SAPONIN BARRED FROM FOOD PRODUCTS

The Government Bureau of Chemistry at Washington sends out the following report regarding Saponin.

The addition of saponin to food mixtures which are sold for use in place of white of eggs is regarded by the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture as constituting adulteration within the meaning of the Food and Drugs Act. In Service and Regulatory Announcements No. 17" it is stated that the practice is usually adopted for the purpose of concealing inferiority and that therefore it comes within the definition of adulteration in the Food and Drugs Act. Saponin is used extensively in so-called substitutes for white of egg for the purpose of producing foam and thus giving the articles a fictitious appearance of body and therefore of food value.

Saponin is a substance that when dissolved in water foams like soap. It is extracted from plants known as soapbark and soaproot, and a few other plants, by boiling them in water. Its name is derived from the Latin word sapo, which means soap. When saponin is added to the so-called s ibstitutes for white of eggs it produces a foam similar in appearance to the foam produced by genuine white of egg.

PERSONAL AND GENERAL ITEMS

Dr. Olive Ella Smith (B. U. School of Medicine 1909) is in practice at Waterloo, Iowa.

Dr. George I. Lythcott (1913 B.U. School of Medicine) is located at Darlington, South Carolina.

Dr. George J. Searle (B.U.S.M., class of 1888) formerly of Marlboro, Massachusetts, but more recently of Plymouth, Ohio, has gone to Buckingham, Florida, in search of health. He writes that he is in the woods, twenty miles from the railroad.

Dr. Francis X. Corr (B.U.S.M., 1898) has removed from Magnolia St., Dorchester, to 422 Freeport St., Neponset, Mass.

Dr. Lillian Neale Wood Bradway (B.U.S.M., 1898) has removed from Boston to Monson, Massachusetts.

Dr. N. H. Garrick (B.U.S.M., 1915) has been sent to New York by the Evans Memorial for Clinical Research and Preventive Medicine, for special study and research in Neurology.

The present address of Dr. Margaret Doolittle Nordfeldt, (class of 1898, B.U.S.M.), is Provincetown, Mass.

Dr. David W. Wells, Professor of Ophthalmology in Boston University, left Boston on February 25th for a trip to Florida, Nassau and Cuba, covering the greater part of the month of March.

Dr. Frank E. Allard, Lecturer on Physical Economics at Boston University School of Medicine, has completed his course for the 1915-16 session, and sailed from New York on March 23 for a short trip to Bermuda.

Notice has been received from Australia that Dr. Albert Reginald Heupt of Sydney has legally changed his name to Albert Reginald Heupt McLeod. Dr. Heupt McLeod was a graduate of the Medical School of Boston University, class of 1907.

Dr. J. Walter Schirmer of Needham, Massachusetts, Lecturer on Sanitary Science at Boston University School of Medicine, sailed from New York on March 30 for a short trip to Bermuda.

Dr. J. Herbert Moore, Professor of Children's Diseases, Boston University, spent the month of March at Virginia Hot Springs, taking a much needed rest.

Dr. Elinor Van Buskirk, (class of 1907, B.U.S.M), is now Dr. Elinor Van Buskirk Cummins, her office address remaining as before, 605 West 111th St., New York City.

Drs. Barbara T. Ring and A. S. Guibord left Boston on March 29 to attend the Medico-Psychological Society's annual convention, held this year at New Orleans, April 4-7. They expect to be back in Boston about April 15.

The Boston Journal in its issue for March 23 stated that appropriations amounting to $2,670,874 have been made by the Rockefeller General Education Board to Johns Hopkins, Yale and Washington universities for reorganizing clinical instruction in medicine on the "full time plan," the teaching staff in important branches to retire from paid private practice.

A course of three lectures to the Massachusetts Dental Society was given in March by Dr. W. H. Watters, as follows:

1. Diagnosis of Syphilis.

2. Treatment of Syphilis.

3. Treatment of Syphilis of the Nervous System.

These were given in the lecture hall of the Evans Memorial, Massachusetts Homœopathic Hospital.

Dr. H. Martin Morse, class of 1896 B.U.S.M., has removed from Springfield, Vermont, to Nashua, N. H.

Dr. H. E. Whitaker has returned to Gloucester, Massachusetts, from Somersworth, New Hampshire.

Dr. J. J. Golub, B.U.S.M. 1915, has opened an office at 3 Hancock St., Boston.

Dr. G. E. Harmon, class of 1909 B.U.S.M., is located at 1353 East 9th St., Cleveland, Ohio, and is teaching Bacteriology in Western Reserve University in that city. He is not in active practice but is connected with the statistical department of Cleveland Board of Health.

Dr. Joseph K. Miller, class of 1913 B.U.S.M., is located at 36 River St., Boston.

Dr. Emily H. J. Barker has returned to Wellesley, Massachusetts, from East Aurora, N. Y., and is located at 14 Denton Road.

Dr. Walter Wesselhoeft of Cambridge, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, has been spending the winter at Redlands, California, and expects to remain away until some time in May. His son, Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft, 2nd, is caring for his father's practice.

Dr. C. Wesley Sewall, class of 1914 B.U.S.M., has located at 21 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain, Mass.

FOR RENT. - To a woman physician, the use of a Boston office for certain hours one or more days a week. Inquire at Suite B., 483 Beacon St., between 3 and 5 o'clock p.m.

Dr. M. Edna Wallace (B. U. S. M., 1915), has transferred from Fabiola Hospital, Oakland, California, to Dr. Lee's private hospital, Rochester, New York.

The Journal of Advanced Therapeutics is being published under new management and its name changed to the American Journal of Electrotherapeutics and Radiology. The editorial staff remains as before, William Benham Snow, M.D., Editor, Mary Arnold Snow, M.D., Associate Editor.

The June 1 meeting of the Maine Homœopathic Medical Society will be held in Augusta and, from the fact of its being the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Society, is to be made of especial interest.

OBITUARY

Franklin D. Worcester, M. D.

Dr. Franklin D. Worcester, for the past twenty years a resident of Keene, New Hampshire, died at his home on March 29th at the age of sixty-four years. He was a graduate of Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago and a brother of Dr. George W. Worcester of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Previous to his removal to Keene he had been in practice for twelve years at Springfield, Vermont. For some years past he had been an invalid from paralysis.

Dr. Worcester was a member of the American Institute of Homœopathy and of both the New Hampshire and Vermont State Homoeopathic Medical Societies. He leaves a widow and a daughter, besides his brother, Dr. Worcester, and a sister.

DO YOU KNOW THAT

There is no Federal institution in the continental United States for the

reception and care of lepers?

Plague is a disease of rodents?

Malaria is spread by a special mosquito?

House screening is a good disease preventive?

Fingers, flies and food spread typhoid fever?

Pellagra may be prevented or cured by proper diet?

The United States Public Health Service believes that the common

towel spreads trachoma, a disease of the eyes?

Children from sanitary homes advance more rapidly in school than those from dirty premises?

CORONER'S VERDICT IN INDIA

For quaintness it would be hard to beat the verdict returned in India on a man whose fate it had been to assuage a tiger's appetite. "That Pandso died of tiger eating him. There was no other cause of death."--London Chronicle.

REGULAR HOURS

Faithful Colored Servant (to young physician)-"Glory be, Dr. Tawn, a sho' nuf patient done come at last. He done come today. But I hatter sen' him away." Young Physician-"What the deuce did you do that for?" Servant-"Well, suh, yo' orfice hours am from 11 to 1. Hit were gwine on half past when this here gem'man ring de do' bell."-New York Post.

A REFRESHING ODOR

An agreeable method of changing the atmosphere in an invalid's room is to put some eau de Cologne into a shallow dish, and with a lighted match set fire to it. The spirit will make a pretty flame, and impart a delightful odor to the air. -Nursing Journal of India.

THE NEW ENGLAND
MEDICAL GAZETTE

VOL. LI

MAY, 1916

No. 5

Books for review, exchanges and contributions the latter to be contributed to the GAZETTE only and preferably to be typewritten personal and news items should be sent to THE NEW ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE, 80 East Concord Street, Boston. Subscriptions and all communications relating to advertising or other business should be sent to the Business Manager, 80 East Concord Street, Boston, Mass.

THE GAZETTE does not hold itself responsible for the opinions expressed by its contributors. Reprints furnished at cost.

STATE BOARD STATISTICS FOR 1915

The Council on Medical Education publishes in the Journal of the American Medical Association of April 8, 1916, statistics of state board examinations for the year 1915.

Graduates and students of Boston University School of Medicine may well be proud of the splendid showing made by our School. Of the four medical schools in Boston and that means in Massachusetts Boston University heads the list with but one failure, or 4%; Harvard Medical School is second with 6.5% failures, and Tufts Medical School and the College of Physicians and Surgeons follow with 13.5% and 39.3% respectively. These figures include all the candidates examined in 1915 regardless of the year of graduation.

The single Boston University failure was by a candidate who graduated prior to 1911. The figures for graduates of 1911-15 are, therefore, even more striking. Boston University has no failures, Harvard has 5.4%, Tufts 11.8%, and P. and S. 31.8%.

Among the graduates of 1915 examined last year, Boston University had no failures. P. and S. also had none (only five examined), Harvard had 1.8% and Tufts 11.9%.

Although the number of candidates from Boston University is approximately but one to four from either Harvard or Tufts

Medical Schools (25 to 108 [104] for all graduates; 19 to 55 [59] for 1915), and although this difference in the numbers examined would necessarily affect the percentages of failures in favor of our School, yet the margin of success of our graduates, except for those of 1915 (only one failure by Harvard), would seem to be greater than can be accounted for by statistical error due to simple variation in numbers.

On the other hand, it seems highly probable that our smaller classes, because of the necessarily closer relationship between teacher and student, are responsible for the superior product of our School. H. U.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY'S THREATENED LOSS

If President Lemuel H. Murlin accepts the secretaryship of the Methodist Board of Education, the headquarters of which are in New York City, Boston University will lose an able leader. The Boston Saturday Evening Transcript of April 22nd had the following editorial regarding his executive ability and success:

"It is truly a remarkable growth which President Murlin signalizes in his report to the Trustees of Boston University. He announces that in six years the number of students at the university has increased from 1,240 to more than 2,600. In view of this increase, the President's insistence on the need of enlarged accommodations for the students who are flocking to Boston University was only to be expected. The grant of his request should follow as easily. President Murlin has shown that he knows how to keep the University's financial house in order in a way that few collegiate executives even attempt. Every dollar of its current expenses is paid out of current income. With such a showing, ready for the inspection of all who might be inclined to make gifts to Boston University, the President and Trustees should not have difficulty in raising funds for the institution—or at least they ought not, for their own stewardship has been faithful."

The editorial should also have stated that the budget of expense has almost trebled during that same period, showing that the "pay as you go" policy of the Trustees is carried on without niggardly retrenchment.

It is said that the Methodist Board of Education, the secretaryship of which has been tendered President Murlin, has the control of six hundred educational institutions, with 60,000 students, and the handling of $50,000,000. President Murlin's success as the head of Boston University is responsible for the call to the larger position.