human frame, the intricacies of the organs of life, the marvels that the Creator has crowded into the body and brain of man, and how to develop and protect them. Your profession does not cross unknown seas, nor penetrate into primeval regions, in search of new countries, but it works with sleepless energy and splendid science to make the old countries more healthful and happy. It searches the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms, and discovers new facts and new agencies that relieve pain and prolong life.

"You are not leaders of great armies that march in serried ranks to the field of glory, with martial music and colors flying, to fling themselves upon their country's foes, and to wrest from them in carnage its rights and liberty. But your profession is waging a more difficult warfare against enemies harder to conquer. Your foes are microscopic, elusive and deadly; they are in the water, in the earth and in the air, and they threaten all the people. Armies are organized and drilled to wound and to kill; you are organized and drilled to heal and to save. Their battlefields become bloodstained cemeteries, and the graves they dig are filled with the youth and chivalry of the land. Your battles are against disease and death, and the grave never claims either young or old, except against your protest. Their warfare is as a passing thunderstorm, with flashes of lightning that strike and destroy. Your warfare goes on forever, with frequent flashes of brilliant genius that illumine and preserve. Their shouts of victory are mingled with the wail of the widow and the cry of the orphan; your victories are hailed by tears of joy and the benedictions of the people. God forbid that I should steal one leaf from the laurel that crowns our brave men of arms. I am only pleading for other laurels just as fresh and green for other brave men. We applaud the heroes of war-why not hail the heroes of peace? And since they crape the flag and muffle the drum and march to music that is solemn and slow when a military commander dies, should we not uncover here and walk with silent step, and reverently, in the presence of these leaders who have fallen in their great struggle for the people?

"The world should write its gratitude for your services in letters that will not rust as does the iron, nor crumble as does the stone.

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"Plato defined wisdom to be a meditation on death. How it changes values, honors, pleasures, titles, everything that the world. can give! How it shrivels them and shows their emptiness!

Members of the Medical Society, we have to thank you for this lesson. You have added one more to your many benefactions. May your numbers increase; may the field of your influence widen; may your benefits multiply; may your success be even more brilliant; may your rewards be priceless. May your society continue to be what it has been and is, the pride of Kings County-standing here, a majestic figure, robed richly and gracefully, with the royalty of knowledge; shod with the golden sandals of progress; belted with the brilliant girdle of charity; her mantle of public spirit held by the jeweled clasp of unselfishness; holding in her skilled right hand the Damascus blade of surgery; on her strong left arm the enameled shield of medicine; on her brow the large, clear, brilliant diamond of science; her eye keen and watchful; her handsome face benevolence itself; her large heart throbbing strongly with sympathy for the afflicted-wishing for and striving for the betterment of mankind."

The meeting, which had been arranged under the direction of President Dr. William Browning and the historical committee, of which Dr. H. N. Hoople is chairman, Dr. William Schroeder is secretary, and Dr. E. E. Cornwall is member, was then closed without further ceremony. It was well attended.

NOBEL PRIZE FOR THE FOUNDER OF THE RED CROSS.

The committee appointed by the Legislature of Sweden and Norway to confer the Nobel prize of $50,000 to be awarded to the person who has done the most to promote peace, passed over the apostles of arbitration and the writers and artists who have portrayed the horrors of war. The choice, we are told, wavered between Frederick Passu, the aged pioneer of the idea of universal peace, and Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, finally deciding upon the latter. Dunant was born at Geneva, Switzerland. He served as a volunteer assistant in the field hospitals during Napoleon's campaign in Italy, in 1859. Amid the desolate scenes of the battle of Solferino he conceived the idea of an international organization to relieve the sufferings on the battlefield. He published a book, “Memories of Solferino," which was translated into many languages and prepared the soil for the germination of the idea of the Red Cross Society. He devoted all his energies and means to the realization of this ideal, and is now living in poverty in his old age. The prize endowed by the City of Moscow, to be awarded at the international medical congresses, was also bestowed on Dunant.

MEDICAL EXCERPT.

By T. P. CORBALLY, A. M., M. D.

UTILIZING RADIOGRAPHY.—At a session of the Congrès de l'Association Française pour l'Avancement des Sciences, M. Bilhaut, of Paris, presented a communication ("Le Progrès médical") on the utilization of "radiographie comme contrôle à la suite des accidents du travail." He said:

The physician or the surgeon, when consulted as an expert, to determine the extent and the condition of an accident received by a person during his work or otherwise, should not limit himself to making a clinical and formal examination of the case, as has been the custom heretofore. He must not strive to establish the applicability of theories that may have been advanced regarding the nature and condition of the injury: he should have recourse to the positive information that may be afforded by the accessory sciences, especially the physical and chemical. There are cases in which he should never omit to consult the X-rays as a means of clearing doubt and of furnishing positive evidence. In those doubtful cases in which the clinical signs resulting from a careful examination by such means as palpation, auscultation and percussion are wanting or uncertain, he will find in the judicious use of the X-rays evidence that leaves no doubt. The doctor consulted should, in the interest of his client, be careful to examine the obscure, the real, conditions of the case submitted for his examination. By a careful and continued study he will educate the eye, which is absolutely indispensable, to enable him to understand what is shown on the screen during the active or passive movements of the patient.

Thus fortified he will avoid formal statements that are often vague or indefinite, and will be able to form accurate conclusions regarding the nature of the injury.

LUXATION OF THE ASTRAGALUS.-M. Walther presented to the Société de Chirurgie the report of a case in the practice of M. Brossard, of Cairo, describing a traumatic luxation of the astragalus which that surgeon treated by the removal of the bone (“Progrès médical," November 16). The result was very satisfactory; four months after the operation the patient was able to walk

with the help of a cane, and a little later without any help. M. Brossard left closely adhering to the internal lateral ligament a fragment of the astragalus which he was unable to remove, the existence of which was confirmed by radiography, and it is to the existence of this fragment that he attributes the excellence of the result.

M. Walther did not place any confidence in this opinion.

M. Quenu was certain that the result was as described by M. Brossard, and that there is nothing in the beautiful result that should cause astonishment; that is the rule, so to say, when the operation is well performed.

M. Berger remarked that leaving a fragment of bone could not fail to cause much inconvenience: he has operated on many cases of luxation of the astragalus with uniform success; but he has been able to reduce all sub-astragalian luxations.

M. Kirmisson showed that with the help of radiography the presence of bone can be determined with certainty; it is also shown that the bone was a fragment left by the surgeon and not the result of a new formation, the age of the patient being over forty years.

ARTIFICIAL LARYNX.-M. le Dentu presented a patient who had the larynx entirely removed for cancer. The application of an artificial larynx made by M. Martin, of Lyons, has given very satisfactory results in reproducing the use of the voice. In an operation of the same kind for epithelioma, M. Perier had obtained, by means of an apparatus, a use of the voice almost perfect.

INFLUENCE OF NUTRITION ON THE HEART.-MM. Prevost and Batelli, of Geneva, presented to the Cinquième Congrès International de Physiologie, at Turin, a memoir on the Influence de l'alimentation sur le rétablissement des fonctions du cœur ("Progrès médical," October 19, 1901).

They say that Ch. Prus has recently published a memoir in which he has shown that in dogs that have been asphyxiated, the massage of the heart, accompanied with artificial respiration, generally succeeds in restoring the rhythmical contractions; the heart does not, save in some exceptional cases, degenerate into fibrillous trembling. In previous experiments M. Batelli had, however, observed that in dogs asphyxiated with a ligature around the trachea, the heart was affected at the moment the restorative massage was applied with persistent fibrillous trembling, unless a suit

able electric shock or an alternating current of 240 volts was applied to relieve the fibrillous tremblings.

The results of a new series of experiments which really form the subject of this communication, show that in dogs that were performing the act of digestion the heart was restored very frequently by the simple act of massage, a condition that never happened in the animals on which M. Batelli operated when they were fasting. It is possible that the experiments of M. Prus were made under conditions different from those of M. Batelli, on dogs when they were in the act of digesting, and that this circumstance may have been the cause of the different results. It is a mixed meal that has results the most uniformly favorable on the restoration of the action of the heart after it has been arrested by asphyxiation. The hydrates of carbon seem to be among the most active in this respect. The albuminoids are next in influence. Fats are, of all others, the least influential.

These facts have enabled us to determine other facts that favor the theory of the automatism of the respiratory centres. When, in consequence of massage of the heart, accompanied with artificial respiration, we see all the cerebro-spinal functions gradually and progressively reappear, it is always the respiratory movements that return first, weak at their first appearance, then more and more marked up to the time when the reflex movement has entirely ceased. Later the pupil, which was much dilated, becomes contracted, and the reflex action in the joints, the reflex of the cornea, then the nasal reflex, and finally comes the inhibitory reflex of the superior laryngeal organs. We may designate also an unilateral spasmodic contraction of the orbicularis of the eyelids, caused by the excitation of the nasal fossa of the same side, by means of a sound introduced within the nasal cavity.

POTATO DISEASE IN FRANCE.-Consul Covert reports from Lyons, August 30, 1901, that the potatoes in certain departments have been attacked by a disease that is causing alarm, and appropriations have been voted to study it. The leaves of the potato plant dry up, the stem becomes thin and covered with yellowish spots, and dies. The veins fill with a gummy substance and are infected by bacteria. The disease first attacks the roots and then invades all parts of the plant. The bacteria is said to be identical with that which once attacked tomatoes and egg plants in the United States and was denominated Bacillus solanearum. The only advice given to farmers on this subject, which comes rather late, is not to plant potatoes.