and here the value of an established name and honorable past history as an element in journalistic success was shown in the very rapid and gratifying increase of the subscription list, which was secured by giving ordinary attention to this part of the work. This increased circulation, attracting the notice of intending contributors, led to a corresponding increase in the number and improvement in the quality of papers offered for publication, and long before the end of the year made it possible to secure for the editorial department the cordial and efficient coöperation of a large and able corps of collaborators.

The JOURNAL has now entered upon its thirty-sixth volume, more than doubled in size as indicated by the number of pages and trebled in actual contents, and with a steadily-growing circulation which already exceeds two thousand copies. The success thus far attained is the best evidence we can ask of the appreciation of our efforts by the great mass of the profession in our own and the neighboring States, and we confidently hope, by steadfast efforts in the same direction, to earn for the SAINT LOUIS MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL a good name which shall abundantly satisfy the requirements of all reasonable persons, whether subscribers or contributors.

AMENITIES OF MEDICAL JOURNALISM.

In the issue of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal for January 9, there appeared a letter devoted mainly to the subject of the regulation of prostitution, but with a tail-piece puffing a medical journal association which was at that very moment in the throes of parturition. The indelicacy of the puff was thinly concealed under the transposed initials of the assistant editor of the much-lauded, unborn journal, and was, if possible, aggravated by a very uncomplimentary reference to the medical press of St. Louis. To such of our readers as may happen to have seen or heard of this letter it may be a comfort to know that this act of the writer is disavowed by those who are officially put forward as "responsible for the editorial and reportorial management" of the journal in which he is interested, and also that

he has taken occasion personally to call on us and kindly to assure us that his strictures do not and were not intended to apply to the ST. LOUIS MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL under its existing management, but only to it as it had been at some past time and when it was in other hands. "Self-praise goes but little ways" says the homely proverb, and we feel sure, also, that unprovoked and wholesale disparagement of the presumably honest efforts of competing journalists will in the end injure rather than aid the particular undertaking thus indiscreetly advertised. We do however complain, and we think with reason, of a want of due vigilance upon the part of our esteemed Boston contemporary in allowing its pages to be used by a correspondent to say things which it would scorn to say itself to the discredit and possible injury of a sister journal. By a courteous and unsolicited disavowal of the sentiments expressed by its correspondent, and by a cordial and appreciative recognition of our own efforts, the Boston Journal has set itself right so far as it is possible for it to do so; but it is still true that when mud is freely thrown around a portion of it will hit somewhere, and in the present instance, we have reason to believe that the interested and improper expressions of the correspondent are being disingenuously used in the supposed interest of the journal in whose behalf they were written, and to the possible detriment, with its patrons, of the ST. LOUIS MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL. We allude to this matter even at the risk of appearing over-sensitive to trifles, for the reason that improper communications are but too frequently offered to medical journals for publication, and only by constant vigilance can the concealed venom be detected, and the poisoned arrow turned from the intended victim.

AN editorial salutatory in a new local exchange touching upon "that hackneyed of all themes, elevation of the standard of medical education," appears to us to call for a timely word of comment. Is the editor so dazzled by "the radiance rising over the eastern hills" that he has overlooked the praiseworthy and very successful efforts of the St. Louis Medical College to establish a course of study covering three full years? This is "the most unkindest cut of all" when we remember that the exchange in question has sought strength through the

use of the names of gentlemen connected with the school thus slighted. A journal that claims to be "the organ of neither clique nor school" should take heed lest by ignoring the honest efforts of any school in the right direction, it assume a virtually partisan attitude in discouragement of a cause which it professes to have at heart.

Again, is it quite in the best taste to tell the profession from which a medical journal seeks its support that it "is greatly wanting in high culture, in a thorough knowledge of the most advanced facts of medicine, in strict ethical conduct of its members," etc., even though the editor expresses his conviction that "medical journals are most potent to remedy these ills?" And is the matter helped much by reminding his medical readers of the shortcomings of the other learned professions? It occurs to us that ethical practice is, after all, the most effective ethical preaching, for were not the streets of Jerusalem kept clean by each man caring for his own doorway? And, after all, who are the wise and judicious purveyors by whom "the greatest extent and variety of information will be furnished, and that too, of the latest and most advanced views entertained, both in this country and abroad, distinguishing, especially, the true from the false, the good from the bad." Are not their names all upon the advertising sheets at the end of the number?

Having somewhat hastily glanced over the contents of the same number, we notice a communication to which we feel it to be our duty to call the attention of the responsible "Executive Committee," viz.: an alleged correction of certain statements occurring in an article contributed to this journal in September of last year. In this connection, we beg leave courteously to suggest that a correction, to do the most good, should be made in such a way as to reach as many as possible of those who may be presumed to have read the journal in which the article originally appeared. We are always ready, in the interest of truth and justice, to publish a correction of any statement made in our JOURNAL, which is believed to be inaccurate or injurious, but we hold it to be a good and wise rule invariably to refuse to admit communications in correction of alleged errors of fact as reported by writers in other journals, except only in cases in which the opportunity to publish such correction has first been offered to and has been declined or neglected by the journal in which the statement to be corrected has appeared.

THE PLAGUE.

John W. Draper, in his work, "Intellectual Development of Europe," says: "The assertion is true that the Old World never recovered from the great plague in the time of M. Antonius, who brought it with the army from the Parthenian war. In the reign of Titus ten thousand persons died in one day in Rome."

The permanent home of this disease seems to be east of the Mediterranean. It visited Western Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. In 1710 it destroyed one-half of the population of Marseilles, but seems to have been limited to Turkey, Egypt, Anatalia, Syria and Greece, sometimes extending north toward, but not touching Russia, and west to Malta. It seems to be unknown in tropical climates, and cold weather in northern climates seems to have checked its ravages. In the great plague in London in 1665 the deaths in June were 590; in July, 4,129; in August, 20,046; in September, 26,430; in October, 14,373; in November, 3,449; in December less than 1,000.

The Wiener Medicinische Wochenschrift, of late date, says that the appearance of the plague in Russia excites general attention. Russia expresses great confidence that it can confine the disease to its present location. It is high time that this should be done, as, according to the latest news, it has reached Nischnei Novgorod. The telegraph announces that it has nearly reached the walls of Moscow, if it is not already within that city. Whether later investigations will decide that it is feberis recurrens, typhus exanthematicus or bubo plague does not change its aspect. The facts are that it is a terrible epidemic, and has more than decimated the population of Astrahan. The official reports from Russia show that in one place where 190 persons were afflicted between the 1st and 5th of January, 140 died before the 10th.

The St. Petersburg Med. Woch. charges the government with trying to suppress the idea that the disease is the plague, by calling it in its official dispatches "croupous inflammation of the lungs, typhous inflammation of the lungs." The sudden death of Dr. Morosow, who had been sent to the infected district, is attributed to "pneumo-typhus, a disease long ago excluded by science." It gives parts of the report of Dr. Depner, the medical director of the Cossacks of Astrahan, who has observed the devel

opment of the disease from November 7 to December 14. Ho says that Dr. Koch and himself, from December 5, when the disease became more malignant, "tried various remedies, as salicylic acid, salts, quinine, cold atmosphere, in fact, every known remedy;" that all of them had little or no effect, nearly all the patients died.

The entire medical attendants, Dr. Koch and six assistants, became victims of the epidemic; the priests died; the Cossacks died, even those who carried away the dead died. Nearly all who came in contact with the sick died, although all were provided with every known protection under sanitary rules. They took the disease within three to six days. He stated that, in his judgment, quarantine is the only protection. "In milder cases of open abscesses of the glands, poultices of carbolum, and before opening, mercurial ointment had some good results." He claims the right, from his observation to call it a "very malignant typhus or a peculiar human pest (menschenpest-Pestis Indica, Hirsch) or a new disease, between pest and typhus." The symptoms are, "sudden attacks of palpitation; uncertain pulse; vomiting; dizziness; difficult respiration; spitting blood; vomiting thin blood; pale face; apathic expression; glassy eyes, sunken in; enlarged pupils; then three or four hours of extreme weakness, followed by great heat; lethargy; slight delirium; suppression of the urine; costiveness; excrements, if any, dark brown. Death follows after the first or second, seldom after the third paroxysm, with symptoms of clonic contractions while in a comatose condition, with rapid declension or loss of strength." He concludes by stating it as his opinion that the cold weather ought to confine the disease to its present locality.

According to the last reports, it is still spreading, and has reached the Ægean Sea, one of the avenues of the commerce of the world, and through this it may be brought to us at any moment. Prof. Jacobi, head of the medical commission sent to examine it, has taken the disease. As we have no national quarantine regulations to prevent its introduction, should it come, the profession will have to fight it single-handed and alone; therefore we deem it our duty to now call attention to it, and to the fact that it has already passed its usual boundaries.