and convincing worth than this which Don Quixote is considerately preparing for our use. Let us joyously thank him, and eagerly await its coming.

Don Quixote? The title is inaptly given after all. Addlewitted as he was, the noble old chimera-fighter, he at least had a brave and honest heart. His pardon, then, for taking his name in vain! Let us rather, with un-malicious laughter, see in our young friend of the News the fin-de-siècle Mrs. Partington. sweeping back the ocean of medical progress with his droll little broom of outraged prejudice; while the ocean's mighty billows must boom ever forward long after the droll little broom is broken to bits and the sweeper's ardor hopelessly and forever Gould - we beg pardon -- cooled.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

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A SERVICEABLE, PRACTICAL, AND HONEST DISTINCTION is that made between "curative" and "palliative" therapeutics, by our much-esteemed confrère Dr. P. Jousset, in a recent address on "Positive Therapeutics and Homœopathy." Dr. Jousset answers the familiar charge of our friends the allopaths, that homoeopathists are charlatans, trading on a name, because they sometimes employ medicines other than homoeopathically, by the sensible claim that homoeopathists, remaining loyally such, have as honest a right to employ palliative means as they have to employ surgical means, or dietetic means, or any other means within the possibilities of the broadly-educated practitioner, for the alleviation of suffering. It is not curatively but palliatively, and altogether legitimately, that the homoeopathist, in frankly noncurable cases, will employ morphine to alleviate agonizing pain, or chloral to secure necessary sleep. And as to the size of dose employed, says Dr. Jousset, the homoeopathist, like all commonsense practitioners, will "follow the teachings of the clinic, and no other guide." If the clinic teaches that syphilis demands mercury in appreciable doses, and malaria does the like with quinine, he will employ these entirely homoeopathic remedies courageously, in whatever doses experience teaches him will be most effective. And as to the allopathic taunt, that homoeopa

thists employ dilutions only for imaginary ills, "let them," says Dr. Jousset, "study our clinical records, and mark the results following our invariable employment of small doses in pneumonia, typhoid, the eruptive diseases, cholera - maladies not ordinarily classed, I believe, as benign!"

THE GROWTH OF HOMEOPATHY IN AUSTRALIA is a fortunate and interesting fact to which we have often taken occasion to refer. A glimpse of the subject, as viewed from the inside, is furnished in a pleasant letter, which lately reached the GAZETTE, from Dr. W. K. Bouton, of Melbourne. We take pleasure in quoting a few passages from the letter in question for the benefit of our readers. We may add that Dr. Bouton, having left hospital work for private practice, his present address is 7 Collins street, Melbourne. Dr. Bouton writes: "A brief history of matters in this part of the world might interest you, and is prompted by the receipt in this mail of papers giving the opening of the new buildings-hospital and medical schoolat Boston, in which, of course, I am very much interested. When I came to Melbourne, in '85, the old hospital (which was a private house used as such) consisted of sixteen beds, and was just closing. Soon after, the new building was opened, with a capacity of sixty beds; though at one time, in the height of a fever epidemic, I managed to crowd into it as many as seventyeight patients. When first opened, and in fact for the first year, we had a difficulty in maintaining an average of one half the regular capacity. So little known and appreciated was homeopathy or the hospital that it was with the greatest difficulty we could get sufficient funds to carry on the small work that fell to our lot. But what do we find now, six years later (after spending $150,000, in paying debts and adding to buildings and surroundings)? A hospital double its former size, beds constantly full, and applications standing over; while financially there is a steadily increasing fund at the bank, and this too in the face of great financial depression throughout the country. Don't think that this has been easily achieved; on the contrary, adverse criticism is very strong, and homoeopathy has only succeeded by its successes. We have just as much to contend with as ever,

but we hope the future has even greater triumphs than the past. We have the honor thus far of being the only homœopathic hospital in Australia. For six years after coming here I continued as resident medical superintendent, and during that time we treated, besides other diseases, over 1,500 cases of typhoid. In the treatment of this one disease we forced the public to appreciate us. With a death-rate averaging less than one half that of the best successes in old-school treatment, we made even the most prejudiced give us recognition; and now that this disease is largely an epidemic of the past, we still maintain our good repute, and each year we are reaching out more and more into all branches of medicine and surgery, especially the latter, for the new portion of the hospital is devoted to surgery, and is known as the surgical wing. One of the principal factors in the success of the hospital, and homoeopathy, has been the perfection to which our nursing staff has been brought. So much in demand are positions now that we have applications standing a year or more ahead. The pupils are taken for a twoyears' course of training. The first year they receive no wages; the second they receive a salary of $75. They live at the hos pital during the entire term. They are obliged to take two courses of lectures on hygiene, anatomy, physiology, and nursing in its various branches. They must pass examinations, on each subject. The lectures are given by members of the honorary medical and surgical staff. We have recruited from graduates of our nursing school, until we now have no others in the hospital; even the matron having been appointed from among the number. We carry a larger staff than is necessary, in order to (as was originally intended) supply nurses to the homoeopathic medical men for their private work. So excellent is the reputation of our nurses that they are in demand by the old-school doctors as well, and are sent for at a distance, even going as far as Tasmania. The hiring them in a private capacity is a considerable source of income; for, while employed at a salary by the hospital, the charges in private engagements are sufficient to give a handsome return to the institution. Shortly before the close of my term as resident, a vacancy occurred on the surgical honorary staff, to which, on my commencing private practice,

which I did in September, 1891, I had the honor of being appointed by the hospital board. Thus I am privileged in assisting to give the hospital a standing in surgical treatment, which we hope to see vie with the good opinion held respecting the success of its medical ability. In point of numbers our medical men are few. In active work we can scarcely count on more than eight in this colony. All are in Melbourne, and connected with the hospital-four as honorary physicians, two honorary surgeons, and two residents. We have no medical publication; even the allopaths have but one. I trust my little effort may have some small interest as coming from this side of the world, especially as Dr. Ray and myself are Boston University 'boys.' By the way, we are within a stone's-throw of each other, on the same street. There is one thing more I will say before closing, and that is, we are unfortunately situated respecting numerical strength, and the law here is such that it allows prejudice to largely control matters. The medical board of registration is composed entirely of old-school men. We have little consideration at their hands, and of late, more than ever before, there is a very strong feeling against all American degrees, of any school. Registration has been refused in more than one instance. I am afraid recruits holding American degrees are destined to limitation, for some time at least, though there is work for good men, with means enough to make a start, which is a matter of not less than £600 ($3,000)."

A FORCIBLE BIT OF ORIGINAL OBSERVATION is found in an arti cle by Dr. E. Landolt, of Paris, on the abuse of mercury in diseases of the eyes, which article, through the courtesy of a colleague, reaches us in the form of a reprint from the British Medical Journal. Dr. Landolt's observations are noteworthy, not only for their originality, but for their good sense, their logical force, and for the courtesy and the honesty shown in giving credit to the work of a brother practitioner, who was a homœopathist. We herewith reprint selections from the article in question :

exercise

"Nothing is more difficult than to establish the effect which a drug may upon the course of a pathological process. In the first place, two cases of the same

disease are never identical, because the character of the disease varies with the individual. Moreover, among the innumerable circumstances which influence the evolution of the morbid process there are so many which escape our observation, so many which we do not even suspect, that it is often impossible for one to have a clear notion if a change arises in the course of an affection — especially a change for the better - whether it may be attributable to the so-called remedy employed, or to quite another cause.

The visual organ, though very accessible to diagnostic investigation and to the application of curative means, is, nevertheless, often the seat of affections of which the nature is still little known, and of which the therapeutics leave much to be desired. One seems, then, to oppose to the gravity of the disease the violence of the remedy, and that without sufficient indications, to say the least of it.

Mercury is one of these remedies, and its use in ophthalmology tends to undergo an extension, such as many certainly do not suspect. I have assisted for many years, as an attentive spectator, in these dangerous experiments, for the patients go from clinic to clinic, from one doctor to another. I observe the results of mercurial treatment, and I compare them with those obtained without it. I have refrained from speaking sooner because, as I have said, to give an opinion upon the effect of a drug is a very difficult matter. But now my convictions are formed, and I consider it my duty to communicate them. It is needless to say that in ocular affections engendered by syphilis the appropriate treatment for such a diathesis — and amongst others mercury—is absolutely indicated.

Is it equally so of the atrophy of the optic nerves symptomatic of tabes dorsalis ? If this disease depends on syphilis, it represents such an advanced stage of it that mercury seems to me to have little chance of modifying it in any possible way. I never observed the least favorable influence from its use upon the degeneration of the optic fibres. This ought not to surprise any one. Whoever has observed under the microscope the state of the optic nerves, the hyperplasia of the connective tissue, the degeneration, the dissapearance even, of nerve tissue, cannot but be astonished at the fact of any one dreaming of regenerating by means of mercury an organ already dead. There is even more than death of the optic nerve, since its very fibres have disappeared. If this is true for tabetic atrophy, it is still more so for all the other forms of optic atrophy. Mercury has absolutely no power over these. On the contrary, these unfortunate patients, already blind or threatened with blindness, are for the most part so weakened, through the want of exercise, by the malady which has given rise to the affection of the optic nerves, whieh forces upon them a state of dependence, and also through the moral depression too easily appreciated, that everything which impedes their digestive functions or alters in any way whatever their well-being has a fatal influence upon their general condition as well as upon the state of their visual organ. We have, on the contrary, frequently observed that after a stay in the country, at the sea coast, in favorable hygienic conditions, the power of vision declines less rapidly, remains stationary, or improves even in proportion as the general health improves.

Just as some administer mercury in the form of inunctions, pills, hypodermic injections, in atrophy of the optic nerves, so one sees it employed in affections, already of old date, of the retina and of the choroid; in retinitis pigmentosa, choroidoretinitis, and in choroiditis disseminata with extensive atrophy of the uveal tract. The opthalmoscope, revealing as it does the state of ruin of the choroid, the pro