tients but did not react with typhoidal serum. Growth on gelatin and on other media differed from that of the bacillus coli communis and others of the group, but resembled that of the bacillus typhosus.

The Widal reaction in children has been said to occur only late in the disease and this claim is still held and still disputed.

It is now clearly recognized that typhoid bacilli are frequently present in the urine and in pure culture and that they may remain in the urine for months and years. During the past year many reports on vaccination, so called, for typhoid have been given. In several reports the morbidity and mortality are given as markedly decreased.

CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS.

The question of infection through the respiratory passage is discussed by Busquet. The nasal mucus from patients ill with epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis was placed in the noses of guinea-pigs. All of the animals became infected and the meningococcus was cultivated from the spinal fluid. The nasal mucus of these animals was placed in the nose of other animals of the same species with the same results. Similar results were obtained with spinal fluid from infected human subjects.

Buchanan suggests dust as a vehicle for the germ of cerebro-spinal fever. It was found that those working in dusty atmospheres furnished a very large proportion of cases. It was also noticed that the dry months furnished practically all of the cases.

Authorities consulted:

Boston Med. and Surg. Journal.

Progressive Medicine.

Phila. Medical Journal.

Jour. of the Amer. Med. Asso.

American Medicine.

Am. Jour. of the Med. Sciences.

Med. Review of Reviews.

Dr. C. A. Lindsley has been much interested in the two papers. Thinks they cover such ground as it was intended the Committee on Matters of Professional Interest in the State should do and not one subject as has been customary with the latter.

Koch is misrepresented as often as any man. He said that the tubercle bacillus was the sare in man and cattle. The question of communicability arose. There seemed to be a difference. It was marked and soon observed. There is doubt that the diseases of cattle can be communicated to human kind. But it should be qualified. It is not common. The question is still in dispute, and Koch so states. If the disease is communicated from animal to man it would appear first in those who use milk most, and in the intestine, not the lunges. Milk is the most universal food and the disease ought to appear in the intestines more often than it does. For the last three years has had a standing question before the Health Officers of the State-How often have you seen the disease communicated by milk? but it has not been answered. Such a thing is possible but it is not

common.

Vaccination is also another interesting question. It is unfortunate that Dr. Durgin should have said what he did about the results of vaccination, declaring it to be uncertain. There is no doubt that some persons who have been vaccinated have had small-pox. But what was supposed to be vaccination was really only aseptic inflammation which would explain the constitutional manifestations. It is never true that a pure vaccination devoid of bacilli can take place. The bacteria accompanying the virus may be more powerful than the true vaccine matter. When the doctor vaccinates a patient he rarely looks after it to see if it takes, as he should. So that these patients may not have been vaccinated. There may be a lack of suceptibility to the virus. Some

persons have to be vaccinated three or four times before it takes, and these are reported as taking.

Dr. Skinner-Justice has not been done to the X-ray treatment. It does not produce its effect by burning. He has treated forty-three cases in the last five months. Of these eight have been cured and discharged, and of these some were inoperable. By the time of the next meeting we will realize that the X-ray treatment has come to stay.

THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE.

E. K. LOVELAND, M.D.,

WATERTOWN.

In making a report on "The Progress of Medicine" during the past year, a person might, at first thought, say, as he tried to recall from his memory, that there had nothing particularly interesting or vital taken place, -but let this same person take the medical work of the year past, and sift it through even very hurriedly, and he will immediately be struck with awe as he begins to see and realize the progress that has developed as it comes before the mind of a thoughtful reader. The progress that presents itself in this one branch, viz.:medicine, which is that branch with which every practitioner has to do in his every-day life more than any other, is, I belive, the greatest,-and the more a person looks into the subject the more perplexed he grows, to know where to begin, what subject to start with, and what is of the greatest importance. In trying to show something of the progress of medicine during the past year, I will take up a few of the subjects, which seem to particularly interest us as practitioners here in Connecticut, and the most important of them, just at present, is, I believe, Firstly, the subject of Small Pox and Vaccination.

Secondly, we will consider the spread of Disease by Pests and Pets, which is so prominent before us just now, and lastly, we will consider how one disease will, oftentimes eliminate another; a few notable cases of which have presented themselves during the past year.

SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION.

The inoculation of Small Pox, according to Dr. Douglass, took its rise, probably, in the seventeenth century, from the Circassians, who practiced inoculation for the

purpose of preserving the beauty of their women, whom they sold, for the more beautiful the females were, the larger price they would bring. They were inoculated when they were mere babies, probably because the disfigurement would be much less than when inoculated in later life when their beauty might be marred by an attack of Variola, had they not previously had the disease. This inoculation with Small Pox continued in favor, more or less, until the time of Jenner, who on May sixteenth, 1796, vaccinated James Phillips in England with bovine virus, and his method is carried out at this day, having been in constant use, particularly in this State during the past six months.

Small Pox was formerly considered a Winter disease, epidermic only during the colder months of the year, and entirely dying out at the approach of warm weather,— even before the weather was very hot, but during the past two or three years, and very particularly during the epidemic this year, we find Small Pox extending into hot weather, and many cases breaking out and developing in the heat of the Summer. This may be from various reasons and a very possible one is, perhaps, that we may have imported it from Spain through Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. Thus, the disease coming from a hot climate would naturally take on, more or less, the features of a Summer disease. Again, before the Spanish-American War, we had but few cases of Small Pox in the United States. Since that time, when the soldiers have returned to their homes in various parts of the country, we find it breaking out in every part of the Union. And not only do we trace it to Cuba as a disease of Summer and of a hot climate, but we naturally must look still farther back to Spain to see what her laws are for protection, and in doing so we find that while Small Pox is extremely prevalent in many parts of the world, it is especially so in those places in which the laws regarding vaccination and re-vaccination are not