PERSONAL AND GENERAL ITEMS.

DR. H. C. CHENEY has removed from Newburyport to Palmer, Mass., where he is associated with Dr. Wilkins.

DR. FRANK A. DAVIS has removed from 4 Marlborough street to 815 Boylston street, Boston. He will be at his office until 9.30 a. m., from 2.30 to 4 p. m., and from 6.30 to 7.30. Telephone, 1977-4 Back Bay.

DR. JAMES KRAUSS has returned from renewed study in Berlin and Paris, and has removed his office to Warren Chambers, 419 Boylston street, Boston, where he will devote his entire attention to his specialty, genito-urinary surgery and venereal diseases. In this connection he practises diagnostic and operative cystoscopy and urethroscopy.

DR. GIVENS' SANITARIUM (Stamford Hall at Stamford, Conn.), is devoted to the special care and treatment of mild mental diseases, neuroses, general invalidism, and has a separate department for patients addicted to the use of drugs and stimulants. It is open all the year; is arranged on the cottage plan and located on a hill overlooking the city of Stamford and Long Island Sound, and its comfortable, homelike surroundings, combined with the individual treatment each patient requires makes it in every way desirable. The sanitarium is fifty minutes from New York, on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

OSTEOPATHY IN ALABAMA.-Judge Samuel E. Greene of the Criminal Court has ruled that osteopathy is the practice of medicine, and any person engaged in the same in Alabama can be forced to procure a license for practising medicine. This decision was made on the fourteenth of December.

PLAGUE IN SAN FRANCISCO.-State Health Officer Taber has reported to the Governor that there were six cases of bubonic plague in San Francisco during September and four deaths; three cases and three deaths in October, and one case and one death in November.

[Read before the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society, Oct. 9, 1901.)

Prevention of disease in any or all departments of medicine is the aim of the physician of today; and not only physicians, but the laity as well, are being educated to see more and more the importance of exercising care both in public and private to prevent contagion. But while statistics are showing a marked decrease in the number of cases of consumption. and kindred diseases, what can be said in regard to pelvic disorders?

Our dispensaries and hospitals are filled with cases of this character. Many of these patients, by a little care in the past, might have been spared their present condition. Surgery has achieved many brilliant victories in the cure of pelvic troubles, but is not prevention better than cure?

The wives and mothers of the future should begin their preventive treatment at or before the age of puberty, and much responsibility rests with the family physician, who neglects his or her duty in this most important respect. Upwards of 5,000 cases of women's diseases were treated in the dispensary during last year, and in making a careful survey,

we find uterine displacements the most frequent cause. There must be some reason for this condition. Our girls as they are changing from childhood to maidenhood, and the menstrual function is being established, frequently enter upon that stage in absolute ignorance of what nature expects or demands of them. The mode of living, in many instances, has not prepared the girl to enter upon active menstrual life in a healthy manner. School, dress, Eames exercise, diet, all bear

a part in cause and effect. Many chitish games if wisely enjoyed would be of EE9hil90ghe same, without proper guidance, become injurious. Take, for instance, the skipping rope. The active rise of armstand chest is excellent, but when a young girl tries how many times she can jump on a brick pavement without rest, she gains no benefit, but is storing up trouble for the future.

I have a case in mind in which double inguinal hernia followed that pastime, and as I have followed the case in the girl who became a wife and mother, a retroverted uterus has been found to be the cause of painful menstruation; while the weakened uterine ligaments failing to properly support the pregnant uterus, were a cause of distress and a menace during the entire period of gestation.

The present school system, with seats and desks in many cases out of proportion to the size of the pupil, compelling cramped positions from which we find lateral curvatures developing, with consequent deformity of hip and shoulder causing tilting of the pelvis, is altogether irrational. So, also,

is the gymnasium in which all pupils, without a certificate from a physician, are expected to take the same exercises with equal advantage. The girls are excused from active work during menstruation, but is not a day or two previous to the flow quite as important as at the actual time? There must be less congestion and weight after the flow is established than during the days preceding. Anemic girls cannot take the prescribed course of gymnasium work without positive injury. They need exercise, but of a different character,

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and in the open air, where our gymnasia belong. minutes in the open air would do more good than can be possibly be gained under the present arrangement, viz., threequarters of an hour, twice a week and always indoors, inhaling the dust of ages. Why not employ the recess hour in some form of physical exercise with suitable apparatus, having the public playground in the school yard, with skilled instructors,. thereby establishing healthy circulation, diverting the blood from the tired brain to other parts of the body?

I do not believe that excessive study, so much as faulty relaxation, is the cause of so many high school girls breaking down before the course is completed. If there is a place on earth where the thoughtful woman physician belongs, it is in charge of girls' schools. Let them see that the pupils' shoes are stout and large enough; regulate their games; prevent them from sitting five hours in damp clothing; advise as to the matter of plain, nourishing food, and time in which to eat it; counsel daily bathing, etc., and a start will be made in the line of prevention.

The women we are called upon to treat for pelvic disorders are largely among the so-called middle or higher class. Very few, comparatively, come from the lower class. The women who have large families, doing their work up to the hour of labor, and many times attending to their washing afterwards, are not, as a rule, the women who are troubled with uterine displacements. May not the idea that a woman must keep the recumbent position for two or three weeks following labor, be a cause for this? The heavy uterus can better recover, and regain its normal position, by securing free drainage, which can better be obtained by assuming the upright position at suitable intervals. Perhaps the present custom may be responsible for so many congestions and displacements following labor.

Women living sedentary lives, eating irregularly and unwisely, with consequent evils, are inclined to attribute all disturbance to the uterus. Let us divert their attention from

the pelvic organs; give them some healthy work, and recreation in the open air. Send your pelvic patients to the swimming pools, instead of sewing societies; prescribe horseback. riding in the proper position, not with body twisted, trying to sit erect with the shoulders in one line and hips in another, but astride, where even support can be given the pelvis by feet and knees, thus securing good action of the bowels, and in this way relieving pelvic congestion.

Over heated houses, impacted bowels, improper elimation and often, too often, too much local treatment, may be the cause of so many pelvic disorders.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOME

EYE SYMPTOMS IN

GENERAL DISEASES.

BY G. H. TALBOT, M.D.

[Read before the Boston Homeopathic Medical Society, Dec. 5, 1901.]

Eye symptoms often possess an important significance in relation to the diagnosis of other, and perhaps remote organs. Of the various parts affected, and presenting at some time or other some eye symptoms, the nervous system is perhaps the most general. Rarely are the eyes the starting point of a nervous disease, but frequently diseases of the nervous system, especially of the central organs, are the cause of certain eye disorders. They may be functional or organic. The functional disturbances are often important local symptoms, and are essential in the diagnosis of some brain diseases. The anatomical connection between the eye and brain is very close, and is affected by means of nerves, blood vessels, and lymphatics, and in addition, the cerebral meninges pass directly into the sheath of the optic nerve, and indirectly into the coverings of the eye. The sympathetic nervous system, likewise, is an important part in this mutual relation. Its most important function in connection with the matter under considera