among these are the contributions on the "Progress of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century," by Dr. John S. Billings; "Malaria” and "Transmission of Yellow Fever by Mosquitoes," by Dr. George M. Sternberg; "Psychical Research of the Century," by Andrew Lang; "The New Spectrum," by S. C. Langley, and "The Century's Great Men of Science," by Charles S. Peirce. "The New Spectrum" and several other papers are elaborately illustrated.

PROGRESSIVE MEDICINE, Vol. IV, December, 1901, is, as usual, in the front rank on subjects of practical importance to the profession. Under "Diseases of the Digestive Tract and Allied Organs," Dr. Einhorn covers with great thoroughness the medical and surgical treatment of pathological conditions of the œsophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas and peritoneum. In Dr. Belfield's section on "Genito-Urinary Diseases," the subject of general infection by the gonococcus is fully discussed, and tuberculosis of the genito-urinary tract receives the attention which its importance demands. Dr. Bloodgood's article on all the methods of producing anesthesia with efficiency and safety, is particularly commendable. The various pathological conditions of the kidneys are ably treated by Dr. John Rose Bradford. Dr. Brubaker's section on "Physiology" presents the recent advances in the physiology of the glandular system with special reference to the therapeutic value of gland extracts in their therapeutic application. The section on "Hygiene," by Dr. Baker, is notable because of the universal interest excited by the discussion aroused by Dr. Koch's statement that bovine tuberculosis is not dangerous to man, and the recent researches as regards the transmission of yellow fever. "The Practical Therapeutic Referendum," by Dr. E. Quin Thornton, sums up the recent therapeutic methods and remedies, their merits and demerits, as shown by their use. This book is not a mere compilation of recent literature, but a series of critical reviews and original papers by masters of the subjects whereof they treat. Quarterly. $10 per annum. Philadelphia. LEA BROTHERS & Co.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES. With the coming of the New Year, that Nestor of medical journalism, "The American Journal of the Medical Sciences," announces that the demand upon its space forces it to largely increase the number of its pages. To each issue, therefore, will be added sixty-four pages, all of which will be devoted to the accommodation of original articles.

The total of 192 text pages in each number makes it not only the largest of medical periodicals, but also enables it continuously to cover special fields which perforce have heretofore received intermittent attention. Monthly, $5.00 per annum. LEA BROTHERS & Co., Philadelphia.

"HER FIRST PICTURE BOOK."-Among the smaller paintings exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition, one which attracted much attention and produced a lasting impression, on account of its truthfulness to nature and naively sweet characteristics, was due to the creative genius of an American girl-an Oriental study in water color, entitled "Her First Picture Book," from the brush of Helen Hyde, of California. Frank A. Ruf, the enterprising president of the Antikamnia Chemical Co., St. Louis, became the fortunate possessor of the original painting. His habitual quickness to appreciate the advantage of the association of the beautiful with the useful has found expression in the production of The Antikamnia Calendar 1902-decidedly the most beautiful one that has as yet come to our desk.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

A GREAT EASTERN NATIONAL PARK.

In a very charming article in the December number of the "North American Review," Prof. N. S. Shaler, of Harvard, advocates the purchase by the Federal Government of a large area in the great southern upland in the State of North Carolina, to serve as a great Eastern National Park. In that region there still remain fragments of the original growth, and, as it is characteristic of the broad-leaved trees that the forests they form are self-renewing, if such a park were created there and properly cared for, it would regain the character of a primitive wood in a comparatively brief period. That such an enterprise would meet with popular approval, Professor Shaler is sure:

"If any one questions whether the establishment of the proposed reservation in the South would meet with the approval of the people, he may have his doubts removed by observing the resort of the folk of the Rocky Mountains to those which have been established in the Far West, particularly to the National Park of Wyoming. All through the summer he may see camping parties of the coun

try-folk on the way to these pleasure grounds. They often journey for hundreds of miles to have their outing on what they justly feel to be their own property. Living in their wagons and tents, in the care of an admirable corps of guards, they rejoice in their domain-theirs and their successors' forever. Such truly imperial gifts have greatly enriched a part of this country; it will be well, before the remnants of primeval nature have vanished, that the other parts of our realm should have like share in them."

THE NEGRO IN THE FAR SOUTH.

The race problem is not destined to be a very formidable one— whether from the political, the social, or the industrial point of view-in the former slave States of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. The negro element in those States remains relatively stationary, while the white population is growing rapidly. If the negro communities in the Northern States like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio are tending to increase by a considerable percentage, they are still very inconsiderable in comparison with the immense general growth of these prosperous States. It is in the States farther South that the negroes are making their principal gains. The State of largest negro preponderance ten years ago was South Carolina, where there were 149,117 negroes to every 100,000 white people. This relative proportion has fallen in ten years to 140,249. It is altogether likely that within twenty-five years the whites will outnumber the blacks in South Carolina. But in Mississippi, where ten years ago there were 136,287 blacks for every 100,000 whites, the proportion has increased to 141,552. These are the only two States now in which the negroes outnumber the whites, although in Alabama and Florida the relative proportion of negroes has increased. In Louisiana, on the other hand, the relative decrease of negroes has been very marked. Thus, ten years ago there were 100,143 negroes to each 100,000 whites, whereas the new census shows only 89,199 negroes to 100,000 whites. In Georgia, the proportions of the races have remained almost stationary, there being now 87,600 negroes for every 100.000 whites, whereas ten years ago there were 87,781. In Alabama, there are now 82,636, and in Florida 77,600 blacks for every 100,000 whites. All this points toward the concentration of the colored population in the relatively low and warm regions of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. There has also been a greater proportionate increase of blacks than of whites in Arkansas; but the whites are almost

three-quarters of the population, and the negro gain is unimportant.-From "The Progress of the World," in the "American Monthly Review of Reviews" for December.

YELLOW JOURNALS AND THE YOUNG.

In an editorial on "The New Pace for Children," the editor of the "Century" deplores the effect on childish minds of the too early reading of newspapers, especially those that are run for revenue only.

It is a deplorable fact that of late years, for lack of support, a number of excellent magazines for children have been discontinued -in the latest instance with the frank statement that the vogue of the newspaper had shortened the term of childhood so greatly as to make it impossible to sustain such a magazine, the proprietors saying, in effect, that boys and girls, in the old sense of an audience for juvenile periodical literature, exist no longer. The fault, perhaps, is not with the child, nor with the editor, but with the busy parent of these latter years; for the newspaper-reading child is the product of the last decade. The boy of ten or twelve, at the age when he ought to be acquiring a taste for good literature, is too often left to the ephemeral contents of the illustrated newspaper. Even when the newspaper is a good one he is being startled from the repose of his proper age. He is made a man before his time. He is allowed to share the rapid pace at which modern life is set. Not for him should be

the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world.

And if the newspaper be conducted without conscience his mind becomes the breeding-ground of false ideals-infested by the microbes of envy, social discontent, ambitious greed, scandal, desire for luxury, and disbelief in virtue. If he be a child of the tenement, with little other reading, is it any wonder that he should grow up into the criminal class? And yet such newspapers are tolerated in the houses of decent and intelligent people!

The death of President McKinley has set people to thinking as to the insidious influences that may have operated on the mind of the wretched and pitiable assassin, little more than a perverted boy; and, as a consequence, a healthy reaction has set in against the sensational newspaper. It will be well if this shall extend to But it will be best if the country can

all newspapers of the class.

be aroused to substitute for them decent newspapers, magazines, and books, and particularly to study carefully the kind of reading which goes to the formation of the character of children.

THE DECEMBER WOODS.

The following poem by Jessica Nelson North, printed in "St. Nicholas" for December, has won for its ten-year-old author a St. Nicholas League silver badge:

I roamed the woods in winter

When the trees were blank and bare;
When the gusts of wind blew the snow in heaps,
In the path of the hurrying hare.

A few leaves clung to the tree-tops,

But those were old and brown;

And the winter breeze shook the snowy trees,

And blew the dead leaves down.

I gathered a bunch of ivy-leaves,
Still bright with autumn's glow;
I picked a cluster of berries red

All sprinkled with feathery snow.

I reached the hill above the creek;
The snow began to fall;
And thick and fast the wintry blast
Blew snowflakes over all.

I turned my footsteps homeward,
Along the smooth-worn track;
A chipmunk hurried up a tree,
With stripes upon his back,

The dull gray clouds had parted,
And faintly I could see
That the early setting winter sun

Was shining down on me.