in proportion to the success of its editor in making his work the exponent of aggregate opinion.

The subjects herein presented for thought and action are abundant; the minds for analyzing these subjects are still more abundant; the editor, with the kindliest wishes of the season, offers his journal to its numerous and increasing patrons, as the medium of those who, in disposing of these and other great questions, may seek to make still more worthy the character, the record and the reputation of AMERICAN PHYSICIANS.

WHAT IS ITS VALUE.-In reply to numerous inquiries, in regard to the real value of the Craig microscope, the editor has only to say, that while he can not endorse the enthusiastic eulogy written of this microscope by Prof. Loomis, of Georgetown College, while he can not understand why Dr. R. C. Kendall, of Philadelphia, should be able to detect trichinæ in meat with this microscope, when he failed to do so with an instrument costing thirty times as much, he can say (with all possible caution and care) that the Craig microscope does magnify with sufficient power to enable any one to do all that Prof. Holloway succeeded in doing, before and since he published his testimony in regard to it; the blood corpuscle, the pus corpuscle, the character of urinary deposits, etc., may be detected, with accuracy and ease; and in making any examination, the operator can determine, whether the specimen is of sufficient interest to be examined under a lens of greater power. No one, it is supposed, can be so simple as to believe that an instrument costing only $2.50 (or $2.75 with postage paid, as stated in the advertising columns) will magnify as many diameters as one costing $60.00; but that a detection of corpuscular elements in physiological or morbid products may be made with this microscope is unquestionable; the statement has been often made by those whose fairness, impartiality and veracity can not be questioned. The microscope magnifies about one hundred diameters.

SUPPLEMENT.

E. S. GAILLARD, M.D., Professor of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomy in the Kentucky School of Medicine; Professor of Physiology in the Cumberland University at Nashville, and Professor of some Virginia School. By T. S. BELL, M.D., Professor of the Science and Practice of Medicine in the University of Louisville, Ky.

Under this caption, Dr. Bell has had published, in the Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, for June, twenty octavo pages of personal and scurrilous abuse of the editor of the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal.

Two years ago, the Nashville Journal was expunged from the list of exchanges, because it was not considered worthy of such a position. Two months ago, Dr. T. S. Bell's name was expunged from the list of associate editors, because he was no longer considered worthy of such a position. That Dr. Bell should write twenty octavo pages of scurrility, and that it should appear in the Journal mentioned, is a coincidence which is suggestive of a most worthy and appropriate coalition.

Dr. Bell's gray hairs should make him venerable; his public professions of religion should make him a worthy exemplar. These gray hairs are, however, on all possible occasions, dishonored, by a scurrility which is as characteristic, as it is notorious; and these professions of religion have for years been a reliable shield to protect him, in his coarse impertinence, from a personal accountability.

It may be asked how Dr. Bell could have ever been tried as an associate editor. The editor's reply must be that of Beau Brummel, when he cast aside a soiled and crumpled necktie which he had selected, without judgment "this is one of my failures."

It will be remembered, that, in the April number of this Journal, there was published a review, by the editor, of a pamphlet on "The Pre-Historic Ages of Scandinavia and the Lacustrine Dwellers in Switzerland. By T. S. Bell, M.D., of Louisville, Ky.," etc. This review was not only courteous in every respect, but it was, even cen

surably indulgent. Twenty pages of abuse, commingled with puerile criticism and many false statements, made to wound and injure personal character, constitute Dr. Bell's reply. In regard to the personal abuse, the editor will not attempt to reply. Scurrility is a field which he has never entered, and one to which he expects ever to remain a stranger. He is willing to confess himself, in advance, vanquished, in any possible encounter, occuring in a field wherein Dr. Bell is so entirely at home, and where the editor is willing to acknowledge him to be facile princeps. In regard to the puerile criticisms and the false statements made by Dr. Bell, it is proper to make some reply. This reply will not be made in the pages proper of the Journal, for two reasons: one is, that the editor has no right to appropriate the pages of the Journal for such a purpose, and the other is, that he is not willing to introduce matter of no possible scientific interest into the body of a work which he has endeavored at least to make scientific in character.

Dr. Bell deprecates the review of his pamphlet and protests against it in the following words: "There was nothing in my lecture (a pamphlet of sixty closely printed octavo pages) that justified a medical editor in occupying space in his Journal with a reference to it." With such convictions, conspicuously confessed, Dr. Bell does not hesitate to occupy twenty-five per cent of the Nashville Journal with remarks in regard to the same pamphlet which, according to his own account, was not worthy of notice in a Medical Journal. It is not the intention of the editor, however, to pass by this protest, without a definite reply. Dr. Bell, with a few others, (some his satellites, and some actuated by reasons unnecessary to mention), wishes to have it understood, that the editor of this Journal deviated from the legitimate path of criticism to strike him a severe blow. The reply is simple. Such an object would not repay one for the trouble. The material of Dr. Bell's pamphlet was laboriously prepared by a medical man, for a medical audience, and was presented in a medical Institution. To claim that such material is not a legitimate subject for review in a medical Journal, is either puerile, or it is to acknowledge that the material was unworthy of a medical man, of a medical audience, of a medical Institution and of review in a medical Journal. In addition, however, to the facts already given, which would, of themselves, justify such a

review, Dr. Bell was considered a man of great pretension in scientific and general literature, and it is the custom of the Press, under these circumstances, to take the measure of such men for future reference.

Dr. Bell abuses this Journal and its editor most admirably, and as Solomon says, it is the part of a wise man to change his opinions, the editor will give Dr. Bell one of the few opportunities, possible of showing this wisdom; that is by comparing Dr. Bell's past opinion, as expressed in the chaste and grammatical phraseology of his letter, with his present opinions, as given in language equally entitled to admiration and respect.

LOUISVILLE, April 16th, 1868. Professor E. S. GAILLARD-Dear Sir: I received your flattering request to become one of your corps of laborers in your excellent Journal a few days since and should have answered immediately, but for the fact that you failed to sign the letter and I waited in order to get your Christian name. Having just obtained this from our common friend, Prof. Holloway, I now answer cordially in assenting affirmative. Yrs. hopefully and very respectfully,

T. S. BELL.

Here Dr. Bell is flattered in being asked to be associated with a Journal, for which and for whose editor in his personal, professional and editorial character, he can not find sufficient words of abuse, in a vocabulary confessedly copious and infinite. Dr. Bell may plead that he has changed his mind, and has so become entitled to the wisdom which Solomon describes, but be it recollected, Dr. Bell did not change his mind until the editor had weighed Dr. Bell in the balance and concluded that he could not really flatter him any longer. It is true, Dr. Bell may urge that, at the time mentioned, (April, 1868,) he knew nothing of the editor of this Journal, but if so, how could he truthfully have said that the work was "excellent;" or that he felt so flattered by the association requested, as to "answer cordially in assenting affirmative." This language is worthy of criticism; its beauty and force can only be described adequately, by quoting from the classic phraseology of Dr. Bell's chosen and appropriate companion, Dr. W. A. Bowling, editor of the Nashville Journal, "it is splendid, copious and unique." This language will be remembered as occuring in that masterly

piece of composition "the Announcement of the Nashville University, for 1867," wherein Dr. Bowling, (to use a part of his eulogy on one of whom he is now so notoriously fond, Dr. Joseph Jones,) was so "modest, unassuming, high toned, eloquent and famous." That classic, memorable circular; a part of which the reader will pardon the editor for embalming; recognizing the fact, that in so doing, its author is also embalmed. The custom of the Egyptians in embalming for the tomb and of not expensively devoting these receptacles to solitary burial, but of placing together those intimately connected in life was not only economical, but convenient. The editor will adopt it. It may not be practicable to adopt this custom, as they did, in its physical manifestations, but it is manifestly a pleasing and appropriate method of disposing of the mental and moral remains of those who have suffered this kind of dissolution. In embalming Dr. Bell therefore, it is a charity to their acquaintances to embalm Dr. Bowling also, that, like two Egyptian mummies, whose cutaneous corrugations have been purified and rendered savory, they may be laid in an expensive and honorable tomb.

Here is a specimen of the "splendid, copious and unique" diction of Dr. Bowling in his official circular: "Nor did we ever see a more attentive class than when Fort Negley, near the foot of which stands the college, was vomiting fire and smoke in a manner forcibly to recall Bulwer's description of the last days of Pompeii. A million of armed men have passed and repassed the college without seriously interrupting the even tenor of its way -it had been converted into a hospital, but the lectures went on amid the dead and dying. For two weeks before the battle of Nashville, it was the centre of a vast encampment and from its roof could be heard the strains (so notoriously trying to collegiate integrity-ED.) of "Dixie" and "Who's been here since I've been gone," from the Confederate bands upon the adjacent heights; still the voice of its ministering priests were not hushed, but in humble cadence mingled with the external uproarious discord. We ask the four thousand specially, who have worshipped at its altars like the exiled Israelite, amid the sore trials of the times, to let their thoughts occasionally revert to the Temple, and to determine that its fires shall never be extinguished, but amid external gloom shall appear all the brighter, attracting from afar those in search of light for