and henceforth considers himself a god. A Horace writes verses which gain admiration, and he follows this by another poem boasting that he has reared unto himself a monument more enduring than brass. But a Darwin wrests secret after secret from the breast of nature, he explains what was never explained before, and at the last he simply says: Ignoramus, In Hoc Signo Laboremus.

But in spite of his excessive gentleness, he was absolutely independent, and when the cause of his beloved science was at stake, he could easily stand against all without flinching. His work was great, and so is his reward. Let anyone now think in a pre-Darwinian manner, and he becomes as much an anomaly as one who should seek for the magic stone that transmutes baser metals into gold. Within his lifetime his name was turned into an adjective, and a thousand Darwinian writers were filling libraries with books on Darwinism. Succeeding generations have continued the worthy and welcome task, and to-day on his centenary, his grave is the greenest in all the world. Tall men from the ends of the earth have garlanded him with wreaths that do not fade, and laurels that never die.

Among these glorious bay-trees I throw this little chaplet. It is small, and its merit scant, but every leaf of it was interwoven with veneration. It will not bloom like other coronals, tho it was love that brought it forth. Accept, accept it, O Saint of Science, for I too know thee as the wonder and the glory of the universe!

Silly Racial Prejudice.

To what absurd lengths will prejudice and animus carry some people! A certain medical man who likes to see himself in print, but whose name we are stopped from mentioning because we have already promised that we are through with him for the present, thus vociferates in the Texas Medical Journal:

"Mr. Editor: Can you tell me why it is that we have a big Briton as third assistant editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association? Are there not enough Americans to edit the Journal of the American Medical Association? Are not the Americans the greatest journalists in the world, both medical and lay? Are there not more medical journals in America than all the rest of the world? I dare say' and 'I fancy' that it would be a 'proper' cold day when an American is on the editorial staff of the British Medical Journal.”

Now if that isn't the limit of vindictiveness! Heaven knows that we are not infatuated with the ways and methods of the American Medical Association and its organ ourselves. We have done our share-perhaps more than our share-of criticism and censure, albeit we protest that it is not of personalities. But to object to the Journal on the ground that one of its editors is a Briton-nothing else--that is a depth of asininity and puerility to which we did not suppose any supposedly intelligent man was capable of descending. The trouble is that some unthinking readers will take it to be the attitude of the independents. God save us!-Med. Standard.

We fully agree with Dr. Atkinson. Anybody who will object to a man on account of his nationality is a donkey. There could be no objection to Dr. Millican even if he were a Chinaman.

(Rival to Till). O. C.

"Plaster-on-the-Back Specialist. Piper, Cures Rheumatism. Charges nothing. Takes whatever given. (I am not a Doctor.) 1300-34th St."

This is the legend that attracted the dupes who permitted Piper to blister their backs; but, instead of returning the compliment by using their pedal extremities for one of the many good uses to which these limbs can be put, they turned the other cheek (figuratively) and allowed said extremities to be pulled-very forcibly indeed. It seems a little cruel to tell these fools that they

got just what they deserved. The fine of one hundred dollars, recently imposed upon Piper, because it was decided that he was practicing medicine without a license, may serve to put him out of business for the present. The threat that a repetition of this offense would land him behind the bars, may, however, give him food for a serious bit of cogitation.-'is. Med. Jour.

On "Undesirables."

Dr. Charles Gilmore Kerley (President's Address, American Pediatric Society, 1908) thinks our boys "are educated to-day to the danger-point. The child is brought up in a competitive atmosphere which is the inevitable cause of much disappointment, suicide and life failures; and for the reason that the person is. led to think that he may be able to accumulate ten, twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year, when he has only a two-dollar-aday brain. This spirit with the encouragement of scholarships, rich men's colleges, and steps toward the so-called higher education, induces the youth to spend years in striving, and to end in failure more or less complete. This over-education of the unfit brings forth tastes, traits and desires that he should not know of... During the past twenty years the sons of carpenters, shoemakers, plumbers, bricklayers, etc., did not wish to follow the occupation of the father. These boys would be lawyers, bank presidents, physicians, etc., and sorry to relate, some of them became lawyers and physicians. Now they are not bank presidents, but poorly paid bookkeepers. Ten per cent. of those graduating in medicine fail to make a living and seek other occupations..

This is a large slice of pessimism to swallow in a lump. The spirit of caste saturates it, and we know of nothing more malign from which we suffer than this very spirit.

If Dr. Kerley is hunting for "undesirables" let him study the "college loafers," as they were recently dubbed by a University of Michigan professor, who are overfilling the professional ranks. They are not the sons of carpenters and other men who work with their hands. They were never oppressed by the "competitive" educational system. Let him study the dilettanti, who practice medicine for pastime and who cannot "fail" in the sense in which Dr. Kerley uses the word. There are battalions of this ilk in his own city of New York. And can he see no eminent ethical charlatans about him to bunco the profession not less than the public and are successful in Dr. Kerley's implied sense.

It is a new theory that recruits shall be drawn from any one class. The mere fact that a man's father is a carpenter should not excommunicate him in anyone's eyes. The fact does not necessarily imply that he lacks the temperament, physique and intellect to practice medicine successfully; and because he lacks ample means, high birth and must struggle we cannot class him

as unfit. Observation negatives such a conclusion. Indeed, we entertain a sneaking suspicion that he might have worse handicaps. We do not get our characters ready made, and we are foolish enough to believe that character is an indispensable asset in the professional man.

What should have been the destiny of Carlyle, whose father was a peasant? Why did Lincoln dare to aspire, mere shopkeeper and flat-boatman that he was? We do not care to go into the question of the antecedents of many of our ablest physicians. Not because anything discreditable might be discovered, in Dr. Kerley's sense, but because we think we can make his sophistry plain without utilizing such a method. Besides, the data would be too illimitable to present. We should be at a loss with whom to begin.

The "element" whom Dr. Kerley wishes had but one neck. which he might sever at a blow, could not be dispensed with so readily as that which we would annihilate, if we could. The latter represent no class; we are not convicting ourselves of the caste spirit and setting up class distinctions. They are parasites; fungi; malignant growths. It is they who overcrowd the profession.

We take no classes into consideration save the useful classes, capable of good service.

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger, near the heart of it.**

Not usually fouled by the sons of carpenters, but by snobs and cads and prigs of whatever birth.-A. C. Jacobson in Hyg. and Diet. Gazette.

The Beauty Specialist.

Not long ago a damage suit was brought against a "dermatological institute" for the facial deformities resulting from an attempt to obliterate a woman's wrinkles by paraffin injections. This served, it is to be hoped, to call public attention to what surgeons from time to time have opportunity to observe-the mischief that is wrought by paraffin injection in the hands of the unskilful and the unscrupulous.

The advertising "beauty specialist," who preys on the vanity of the ignorant, is the chief offender in this direction, but he is probably not the only one. The regular physician whose experience in this field is small, as his effort is sincere, is equally apt to do mischief. Paraffin prothesis requires a very exact technic, and no small. amount of practice. Its employment should be left to those who are experienced in that technic and who have an accurate appreciation of the legitimate indications for and the limitations of, cosmetic injections.-Am. Jour. Surg.

*King Henry IV., Part II., III., T.

A "Fasting Cure" for Syphilis.

A journal called Eternal Progress, devoted apparently to the advancement of the mental healing cult, gives in its May issue a remarkable striking instance of the snake that lies hidden in the rank herbage of quackery. A correspondent asks the following question: "Some years ago I contracted syphilis and, as I am about to marry, I would like to find a remedy. Would dieting for thirty days produce a cure?" It seems incredible that any sane person, having intelligence to write decent English, should be capable of delivering himself of such a terrible doctrine as is contained in the following answer: "The best remedy for any venereal or blood disease is fasting. A fourteen-day fast will cure most cases. Mild cases could be cured in a fast of eight or ten days," and much more, extolling the virtues of fasting as a cure-all. While we do not, of course, ascribe to the writer of the answer any criminal intent, there is a degree of culpable ignorance which amounts to criminality, and that point is surely passed in this pernicious advice. It is appalling to think of the children that may be born with envenomed constitutions should the inquirer act on such deadly advice. The indifference of ignorance is hard enough to combat; but what shall we say of this cruel betrayal of one who, conscious of his condition, has conscience enough to desire to prevent the transmission of his taint to his innocent wife and offspring? For the assertion is absolutely false in each of its three clauses.-J. A. M. A.

On Being Clean.

Can a doctor be too clean? Almost everyone will answer in the negative, being confident that such a thing is impossible. It would seem that to advise against too much cleanliness would be to invite carelessness upon the part of those of our number who are prone to more or less disrespect for bacteria and their toxins.

As a matter of fact, however, it is quite possible for those of us who have occasion to treat wounds healing by granulation, to be too particular and insistent upon removing every evidence of an excess of cellular granulation material.

Dr. Robert T. Morris has emphasized the fact of actually delaying repair, disarranging the newly-formed cellular struc ture and lessening the chance of recovery by a too thorough removal of the pus cells. He objects to the use of too powerful antiseptic solutions, preferring to irrigate wounds with normal salt solutions to the practice of placing gauze for drainage in direct contact with the granulation surface, and the consequent removal in the meshes of the gauze of most of the newly-formed cells; and to the endless task of attempting to cleanse the peritoneum following a ruptured appendix, losing sight of the resisting power of the peritoneum and of its possibilities as a reparative agent.—Progress.