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PERSONAL AND NEWS ITEMS.

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DR. O. A. BEMIS, formerly of Craftsbury, Vt., has located at Whitman, Mass. AMONG the Boston physicians who will spend the summer in Europe are Drs. F. C. Richardson, F. B. Percy, J, K. Culver and W. S. Smith.

DR. HORACE PACKARD will pass the summer at Winter Harbor, and on a fishing trip in the woods of northern Maine.

DR. E. B. RICHARDSON, Class '91, B. U. S. M., has removed from Danville, Vt., to East Dennis, Mass.

THE many friends of Dr. J. E. Briggs, who have heard with concern of his severe illness, in Vienna, from septicæmia, learn with pleasure of his complete recovery, and early return to Boston.

DR. J. HERBERT MOORE, of Brookline, will spend his third summer at The Pemberton, Hull, as hotel physician. During July and August he will be at home to attend to his Brookline practice, from 8: 30 A. M. to 4: 30 P. M. daily, with office hours from 8:30 to 9 A. M. and 2 to 3 P. M.

The officers for the current year of the Indiana Institute of Homœopathy are President, M. H. Waters, M.D., Terre Haute; First Vice-President, W. T. Gott, M.D., Crawfordsville; Second Vice-President, E. B. Grovesnor, M.D., Richmond; Treasurer, I. S. Martin, M.D., Muncie; Secretary, W. B. Clarke, M.D., Indianapolis.

MESSRS. A. L. Chatterton & Co. announce the publication, in the early autumn, of the first number of a magazine to be called "Childhood." It will be a sixty-four page journal, devoted to the interests of children— physical, intellectual, and ethical, and will aim to combine the scientific and the popular. It will be edited by the well-known homeopathic practitioner and writer, Dr. George Wm. Winterburn.

A PHYSICIAN, in a city of the Eastern States of 55,000 inhabitants, with a good and well-established cash-paying practice, for good and sufficient reasons, which will be given on application, wishes to dispose of the same to some good and wellrecommended homeopathic physician. For further information address, with references, stating where and when graduated, E. F. G., care of Messrs. Otis Clapp & Son, No. 10 Park Square, Boston.

DR. AUGUST GRÜNEWALD and DR. FREDERICK DELOSEA, of Frankfort, Germany, were the guests of honor, on the evening of June 9th, at an informal and exceedingly pleasant dinner given for them, at the Copley-Square Hotel, by a coterie of Boston homeopathic physicians. The hearty good-fellowship of the hour found expression in the passing from hand to hand of the loving-cup, in which was pledged the health of the distinguished and welcome guests.

THE GAZETTE extends a cordial right hand of fellowship to its always-honored contemporary, the North American Journal of Homeopathy, on its entrance upon a new regime of editorship. Under Dr. Dillow's notably able, discriminating and conscientious direction, the noble old journal easily kept the place it so long ago won, in the van of medical progress, and added new laurels to the wreath with which the appreciation of the profession crowned it, when the century now so nearly sped, was in its prime. Nor can this record be lowered, while the Journal has so strong a hand at its helm as that of Dr. Eugene H. Porter, who, with the June issue, entered upon the arduous duties of its editor-in-chief.

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MEDICAL EDUCATION. - The time a medical student has to spend in college is Austria, five years before obtaining his degree; Belgium requires eight; Canada, four; Denmark, seven; England, four; France, four; Holland, eight; Hungary, five; Italy, eight; Norway, eight; Portugal, five; Russia, five; Spain, two; Sweden, ten; Switzerland, eight; and the United States three or four.— Current Literature.

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THE

NEW-ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE.

No. 8.

AUGUST, 1892.

VOL. XXVII.

Contributions of original articles, correspondence, personal items, etc., should be sent to the publishers,

Boston, Mass.

EDITORIAL.

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IN THE NATURE OF A BOOMERANG.

There are many famous and proverbial illustrations of malicious endeavor which proved fatally reactionary. There, for instance, is the man who digged a pit for his enemy, to fall therein himself; the engineer hoist with his own petar; the inexperienced boomerang-thrower on whose own head his weapon recoils. And, lately, the same idea is brilliantly illustrated by the gentleman who is in the way of doing homœopathy admirable and lasting service, through an artless effort to bring homoeopathy to confusion. We refer to the gentleman who, with all the ardor which inspired Quixote of windmill-fame, has, within a few months, started out to fight fiery dragons which his own diseased imagination sees in the sails of certain medical windmills which are daily grinding out honest and useful grist of help for mankind's fleshly ills. The spear of this modern Quixote is his vitriolic pen, and his tourney-ground the columns of our once reputable contemporary, The Medical News. A recent assault on his delirious dragons takes the form of a prize, modest indeed in amount, offered for the paper which shall most thoroughly and effectively "expose" homœopathy.

Since, without doubt, there are many in the ranks of allopathy to whom even the small sum in question, coupled with the advertisement to be secured from competition in this not altogether savory contest, will make persuasive appeal, homoeopathy may congratulate itself that it is shortly to be rendered a two-fold service. The offer of our dragon-haunted friend will serve the

VOL. XXVII. - No. 8.

353

First, it will

cause against which it runs amuck in two ways. introduce homœopathy, as homoeopathy is to-day, to a goodly number of young allopathic practitioners, who else might remain indefinitely in careless ignorance of its scientific status, its merits, and its claims. The merely venal and shrewd among those who take the offer seriously will, of course, grasp the idea at once that what is wanted is not the results of honest investigation, but of malicious invention, and will set themselves on the straight road to success by studying Don Quixote's own recent example, and presenting a tissue of ingenious misrepresentation, unblushing falsification and coarse abuse. Their work, and the outcome of it, can safely be left to the fate that has unfailingly overtaken such since attacks on homoeopathy began. But it is hardly to be doubted that many honest minds may be led to study homoopathy in a spirit of fair-mindedness, and thus, inevitably, in a search for demonstrable errors, discover demonstrable facts and merits. Such will not, in a study of homoeopathy as it exists to-day, hark back to the mistakes of yesterday, or accept eagerly the vagaries of its fanatics as the creed of its representatives. Studying homœopathy in the only spirit possible to any honest investigator, namely, as it is preached and practised to-day by its most scholarly, broad-minded, and able practitioners, the investigators will find so much which appeals to reason and challenges experiment that we fearlessly predict many conver sions to homoeopathic practice, which shall date from this maliceprompted search for homoeopathy's errors. Second, and not less important service that will be rendered to homoeopathy by this last onslaught of Don Quixote, will be the absolutely unanswerable argument it affords, that the spirit of rabid, unscrupulous, cowardly prejudice is the sole spirit in which those allopathic societies and coteries work, who yearly, persistently, blatantly demand, in the name of a helpless and injured public, legislation adverse to homoeopathy. This printed offer, and the essay to which its prize will be awarded, will be testimony past price for homoeopathy to lay before fair-minded legislators everywhere, as to the animus in which their adversaries are working, as to their adversaries' utter and wilful dishonesty, their self-revealed hypocrisy. No "campaign document" could be of more instant

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