or simple ointment in the proportion of one part of the former to eight of the latter.

This ointment is a very excellent anodyne application in some skin diseases, irritable sores, and in the treatment of hemorrhoids, and as a medicament in the latter complaint it forms an ingredient in many of the useful compound ointments for piles. A very useful one is made after the following formula:

M.

R Extract Stramonii fol. 3i.
Pulv. Gallæ Di.
Axungiæ zi.

Instead of the powdered galls, tannin in proper proportion may be used, and occasionally ten or fifteen grains of finely powdered acetate of lead may be introduced, or half an ounce of freshly prepared ointment of subacetate of lead can be incorporated, but the best form for a "pile ointment" is not to use any lard or greasy substance at all, but to employ instead a solution of starch in glycerine in the proportion of one dram of the former to one fluid ounce of the latter;-a heat of 240° Fahr., with constant stirring, will give a homogeneous mixture, and will furnish a very valuable substitute for lard or cerate in the above as well as in many other ointments.

Editorial Department.

BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.-The British Medical Journal for 6th August gives detailed accounts of the meeting of the British Medical Association, which was held at Liverpool from the 27th to 29th of July. A perusal of these proceedings is calculated to awaken in the bosom of every American physician a feeling of pride in the success of our own national association.

Dr. Wynter, in speaking of the late meeting, says: "If the presence of large numbers of associates, and the prevalence of good feeling and generosity, may be considered to constitute

success, the Liverpool gathering of the Association must be considered a most decided triumph;" and yet the whole number in attendance during the three days of session did not amount to two hundred, scarcely exceeding our most thinly attended convocations. But a point of comparison most strikingly favorable to us is the financial status of the two institutions. Our association is not only out of debt, but, thanks to the excellent gentleman and vigilant financier who guards her purse strings, has a snug little sum on the credit side of her bank account. Our transatlantic brethren are less fortunate in their pecuniary matters, and are burdened with a debt of some $1500.

As in our own body, questions pertaining to medical reform and medical education, have occupied a large share of the attention of the British Association, yet there are no indications from their printed minutes that any of their universities or medical schools are so apprehensive that these reforms may damage their popularity, that they stand aloof from them, as in this country.

It must be a great comfort to certain physicians of our old mother country to feel assured that there is no medico-ethical code common to the empire-to be able to quiet any possible perturbations of their consciences, on account of violations of ethical propriety, by stating that the laws they infringed were petty, because they were merely local, and that some neighboring town had failed to insert any such articles as those they had disregarded; and, probably emboldened by the success of one transgression they might go a little beyond, and get up some enactment for their own especial benefit. A witty lawyer of this State, in a discussion with a clerical gentleman who had boasted that he was one of the principal agents in the work of Bible revision, advised him to insert a clause for his own benefit, as the old version did not contain a single assurance by which his salvation could be secured. How convenient some of these free and easy medical men would find it to be placed on a "revision committee." Of course we apply these remarks to physicians of Great Britain only upon the general assumption that human nature is very much the same there as here, where we know that the "terrible code" which now, alas! reaches from sea to sea, places so heavy a yoke upon the

quickly galled necks of some of its subjects, that we would not wonder if the tide of emigration should be reversed, and they should seek for milder laws and more lax discipline on the shores of merry old England.

We have received from Dr. Fishback a series of spirited tracts upon the subject of medical education. Dr. Fishback's unwearied labors in this cause should obtain for him the thanks and co-operation of the medical profession, in so far as they may find his efforts to be in the line of real progress. We have upon another page given more full and plain expression of our opinions with regard to some of these papers. We subjoin a medical reform bill, which the physicians of Indiana have recommended to their Legislature for adoption:

PLAN OF LEGISLATION Proposed by the Chairman of the Committee to the Legislative Committee for the Protection of Community against the Incompetency and Recklessness of Practitioners of Medicine, Surgery, and the Apothecary's Art.

1st. Create, by statute, a Board of Examiners, seven in number, to be selected by the State Medical Society, from amongst eminent medical men, not residents of the State. The Board to meet once or twice annually at the capital, at stated times, for the public oral examination of all future candidates for the practice of medicine, surgery, and of the apothecary's art; one on Anatomy; one on Physiology and Medical Jurisprudence; one on Pathology; one on Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and Chemistry; one on Practical Medicine, including diagnosis; one on Surgical Anatomy and the principles and practice of operative Surgery; and another on Parturition and the Diseases of Women and Children. Let the examinations be thorough, free from partiality or undue leniency; and let a very nearly unanimous judgment of the Board be requisite to authorize a certificate of qualification to issue from said Board to the Secretary of State; who shall, thereupon, issue a license to practice medicine, or surgery, or the apothecary's art, as the case may be. The candidate for the latter being examined only on Materia Medica, Pharmacy, and Toxicology.

2d. Forbid, on penalty of fine and imprisonment, any one from hereafter commencing in this State the practice of these arts, without such examination and license duly obtained.

3d. Remunerate examining Board from State treasury; providing the means therefor by a license fee of $20 to $50, as

may be required; to be paid into the treasury by each candidate for examination.

4th. Require the vendors of Patent and other Medical Compounds to place on every package or parcel offered for sale, the names and proportions of each and every ingredient, in plain English.

5th. Allow the dissection of the bodies of criminals and paupers by medical men and their students.

"A FAIR PROPOSAL UNFAIRLY TREATED."-Under this caption the editor of a literary paper in Philadelphia takes the Board of Guardians for the poor to task, for rejecting the offer of seven homeopaths, who desired to have charge of the medical department of the alms-house, and proposed to bear upon their own shoulders the whole burden of expense, thus relieving the city of an annual tax of $12,000. The Board of Guardians promptly voted to lay the proposition on the table. We have no doubt but that the guardians of the poor acted conscientiously in their refusal to accept the proffered liberality, for we believe that our medical brethren of that city bear along with them such marks of skill and full capability for the discharge of all the responsible duties of the profession, that the Guardians of the poor as well as the community around them, would feel satisfied that any irregularity which proposed to do more than their own medical faculty,was expletive and meddlesomethat which counselled to do less they would justly esteem inadequate to the wants of the sick, consequently they could not accept the nullities of homeopathy, even when offered without price or reward, since, by so doing, they would not fill the measure of a duty which required them to provide a genuine charity operating for the removal of suffering-the relief of disease and the preservation of life.

In the review, which appeared in our last issue, of Churchill's treatise on the immediate cure and specific treatment of pulmonary phthisis, we omitted to mention the source from which we obtained the publication. We are indebted to the courtesy of the publisher, J. Winchester, 43 John street, New York, for copies of the work. Mr. Winchester has, by his own enterprise, placed this valuable treatise within reach of the med

ical profession of this country, and has thus rendered us an important service. The work is bound in paper, easily transported by mail, and may be obtained by correspondence with the publisher.

We have received a copy of the "Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society at its tenth annual session."

David Hutchinson, M.D., was elected President, and Drs. Sloan, R. M. O'Ferral, J. S. McClelland, and R. E. Houghton, Vice Presidents.

The subject of medical education seems to have commanded especial attention, and resolutions were adopted with a view of holding an extra meeting of the society before its next annual convocation, at which it is proposed to call for action from the next Legislature "in behalf of the public good." Local medical societies are also urged "to agitate the subject in their respective localities." The general principles of the report of Dr. Fishback from the committee on medical education having been concurred in, we naturally turn to a brief examination of those principles. Their gist seems to lie in the necessity for "legislative action, a longer course of study in the medical schools, and efforts on the part of the physicians to enlighten the community." "Our medical schools, looking only to pecuniary consideration, have become the nurseries of quackery." "No school of medicine has a right to place upon an equal footing before the world, a ripe scholar, whose mind is well disciplined and stored with the richest gems of learning, and a dunce, who has dreamed away his life aud wasted his energies and substance in riotous living, and yet not a year passes that this is not done by every school in the Union."

These are severe strictures, and with many others of similar import but more harshly expressed, appear to have been introduced as texts furnished by Dr. Fry, a member of the committee. One would hardly expect that the first paragraph of the discourse under such circumstances would read: "One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the last half century, whether the domains of science, art, or letters be regarded, is progress. To such extent is this true that the adept, in almost any department of fifty years ago, would be but a tyro now.