REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON OPHTHALMOLOGY AND

OTOLOGY.

Dr. Payne, Boston, presented a paper for this committee, as follows (X.):

The Surgery of Strabismus. By J. H. Payne, M.D., Boston.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GYNECOLOGY.

Dr. Boothby, Boston, chairman of this committee, presented a paper describing the operation of laparotomy as performed by Dr. Martin of Berlin, Germany (XI.).

Laparotomy. By Alonzo Boothby, M.D., Boston.

Dr. Southwick, Boston, asked if the bichloride of mercury was used as an antiseptic.

Dr. Boothby replied that it was to some extent; iodoform and carbolic spray were often used; chloroform was the preferred anæsthetic.

Dr. Bennett, Fitchburg, asked as to the injection of ergotine in the treatment of tumors.

Dr. Boothby said that the radical operation was ́preferred.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON MATERIA MEDICA.

A note was read from Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft to the effect that the report was not ready, owing to the fact that certain provings which were essential were not yet completed.

On motion of Dr. I. T. Talbot, the time of the committee was extended to the Annual Meeting in April,

Dr. M. V. B. Morse, Marblehead, gave details, and exhibited photographs, of a very interesting case. At

the time of confinement the mother was delivered of a child, and also of a dead foetus. The living child weighed four pounds and a half. At birth there was a decided prominence of the abdomen: this increased, and at ten months the child weighed eighteen pounds, and measured twenty-five inches around the body on a level with the umbilicus. Since then it has gradually decreased in size, until now the measurement is eighteen inches, and weight seventeen pounds. The child is now eighteen months old (IX.).

An Interesting Case. By M. V. B. Morse, M.D., Marblehead.

The President spoke of Dr. Verdi's efforts to establish a hospital in Washington, and suggested the appointment of a committee to co-operate with the Washington physicians.

SPECIAL COMMITTEE.

On motion of Dr. I. T. Talbot, a committee of three was appointed for this purpose, as follows: —

Drs. J. Heber Smith, J. Wilkinson Clapp, and H. L. Chase.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON REGISTRATION AND STA

TISTICS (XIV.).

The chairman, J. Wilkinson Clapp, M.D., Boston, reported progress and some details, which will appear in the next volume of the Transactions.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE INSANE-HOSPITAL

(XII.).

Dr. I. T. Talbot, the chairman, reported the accomplishment of the objects for which the committee was

appointed. He asked permission to write out a report for publication in the Transactions, and requested the discharge of the committee.

The necessary permission was given, and the committee discharged, a vote of thanks having first been tendered them.

IN MEMORIAM.

Dr. H. L. Chase called attention to the death of Dr. Luther Clark, one of the oldest members of the Society. He moved that a memorial page be set apart in the records. (Approved.)

On motion it was

Voted, That Dr. H. L. Chase prepare for publication a biographical sketch of Dr. L. Clark (XIII.).

ADJOURNMENT.

The meeting adjourned at 3.40 P.M.

Attest:

HERBERT A. CHASE,

Recording Secretary.

VI.

ZYMOTIC DISEASES.

BY E. H. PACKER, M.D., LOWELL, MASS.

THE term "zymotic" is from a Greek word meaning "fermentation, or the germs of diseases that originate in fermentation." A universal observation is, that the origin of epidemics is often traced to the putrefaction of large quantities of animal and vegetable matters; that miasmatic diseases are endemic in places where the decomposition of organic matter is constantly taking place, as in marshy and moist localities. They are developed epidemically under the same circumstances after inundations, and also in places where large numbers of people are crowded together with insufficient ventilation, as in ships, prisons, and besieged places.

Factitious fevers produced by the introduction of deleterious substances directly into the blood are analogous, both in their symptoms and pathological lesions, to those produced by the sting or bite of certain animals, and also present the same class of symptoms that are present in small-pox, scarlatina, and other eruptive diseases. Measles can be communicated by means of a drop of blood from a patient afflicted with the disThe inoculation of an unprotected person with smallpox may be the means of giving the disease to thousands, and a mere trace of serum is sufficient to propagate cattle-plague. Putrid animal exhalations have given rise to diseases that have raged like a pestilence or epidemic. Homer writes, in his Iliad, of the plague dealing swift death upon the Grecian warriors; and Thucydides writes of its devastation at Athens,

ease.

430 B.C. Thirty-eight years afterwards, Rome was visited with a terrible plague. In the year 541 A.D., occurred at Constantinople the most fatal plague recorded in history: from five to ten thousand perished daily. The army of Henry VIII. of England in 1483 encountered the "sweating sickness," and a terrible scourge it proved to be. We find the plague known as the "black death," of the fourteenth century, sweeping over the world, devouring millions of victims: in England, from 1650 to 1665, its mortality was excessive almost beyond conception; more than a hundred thousand died in London; while in Europe the mortality from this plague amounted to twenty-five million. The whole country was demoralized, and many were the excesses growing out of the condition of things.

Cholera, too, has travelled from its home in India all over the earth, and in our own country with what fearful ravages we know only too well. In this very year, 1884, we see its terrible effects in Europe, where, after a run of months, scarcely any decrease is noticed in the total number of deaths. Yellow fever of 1878 cost this country over fourteen thousand lives; and that, too, with our increased sanitary knowledge, and advance in medical skill and science. These terrible epidemics, with their vast destruction, have ever been the study of scientific men, almost all of whom have at last come upon one common plan of discussion and study, namely, that of the germ theory; that is, that in all zymotic diseases there is an extremely low type of life which is the beginning and the cause of these diseases, a minute organism with shape and power of motion.

The germ theory presents a striking picture, namely, the reversal of the common and accepted law of the "survival of the fittest." In it there is seen constantly the lowest form of life, microscopic and ultra-microscopic organisms, attacking and overpowering the highest form of life, man. The air we breathe, the water we drink, contain these minute organisms in a greater or less degree, many of them too small to be studied even under the microscope. They present differ