adopts no precautions, and he may have such cases even with the utmost care, but he will do the most to prevent such occurrences, and do more justice to himself and his patients if he considers every tonsillectomy or tonsillotomy a major operation, and a possible source of trouble from hemorrhage, and manages it accordingly.

EDITORIAL NOTES

IT is now President Heath.

PRESIDENT HEATH served the Association as

abandoned, and the time devoted exclusively to social features. At any rate it has been conclusively demonstrated on numerous occasions that justice to a double program is out of the question. If we are to abandon anything let it be the evening scientific meeting, which is only an additional burden after a strenuous day of scientific work.

BEGINNING with Jan. 1, 1911, the dues to the Association will be $2.00 per year. County society secretaries who are in the habit of collecting dues in the Fall should remember that the dues have been increased and collect $2.00 for 1911. It should also be remembered that the dues are payable on or before January 1 and become.

recognition of his services to honor him with the presidency.

THE Fort Wayne session is now a matter of history, and generally considered makes a favorable chapter to the record of successful sessions of the Indiana State Medical Association.

MEMBERS of the Association were particularly favored by having beautiful weather during the Fort Wayne session. Had the session been held a week later the members would have encountered a cold rain which continued for several days.

THE selection of Indianapolis as the place for the 1911 session of the Association meets with general approval. The Association ought to meet at the capital city, the metropolis of the state, which is centrally located, at least once every three years.

By order of the Council a revised copy of the constitution and by-laws of the Association as amended at the Fort Wayne session will be sent to all officers of the Association and all county society officers as soon as obtained from the printers.

THE ladies who attended the Fort Wayne session were loud in their praise of the manner in which the wives of the doctors of Fort Wayne entertained the visiting ladies. Automobile drives, concerts, luncheons and teas were given in honor of the visitors, and the most cordial hospitality was exhibited on every hand.

THERE seems to be a general feeling in the Association that the evening meetings should be

increased dues members should be reminded that the increase goes to make up a deficiency in the State Association treasury, and also to create a fund for medical defense in malpractice suits brought against any member of the Association.

THE meeting of county society officers at the Fort Wayne session was largely attended and of distinct value to the organization movement. Most of the addresses were made without notes but they covered in a comprehensive and interesting way some of the subjects that are of particular interest to those who are serving as officers of county societies. The paper of Dr. C. Norman Howard, secretary of the Kosciusko County Medical Society, was particularly helpful, and the paper appears in full in this number of THE JOURNAL. It should be read by every county society secretary.

THE Association at the Fort Wayne session made provisions for a campaign of education concerning preventable blindness, and arranged for the appointment of a committee for the purpose. The Committee on Preventable Blindness as appointed is as follows: George F. Keiper, Lafayette, chairman; Albert E. Bulson, Jr., Fort Wayne; John N. Hurty, Indianapolis; Thomas B. Eastman, Indianapolis; Professor Severance Burrage, Lafayette, and F. C. Heath, Indianapolis, ex-officio. It is expected that this committee will advocate the enactment of laws tending to limit the production of blindness by industrial accidents, ophthalmia neonatorum, etc.

THE president of the Michigan State Medical Society, in welcoming the Mississippi Valley

be done in general meetings only. If a large If a large number of excellent papers are offered the committee, and out of that number a great many are devoted to special subjects, it would seem better to divide the work between two sections, a surgical and a medical section, thus permitting all of the papers to be presented and thoroughly discussed. This matter has been left in the hands of the scientific or program committee with power to act, and whatever policy is adopted will undoubtedly meet with the approval of the majority of the members of the Association.

THE typhoid season is here, and in several localities in Indiana typhoid fever exists in a sufficiently large number of cases to be quite alarming. It is always interesting to trace the source of infection, but seldom does the information acquired prove to be beneficial to the people, who are oftentimes left in ignorance as to the manner in which typhoid is contracted and what precautions must be observed to avoid having the disease. We have been informed that in one small town there have already occurred nearly Thirty cases of typhoid, and as yet the inhabitants are unaware of the fact that the disease is acquired through infected water or food and the source of the infection can be discovered and further spread of the disease checked by proper preventive measures. Truly the physicians have a duty to perform, and that duty consists in letting the people know that typhoid is usually a water-borne disease, and that to stamp out the disease means discovering and cutting off the infected water supply.

THE legislative committee of the Vigo County Medical Society has commenced its work with the candidates for political office, and as Dr. J. D. Foor is a candidate for re-election as representative from Vigo county, the committee is preparing a letter to send to each physician in the county quoting the promise made by Dr. Foor to the medical profession two years ago, and citing his record in the legislature where he openly opposed all the measures advocated by the medical profession. The members of the Vigo County Medical Society propose to make an example of Dr. Foor, and let candidates know that when a pledge is made to medical men in return for their support it is expected that the pledge will be fulfilled.

We earnestly urge medical men all over the state to adopt some such course as that being

carried out by the Vigo County Medical Society. The medical profession has never asked for any legislation which was not in the best interests of the public at large, and too often they have been promised support by various candidates for office and later the pledges were not fulfilled. It is entirely proper to ask the candidates how they stand on questions of interest to the medical profession, such as respectable appropriations for the medical department of the University, for the Board of Health, for the establishment of a tuberculosis hospital, a hospital for the treatment of inebriates, etc. No candidate should be asked anything which is unreasonable, but he ought to be willing to pledge himself to vote for the objects approved by the medical profession if he expects to receive the support of medical men, and if at the next session of the Indiana State Legislature candidates who make such pledges fail to live up to the pledges, such candidates should be held up as an example of perfidy and publicly branded as unworthy of the confidence of voters who uphold integrity as one of the essentials in those holding offices of public trust.

AN agent for a well-known pharmaceutical manufacturing house informs us that fully 50 per cent. of the physicians who dispense their own medicines buy only the cheapest and most inferior drugs and chemicals. If this statement is correct then the physicians who look to price rather than quality when purchasing their supplies are deserving of the severest censure. Drugs and chemicals cannot be too good for use in treating diseased conditions, or even in carrying out laboratory work, and the manufacturers of drugs and chemicals of the highest quality are sufficiently plentiful, and competition makes the price sufficiently reasonable to warrant the statement that no honest doctor has any excuse for patronizing the many manufacturers of inferior goods who bid for business because of the price but who make the purchaser pay dearly because of a sacrifice of quality. There are a great many so-called physicians' supply houses and with few exceptions such houses are the worst offenders when it comes to a question of quality. Usually they do a manufacturing business themselves on a small scale, and with inadequate facilities, a comparatively greater expense to carry on the manufacturing business, and a natural desire to make the most profit, the result is a reduction in quality. No physician should be deceived by the specious arguments put forth by the maker of cheap and inferior goods. The most reliable

A HEALTH car caravan is being organized in Indianapolis by the father of a tuberculous child. The caravan will contain twelve vans and two automobiles with accommodation for from forty to fifty patients, suffering from tuberculosis. Nurses, cooks and a physician are to accompany the caravan. The maximum of out-of-door life will be led. For amusement fishing, hunting, sightseeing and visiting famous battlefields have been planned. The route includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. The caravan will return to Indianapolis in the spring of 1911.