cluded the whole of the inner side of both legs, including the ankles, thighs, and also the vulva.

One month from the time I began to use the epidermis for grafts my patient walked about and was discharged, cured.

I found the dolomol-aristol 10 per cent far superior to any rubber protective, as it is thoroughly antiseptic and does not produce too much heat, a point always to be careful of in doing a skin graft. Since that case I have used the preparation a number of times on similar cases and always with uniform success.-Fred T. J. Adams, M. D., Bridgeport, Conn., in New York Lancet.

The Chautauqua School of Nursing, Jamestown, Y. N.

This school gives instruction in the practical application of the art of nursing. It was incorporated in 1902 in the belief that there is a large and well defined field for the practice of nursing by intelligent and well-taught women who, while unable to undertake hospital training, are nevertheless well qualified to supersede "that busy and harmful class, without any training whatever, who are such a bane to the doctor and a detriment to the patient."

Four years of active work in carrying out this basic principle justifies our claim, and this school is now represented by a large body of practicing nurses. These women have first mastered, by home study, a course of weekly instruction the preparation of which has enlisted an expenditure of time and money never before devoted to a similar work, and have then applied their practical instruction in actual contact with cases under the physician's directions.

It is not our claim that this institution can ever supersede the work of the hospital training school, or that our students are able to enter the profession on equal footing with the nurse of hospital training. On the other hand, only one nurse in ten of those professionally practicing at the present time had hospital training (U. S. Census). It was with the belief that the standard of this large body of women could be raised by a course of systematic study, that this school was instituted.

The radical change in the sentiment with which the general public and members of the medical profession now regard this efficient type of practical nurse is in large part due to the work of this school, which, within its prescribed limits, must of necessity make for the best good of the untrained nurse, the physician and the community.

A well taught nurse can most ably supplement the efforts of the physician, and we appeal to the latter that he may inform himself of the practical value of the work conducted by this school.

We are seeking publicity in this manner, confident of the cooperation of the physician who becomes informed of our aims and methods. Complete particulars and a synopsis of our courses will be mailed to physicians upon application.

THE TEXAS MEDICAL NEWS.

A JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, SURGERY AND HYGIENE.

Devoted to the interests of the Medical Profession of Texas and the Southwest.

Published monthly at Austin, by THE TEXAS MEDICAL NEWS PUBLISHING COMPANY. Subscription, $1.00 a year, in advance.

The Management do not hold themselves responsible for the views of their corre spondents.

The Obstetrician.*

BY J. F. CORRY, M. D., ROCKWALL, TEXAS.

The Anglo-American of the United States is essentially a new race of mankind. A Teutonic branch of Indo-European family, the Americans are the offspring of the mingled bloods of those Germanic tribes that first laid the foundations of the aristocrats of modern Europe. Born and bred on the virgin soil of the New World, a citizen of the most powerful democracy on earth, educated in all the principles of a representative form of a free government, the American is by nature, habits and opinions a race peculiar, unique, isolated, proud of his origin and proud of himself.

But the most distinguishing feature in the character of this highly civilized and enlightened race is the estimation in which woman is held. In no country in the world does woman occupy a loftier position than she does in the United States. It is a recog

*Read before the North Texas District Medical Association, Dallas, Texas, 1905.

nized fact that the moral and intellectual superiority of American womanhood has much to do in promoting the singular prosperity, the growing strength and wonderful civilization of our great commonwealth.

Reason and the evidence of experience teach us that no people can long remain free without morals, and morals are the natural work of woman; therefore whatever affects the condition of the women of the country, affects the whole people. For this reason no nation is more careful of the manner in which the women are educated than is the United States.

The great object to be accomplished in female education is to strengthen will power, arm reason and establish self-confidence, in order to successfully combat the evils and avoid the dangers of our questionable and ever changing society. It is true that her academic training is primarily devoted to the acquisition of power to discover truth, form character and to do; but to the American girl, very early in life the doors to the great screen of the world are thrown open, and she is allowed to view its virtues, its vices, its good and its bad, its noble and its ignoble, for herself. In the period of her growth she passes from under strict maternal care and is surrendered to her own guidance, to think for heself, to speak with freedom, to act on her own impulses. The irregularities of society are never hid from her, but rather she is allowed to know them and at once to train herself to shun them; hence it is argued that the American system of female education tends to invigorate the judgment and ripen the understanding, that society may be more tranquil and the objects of life better regulated. But at this point it may be asked with propriety, are the objects of female life better understood? I answer they are not. The very nature of her education, her free and unrestrained observation of the world, the absence of the gentle influence of maternal training in the home, all inspire so many of our young women to leave the legitimate paths of womanhood and aspire to seek fame and fortune in various callings and professions of men, and thus to an extent, at least, rob domestic life of its greatest charms and its legitimate interests.

All nature proclaims that the source of the married woman's happiness is in the home of her husband. When the time comes. for the American woman to choose a husband, by virtue of her education, she is taught that the spirit of levity, the independence and the amusements of the girl can not become the recreation of the wife. And in like manner she should also realize that the sterner duties and realities of life are appointed unto man. It is the tendency of all civilized peoples in this age to raise woman more

and more to be the equal of man. This is right, but at this point I wish to make myself clearly understood, for this Association knows that no department in the practice of general medicine has suffered more from the coarser superstitions and, I might say, the lawless fancies of the ages gone by than the department of Obstetrics. The young motherhood of the country has suffered untold miseries and unnecessary and criminal loss of life; that vital statistics have been greatly abrogated by the ignorance and malpractice of the obstetrician. I wish to emphasize that I am in full sympathy with any and all means possible to raise woman to an equality with man, but I maintain that any attempt to make woman like man is a travesty on nature.

When we give to both sexes the same functions, impose the same duties and grant to both the same rights; when we indiscriminately mix them in their occupations, their business and their pleasures, we unsex the woman and degrade the man. In other words, any attempt to create by law, or otherwise, a medley of the designs of nature, which are so clearly outlined in the distinctions drawn between the sexes, the result will be a monstrosity, and ultimately will lead to weak men and disorderly women. It is a demonstrated fact, since nature has appointed such wide difference between man and woman in their physical and moral constitutions, that she never intended them to follow the same avocations in life, but that each of them should exercise their various faculties in performing their respective tasks and duties of life in the best possible manner. I hold the opinion that in this particular the great law of political economy that governs in the distribution of labor should be applied to the sexes, and carefully divide the duties of man from those of woman, in order that the great purposes of life may be carried out.

Nature in the eternal fitness of things has traced two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes, who are made to keep pace with each other, but in two pathways which are different. As a rule women are never seen managing the outward concerns of the family, or conducting the great commercial offices of the nation, or taking part in political life. Indeed we do sometimes meet with women who exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and manly energy, and even show that they have the heart and mind. of men; nevertheless they preserve that delicacy and individuality, and retain those refined manners that commend them to the respect entertained for the moral freedom of woman. However, the inexorable law of public opinion circumscribes the exercise of that freedom to the moral functions of life, the domestic interests and duties of the home, and forbids her to step beyond them.

It is supposed that every association, occupation or business of life must have a head in order to accomplish its object, and both nature and revelation clearly designate man as the divinely appointed head. Then I ask, with all due respect to the other better informed judgment, can we afford to make an exception in the practice of Obstetrics and all it comprehends? On this point I would especially call the attention of this intelligent college of physicians and insist, all things considered, that the functions of this particular department of the practice, is peculiarly the field of man, and man only. "When the fullness of time is come," it is indeed a crisis in the life of every mother; it is the crucial hour when that wonderful tripartite mechanism of the hand of Nature, physical, mental and moral, is called into question; the crucial moment when implicit confidence as a reassuring agency, should be consciously felt in the efficiency of the obstetrician.

At the bedside of the patient in labor, not only are the material agencies and appliances necessary required to be in readiness, but the obstetrician must remember that the natural and acquired characteristics of his professional life, his individuality and mannerism has much to do with a successful accouchement. He should not forget that the whole mental and moral being, as well as the physical, are involved in the processes of childbirth; that the whole panorama of the scenes in Eden are passing before the mental vision of the patient; that sin brought on the multiplicity of conception and God has said: "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." At this extreme moment the general bearing, the dig nity of conscious ability and the individuality of a man are more effectual than all that is contained in Materia Medica. It is indeed the decisive moment for the inspiration of hope. To whom, then, is it most natural, so far as human agencies are concerned, would the frail mother look for succor, her expectation at its highest tension and the nervous system fluctuating and doubtful, with more confidence than to man-God's vicegerent on earth?

The obstetrician is supposed to be a man, master of his profession, cultured, with dignity of manners, well bred and of irreproachable virtue. To such a character in the hour of travail, the patient may well turn and take courage. If Dame Nature does her part all is well; but, on the other hand, if the conditions are abnormal and the surgeon and the scalpel called in question, it is unnecessary for this paper to say who should be the obstetrician.

One other remark in reference to the practice laws of the State and I am done. I hold with the opinion that all laws affecting the practice of general medicine should be uniform; however, they