnold Rockwell, Jr., F. P. Batchelder, and F. L. Emerson. The committee reported as follows: Chairman, Edward E. Allen, M.D.; Secretary, J. H. Urich, M D.; Treasurer, Lucy C. Hill, M.D., who were duly elected.

Dr. Strong: I want to state that the reason Dr. Allard is chairman of the section is because he helped out the president and secretary, when the chairman, previously appointed, refused to serve. Dr. Allard did not know of this until last December, when he kindly stepped in to the breach.

PROGRAMME.

I. "Educational Treatment of the Feeble-Minded." Walter E. Fernald, M.D., Superintendent Massachusetts School for Feeble-Minded.*

Discussion opened by George S. Adams, M.D., Superintendent Westboro Insane Hospital.

2. "Educational Treatment of Nervous Diseases." Frank C. Richardson, M.D.

Discussion opened by Edward P. Colby, M.D.

Dr. George S. Adams: I have enjoyed Dr. Fernald's paper very much, but can give you no information regarding the education of the feeble-minded. Among the insane there are cases corresponding to a degree to the feeble-minded, but not so extreme, which require similar treatment and methods. Something has been done for the education of these persons in some institutions. When a person has passed through a period of acute excitement and does not recover, there is a deterioration of brain cells and that person is what I call demented. It is sometimes very slight, sometimes extreme.

[ See page 97 of this number of the GAZETTE.]

All such cases drift into a listless condition of indifference with which it is hard to know how to deal, and caring for them out-doors is the best means of bringing about a healthy men tal state, because the brain can be educated to do certain things. The amount of money appropriated by the state is limited, and after what must be done for the acute cases has been done, the amount that is left to care for the others is only sufficient to keep them clean, care for their bodily wants and teach them to work, with the ordinary attention that the nurses can give. Something more than this must be done in educating these cases, and to do this it is necessary to give an amount of attention that cannot be given in these institutions, because it costs too much and they must be classified.

Some years ago I visited the insane department of the Philadelphia almshouse, where the ladies of Philadelphia had taken a great interest in the demented women, and by giving them constant care and attention they had succeeded in obtaining fine specimens of needle work. The men had made some progress in sloyd work. If that work had been left for the

paid employees to do, it simply would not have been done, because the funds would not admit of it. It has been contended that education is wholesome for certain cases of melancholia, and some institutions have schools where these cases are put into classes and taught. I think in New York they still conduct such classes.

Miss Leavitt, of New York, teacher of lip reading to the deaf, gave a brief account of Miss Warren's method, which, though characterized by simplicity, is scientific. By the old system different positions were associated with different letters, which was misleading, but Miss Warren had reduced the forty different positions to sixteen. It should be remembered that the more naturally a person speaks the better a deaf person can hear. It is a mistake to think the deaf like to be isolated. Whoever thinks the deaf are pleased to be so isolated, little realizes their discomfort.

2. "Educational Treatment of Nervous Diseases."

Dr. Richardson considers that nerves depend for growth on

muscular movement, which is furnished by progressive development of the muscles by exercise. To be of any advantage the exercises must be kept up with regularity.

Dr. Colby The subject of education of brain centres, their greater or less development, their departmental use, their alteration in disease, and the possibilities of improvement, have been brought before you tonight, and so interestingly by all the speakers, that I hardly think I can say anything further.

As regards the education of functional nerves in nervous diseases, advocated by Dr. Richardson in neurasthenia, there are none of us but would agree with him, provided we give such patients a dose of bed first and after that nourishment, supplying them with an abundance of adipose tissue, if possible, and renewing the supply of fresh blood. Then we may apply the treatment of exercise, educational or not, but it should not be carried to excess. I fear that some, carried away with a desire to experiment on neurasthenic patients, will try exercise to the extent of inducing fatigue.

Dr. J. P. Sutherland: I have nothing more to say, except that I have enjoyed the paper very much, and that it has impressed upon my mind the importance of embryological study. My mind has been going over again the development of the brain and its functions, and I will only say we should study its embryology more carefully.

Dr. Batchelder: One point I would mention, that is, that during the growing period the child is more susceptible to treatment, while it is hard for the person of twenty-five or thirty years to acquire new habits. There is also the point. that Dr. Colby has brought out so distinctly, that some of our neurasthenic patients are actually suffering from brain theories and fads.

Adjourned at 10 o'clock.

H. O. SPALDING, Secretary.

SOCIETY MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

The Homœopathic Medical Society of Western Massachusetts proposes to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary, Wednesday, March 19, 1902, at Cooleys Hotel, Springfield, at 11.30

a. m.

After a brief business session the bureau of surgery, under the direction of Dr. Frank A. Woods, will report. Some of the most noted surgeons of our school are expected to present papers.

Following the scientific session will be a banquet to which ladies and friends of homoeopathy are especially invited. Dr. J. P. Rand will act as toastmaster, and a most entertaining programme is already assured.

The physicians of Western Massachusetts will be glad to welcome every reader of the GAZETTE on this occasion. Trains leaving Boston at 9 and 10.45 a. m., will reach Springfield in season for the dinner and the whole, or a part, of the scientific session. Returning, trains will reach Boston at 9 o'clock.

In order that satisfactory arrangements may be made for dinner, those expecting to attend should notify Dr. Alice E. Rowe, Secretary, 9 Maple street, Springfield, Mass.

Worcester County Homœopathic Medical Society. The regular quarterly meeting of the Worcester County Homœopathic Medical Society was held in Worcester, Feb.

The meeting was in charge of Dr. E. A. Jones of Worcester, chairman of the Bureau of Contagious and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. J. M. Barton of Worcester read a very interesting paper on "The Differential Diagnosis of the Eruptive Fevers."

Dr. Lucy E. Weatherbee of Worcester, gave a scientific paper on "Antitoxin and Diphtheria," in which she brought out many practical points in regard to the use of antitoxin.

Dr. E. R. Miller of Leominster read a paper on "Modern