and ably advocated, might fare with our Legislature next year. Possibly it is worth experiment, also.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Homeopathists are accustomed to such terms as potencies, dilutions, attenuations, dynamization, etc., and are fully accustomed to the idea of increasing the efficacy of medicinal treatment by reduction of dosage. It is interesting and amusing to find that some of the experiences of our homeopathic predecessors are being duplicated occasionally by careful observers in the ranks of the dominant school. For instance, an interesting therapeutic note found in a recent issue of the New York Medical Journal calls attention to the "Superiority of Diluted Tinctures of Iodine in Dermatology." According to the note:"Sabourand in La Clinique for November, 1906, declares, that he does not know of any skin disease in which the pure tincture of iodine, is superior to the diluted tincture. Usually he directs the official tincture to be diluted to one-tenth its standard strength. This solution has the great advantage of being borne well by the skin when daily applied. The pure tincture is too caustic, and excites too much inflammation for cases where the antiparasitic effect only is desired. This mitigated tincture of iodine, in fact, is the preferred remedy in all cryptogamic parasitic diseases of the skin for the purely medicinal treatment."

"Mitigated tincture" is a useful phrase, and the term, if not the fact, has the charm of novelty. To use the terms "dilution," "attenuation," "potency," would be borrowing from homeopathic literature; a thing which would hardly be looked upon with favor by Sabourand's colleagues. In reality, however, his "mitigated tincture" is nothing more nor less than our familiar Ix potency. And Sabourand is to be congratulated on finding it more efficacious than the official tincture. Sabourand is also to be congratulated on the invention of a new phrase. "Mitigated tincture" is a term which very potently recalls to mind the homeopathic aphorism, "Die milde macht ist gross!"

"USUS IN MORBI."

It has been acknowledged from time immemorial that the crucial test of any medical theory lies in its clinical application. Systems of medicine have come and gone. Methods of practice have been invented and have for a time been popular, but like the shadow of a cloud have rapidly passed. Even today new drugs. and combinations of drugs are being discovered and invented; and the manufacturers of such have no higher recommendation for their products than the clinical testimony that somebody has used them in practice with wonderful success. The fact that so many thousands of things have been only yesterday highly extolled for their curative virtues and today sink into oblivion is not a favorable foot-note to the history of our learned profession. The honesty and sincerity of one's conviction in making a claim of superiority of a method or a drug have nothing to do with the actual truth. For instance, nothing could be more honest, straight-forward, sincere and clearly expressed than the testimony put by William Lloyd Garrison to the efficacy, of Christian Science treatment at the recent hearing on a proposed bill calculated to restrict the practice of Christian Science. Among other things, Mr. Garrison said:

"The tree is to be judged by its fruits, and from my own. enforced observation I am compelled to bear witness to the practical beneficence of the form of treatment identified with the name of Mrs. Eddy. On all sides I find minds once dominated with fear of illness and death transfused with cheerfulness and courage. I see long-time invalids take on the hue and energy of health. What pills and powders failed to reach I have seen a changed attitude of mind accomplish. Where anger and other disturbing assions had swing I have seen them replaced by calmness and self-restraint. Above these I hear the law of love exalted. Whatever the cause of this phenomenal and widespread change, it seems to me a blessing to the world. I say this while unable to accept many of the biblical dogmas incorporated in Christian Science or to trace its logic in one unbroken chain. And the most striking tribute to its efficacy is the appropriation of its vital virtue-the use of mind to conquer bodily ills—by physicians of the regular school who are trying to graft it upon their own treatment.”

Yet exactly this sort of testimony has been given and is being given to the efficacy of innumerable forms of healing. One need not be a pessimist to claim that life with all its experiences is simply illusion-"maya" as the mystics say-a bondage of things that only seem to be.

Yet we know that honest and patient laboratory investigation is very slowly and very surely winning from nature her eternal secrets; and in the fullness of time will have acquired an amount and quality of true knowledge that will ennoble humanity and teach the cure of the many ills which now oppress it.

RECIPROCITY IN MEDICAL PRACTICE.

Readers of medical literature are acquainted with the slow moulding of public opinion concerning State reciprocity in medical practice. Many extended arguments pro and con have been given to the profession within very recent years. And in the main, the idea of such reciprocity is probably more popular than it was a short time ago. There have appeared in a recent number of "American Medicine" two short editorials on this question, which were so practical and so to the point that it is with pleasure we present them to our readers. The first reads:

"The committee on reciprocity of the American Medical Association has reported substantial progress and its report is decidedly optimistic. It gives considerable praise to the Confederation of Reciprocating, Examining and Licensing Boards and urges all the States to join this confederation. The requirements of the council on medical education are not as high as they will be in time, but are reported to be as far as it is possible to go at present-first, a high school education, to be passed on by a State official unconnected with medical schools; second, graduating from a medical school having four courses of thirty weeks with thirty hours actual work per week. Third, no others to be permitted to apply for examination before a licensing board, whose final approval is a check upon the colleges. It does seem that if all the State boards will get together and change their standards to a common high plane, it will not be very long before a license to practise in one State will be legal proof of the possession of qualifications acceptable in every other-and this is the end in view."

The second of the editorials referred to in the preceding presents a phase of the subject that will appeal to many as exceedingly sensible and just. It runs as follows:

"The old practitioner must be protected more than is now the case. In time every man specializes to a certain extent, so that should failure of health compel removal to another State, he is unable to pass an examination which would have been child's play for him some years before. This bars him from a livelihood in places where he would be of extreme value. The matter is

being given careful thought, and it is suggested that, in the interval which must elapse before we reach universal reciprocity, it be made legal to license practitioners who have been licensed. elsewhere even under a lower standard, if they have proved their worthiness by a certain number of years of successful practice. The whole matter of licensing looks to the future uplift of education anyhow, and cannot cure the past, so that ordinary equity demands that reciprocity for the older practitioner be brought about at once."

BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL LIBRARY.

It is probably not known to many of the profession that in the Library of Boston University School of Medicine there are kept on file the latest numbers of all the best medical journals of the country, both homoeopathic and otherwise. These are largely consulted by the students and by a few physicians and are accessible daily to the entire profession. The librarian, Dr. A. T. Lovering, is present from eleven until three, and ready to assist. in any way possible any applying to her.

One of the recent innovations noted is the appearance of what is called the book-shelf library. Over a desk and shelf of books in one corner of the room is a card bearing the following legend: "The librarian invites the students to use the books on this shelf as if they were their own. As the volumes will be changed for others the first of the month, it will be desirable that they should be on the shelf at that time. It is suggested that during the first half of this month the books be used only in the reading room so that as many as wish to may read them there."

As will be seen, there are no restrictions of any kind, no need to ask permission to take a book home, no fines, no limitation as to the time when the book may be returned. The feature that we consider valuable about this is that these books are all non-medical, including sociology, travel, essays, biography, fiction, poetry, etc. When one can spend a leisure half-hour or so apart from his professional studies, he will be sure to find here something of value and something that will bring returns for the time spent.

Emerson said: "Montaigne says, 'Books are a languid pleasure,' but I find certain books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was. He shuts the book a richer man." Certainly, Boston University School of Medicine is fortunate in having for its librarian one who thus has at heart the best interests of its students, and it is hoped that others may from time to time loan or donate books that may be similarly used.

CHICAGO HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY.

The regular meeting of this society was held on February 21st in the Northwestern University building. The general topic, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria and Measles, was considered under the chairmanship of Dr. Sarah Hobson. Papers were given by Drs. J. P. Cobb and Agnes Fuller and by Mr. W. L. Bodine, a member of the Board of Education. The papers of Dr. Cobb and Mr. Bodine were particularly interesting and evoked much discussion.

BOSTON HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY.

March 7, 1907.

The regular meeting of the Boston Homœopathic Medical Society was held in the Natural History Rooms on Thursday evening, March 7, 1907. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 by the president, Dr. S. H. Calderwood.

The reading of the records was waived.

Dr. Grace G. Savage was proposed for membership.

The report of the committee on amalgamation was referred to the executive committee.

The president appointed on the committee on legislation, Dr. T. M. Strong in place of Dr. M. W. Turner, whose term has expired, and Dr. David W. Wells, in place of Dr. S. H. Calderwood, resigned.

General discussion opened by Herbert C. Clapp, M.D.
Adjourned at 10 o'clock.

O. R. CHADWELL, General Secretary.

BOOK REVIEWS.

Practical Dietetics, with References to Diet in Disease. By Alida Frances Pattee, former Instructor at Lakeside, St. Mary's Trinity, and Wisconsin Training School for Nurses, Milwaukee, Wis.; St. Joseph's Hospital, Chicago, Ill. Fourth edition. A. F. Pattee, publisher, New York, 1906.

In January, 1906, the GAZETTE reviewed the third edition of this valuable book, giving it commendatory notice. The fourth edition does not differ materially from its immediate predecessor, as but few changes were necessary.

That part dealing with diet in the various diseases and in infancy will prove more serviceable to the physician than will the directions for preparing and cooking particular dishes. The fact that it has been adopted in all the hospitals of the United States Army well indicates the appreciation with which it is being received. We willingly recommend it.

Organic and Functional Nervous Diseases. By M. Allen Starr, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., Sc.D., Professor of Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, The Medical Department of Columbia University in the City of New York. Second edition, thoroughly revised, illustrated. Lea Brothers & Co., Philadelphia and New York. 1907. In this second edition the well-known author has not merely revised his original book on organic nervous diseases, but has added chapters upon the functional disturbances as well, thus making a com