Dr. Andrew Nebinger, of Philadelphia. Vice-presidents, Drs. W. B. Ulrich, of Delaware; Jacob L. Ziegler, of Lancaster; George A. Lynn, of Washington; and Joseph A. Murphy, of Luzerne. Permanent secretary, Dr. W. B. Atkinson. Corresponding secretary, Dr. O. H. Allis. The delegates to the American Medical Association, besides other officers, were selected. The next meeting will be held at Altoona, on the third Wednesday of May, 1880. In the evening a largely attended reception was held in the hall, given by the Delaware County Medical Society. On the subsequent day the association visited the Training School for Feeble-Minded Children at Media, and were much interested in the aptitude and ability of the children.

CONNECTICUT MEDICAL SOCIETY.

THE eighty-eighth annual session of this society was held in Hartford, May 28th and 29th, with the largest attendance for many years and the largest accession of new members, including quite a number of practitioners who have heretofore kept aloof; at no time have there been so many interested actively in the society, nor so many engaged in professional work, whose results were here shown. The establishment of the State Board of Health and the field thus opened have stimulated professional thought and effort along all lines, and given a more lively interest generally in those subjects that are occupying the attention of the thinkers and workers in the profession. The younger men, too, that have been coming into the State, educated by newer and better methods, and of a broader and wider culture generally than were attainable in older times, are beginning to make their influence felt, while a larger propor tion of the new members have both leisure and ambition to work. Death is rapidly thinning the ranks of the older members, sixteen in 1877, fourteen in 1878, all averaging sixty-two, and many considerably over eighty, some of the lives reaching back to the very inception of the society, but of course no professional life. Among the dead is one honored name, an honorary member of this society from your own State,-Jacob Bigelow.

The special topics discussed were the proper management and care of the insane, the metric system, a proposed law relating to medical tramps or itinerant practitioners of medicine, and the medical-examiner system of Massachu setts. These were brought before the attention of the society by the president in an address to the Fellows on the first day's session, which is for business, when delegates from the county society, or Fellows alone, have the voting power. Committees were appointed on these subjects, in accordance with the president's recommendations; that on the treatment of insanity to consider also the propriety of commissioners in lunacy for this State. That on the medical examiner system was requested to investigate its workings in Massachusetts, and report as to its desirability for Connecticut at the next convention. Committee: C. W. Chamberlain, Hartford; E. C. Kinny, Norwich; N. E. Worden, Bridgeport.

The following are the provisions of the proposed bill concerning itinerant practitioners: First, a conjoint board from the three medical societies in the State, two from each. Second, an examining fee of twenty-five dollars in ad

vance.

Third, a monthly tax of from twenty-five to one hundred dollars a month in town, village, or city, and ample fines for attempted evasion. The measure did not find favor, however, and was rejected, although it came over from a preceding convention. The general sentiment of this society is that it is neither wise nor expedient for us to try to induce legislation on the subject until public sentiment changes radically on these topics.

The revised charter for Yale Medical School removes the restrictions on the course to be followed, and allows the faculty to raise the standard of attainment as rapidly as circumstances will allow. The graduating power is still in the hands of a conjoint board of the professors and an equal number of examiners appointed by the society, and its president is ex officio president of the examining board. The power to appoint one gratuitous student from each county is given up, and the whole instrument much simplified. The most important changes are those rendering possible a graded course.

Delegates were appointed to the International Medical Congress at Amsterdam: Prof. Francis Bacon, New Haven; Dr. B. N. Comings, New Britain. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: president, Dr. A. R. Goodrich, Vernon; vice-president, Dr. G. L. Platt, Waterbury; treasurer, Dr. F. D. Edgerton, Middletown; secretary, Dr. C. W. Chamberlain, Hartford. The delegates appointed to the Massachusetts Society were Drs. Wm. Deming, Litchfield, A. B. Woodruff, Thomaston; the committee to investigate the medical-examiner system also will have one representative. All vacancies in delegations are filled by the secretary when possible.

Dr. A. N. Bell, Garden City, Dr. E. Seguin, New York, were nominated for honorary membership, and by rule their names are to lie over one year.

The treasurer's report showed an increased expenditure, and about the same income, to a smaller balance; some portions of the State are very delinquent. The trial of Dr. M. B. Pardee, of South Norwalk, by the committee on county resolves, before whom all such matters go, excited, perhaps, as much interest as anything connected with the session. The case was sent up last year by the Fairfield County Society, with a sentence of expulsion, which must in all cases be ratified by the state society to be valid. The principal charge, consultation with his wife, who is a homoeopathic practitioner, was considered not proved last year, and so the case went back to the county. This year the county society makes the charge of gross professional misconduct, and thereupon expel him, and this sentence was confirmed after a long trial and sharp debate, Pardee reading a lengthy statement in his own defense. This committee did not report until the evening session, which was prolonged until ten o'clock, when a collation was given to the society by the Hartford City Medical Society, which proved very pleasant; there were short, bright, witty speeches, good stories, and general good cheer until the small hours. The presence of Dr. Benjamin Cotting, an honorary member of this society from Massachusetts, added much to the pleasure of the occasion, while Prof. W. A. Hammond, of New York, was also very felicitous in story and repartee. This reception is a new and promises to be a very enjoyable feature of these meetings.

MAY 29TH. The address of the president was upon Honesty in Medicine, and was a criticism upon some of the admitted evils in professional life; he

discussed medical education, and consultations, claiming that an honest opinion should never be compromised or surrendered, and the patient free as air to change his physician, select the consultant or any other. The disgraceful condition of medical expert testimony was freely discussed, and many minor points in the relations of professional life dwelt upon where greater openness was desirable. Dr. Bartlett, of New Haven, read On the Principles of Hy giene and Conservatism in Surgery. He illustrated the modern improvements in the treatment of surgical cases, especially according to the antiseptic method, and discussed the whole subject at length in a very able manner. After Dr. Bartlett had concluded, the chairman called upon Dr. A. Hosmer, a delegate from the Massachusetts Medical Society, who replied in a very happy vein. Then Dr. Lathrop, of the New Hampshire Medical Society, was introduced, and said a few words in reply. Then Dr. Cotting, of Boston, was called upon, and made a bright little speech, at the close suggesting to members to subscribe to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Next, Dr. Webster, delegate from Maine, was called upon. Finally, Dr. Hammond, delegate from the Neurological Society of New York, was introduced, and replied forcibly and briefly.

A report on vital statistics was presented by Dr. Chamberlain, superintendent of vital statistics for Connecticut, containing a résumé of the points in epidemiology and sanitary science, illustrated in the returns of 1878 and the results of a study of diphtheria. The results only were presented, the figures and tables reserved for publication, as they could be best consulted in print. Dr. Mayor read a very able and valuable essay on yellow fever, reporting his own experience while in charge of an outbreak of yellow fever in Newbern during the war. The following conclusions were reached: (1.) Yellow fever in the United States generally owes its origin and spread to importation. (2.) Yellow fever germ has a long vitality. (3.) A Southern climate season of great and protracted heat, soil saturated with products of animal and vegetable decomposition, aggravated by alternately being covered with water and exposed to the sun, neglect of sanitary measures, a certain state of the atmos phere, and unacclimated material are favorable conditions for yellow fever. (4.) Under these, at a high potency, yellow fever may arise de novo. (5.) The fever is not very likely to spread if those conditions be not met with. (6.) Sanitary regulations and strict quarantine are equally necessary.

The next paper was by Dr. R. S. Goodwin, of Thomaston, on Alcohol as a Therapeutic Agent. This enumerated briefly some of the most prominent physiological effects of alcohol on the human system in health, and defined the position which this important drug should take as a therapeutic agent. The paper did not, however, discuss chronic alcoholism, or the extensive catalogue of tissue designations which that subject introduces. Dr. Goodwin held that alcohol has in general received too much enthusiastic and over-wrought praise as a medicine, and that over-stimulation in disease is not a wise or philosophical mode of treatment. He claimed that alcohol should not be given at the same time as nutrients, nor as a febrifuge in febrile diseases, nor to women during the period of lactation. Alcohol, however, may well be employed as a means of sustaining the heart's action during alarming crises of disease, in the crises of fever, in recovery from shock, in the dangerous syncope following

violent hæmorrhages, in antagonizing the powerfully depressing influence of morbific agents; also in varieties of nervous disorders, by virtue of its sedative influence upon the nervous centres, it may indeed sometimes be of more value

than other remedies.

Dr. J. B. Kent, of Putnam, was not present to read his essay on Drainage in its Relation to Health, and it was referred to the publication committee for printing.

The next paper was on The Insane Colony at Gheel, by Dr. A. M. Shew, of the Asylum for the Insane at Middletown. The colony of Gheel, Belgium, dates back to the seventh century, and has now developed into a great system of government care of two thousand of the quiet chronic insane. An interesting account of the founding of the colony was given, and Dr. Shew then proceeded to describe the treatment. The patients are first received in the hospital, and are then sent out to live and labor with the families resident in the commune. The better class of patients are provided for in the village, but the others live with the peasants, and work in the fields with them. Every hamlet contained restraining appliances, but they are seldom used; excitable patients are at once transferred to Antwerp or Brussels. Dr. Shew, who visited the colony, was not pleased with the system, for the reasons that there was an absence of good medical care, a confusion of sexes, poorly ventilated houses, lack of wholesome diet, unlimited opportunity for the abuse of patients, and defective curative arrangements.

Prof. W. A. Hammond presented a paper in his usual vein on Insane Asylums, which was received without debate, and with the thanks of the society. Dr. Carleton, of Norwich, exhibited a part of a leg bone, illustrating ununited fracture, and made an interesting statement of the case, which occurred in New London.

Dr. Frank Foster, of New York, read an instructive paper on the Use of Vaccine Matter taken from the Animal, and Dr. R. W. Matthewson, of Durham, a paper on Fibrous Tumor of Uterus removed by Laparotomy. This closed the readings, and the following voluntary communications were merely read by title, to save time, and ordered published with the proceedings:

Officinal Alcohol as a Stimulant, by Dr. D. C. Leavenworth, of New Haven ; Astringents in Diseases of the Conjunctiva, by Dr. F. M. Wilson, of Norwalk; Myopia, by Dr. W. H. Carmalt, of New Haven; Perityphlitis, by Dr. E. C. Kinney, of Norwich; Mortality of the Insane, by Dr. James B. Olmstead, of Middletown; Registration, by Dr. C. A. Lindsley, of New Haven; Spasmodic Spinal Paralysis, by Dr. J. H. Treat, of Terryville; Arsenic Eating, by Dr. P. A. Jewett, of New Haven; Treatment of the Insane, by Dr. Bacon, of Middletown.

The convention then, at 2.15 P. M., adjourned sine die. The next annual meeting will be held in New Haven. After the adjournment, the members of the convention, delegates from other societies, and invited guests partook of the annual dinner, which was served at Merrill's café. This was a very enjoyable affair. After the cloth had been removed, brief speeches were made by Governor Hubbard, Charles Dudley Warner, Dr. Hosmer, of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Dr. W. A. Hammond, of New York, Dr. Cotting, of Roxbury, Mass., and Colonel Greene, president of the Connecticut Mutual

Life Insurance company. Letters from Dr. Fordyce Barker, of New York, J. G. Batterson, of Hartford, President Pynchon of Trinity College, and others were read, expressing their regret that they were not enabled to be present on the occasion. Dr. Wainwright also received, at too late an hour to present it, a letter from Governor Andrews, in which he stated that he could not be present, as he was preparing to start for Washington, D. C., on business connected with the gubernatorial office.

NEUBAUER AND VOGEL ON THE URINE.1

THE number of editions through which this work has passed since its first publication in 1854 sufficiently attests its worth. The translation issued by the New Sydenham Society in 1863 has long been regarded as the best treatise (it is rather a collection of treatises) in the English language on the analysis of the urine and its semeiology. But the progress of chemical science and medical research have made a new translation highly desirable, and the present one comes to us with the addition of about a hundred pages, a complete index, and very numerous illustrations, beside microscopic plates of the urinary sediments, the spectrum of hæmatin, hæmoglobin, etc. An appendix contains rules for the analysis of urinary calculi and concretions. The translation and revision could not have fallen into hands better qualified for the work than those of Dr. Cutler and Professor Wood, and the volume is published in a very handsome form.

POTTER'S COMPENDIUM OF MEDICINE.2

THE "frequent and urgent demands" for another edition of this work appear to account for its presence. There is little to be said for or against compilations of this kind, except to express surprise at their number. The volume in question embodies the researches of many of the best authorities, and contains some good hints on "natural therapeutics."

TELLOR'S DISEASES OF LIVE STOCK.3

THIS useful volume gives the results of the author's study and observations of the diseases of domestic animals in such a form as to make it comprehensi1 A Guide to the Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of the Urine. By DR. C. NEUBAUER, Professor, etc., in Wiesbaden, and DR. J. VOGEL, Professor of Medicine in the University at Halle. Translated from the seventh enlarged and revised German edition by ELBRIDGE G. CUTLER, M. D., Physician to Out-Patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Pathologist at the Boston City Hospital, etc. Revised by EDWARD S. WOOD, M. D., Professor of Chemistry in the Medical School of Harvard University. New York: William Wood & Co. 1879.

2 A Compendium of the Principles and Practice of Medicine for the Use of Students and Practitioners. By STEPHEN H. POTTER, M. D. Second edition. Hamilton, Ohio. 1879. 8 The Diseases of Live Stock, and their most Efficient Remedies. Including Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Swine. By LLOYD V. Tellor, M. D. Philadelphia: D. G. Brinton. 1879.