who go wrong morally may not be entirely and altogether to blame. for their actions. There are a certain few, perhaps many more than we dream of, who are victims of cranial injuries either at birth or later in life.

And who can deny that as our knowledge of the effects of parturient head injuries amplifies we shall be able to distinguish beyond peradventure of mistake the difference between the real criminal and the brain pressure criminal?

If it is true that the motor and sensory centres can be so impressed by hemorrhages, clots, tumors, fractures, and abcesses as produce epilepsy, paralysis, blindness, and imbecility, why is it not possible that the same causes operating upon the psychic or moral centres should not cause moral obliquity in all the graduations from lying to murder?

Dr. Alexander B. Johnson of Columbia University Medical College says, "There are large areas of the cortex whose functions are unknown. These are more extensive on the right side than on the left. Many of these areas are doubtless concerned with the more complex mental processes. The frontal lobes of the brain apparently have to do with the higher mentality, i.e., attention, reasoning, and self control, and lesions of the frontal lobes, notably upon the left side, are commonly attended by dulness, apathy, loss of the power of concentration, and imperfect self control." If such lesions will produce imperfect self control why should they not be productive factors of criminality?

At present we are laboring under the great difficulty of not knowing where these moral centres are located. We need some David Livingston who will penetrate these darkest centres of the higher brain wherein dwell the little genii of good and evil, and coax them to come to the light where we may study their character and abode. Till then we can only speculate as their dwelling. place.

THE NEED OF A CHAIR OF PRACTICAL DIETETICS IN OUR MEDICAL SCHOOL.

BY BENJ. C. WOODBURY, JR., M.D., Portsmouth, N. H.

The inductive method of homoeopathy long ago demonstrated that in order to apply drug substances for the purposes of cure, we must first determine what is curable in disease and the corresponding curative properties resident in medicines. By original experimentation Hahnemann established upon a theoretical basis the method of determining such curative processes, namely, drug prov ings upon the body in health; this having been verified in the great school of clinical experience, the method was thus placed upon a purely scientific basis. It is, therefore, no longer a matter of speculation, given a set of disease symptoms, that a remedy known to produce as nearly as possible similar drug effects in a healthy person, administered in such a condition, will cure, if such a case be curable; it is now a scientific fact.

It is, furthermore, interesting to note that, young as the science of homoeopathy is, a century old, its working theory, by its far-reaching grasp of medicine in general and its scientific prevision, has been able to cope with any and all the problems that have confronted it, and in countless instances predicted and anticipated its most striking epochs; attest, the recognition by Hahnemann of the immunity conferred by vaccination, in the rediscovery of this principle and the application of vaccines at the present day; the necessity of the minimum dose, not at first employed but later found to be a necessity; the statement that the cause of cholera must be some essential infectious material, the active agent of which he reasoned to be certain living animalculæ; and his prediction as to its prophylactic and curative remedies. The single remedy is now advocated not only by vaccinists, but also by the majority of thinking physicians of all schools; the action of the infinitesimal dose now confirmed by the behavior of the atomic and sub-atomic particles of radioactive substances; not to mention Hahnemann's much derided psora theory, as the basis of most non-syphilitic and non-sycotic diseases, the truth of which must inevitably become a recognized and demonstrable scientific fact. Therefore the time is evidently fast approaching when the natural methods of cure are to be given the place in medicine to which they have long been entitled. Important as all methods of drug prescribing are, no less noteworthy is the subject under consideration, namely, the need of careful, practical study of food effects upon the body in health as the basis of their use or disuse in disease, the scientific study of food provings, if we may construct the phrase. Homoeopathy shed the first gleam of light upon the dark era in medicine, was the first Titan to overthrow the power of Galenism. Since its advent there have arisen other methods of natural healing, variously classified as hydrotherapy, osteopathy, magnetic healing, and the dietetic and metaphysical methods of the present, all of

which, admirable as they doubtless are in their limited fields, in so far as they have any application in the treatment of disease. should be the therapeutic possession of every practitioner of medicine. However useful the various methods of drugless healing may be in selected cases, fully as important is this very matter of diet, which is sorely neglected by most such systems. Fortunate for us again that Hahnemann, with his searching mind, long ago entered this domain and has given us what has been known as "the homoeopathic diet." Those who are unfamiliar with this department of homoeo-therapeutics, we would refer to notes and explanatory remarks to the Organon [131], Sec. 260.

If, after careful reading and thoughtful reflection, anyone is not convinced of the truth and foresight of these careful directions. given by Hahnemann as to the avoidable or removable causes of disease, let him but glance casually at the carefully recorded provings of such condiments as pepper, mustard, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, table salt, etc.; such medicinal vegetables as asparagus, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, etc., and there read in bold-faced type the symptoms of their drug effects. Then, if he will note carefully the symptoms produced in himself after an ordinary course dinner, or overindulgence from the same causes, he cannot fail to recognize the fact that here in our every-day dietaries lie the causes of the greater part of our so-called diseases. If not satisfied with this investigation, he may go still farther and take care to note, aside from the ordinary symptoms of over-eating and improper mastication and insalivation, the effects of (a), excess of proteids, such foods as beef, milk, fish, butter, eggs and the legumens, (b), excess of fats, as butter, oils, fat of meats etc., and (c), excess of carbohydrate intake, such as sweets in general, natural or artificial, starchy foods such as found in cereals and vegetables, and carefully record the results. It will then be very evident that the determination of the effects produced in the body by the different kinds of foods is no subtle, intangible problem, but a simple, profitable study if pursued along scientific lines. Thus we shall learn what foods produce, for example, bad tasting mouth, excessive or scanty saliva, decay of the teeth, fulness after eating, heaviness of the eyes, sleepiness after dinner, constipation and diarrhoea, eczema, and boils, rheumatism. and gout, corpulency, bilousness, headache, nerve and brain fag. This being determined by what may be called scientific food provings, we have in the elimination of such foods, in the improper amounts or bad combinations, the means for alleviation of the ma jority of our human ills. Just as knowing the effects of mercury, cinchona, and arsenic, as obtained from our drug provings, we may know that the first step toward cure is the proper correction of the same by stopping the food or drug intake, and the second will consist in antidoting, by proper hygiene and our well known remedies, their effects, both acute and chronic. Here we shall be aided by our repertories, which give in a general and particular way, under "aggravations from food and drink," both

disease symptoms and their corresponding remedies. If, on the other hand, we are called to treat malnutrition, due to improper assimilation of such alkaline salts as are found in our foods, we have again the selection of proper nutrition, and the tissue remedies of Biochemistry, which when wisely and carefully applied become wonderfully helpful in treatment.

Why should not the medical profession, and particularly we homœopaths, who were the pioneers in the advocacy of dietetic and hygienic reform, take advantage of such a method, along with our drug provings, and not leave it to academic professors, pure food experts, or the advocates of the various dietetic reforms, who are so sanguine as to their methods that they are willing to dispense with all drug medication, thereby hindering the ultimate spread and acceptance of the truths of our divinely given art? Surely we should be equally zealous to save our own homœopathic system from the inevitable disuse into which medicine in general is fast falling, for it has recently been estimated that in our own country alone no less than twenty millions of people are now depending on methods of healing other than drug medication. Much more can be done for our patients by dietetic and hygienic measures combined with proper homœopathic treatment which is constructive in action and seeks to conserve and direct the vital forces into healthy, normal channels.

The dietetic experiments of Salisbury in 1856 and later, and those of others who have succeeded him, go to prove conclusively that the origin of various states of fermentation and other autointoxications is from within the organism and engendered by improper eating and drinking. The effects first and last of uric acid and its by-products most carefully observed by Haig over a period of many years, starting in 1882, and others, have likewise been suggestive that there is a right way and a wrong way of combining foods.

At the thirty-seventh annual meeting of the Alumni of Boston University School of Medicine Dr. Frank C. Richardson outlined the purposes of the (then proposed) Robert Dawson Memorial, in the establishment of an Institute of Clinical Research and Preventive Medicine. The special references to our subject in this preliminary report are as follows: under the department of Chemistry, Article 3-"The determination of the energy value of various food stuffs and of the end products of metabolism by more accurate methods than those now in use."

1. The application of the data thus obtained to the study of various problems of the metabolism in health. (Italics our own). For example:-a. The influence of diet on the characteristic end products of metabolism.

b. The study of various pathological conditions of metabolic origin.

c. The origin of certain metabolic end products.

"In order that the institution may be productive of good to the greatest number, it is planned to have upon the ground floor

an auditorium where may be given popular talks on physiological subjects: the value of fresh air, exercise, bathing, food values, personal hygiene, etc., while psycho-prophylaxis might be taught by ethical discourses upon the philosophy of life, the influence of the passions, and the various habits of thought inimical to health."

On Feb. 4, 1911, occurred the laying of the cornerstone of this building which is fast nearing completion, and these two important events mark the beginning and erection of an institution which has many possibilities. Such an institution will make possible the carrying out of whatever laboratory experiments come within the scope of our subject. These investigations should supplement didactic teaching of a Chair of Practical Dietetics, and thus combined the advantages of such an addition to our curriculum and its opportunities for the elucidation of many perplexing problems will be almost unlimited.

Now that our followers have manifested sufficient faith in us to endow and raise with our help such new and modernly equipped institutions of research, let us not be unfaithful to our trust. But while we thus go zealously forward in search of the apparent, tangible causes of cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases, let us bear constantly in mind that there are other more subtle, far-reaching, dynamic or underlying factors, which are operating silently during our sleeping and waking hours, of which we may often be unaware, working from the simple to the complex, and ending in incurable pathologic change. This must be the future of such investigation. Our homoeopathy has stood the test of a century; let us re-inforce the original rules of Hahnemann in regard to dietetics by carefully conducted experiments, and enhance the treasure he bequeathed us and thus restore the enthusiasm of our staunch adherents.

Such a department of hygiene may certainly be given a place in our newly erected building, and under careful direction, become a power for good to the coming race. Pure experiment will dispel the clouds of dietetic empiricism, for we shall then know with certainty when a vegetarian diet is indicated, when an animal. diet, and when to prescribe a properly combined mixed diet.

Then shall we cease to run blindly after dietetic fads, and new cures for constipation and the like simple troubles; then drug crudities will of necessity be expunged from our pharmacopoeias. The time is ripe; let us grasp the opportunity.