ment of his own life; only thus can he raise man to that height of sanitary well-being to which he should seek to raise him. In the address to which reference has already been made, Professor Huxley says: "A scorner of physic once said that Nature and disease may be compared to two men fighting, the doctor to a blind man with a club who strikes into the mêlée, sometimes hitting the disease and sometimes hitting Nature. The matter is not mended if you suppose the blind man's hearing to be so acute that he can register every stage of the struggle, and pretty clearly predict how it will end. He had better not meddle at all till his eyes are opened." This predicament of the blind man is proba bly not unfamiliar to every doctor, for at best human skill and knowledge often reach their limit before the disease does, but certainly every physician should be ready to exert himself to the full extent of his power to open his eyes as far as possible, to be as little blind and as seldom as may be. And as a blind man may be able to prevent a conflict which, once begun, he cannot control, so the doctor may have sufficient knowledge to prevent disease which he cannot heal. He may often be more certain of his position as a preventer than as a healer of sickness.

Although man stands at the head of creation, it does not necessarily follow that he has reached his highest possible position. It seems entirely reasonable to believe that a more thorough dissemination of sanitary knowledge and its more complete application in common, every-day life would develop a race of men longer-lived, more vigorous, happier, and better than any yet seen. It may be too late to do very much with this generation, but may there not be hope for the next, and the next after that? What might not a few generations of right living, right feeling, right thinking men do for the race? Here, then, are opportunities within the grasp of the physician of the future such as await no one else-opportunities for useful, helpful work such as never before inspired the mind or stirred the heart of the professional student; such a privilege of effectually aiding in the advancement of the human race, of making it nobler and better.

Such opportunities well used must bring upon those to whom they are given a glorious benediction.

It should not escape the notice of the physician that this

golden future will not inevitably be his to whom by right it belongs. By right, if he seizes it and holds it; but, if he does not, it must slip from him, as it should. Already many of the leaders in sanitary movements are not from among medical men. These, many of them, fail to appreciate their privilege; they do not see what is before them, but are so busily engaged in search of some pill or potion which may or which may not cure some disease, that they cannot see the treasure which lies just within reach. The whole work of medicine is important, and the search after remedies should not be abandoned as useless, neither should it take the place of greater and more important labors. It is a noble thing to give time and strength to the discovery of means which may be used to heal disease or alleviate pain, but it is a far grander and nobler task to teach the people how to live so that disease and pain will not come upon them.

LOCAL ANÆSTHESIA FOR NEURALGIA.

In the spring of 1869 we had the most severe attack of facial neuralgia which it has been our lot to witness in more than eighteen years of practice; for two weeks we had to confine ourselves to a darkened chamber, and the lightest footfall on the floor caused us the most excruciating agony. All the remedies, local, general, regular, and irregular, were tried without any abatement of the trouble. One side of our face was terribly swollen, so much so that it was impossible to extract a decayed olar, to which we charged all our suffering, and it seemed as if we were destined to shuffle of this mortal coil by exhaustion from pain and want of sleep. We finally concluded to incise the swollen jaw, thinking there was an abscess about the root of the decayed tooth, and as the parts were so extremely sensitive, and, moreover, having a vague dread of chloroform, we thought we would try local anesthesia by evaporating ether on the surface until the part was frozen. Our attendant complied with our instruction, and the spray was turned on. The first sensation was one of cutting pain, gradually subsiding until when congelation took place we felt perfectly easy, and ordered the cutting operation deferred. Then for fifteen hours we slept the sleep of the right

eous, and when we awoke found the rubor et tumor, colore, cum dolore entirely vanished, and we arose and went about our business; and to this good day, although we carry a perfect cabinet of carious teeth in our mouth, have never had a neuralgic twinge or touch of that "hell o' disease," a toothache. Well, to be honest about it, we did not at the time give the freezing process any credit for the cure; we thought the attack had about spent its force and was going to get well anyway, and we paid but little attention to the matter for a year or more, when a relative, Capt. Harris, was visiting us, and took a spell of neuralgia, which he had for over a year been periodically afflicted with, rarely passing a month without an attack. To give him present ease, for we did not think of any permanent benefit, we tried to spray all along the track of the affected nerve, and until it turned the skin white. The relief was immediate, and, he has since informed me, permanent.

Since then we have used it in fifteen or twenty cases with uniform success, never having to make more than two applications, and it came to be a stock remedy, and we thought that in all probability was so with most physicians; for we remember that when Richardson first introduced it (like all new things in medicine, it was vaunted for everything), and would probably have still thought so if a gentleman hadn't called on us some time ago to know if we hadn't a new treatment for neuralgia, and stated that a couple of years ago he was on a steamboat and was suffering with that disease when Capt. Harris informed him that he was cured by some sort of a freezing process, and advised him to try it. When the boat reached Louisville he called on two or three dentists and three of the most distinguished surgeons of the city, and they told him they knew of no such remedy for neuralgia, and advised him not to have anything of the kind done. On hearing his story we looked over old medical journals and found not a single allusion to local anesthesia as remedy for neuralgia.

Now we must confess that all this sounds very much like the story of the superannuated clergyman who accidentally, while in the West Indies, discovered a cure for consumption, only we don't want any one to send a stamp for particulars. Any physician can purchase a hand-ball atomizer for $1.50, and try it. They

may use either rhigolene or ether, and it will only be necessary to let the spray play upon the part until the skin turns white. We promised to offer no theory for its action, but we will venture this opinion: That the intense cold, by the revulsive effect, causes a complete change in the nutrition of the nerve; what this change is we will not at present venture to assert, only hoping that others who have better opportunities will give the matter a trial and fully test it.-Southern Practitioner.

WOMEN IN INDIA AS PHYSICIANS.-The sending of women physicians from England to India is now an established custom, and with highly successful results. Indian women are strongly opposed to treatment by male physicians. The records show that Eastern women rarely avail themselves of either the prescriptions or attendance of physicians not of their own sex. A staff of trained women is proposed as part of the public service in India, a department co-ordinate, and not subordinate, to the existing medical bureau.

CARRYING AN ARROWHEAD SIXTEEN YEARS.—Drs. J. D. Griffith and A. M. Lewis yesterday performed a surgical operation upon George T. Reynolds, by which a steel arrowhead was removed from his back at a point two inches to the left of the spinal column and two inches below the surface. Mr. Reynolds is a prominent stock man of Fort Griffin, Texas. Sixteen years ago, in a skirmish with Indians, he was wounded, an arrow entering his abdomen and passing through the abdominal cavity. He pulled the shaft out, and, contrary to all precedent, recovered from the injury in ten days. He experienced no trouble from the arrowhead until about a year ago. The operation was performed yesterday without chloroform, and the patient is in a fair way to be all right again in a few days.-Kansas Times.

DOUBLE TIME-KEEPING.—An invention has just been patented by which the time of two distinct places, at whatever distance situated, can be simultaneously marked on the face of a watch or

other timepiece without interfering with the fixed time which it is desired to keep, or necessitating the moving of the hands of the piece. This invention consists in two supplemental movable rims, worked independently of the fixed dial and of each other. The inner rim is divided into hour sections, the outer one into minutes. Two tiny wheels, projecting slightly from the metal bezel which holds the crystal in position, enable the wearer to bring the hour and minute at which he wishes to set these movable dials exactly opposite the hour or fraction of hour and minute respectively then and there indicated by the hands of the fixed dial. By this simple device two different times are kept at the option of the wearer. The convenience of such an arrangement to the traveling public is self-evident. These supplemental dials may also be used for the recording of engagements, as either hour or minute chronographs, and for a variety of other purposes which will readily suggest themselves to the reader. The inventor is Mr. John J. D. Trenor of this city.

THE AGAVE VICTORIA.-A new and rare century plant, botanically known as Agave Victoria Reginæ, is now in blossom in the palm-house of the botanical garden of Harvard College. It is said to be the first of its kind to blossom in cultivation, and no specimen of the species, so far as is known, has ever been seen in bloom in its native home among the mountains of Northern Mexico. The plant now in blossom, with several smaller ones, was presented to the Harvard garden by Dr. Edward Palmer, who collected them three years ago. The inflorescense, which is described as looking like an immense yellow bottle-brush, stands upon a stem about eleven feet high. The first plant of the kind ever introduced into cultivation was taken from Mexico to France in 1872 by M. V. Considerant. That plant died during the succeeding winter, and there was no other one of the sort in cultivation till 1874, when M. Considerant again succeeded in introducing it. For this species a silver medal of the first class has been awarded in France and a gold medal in England. It was named by Mr. J. T. Peacock of London, in 1875, in compliment to Queen Victoria.