ment boiler. This raises its contents to 212 degrees F., and develops a pressure of twenty-five pounds to the inch, which must squeeze hot alcohol through every fibre of the gut. One hour is unnecessarily long, but it is a convenient space of time and insures certain sterilization.

The sterilizer is taken out at the end of the hour, and placed in cold water for a few minutes to reduce the temperature and relieve the pressure before opening. It is then opened, and the basket containing the envelopes pulled out. The envelopes are dropped into a towel and again put to dry, which takes fifteen or twenty minutes.

The gut is now ready for use. Each strand is sterile, it is in a sterile envelope which is in another envelope, and it can be kept sterile indefinitely, and carried about conveniently.

When desired for use, an attendant opens the outer envelope and bends back the tongue. With sterilized forceps the operator or his assistant takes out the inner envelopes, which, with the gut they contain, are absolutely sterile.

The inner envelopes can be used over and over again if desired.

Absolute alcohol 99 8-10 per cent must be used. Water makes the trouble in any heat sterilization of catgut, and ordinary 95 per cent alcohol contains water enough to crinkle and ruin the gut every time by this method of heating it to 212 degrees F. With 99 8-10 per cent alcohol this never has happened.

Nearly one half the alcohol used is lost, as it is carried out of the sterilizer in the envelopes and evaporates from them. That which remains in the sterilizer is good alcohol, but cannot be used again to sterilize catgut by this method, as it seems to have absorbed water from the gut enough to act as does ordinary 95 per cent alcohol, and if used is apt to cause the gut to crinkle.

This method has been thoroughly tested with entire satisfaction to the surgeons in charge during the past three terms at the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hospital, and during that time no wound disturbance has been laid to the catgut. The

necessary manipulations are so few and simple, and so little watching is required, that the nurses responsible for the preparation of the gut have found their work reduced to a minimum.

Kangaroo tendon may be sterilized in exactly the same way as that described for catgut, but certain manipulations are required in preparing the strands. The tendons come commercially in thick, coarse lengths, which have to be separated into strands of desired sizes. This is done after soaking the tendons in water for some hours. These strands, after being thoroughly dried, are tightly wound on narrow spools of cork or glass, and are then placed in the envelopes to be sterilized. If they are not so wound their fibres are apt to separate at one or more points, and these fine fibres, by shrinking unevenly, make a weak point in the strand. When properly prepared and sterilized, the strength of these strands of tendon, like that of the catgut, is not impaired.

The sterilizer is made eight inches long inside and is capable of holding about fifty envelopes, or one hundred strands of gut. It is made without joints to wear out. The steel bolts and thumb screws may be obtained at any hardware store, so can be readily replaced should a thread wear.

The rubber gasket is a rubber packing made to withstand heat. It is cut out with a knife and scissors, and one gasket will bear use perhaps four or five times.

It is undoubtedly desirable for an institution, or a surgeon having a large practice, to prepare everything as far as possible that is used in the surgical work. In this way only can absolute control of the processes involved in the sterilization of the different materials used be had. Sterilization of materials stands second to nothing in surgical work to-day, and by this method the sterilization of animal ligatures and sutures is made easy and absolutely certain.

EDITORIAL.

Contributions of original articles, correspondence, etc., should be sent to the publishers, Otis Clapp & Son, Boston, Mass. Articles accepted with the understanding that they appear only in the Gazette. They should be typewritten if possible. To obtain insertion the following month, reports of societies and personal items must be received by the 15th of the month preceding.

Why is it that so few papers are presented in the meetings of our local, state, and even national societies which pertain to the subject of materia medica? This is the question which comes into the mind of every thinking homœopathic practitioner, almost every time the program of the monthly or semi-annual or annual meeting arrives, and he sighs as he thinks of the programs of twenty years ago, replete with "provings" and guiding symptoms" and "verifications," and all those good things which are now so conspicuous by their absence; and perchance as he sighs he wonders with "truthful James," "Is civilization a failure or is the Caucasian played out?"

While it is true that the department of materia medica is not so prominent in our society deliberations as formerly, and while this is to be regretted, we do not by any means therefore believe that homoeopathy "is a failure" or the materia medica "played out," but "quite the contrary, Mr. Blank, quite the contrary."

The reasons for this are legitimate and natural.

When homœopathy was first discovered, drugs and drugging were in the ascendant. Much was sought in a blind empirical way to be accomplished by their power, and homoeopathy by its methods of proving seemed to show and did show whereby something definite as regards drug action could be learned. This was such an advance upon previous methods that provings were made, both judiciously and injudiciously, on every hand, resulting in a conglomerate mass of symptoms good, bad, and indifferent, which it has been the constant effort of the best minds in the profession of later years to sift, weeding out the doubtful and false, and

by repeated verification practically preserving the best. As a result of this quiet work, labor which is not startling nor brilliant and does not find its way often in print, the general sphere of action of what is known by us as the polychrests is pretty well established to-day. What can be accomplished by them and what cannot is better understood; fewer claims of miracles worked are made, and on account of this greater certainty as regards their action, homœopathy rests on a firmer basis than ever before.

These facts concerning those drugs are to-day so well known and established that it seems to be considered unnecessary for them to be reiterated in society deliberations. We do not believe this to be entirely wise, for every verification of the sphere of action of any drug is so much added evidence of the truth of homoeopathy and the practical results to be obtained from its application.

Another reason for the apparent lack of interest and study along this line is, we believe, one resulting from an inherent defect in the method, a natural limitation, so to speak. When provings were established the subjective was all that was considered necessary. The subjective symptoms were about all that constituted the disease, and the subjective feelings of the prover were all considered necessary for the complete application of the homoeopathic law. Then physiology, pathology, biology, pathological histology, etc., were either in their infancy or unknown; to-day they constitute the greater part of the study of medicine, and our knowledge. of disease is based not so much on the subjective or story of the patient, as the objective, or what we are able to see and hear and know ourselves by the aid of modern scientific instrumentation.

These various scientific departments of medicine, together with surgery, have advanced with such enormous strides that the mind of the medical student, taxed to its utmost in its endeavor to keep abreast of the everyday discoveries, has not yet been able to apply this knowledge to the scientific study of the materia medica.

Because this has not yet been done it by no means follows