THE BROOKLYN MEDICAL JOURNAL.

Communications in reference to Advertisements or Subscriptions (Subscription Price $2.00 per annum) should be addressed, Business Manager, BROOKLYN MEDICAL JOURNAL, 214 Madison Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Remittances should be made by money-order, draft, or registered letter, payable to BROOKLYN MEDICAL JOURNAL, and addressed to Business Manager.

Authors desiring Reprints of their papers should communicate with the Business Manager as soon as the papers have been read, stating the number of Reprints desired, and the number of JOURNAL pages their papers will occupy, allowing 470 words to a page. Each contributor of an Original Article will receive five copies of the JOURNAL containing his article, on application at the Rooms of the Society, 356 Bridge Street.

Photo-engravings will be furnished authors free of charge, if proper drawings or negatives are provided Electrotypes of engravings will be furnished authors at cost, when they wish to preserve them for future reproduction.

Alterations in the proof will be charged to authors at the rate of sixty cents an hour, this being the printer's charge to the Journal.

All other Communications, Articles for Publication, Books for Review, and Exchanges should be addressed BROOKLYN MEDICAL JOURNAL, 356 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

EDITORIAL.

REFORM IN THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

The abuses connected with the present method of the disposal of the dead are not all met and remedied by either cremation or dessication. While sanitarians are directing the public mind to the possibilities of the contamination of water and air by earth-burial, equally philanthropic men are calling attention to the necessity for reform in the matter of expensive funerals and mourning, and to the dangers to which the living expose themselves in attending the funerals of those who have died from infectious disease, or at the cemetery, when, in inclement weather, the dead are laid in their last resting place.

In the matter of expensive funerals, Rev. W. W. Gist, who has made an exceedingly forcible argument looking towards reform in these directions, narrates one instance in which a laboring man, without means except as he earned it each day, was not satisfied with a coffin costing $35 in which to bury his boy, but selected one for which he obligated himself to pay $100. In another instance which he cites, the undertaker's charges against the estate of a servant girl amounted to $448.25. This case being brought into court to compel payment, the judge very sensibly decided against the undertaker, on the ground. that the charges were unjustifiable. Mr. Gist criticizes also the present expensive and unchristian custom of dressing in black. Oftentimes the entire available means of an already destitute family are expended in following the prevailing fashion, for fear that were this not done, their love and reverence for the deceased might be questioned.

There has, doubtless, been great reform in the matter of public funerals in cases where death has been due to contagious disease. This is especially true of the large cities, where sanitary laws are more thoroughly enforced than in rural districts. In Brooklyn, prior to the year 1877, there were no restrictions placed upon the attendance at the funerals of those who died of infectious disease, and the inspectors of the Board of Health, who were directed to be present at such funerals, found in some instances the parlors crowded with friends, the coffins open, and children permitted to kiss the lips of the dead. What was then true of Brooklyn was equally true of many other cities, and is presumably true to-day of all cities and villages where sanitary ordinances do not exist or are not enforced. Ten years ago relatives and friends were invited to such funerals through the public press; to-day, "funeral private" almost invariably accompanies the notice of the death; then the presence of the police was sometimes necessary to enforce the ordinance; to-day public opinion is sufficient to insure privacy.

Another custom which would be more honored in the breach than in the observance is that of standing with uncovered head at the grave, no matter what the weather or temperature may be. Indeed the ground of a cemetery in winter, or in unseasonable weather, is not a fit place on which any but the strongest and most robust should stand. The amount of sickness, even resulting fatally, attributable to exposure at the grave can never be known, but that it is considerable no one can doubt. It is gratifying to note a strong tendency toward reform in the direction of abstaining from such exposure on the part of the old and the feeble, and physicians and clergymen can do great good in encouraging this tendency, by pointing out the serious dangers incurred by those who thus expose themselves. Funeral-reform associations, organized for the purpose of reducing expenses, could well enlarge the scope of their self-assumed task, and lend their aid in abating or modifying the dangers inseparably connected with the present methods of burying the dead.

PHYSICIANS' COMMISSIONS.

There is an impression more or less prevalent among the laity that physicians receive a percentage or commission on their prescriptions. How this impression ever came to exist or on what foundation it is based, has never been stated so far as we know. We presume that every physician has had to meet it once or oftener in his life, and we hope that when such occasion offered he has promptly and indignantly

denied the imputation. That such a practice existed we never for one moment believed, and expected never to have any ground for entertaining such a belief. Recently, however, we have heard from two physicians that they have received checks from a prominent drugstore in the city with the statement that they represented commissions paid to them by the druggist for orders which had been sent for instruments, in one case a truss, and what the other was, was not stated. It is unnecessary to add that in both these instances the checks were indignantly returned. There is little danger that any reputable physician who has been any considerable length of time in the profession, would accept money from such a source, but those who have just entered it might not know that such a practice is regarded as unprofessional, and that it would be beneath the dignity of a true physician to retain money thus obtained. It is, of course, only necessary to call their attention to it, to have the money rejected with as much indignation by them as by their elders.

Where does this commission come from? It is supposable that the druggist deducts it from his own profits, but this supposition is one which few would long entertain. The fact is, we imagine, that the patient pays it. Should the physician accept the commission he would be twice paid, and that oftentimes by a patient who can ill afford this additional expense. The proffer of money under these circumstances is in the nature of a bribe, and is an insult which should be resented. There are doubtless as few druggists who practice it, as there are physicians who encourage it.

SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS.

We desire to call attention to the special meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Kings, to be held on January 14, to consider the relations of scientific experts to the administration of the law. The resolutions, for the discussion of which this meeting is called, were based on the admirable paper of Justice Willard Bartlett, which was published in full in the May number of the Journal. As the Council of the Society will invite representatives of the legal profession, including several judges, to participate in the discussion, the occasion cannot but be one of great interest and importance.

THE CARTWRIGHT LECTURES.

In the recent lectures of Dr. Billings, reference was made to the unreliability of statistics obtained in other ways than by official census. As an illustration of that the instance of Philadelphia was cited.

The

population of that city was estimated in 1879 to be 901,380, from which the death rate was computed as 17. 17 per 1,000. In the following year, 1880, the U. S. census was taken, and the population then was found to be but 847, 170, showing that the actual population in 1879 was 828,032 and the actual death rate 18.68. The estimated population of any city based upon the number of names in the directory, or of houses, or of voters is almost invariably too high. Dr. Billings also called attention to the fact that after corrections are made by the official census, boards of health, and others publishing statistics, instead of making the necessary alterations in the populations and death rates already published, continue year after year to publish the statistics which the census has shown to be incorrect. City officials who, after their attention has been directed to such inaccuracies, persist in the publication of false figures, do it with the desire to have the cities they respectively represent considered as the leading ones of their section in point of population, and the death rate the lowest.

There is one point with which we presume all physicians will agree with Dr. Billings: that there is no good reason why reports of births should be required from medical men. It would be far better and more likely to insure complete returns if others than the physician were required by ordinance to make such reports.

OBITUARY.

WALTER DE FOREST DAY, M.D.

Dr. Day, whose death occurred in New York on November 27th, was best known as Sanitary Superintendent of that city, to which responsible position he was appointed in 1873. He received his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1863. While yet a student, in 1861, he entered the service of the United States as a medical cadet, and rendered valuable medical aid to those injured in the first battle of Bull Run, in the hospital at Alexandria. Subsequently he had charge of the marine hospital at Portsmouth, Va. He occupied for many years the chair of Materia Medica and Botany in the College of Pharmacy of New York, and filled other responsible positions in the hospitals and dispensaries of that city.

PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE COUNTY OF KINGS.

The regular monthly meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Kings was held in the society rooms, 356 Bridge Street, on Tuesday evening, November 19th, at eight o'clock.

Dr. A. Ross Matheson in the chair.

There were about seventy-five members present.

The full minutes of the last meeting not being at hand, the Secretary read the report of Council made at that meeting, which, on motion, was approved as read.

The Council reported favorably upon the names of the following applicants for membership:

Drs. John E. Walsh, Bellevue, 1886; Benj. Meade Bolton, Univ. of Virginia, 1879; J. C. Fitzsimmons, L. I. C. H., 1887; Geo. B. O'Sullivan, L. I. C. H., 1887; Lawrence Coffin, L. I. C. H., 1889; Wm. Jarvie Turner, L. I. C. H., 1886; Robert Hunter Duncan, Coll. P. and S., Baltimore, 1885.

The following doctors were proposed for membership:

Purdy Sturges, 440 Ninth Street, Coll. P. and S., New York, 1887; proposed by Dr. A. Ross Matheson-Dr. D. Myerle.

Walter Spencer Fleming, Kings County Insane Asylum, Univ. of City of New York, 1883; proposed by Dr. John L. Macumber-Dr. G. A. Evans.

Arthur Edwin Burns, Kings County Insane Asylum, Bellevue, 1886; proposed by Dr. John L. Macumber-Dr. G. A. Evans.

George Fred Lloyd, Kings County Insane Asylum, Omaha Med. Coll., 1882, Bellevue, 1887; proposed by Dr. John L. Macumber— Dr. G. A. Evans.

Gilman Osgood, Kings County Hospital, Bellevue, 1886; proposed by Dr. John L. Macumber-Dr. John A. Arnold.

Jesse T. Duryea, Kings County Hospital, Bellevue, 1889; proposed by Dr. John L Macumber-Dr. John A. Arnold.

Wm. A. Fries, Fourth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, Univ. of Penn., 1872; proposed by Dr. Ernest Palmer-Dr. W. M. Hutchinson.

Walter Morrison Friend, 3 Second Place, Harvard Univ., 1884; proposed by Dr. J. H. Raymond-Dr. W. M. Hutchinson.

William Neuss, 248 Central Avenue, Bellevue, 1889; proposed by Dr. Wm. Gilfillan--Dr. W. M. Hutchinson.