MISCELLANY. 1:0:1 LAWYER: I'm not feeling very well, doctor; does it make any difference on which side I sleep? Doctor (with a wink): Well, a good lawyer will never lie on the left side. Binghampton Republican. Medical Student - It is a very powerful narcotic, and extremely dangerous when taken in large doses. — Pharmaceutical Era. A GERMAN anatomist has just announced the fact that after a careful examination of woman's knee he finds that it is unfitted for maintaining a standing position, and it is proposed to post this up in the street cars. — Med. Era. "WHAT do we get from iodine?" "I think," replied a brilliant youth, The tutor frowned, and said, “A-hum! Young friend, have you been taking some?" SOME ANSWERS OF STUDENTS. The Chemist and Druggist quotes from the Bedford College Magazine some curious specimens of students' answers about nitrous oxide. One of these is the following: "Nitrous oxide is often called laughing-gas. With this gas they pull out teeth; this is the reason they call it laughing-gas." Another is: "Nitrous oxide has a sweet taste; has a soothing influence; is an esthete." Others there were that were quite as wide of the mark, but these will show how superficial an impression can be made on the mind of a chemistry student. —Jour. Am. Med. Association. - TEA A CAUSE OF COLD FEET. Mr. Hutchinson says in the Archives of Surgery, that he once advised a lady to drink more tea. "I cannot touch it," was her reply, "It makes my feet icy cold, and wet with cold perspiration." On furthey inquiry, she assured Mr. Hutchinson that she was quite certain of her facts, and had often tested them. Mr. Hutchinson says he had long been familiar with the fact that tea made the feet cold, but did not know that cold perspiration attended it. It does not do so in all persons. The coldness is caused, he believes, by contraction of the arteries, for the feet at the same time shrink. Alcohol has usually a precisely opposite effect. Med. Times EXAMINER (to aspirant for pharmaceutical honors): Well, now, Mr. Murphy tell me how you would prepare extract of logwood? Candidate (hesitatingly): I'd - I'd get me logwood, sur. Examiner (approvingly): Just so, Mr. Murphy. Candidate (confidently): I'd get me logwood, sur, and-and - (after a long pause, desperately) put it in a tincture press; squaze the juice out av it; filter through paper; boil, to soften the albumin; thin evaporate to a syruppy consistency; decant the ethereal solution, and preserve in a stoppered bottle. Entire collape of examiner. - Ex. TOO PREVIOUS. - Alexander Dumas, fils, dined one day with Dr. Gistal, one of of the most popular and eminent physicians in Marseilles. After dinner the company adjourned to the dining-room, where coffee was served. Here Gistal said to his honored guest: “My dear Dumas, I know you are a capital hand at improvising. Pray oblige me with four lines of your own composing here in this album." "With pleasure," the author replied. He took his pencil and wrote: Result: The hospital is now pulled down, "You flatterer!" the doctor interrupted, as he was looking over the writer's shoulder. But Dumas went on: And in its place we have a cemetery. - - Weekly Med. Review. PERSONAL AND NEWS ITEMS. -:0: DR. PEMBERTON DUDLEY, General Secretary of the American Institute, has removed to 1405 N. 16th Street, Philadelphia. A. L. KENNEDY, M. D., has removed to Hotel Hamilton, corner Clarendon Street and Commonwealth Avenue. Hours: 8 to 10, 3 to 5; Sundays, 5 to 6. "CHILDHOOD," the new magazine to be edited by Dr. Geo. Wm. Winterburn, is owned by its editor, who proposes to make it a telling force toward the education, physical and mental, of the young. THE ESSEX COUNTY HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY held its annual "Field Day" at the "Winne-Egan," Baker's Island, Salem Harbor, Wednesday, July 27th. The occasion was a very merry and successful one. DR. EDWIN A. CLARKE has opened an office at 72 Pleasant Street, Worcester, where he will give his exclusive attention to the treatment of diseases of the eye and ear. Office hours: 2 to 4 P. M. He will hold a clinic at the Worcester Free Homœopathic Dispensary, 11 Trumbull Street, on Tuesday and Friday, from 4 to 5 P. M. THE homœopathic physicians appointed to the staff of the new general hospital, at Malden, Mass., are: Surgeons, Drs. W. B. Perkins and La Forrest Potter. Physicians, Drs. Julia A. B. Russell and C. Maria Nordstrom. The following have also been elected on the consulting staff: Drs. G. B. Sawtelle, W. B. Perkins and La Forrest Potter. The hospital will be opened for the reception of patients August 1st, although there are now two emergency cases in the institution which are being treated. WORLD'S CONGRESS NOTES. The International Hahnemann Association has been invited to take part in the Congress. The Congress will convene Monday, May 29th, 1893, and continue its sessions through the week, the last session being held June 3rd. The decision of the American Institute to hold its next session in connection with the World's Congress of Homœopathy, at Chicago, in 1893, will insure the largest and most representative meeting of our school ever held. The Great Northern Hotel, new and elegantly furnished, absolutely fire-proof, has been engaged for the headquarters of the Congress. It is about three blocks from the Art Building, where the sessions of the Congress will be held. Rooms will be furnished at regular rates. Application should be made at once to Dr. J. H. Buffam, Venetian Building, Chicago. The magnificent Art Building, to cost $1,000,000, in which the meetings of the Congress are to be held, is now being rapidly built, and will be completed May 1st, 1893. It will contain two audience rooms, seating 3, 500 each, and a dozen or more halls, seating from 300 to 700 each. Ample facilities will be afforded for introductory exercises, general sessions and committee meetings, under the same roof. One of the most interesting studies for physicians at the Exposition, will be its sewerage system. Six thousand sanitary closets will be built in marble compartments. From these the sewerage will be conveyed to large tanks at the south-east corner of the grounds, there purified by chemicals, its solids pressed into cakes and burned in furnaces. Arrangements are made for a permanent city of 300,000 inhabitants. This method will, therefore, receive a thorough test. BRIGADIER-GENERAL EDWARD AUGUSTUS WILD, M.D., was the son of Dr. Charles and Joanna (Rhodes) Wild, and was born in Brookline, Mass, November 25, 1825. His father was one of the first physicians in Massachusetts to adopt the practice of homeopathy, and for his marked ability, combined with rare professional insight and eccentric manners, was a noted physician. The son inherited some of his father's peculiarities. He graduated from Harvard College with the degree of A.B., in 1844, spent one year in the medical school of Harvard University, and received his medical degree from Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1846. On June 12, 1855, he married Francis Ellen, daughter of John W. Sullivan, Esq., and niece of General Dix. During the Crimean war he served as medical officer in the Turkish army, receiving, at the end of the war, a medal from the Turkish government in recognition of the value of his services. On his return from Europe he resumed practice in Brookline, where he soon acquired a distinguished popularity. From his boyhood military life possessed a charm for him, and at the very commencement of the rebellion he was among the first to offer his services to the State. On May 22, 1861, he was commissioned as Captain of Company A, First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. He served in the regiment at the first battle of Bull Run, and in the Peninsula Campaign under General McClellan. At the second battle of Fair Oaks he was severely wounded in the right hand, and returned home disabled. Before his wound was healed he was commissioned successively as Major and Lieutenant Colonel of the Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteers, and on the 11th of August, 1862, was commissioned Colonel of the Thirty-fifth Regiment, which had recruited under his direction. On the 22nd of August, the regiment, one thousand strong, left the State with Colonel Wild at its head, his arm suspended in a sling, and on the 14th of September following, at the battle of South Mountain, where he led his regiment with the greatest bravery, he was again severely wounded, in the left arm, which was first amputated at the middle third and afterwards at the shoulder. Most persons would have felt that they had sacrificed sufficient to their country, as for some time his life was in great danger, but, recovering from his wound, with determined will he brought into service his almost useless right hand, and on the 23rd of April following he was commissioned Brigadier General of the United States Volunteers. After assisting in raising the Fiftyfourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts regiments, composed of colored troops, he assumed command of the organization known as Wild's African Brigade. He served under General Foster in North Carolina, and under General Butler in the Army of the James, and in May, 1865, was ordered to report for duty in Georgia, under Brevet-Major Saxton, Assistant Commissary of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Finally, by an order of the department, dated December 28, 1865, he, with 122 general officers, was honorably mustered out of the service of the United States. His long and severe military service unfitted him, in his own opinion, for a return to the medical profession. He became interested in the mines of Nevada Territory, and, with varying fortunes, spent many years of his life, replete with adventure and hardship, in the wildest regions of the West. Long-continued hardship and exposure brought on a premature age, which was graced by a dignity and nobility of bearing rarely equaled, but quenched not the fire and daring of his early life. Although his health was impared, yet he engaged in an undertaking, with a party of civil engineers, to make surveys for a railroad from the Magdalena river to the city of Medellin in South America, for the government of Antioquia. The party sailed from New York on July 1st, 1891, and after a hard journey reached Medellin about the last of the month. Severe sickness came upon him, and he died at Medellin, on the 28th ot August, 1891, in the sixtysixth year of his age. During his entire sickness he received distinguished care and attention, and, as a "General of a friendly nation," General Wild was buried with military honors. A company of soldiers escorted his body to the cemetery, while the bells of the cathedral tolled, and the governor of the province, secretary of the treasury and other goverment officials, as well as the employés of the railroad company attended the funeral services of the distinguished dead. Although the military career of Dr. Wild formed a very important part of his life, still his ardent, enthusiastic, persistent and enduring temperament, had he continued therein, would have made a lasting imprint upon the medical profession. He was deeply interested in all pertaining to it-in its literature, its institutions, and all that served for its advancement. With the poorest child he would sometimes sit for hours, watching the effect of a carefully-selected remedy. He was a firm believer in homoeopathy, and an active member of our medical societies. He joined the State society in 1853; was a member of some of its most important committees, and in 1860 he delivered the annual oration, in which he dwelt upon the occult power of mind over matter. He became a member of the American Institute of Homœopathy in 1859, and had been eight years a Senior at the time of his death. I. T. T. THE NEW-ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE. No. 9. SEPTEMBER, 1892. VOL. XXVII. Contributions of original articles, correspondence, personal items, etc., should be sent to the publishers, Boston, Mass. EDITORIAL. --:0: ANOTHER WORD ON "VERIFICATIONS.” The New York Homoeopathic Materia Medica Society, through its secretary, Dr. A. R. McMichael, has done the GAZETTE the honor to reply, somewhat in extenso and very courteously, to the GAZETTE'S editorial note, of a few months ago, on the Society's methods and purposes. We take great pleasure in reproducing this letter in full : "THE NEW YORK HOMEOPATHIC MATERIA MEDICA SOCIETY. To the Editor of the New-England Medical Gazette: SIR, The June number of the NEW-ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE, in referring to the New York Homeopathic Materia Medica Society, has, in the form of a criticism on the object of the Society, evidently been led astray as to its true intent and purposes. The object, in part, of the Society, as set forth in the February number of the North American Journal of Homœopathy, is briefly as follows: To collect and preserve all verifications, not only of reliable pathogenetic symptoms, but clinical as weil, from every source extant. At the end of each year a value is to be given to each symptom, whether pathogenetic or clinical, should it reach the standard imposed by the Society. This standard will likely be similar to the following: If a symptom has been verified ten times it will be considered a grand characteristic of that drug; should five verifications be found it will stand as a characteristic, pathogenetic or clinical, as the case may be; the two being kept apart, and printed in the collaborator's report as such. All symptoms that do not reach the standard at the end of each year will go over and occupy the VOL. XXVII. - No. 9. 403 same place, and have the same relation and value as those previously considered. In this way, drugs that have reliable provings will have their symptoms verified, not only by one individual, but by many; and drugs that have not been proven, but clinical symptoms many times verified, will assume a practical value, if not scientific. It is true that many reported cures, or verifications of symptoms, will be found which are unreliable; but if the final standard of value be made sufficiently high, allowance can be made for reports which otherwise would not stand the test of scientific investigation. It is also true that drugs that have not been proven can be used intelligently; if their clinical symptoms are verified sufficiently by close observers our prescriptions then would savor less of empiricism, and would not detract from the scientific value of well-proven drugs. Very truly yours, A. R. MCMICHAEL, M.D." We cannot but suggest, though with all possible respect, and under correction, that the pith of our former comment seems here to be somewhat missed. That point was and is that to gauge the value of a clinical "verification" by the number of times it is found reported, here or there, may be, with the best intent, to do science a grave mischief by securing the survival of the unfittest. For, unhappily - speaking broadly and in the rough—the most confident reports of "verifications" are usually the least reliable. It is the novel, the unproved, and frequently the inert, or the wildly impossible drug with which the ardent enthusiast in therapeutics loves best to experiment, and from which he is most certain to report triumphant cures. As tales of these cures spread abroad through the journals more ardent enthusiasts experiment with the drug (sic), and more cures are reported; and not ten, but a hundred "clinical verifications" thus press forward in support of the claims of a substance which even cautious empiricists look at askance, and for which homœopathists, as such, can have no possible use, since the substance in question has no pathogenesy. It is a humiliating fact that "clinical verifications" are of very little more value, as found in medical magazines, than are "testimonials" to patent medicines, in the columns of daily newspapers. Both may be honest; both may stand for the fact that certain results may scem to follow the administration of certain substances, and the |