and Draining of Cities," describing the system as adopted in Memphis, under his direction, and it will be read with profit by the health officers of those cities and towns contemplating the construction of a sewerage system.

The sixth paper is by Dr. E. G. Janeway and is entitled, "Remarks upon the Necessity of Filing in a Public Office of Plans and Statements about Certain Matters of House Construction." "Upon the Study of the Origin of Contagious Diseases, and their Liability to Error in this Direction." "Upon the Necessity for Uniformity in the Publication of Vital Statistics."

"On the Protection of the Innocent and Helpless Members of the Community from Venereal Diseases and their Consequences," by Albert L. Gihon, A. M., M. D., has a supplement in the Transactions of the National Board of Health in New Orleans in 1880, and we will mention it elsewhere.

Dr. Edward G. Janeway's paper on "Post-Mortem Examinations. in Relation to Public Health," contains suggestions of the most important character. The aim of his article is to show the value. of post-mortem examinations to sanitary science, and he goes still further. There is hardly a conscientious practitioner, who having had the opportunity to make a post-mortem examination, did not feel the great importance of making them oftener and more thoroughly. The medical press should agitate this matter until the profession is brought to educate the people up to the necessity of frequent post-mortem examinations. How can the general practitioner hope to keep fresh in his mind even coarse pathological appearances, when he almost never has recourse to the dead body as a teacher ? How can the physician be always tolerably satisfied with his diagnosis without now and again confirming or correcting them by postmortem appearances? All of us who have anything to do with the direction of vital statistics know that some of the apparently most scientific statements of death are without adequa'e foundation. We hope that the doctors everywhere will keep trying until the people will be led to demand that the study of the diseases of their friends. and relatives shall be pursued to the legitimate end. Many times physicians are to blame for assuming to know thoroughly the nature of diseases is individual cases, when really the assumption is only to secure the confidence of the patient's friends.

But to return to our Transactions.

The remainder of the volume is devoted to Yellow Fever and Quarantine from several well known writers, and they all deserve mention but our space forbids.

HOW TO USE THE FORCEPS. With an Introductory Account of the Female Pelvis and of the Mechanism of Delivery. By HENRY G. LANDIS, A. M., M. D. Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in the Starling Medical College. Illustrated. New York: E. B. Treat, 757 Broadway. 1880.

Twenty years ago it would not have been difficult to have found many respectable practitioners in full practice who had never used obstetrical forceps, and among that number some who considered the employment of forceps, following the dictum of the venerable Blundel, as meddlesome midwifery of the worst sort. To-day the best masters of the art of obstetrics teach with great earnestness their proper use, and our medical literature abounds with able articles on the subject.

The book before us treats in its first section of the anatomy of the pelvis illustrated with diagrams. The second section of the propelling forces, that is the forces concerned in the propulsion and guidance of the child. The third section discusses the body to be propelled, and the fourth and most important on the mechanism of labor.

The last division of this little book takes up how and where to use the forceps. The subjects are clearly presented in every aspect. A clear and forcible argument is made for a proper use of the forceps. One paragraph will suffice to show the author's bearing. "Whenever the second stage of labor has lasted two hours and the head is still stationary or advancing with great slowness, we should inform the patient that we are about to apply the forceps. If we explain the necessity and propriety of the operation we will rarely find any objections, especially if the woman is already tired of her fruitless suffering! This rule may be deviated from according to the circumstances of each case, but it will more often be proper to shorten it than to protract the time of giving relief. There is no need of keeping the woman in suffering for hours solely that she may deliver herself, and still less for keeping her under the noxious influence of an anesthetic for hours, when we can safely extract the child at will." Page 154.

OPHTHALMIC AND OTIC MEMORANDA. By D. B. ST. JOHN ROOSA, M. D., and EDWARD T. ELY, M. D. Revised Edition. New York: Wm. Wood & Co. 1880. Pp. 298.

This little work has been of good service during its short existence. It has served as a remembrancer to students and a lexicon of terms in use in the specialty of diseases of the eye and ear. It has not been very many years ago, only before the war, that the lecturer on surgery in the best colleges in the land did not give a large fraction of what may be found in this little volume. We know that now, many of the elders in practice find what they want to know about diseases of the eye and ear in it, and often take the first steps in diagnosis from its guidance.

CUTANEOUS AND VENEREAL MEMORANDA.

By H. G. PIFFARD,
M,, M. D. Second

A. M., M. D., and GEORGE HENRY FOX, A. Edition. New York: William Wood & Co. Pp. 309. To give the principles of diagnosis of skin diseases in the small compass of part of a duodecimo volume of three hundred pages is not to be expected. This little work was written to supply students not able to purchase the more costly volumes on the subject. We advise our readers to examine for themselves and see how masters of the art of teaching dermatology and syphilology can come down to the comprehension of students.

It is useless for us to grumble and say that medical students should not need such books, because their elementary preparation should be more thoroughly provided for; the truth is, medical students have for a long time demanded "quiz" books. And the Confederate surgeon's memory must be very short, who does not remember the fabulous sum he paid for Neil & Smith's "Compend" just before his examination by the army board. Until medical students are required to aim higher, we are glad to see that their manuals are prepared by writers who themselves are teachers in medical schools.

An Exomphalous monster was recently delivered in Wilmington, that lived twenty-four hours or more. The abdominal viscera were extruded. The small intestines were abnormally short. The bowels were moved very naturally.

TRIPLETS WITH TEETH.

We are indebted to Dr. Wm. J. Love for the following notes of unusual triplets, born in Wilmington in December:

Mrs. Black gave birth to triplets on 11th between Chestnut and Mulberry Streets. This was her second confinement and second

pregnancy. She is a North Carolinian aged 45 years.

The presentations were all of the head, the labor was natural. Two of the children were girls, one a boy.

The first girl weighed 4 lbs. and two upper canines, and lived The second girl weighed 5 lbs.

She had two middle upper incisors five hours.

She had two middle upper incisors and left upper canine, and lived five hours.

The boy weighed 6 lbs. He had four upper incisors and two upper canines nearly through. He lived five hours.

A NEW HOSPITAL IN WILMINGTON.

The Legislature now in session has passed a bill which empowers the city and county to erect and sustain a hospital, conjointly. This movement has been on foot a long time, and would have been consummated earlier, but for the bad repute which the old hospital system had entailed upon the effort. The matter was strongly and successfully urged by the New Hanover Board of Health, and Medical Association, and the intelligent appreciation of the situation by the Chairman of the County Commissioners, Col. W. L. Smith, who is also President of the Board of Health, brought about its successful issue.

We are satisfied that the much needed hospital will be constructed on sound sanitary principles. There is one thing certain, it will not be a harbor for tramps, but only an asylum for those who are entitled to it. It has been the case heretofore, that the sick from other counties have often times been driven from their homes in the country, along the lines of the rail road, because they were burdensome to the people or the corporations in which they lived; this abuse is to be strictly guarded against. We have every reason to believe that this movement has opened a way to the possibility in the near future, of having suitable pay-wards for persons seeking surgical treatment here, and it also opens the way to a plan suggested some months ago, to the endowment of beds, annually by the congregations of the various churches in the city.

NOTES.

Brown-Séquard's Discovery.-The great physiologist has discovered the local anesthetic influence of chloroform when applied to the skin. The clinical discovery of the same fact is a long ways in advance.

Popular Science Monthly, for December is most interesting, and fully sustains the high standing it has attained in the later years of its publication. Begin your subscriptions with the coming year. Price $5.00 a year. Address D. Appleton & Co.

We call attention to a handsome pamphlet by Dr. J. W. Holland's "Diet for the Sick," 12mo., paper. Price 25 cents. John P. Morton & Co., Louisville. It contains, also, numerous receipts, and the special diet required in a number of particular diseases is detailed. The author is Professor of materia medica in the University of Louisville, and writes as if he had bestowed careful study on the subject of which he treats.

Vick's Floral Guide.-This work is before us, and those who send 10 cents to James Vick, Rochester, N. Y., for it, will not be disappointed. Instead of getting a cheap thing, as the price would seem to indicate, they will receive a very handsome work of 112 pages, and perhaps 500 illustrations-not cheap, but elegant illustrations, on the very best of calandered paper, and as a set off to the whole, a beautiful Colored Plate that is worth twice the price of the book.

On the Digestive Power of Figs. In the Comptes Rendu, XCI, Prof. Bouchut speaks of some experiments he has made, going to show that the milky juice of the fig tree possesses a fermentative power of a digestive character. Having mixed some of it with a preparation from animal tissue, he found the latter well preserved at the end of a month.

We bring this fact into connection with a remarkable statement by Prof. Billroth, in his work on "Frauenkrankheiten." He tells of a case of cancer of the breast so excessively foul smelling that all his deodorizers failed, but on applying a poultice made of dried figs cooked in milk, the previously unbearable odor was entirely done away with.