which will approve the arrogation to regulars of all medical rights and their denial to all others. Cincinnati doctor was taken off the streets suffering from delirium tremens, while another was locked up in the work-house convicted of habitual drunkThe suggestion that only the dienness. Still more remarkable, howplomas of schools in our own State ever, is the statement that one of the should be recognized, is limiting the most prominent men in the Cincinnati science of medicine to very narrow Medical Society, some years ago, conlines. It cannot be commended as par-scious of his consuming appetite for ticularly broad in spirit or scientific in character. There is an intimation that the faculties of medical colleges should be passed under review by some imaginary authority; and after suggesting limiting the validity of diplomas to colleges of our own State, and to those making certain requirements, there is a further suggestion that "very few colleges in this State can be classed under the heading of reputable." We feel disposed to resent the imputation upon the colleges of our own. State which is found in the last paragraph. OUR REPUTATION ABROAD. To illustrate how uncertain professional reputations become when left, to newspaper discussion and opinion, we quote the following editorial from the Medical Press and Circular: SOBRIETY OF MEDICAL MEN. rum, invariably wrote his prescription twice, each time keeping a copy, thinking thus to escape any mistake which he was afraid he might commit while intoxicated. These are unquestionably planation, assuming, of course, that our difficult facts to dispose of by any excontemporary has not been misinformed, and the only conclusion to be drawn from them is that the State of Georgia cannot have been very far from the mark in acting as it has done. From these references to Cincinnati, iterated and reiterated, the reader would gain the impression that Cincinnati, above every other city of this country, is noted for the alcoholic excesses of its medical men. Our readers know how unjust such a reputation would be. There is no more reputable class of physicians to be found in any city of this or other countries than the physicians of Cincinnati. With very few exceptions they are temperate, honorable and of high moral character. The few exceptions are not found in individuals recognized by either of the not therefore to be The law of the State of Georgia deal-recognized schools of practice as repuing with medical practitioners addicted table, and are to alcohol has attracted much attention charged up to our profession. on both sides of the Atlantic. In this country it was held that the terms of the law in question were both insulting and uncalled for, and even contempt ible, as applying to the members of a "learned" profession. However, it may be that we have still something to learn in regard to the alcoholic proclivities and temptations which exist on the American continent, so far as members of the medical profession are concerned. We gather, for instance, from a contemporary that a short time ago a Compared with any other learned profession, we believe we are justified in taking to ourselves the "flattering unction" that our lives are as pure and our habits as correct as those of our English cousins, be they Cockneys or Provincials. The great trouble they have had of late years with their titled aristocracy on the question of morals. should make them a little chary of unjust condemnation of others. We have no knowledge of such a necessity, of "one of the most promi A PETITION HEALTH AND THE APPOINTMENT OF A SECRETARY OF PUB LIC HEALTH. nent members of the Cincinnati Medical TO ESTABLISH A DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC Society," and are persuaded that our editorial friend has been misinformed and has accepted too credulously the statement of some sensation reporter of the daily secular press. SIRS: Find enclosed a receipt of a "Law and Medical Book Concern," Chicago, of $3.00 for LANCET-CLINIC for one year, given by agent David J. Bigger, who was in my office on date given receipt. Also find notice from Chicago post-office department stating that there is no such firm there. I presume this is all a fraud, and I write you so you may ventilate it in the columns of your journal, if you desire. He took in" several M.D.'s in this city, and he is probably in operation somewhere yet. Respectfully, E. L. WILKINSON. To the Honorable, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America: The American Medical Association, at its annual meeting held in Washington in May last, unanimously adopted the following resolution: Resolved, That the President of the Association, W. T. Briggs, M.D., of Nashville, Tenn., appoint a committee of thirty to memorialize the next Congress to create a cabinet officer to be known as Medical Secretary of Public Health. NAMES OF COMMITTEE. . C. G. Comegys, Chairman, Ohio; N. S. Davis, Illinois; T. G. Richardson, Louisiana; J. C. Culbertson, Ohio; J. F. Hibberd, Indiana; W. B. Atkinson, Pennsylvania; Charles A. Lindsley, Connecticut; C. A. Hughes, Missouri; W. T. Briggs, Tennessee; H. D. Didama, New York; Thos. B. Evans, Maryland; Alex. J. Stone, Minnesota; J. P. Logan, Georgia; W. Ayer, California; Chas. Denison, Colorado; W. I. Schenck, Kansas; P. O. Hooper, Arkansas; H. J. Swearingen, Texas; Wirt Johnston, Mississippi; Thos. F. Wood, North Carolina; J. N. McCormack, The card and receipt of the bogus Kentucky; J. I. Reeve, Wisconsin; H. concern is also published: THE LAW AND MEDICAL BOOK EXCHANGE. CHICAGO, Cash Capital, $250,000. ILLINOIS. David J. Bigger, [Receipt]. $3.00. O. Walker, Michigan; Landon B. Edwards, Virginia; Albert N. Blodgett, Massachusetts; A. D. Beven, Oregon; E. D. Smith, Washington; J. B. Atchinson Montana; C. H. Mastin, Alabama; R. A. Kinlock, South Carolina. The undersigned, constituting a majority of the committee thus appointed, have the honor of petitioning Congress to grant this unanimous request, and and MEDICAL BOOK EXCHANGE will for- thereto beg your consideration of some ward the Lancet-Clinic for 13 months to E. L. Wilkinson, M.D. This receipt is also a certificate, and entitles holder to a year's membership in the Exchange. The LAW and The LAW and MEDICAL BOOK EXCHANGE, of the views expressed by the Association during the proceedings held on this important proposition. First, we beg to say that the American Medical Association is constituted of men of distinction in their profession | formity in quarantine laws; and an exin every part of the Union. For more tensive correspondence has been estabthan forty years its sessions have been lished by the Surgeon-General of the held in all the chief cities of the States Marine Hospital with our consuls, so from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, that the quarantine service is constantly and large numbers of the most eminent advised of the prevalence of epidemics teachers and practitioners have partici- in countries with which we are closely pated in its councils. These annual connected in a commercial way. assemblies have promoted scientific research, the formation of State Boards of Health, higher education and the publication of treatises on practical and preventive medicine which form a continuous line of medical progress in the last half of the present century. The marked progress in medicine and surgery in late years, for the promotion of which European governments have contributed a sufficient support by which men of capacity have been able to give their entire time to hygienic, experimental and clinical research, has not been fostered in our country, where the medical profession has been left, for the most part, to take care of itself, without subvention of the State. It must be acknowledged that the Government, through the operation of the Surgeon Generals of the Army, Navy, and Marine Department, and by the action of the Secretary of State, has authorized liberal expenditures for the establishment of the National Medical Libary and Museum, the issue of the incomparable Index Catalogue of the Library and publications of Army records of the late war, and for original researches at home and abroad on the origin and nature of the fearful epidemics brought to our shores by immigrant and other ships; the establishment of scientific posts by the SurgeonGeneral of the Marine Hospital service at Dry Tortugas for the special and continuous investigation of the causes of yellow fever, the Bacteriological Laboratory attached to the United States Marine Hospital at New York, and to the Surgeon-General of the Navy for the Naval Museum of Hygiene, in whose laboratories chemical analyses of water and food, as well as bacteriological researches, are constantly going on. The conventions of the quarantine service in the last few years have secured great progress towards a uni The work thus carried on is certainly of the highest importance, and avails in the protection of our ports and coast cities from infectious diseases of foreign origin; but the medical profession believes that the Government can, in a far wider way, promote the public good by creating a Department of Public Health, the head of which shall be a member of the cabinet of the President; and it seems to the Association that this is a propitious time for the inauguration of measures that will place the medical profession in its true relation to public affairs. There is no other profession that excels ours in positive efficiency to sustain public order, comfort and virtue. We possess vast capacity for the direction of society and promotion of human happiness. At this time the profession is manifesting, in a higher spirit than at any previous period, the power to suppress contagious and infectious diseases. This work was begun by Jenner a century ago, and the scourge of small-pox has been stamped out wherever vaccination is practiced. There are infectious and epidemic diseases that move round the world in nearly fixed periods, which we need not now particularize; they are frequently the products of squalor and wretchedness of peoples, and are spread far and wide about the lines of commerce. These invisible foes infect the air, the water, and the very food we eat. From the grosser foes of human health, cold, heat and tempest, people have power to defend themselves; but as regards these invisible agents of suffering and death, they are largely helpless, for want of higher knowledge. In their despair they turn to medical science for help, unwilling to trust in the brute law of the survival of the fittest. What laws are necessary for the full activity of our beneficent profes sion? We reply: those that relate to | known that infectious diseases and the social state of the people for the prevention of disease. They comprehend an amplitude and purity of water supply; proper dwellings for the working classes without overcrowding or deficiency of light and air; adulterated, or diseased food; complete drainage; disinfection of excrement; the preservation of rivers and smaller streams from pollution; the regulation of the hours of labor; the protection of childhood from the imposition of toil and their proper education in commodious, healthy buildings; cleanliness of streets and planting of shade trees in cities for protection from intense solar heat and the decomposing power by their leaves of deleterious gases and miasms; the establishment of public baths; the operations of quarantine to prevent invasion of pestilence and landing of immigrants with diseases dangerous to others; the isolation of persons attacked with infectious diseases and the disinfection of localities; the construction and management of general and special hospitals; the care of the sick poor in their homes; the prevention of consanguineous marriages and of those who have destructive types of constitution; the warning of society of the evil consequences of abuses of the brain, the material basis of consciousness, whereby a free will is impaired and the sufferers become irresponsible and often mentally ruined; the registration of vital statistics; and lastly, the repression of those two giant evils of civilization, intemperance and prostitution. We affirm that all the measures for public relief on these important subjects should be under the guidance of medical men. It is not the mere knowledge of the human frame as a diseased entity, or a mechanism, that should give us highest consideration in the State, but rather our capacity to prevent sickness by securing the proper administration of the laws of health. The medical profession holds itself ready, as it has always, not only to diminish the destruction of life now going on, but ultimately to destroy the contagions that cause it. It is now becoming generally toxic elements are disseminated in food. An infectious disease in the family of a dairy-man, or amongst his cattle, may be as widely diffused as his distribution of milk. The pollution of streams of water and wells in towns, villages and homes of farmers, we know definitely, subject many families to tedious and fatal diseases which a wise sanitation will overcome, if we possessed the power so to enforce it. It is now so absolutely demonstrated that by the rigid application of hygienic measures the ravages of pestilence may be arrested that medical scientists speak of this destruction as a "self-imposed curse of dying in the prime of life." Your petitioners are aware that Congress cannot enact laws on subjects which pertain to State and municipal legislation; but Congress can establish a Department of Public Health, which would assist, immensely, the systemization of facts of great importance to physicians and the people. The latest addition to the cabinet of the President is that of Secretary of Agriculture, and already a great impulse has been inaugurated by the practical farmer who is at its head. The question may arise with some person, whether such a department would subserve the interests of any particular school? We respectfully reply that amid all the apparent disparity in medical practice there is one true, severe unity, and to attain this all true physicians are continually striving. There is no disputation in medical science about anatomy, physiology, pathology, chemistry, physics, or preventive medicine; the difference amongst doctors lies in therapeutics or the treatment of disease, and as in the past, so for all the future, practitioners will use a variety of remedies and in varying quantities, and there will be different modes of management of sick, or injured people. With the advance in the way of education the differences in treatment will gradually become more unified. The organism which is called medicine, like every other product of man's constructive genius, is striving to attain perfection, and to accomplish this it must be sustained in all its scientific undertakings by the coöperation of national and state legislation and the hearty cooperation of the people for whose health and happiness all its efforts are put forth to prevent disease. It is certainly a remarkable spectacle to observe its constant effort to save the people from disease, when success will limit to the smallest dimension the office of physician. But this grows out of the nature of their studies, the tendency of which gives the highest motive for unselfish service to suffering humanity. The physician is bound to render this service to rich and poor alike. The amount of gratuitous service, especially in great cities, constitutes one-third of their practice. The most distinguished and experienced of the profession form the staffs of all of our hospitals, without any remuneration. It may be said that they receive their pay by reason of the distinction of their position; but they must have had distinction before their appointments. In war the surgeon must follow through the thickest of the fire, not to deal out destruction, but to staunch the wounds of friend and foe alike. If there was cruelty to prisoners on either side in our civil war, it was not perpetrated by the surgeons of opposing armies, and when the strife ceased they were the first to extend the fraternal hand across the field of conflict. fifty-five. The principle decline has taken place under thirty-five. After forty-five the decline, since 1859, has been insignificant, but from sixty-five to seventy-five the death rate in the same time has increased. He adds that it is not satisfactory to learn that while there has been an enormous increase in babies and young men and women, the loss is alarming amongst those eminent in experience and judgment. The causes of the vital failure in the mature element in society was not difficult to find by his statistical studies. In three or four groups of diseases most wonderful increase in mortality has taken place. Thus, in England and Wales, cancer, in five years, 1859 to 1863, carried off 35,654 persons; while in five years, 1884 to 1889, 81,620 died of that fell disease, an increase of 130 per cent. Seven-eights of these victims were over thirty-five years of age. Of nervous diseases in the first quinquennium, 196,906 died; in the second, 260,558, an increase of 32 per cent. Of kidney diseases the loss in the first period was 23,176; in the second, 61,371, an increase of 164 per cent. Of heart diseases in the first period, 92,181 died; in the second period, 224, 102 perished, an increase of 143 per cent. These diseases, he says, are of the degenerative character, and may largely be traced to vital abuses or overstrain; or increasing luxuriousness in our advancing civilization, thus establishing, The collection of statistics of births, broadly, a premature senility; moreover, deaths and marriages, and their tabula- the increase in insanity from the mildest. tion, we beg to say, should earnestly to the gravest forms is causing solicitude engage the attention of Congress. The everywhere. It cannot be questioned different states and cities of the Union that this fearful increase in bodily and have for a long time been aiming to mental decay should be well understood accomplish this, but we have no statis- and placed before the people; but it is tics that are national in character. The painful to say, that no such generalizalimits of the memorial do not allow us tions are attainable in our Government to show at large how, by such facts, offices for lack of statistical records. many of the most important problems in our social state may be solved. Recently an eminent medical writer of England, Sir James CrichtonBrowne, M.D., L.L.D., has shown that since 1859, while the decline in the death-rate at all ages has been 17.6 per cent. under fifty-five years, it has only been 2.7 per cent. at all ages above There is another aspect of this premature decay of grave interest, and it concerns a burning question of our day. Sir James shows that owing to the strain and drive in many manufactories where handicraft-piece-work vails, the neuro-muscular system of the shoulder, arm and hand, which on the average attains maturity at thirty years - pre |