my fancy as a very philosophical method, when I first read his book. I directed the attendant to keep cloths, wrung out of cold water just brought from the spring, constantly applied to the tumor, and that they be changed every one or two minutes at first, gradually extending the interval to three or four minutes, as the temperature of the part diminished. On my return next day my patient considered herself well. The cold water had been applied unintermittingly for sixteen hours. There was no pain, tenderness, heat nor redness, and the tumor was considerably diminished in size. I directed the application of belladonna ointment twice a day, the child to be weaned, and cold water to be reapplied, if there was any return of the former symptoms. There was no further trouble. The tumor gradually decreased under the application of the ung't belladonna, and at the end of a month, disappeared.

Case 2. On the twenty-first of March, 1869, the same lady was delivered of her fifth child, at which time I was present. Two days afterwards the left mamma became engorged, tumid, painful and presenting a bright red surface, three inches in diameter, on the superior portion. It was hard and tender over the whole gland, but the tenderness was somewhat increased over the circumscribed red portion. This mamma had been the seat of repeated abscesses as evidenced by large cicatrices and unsightly contractions. The redness was confined to a part bounded laterally and anteriorly by three bands of cicatricial tissue. Efforts were made to relieve the breast by the pump and mouth, but in vain. The nipple became livid, swollen and excessively painful, and but a few drops of milk could be drawn, and that not without great exhaustive force and consequent pain. I ordered the cold water application, ut supra and nothing else. On my return, next day, my patient was entirely well, and a con

firmed believer in hydropathic therapeutics as far as "gathered breasts" were concerned. The applications had been continued ten hours, and at the end of that time the milk ran out of its own accord. The infant has regularly ever since received its proportionate share of supply from that gland. The first application gave considerable relief, and there was no pain after a few hours. The patient took no "cold," the nurse taking care that the water was confined to the inflamed breast.

ART IV. BELLADONNA AS ANTI-GALACTIC, AND IN THE TREATMENT OF FISSURED NIPPLES. By P. E. WHITEHEAD, Vicksburg, Miss.

The anti-galactic properties of belladonna are well known, but I do not remember to have seen mention of its use in cracked or fissured nipples, and having made use of it in one case with the happiest results, I send you an account of it, with the hope that it may aid others, as it did me, in the treatment of that usually intractable complaint.

I recently attended a lady who, a short time after her first confinement, was much distressed by two deep fissures, extending almost entirely around the base of the nipple, and whenever the child was allowed to use that breast she suffered excruciating pain.

After exhausting my ingenuity, and her patience, with every conceivable remedy, I determined to take the child. from the affected breast, and keep it (the breast) in a state of complete rest; at the same time I applied the extract of belladonna to prevent mammillary abscess. In three days the fissures were entirely healed. The mother had suffered no inconvenience, and the breast, which I again allowed the child to have, soon became as good as before the use of the belladonna.

Every one who has witnessed the annoyance peculiar

to these cases, can imagine the happiness of the lady in being relieved of her suffering, and at the same time having the usefulness of the breast preserved.

On the eighth day of February I attended a lady in her confinement, whose infant perished in three hours after birth. In about fifty hours, there was a full secretion of milk, the breast becoming hot and painful. I applied a plaster of belladonna, and in twenty-four hours all pain had disappeared, without the breasts having been drawn. At this time the lochia, which had been free, ceased altogether, resisting all the remedies which I applied to induce their return. Forty-eight hours after its application, the belladonna was removed by the lady; next morning I found the breasts again full and painful— one of them, which had been incised for abcess in a previous labor, I thought would certainly require the use of the knife again. The lochia were again reëstablished. I had the breasts drawn, and reapplied the belladonna, which acted as happily as before in arresting the lacteal secretion and threatening abcess, but the lochia were also arrested again. In forty-eight hours after its last application, I removed the belladonna, when the lacteal secretion appeared to be completely dried up, and the breasts gave no more trouble. The lochia did not appear again for a week.

ECLECTIC DEPARTMENT.

"Carpere et Colligere."

ART. 1.-ADDRESS OF WM. O. BALDWIN, M. D., President of the American Medical Association.

Gentlemen of the American Medical Association: I congratulate you on the return of an occasion which permits us to renew that fraternity of intellect, no less than that sympathy of feeling by which our life and vocation as physicians are beautified and ennobled. Of no profession are the inspired words more true than of ours, that we are "members one of another." The ideal of our profession is that of complete and thorough oneness. What is scientific truth for one is scientific truth for all. We have a common estate in the facts, aims and purposes that belong to the science of medicine, and hence we do a wise work, when we acknowledge the exalted unity of the medical profession by this annual assemblage.

The nature of this occasion reconciles me in some degree to the task which I have now to perform. When I remember that the position I occupy was first filled by the distinguished Chapman, and that the succeeding anniversaries have been presided over by men whose genius had shed not only light but lustre on the annals of our profession, I feel that nothing but the inspiration which breathes through affections kindled into life by this Association, could sustain me under the sense of incompetency for the duties to which your kindness has called me. Relying on the same spirit which prompted you to confer on me the highest distinction within the gift of the medical profession of America, and hoping that my deficiencies may be forgotten in the interest and magnitude of the subjects awaiting your deliberation, I proceed to discharge the duty, which the custom of my predecessors has imposed upon your presiding officer.

The spirit of a profession is the true sign of its character, as it is the measure of that respect with which its talents and services are regarded. Manly sentiment, springing from broad and genial sympathies, is the soul of every profession, and if it is wanting, no learning, no

skill, not even usefulness, can prevent it from sure and speedy degradation. The first and last requisite of professional life is not power of intellect, however valuable that may be, nor those acquisitions of knowledge that enrich our thoughts, but that other and finer quality of generous manhood which, as a subtle and pervading essence, enters with its healthy vigor and animating impulse into all its connexions. Of our profession, this is eminently true, and, on this account, I rejoice that the records of this Association give no evidence of sectional unkindness and prejudice, even during the period of our bloody war.

To me, gentlemen, this occasion is one of solemnity and significance. Standing here in the great commercial metropolis of the South, I find myself surrounded by men representing nearly every section of a country so lately arrayed in hostile strife. At a time when every other organization has been shaken to its centre by the passions of deadliest hate; at a time when the most matured conservatism has been over-mastered by the vindictive fury which has swayed the popular mind; at a time when even instinct has been treacherous to its ends, you have been drawn hither from homes far distant, over highways full of painful historic incidents, through territories watered by the blood and tears of a sorrowing nation, and you have assembled here as brothers and friends to unite your offerings to a common science. The mournful witnesses of this terrific struggle have confronted your eyes; the shadowy phantoms still linger on the stage where these tragedies have been performed; the air we breathe has not yet lost its echoing groans of dying heroism, nor the pathetic anguish of sorrowing relatives. Amid these circumstances so sundering to the most sacred companionships of life, you have met in the spirit of Him who is this world's greatest and best Healer -that Divine one who, opening and continuing his ministry of service, by curing all manner of diseases, finished its majestic self-denial in the reconciliations of the cross. Eight years ago we were separated by civil war. That war engendered the bitterest feeling in every other national organization, whether scientific, political or christian; but the members of this Association, without words of crimination or reproach for one another, assumed the respective places assigned them by the obligations of citizenship. Through the long and bloody contest