any time to fall below the original number as compared with the strength of the army.

The American soldier may fight his battles on a diet of canned roast beef; he might fight against an unequal and unmerciful strange foe, but he falls before disease.

No one can blame the Surgeon General for shortcomings when as executive head of the most important bureau of the army he is not permitted by a short-sighted, policy-infatuated congress to have what is necessary for the preservation of the health of the army-a sufficient number of doctors.

Send the soldier to the tropics and deprive him of sufficient medical attention and he will remain where he is sent; unless perhaps the government in a burst of anti-election generosity provides for the transportation of his body to the land of his birth.

INCREASE THE SANITARY INSPECTORS.

WIT

ITH the Pan American Exposition an assured fact, it is reasonable to presume that Buffalo will have as visitors, during the six months it is intended to keep the exposition open, thousands and thousands of strangers. These people will come here after hearing tales of the beauty of Buffalo as a home city; of its wonderfully clean streets and its health.

All these people will come here expecting to find these things true. They will. But they should find more. They should come into Buffalo and find a model city; they should find a city as nearly perfect as it is possible to make a city in this rushing, fin-de-ciecle age. Then will the fame of Buffalo be spread broadcast over the whole, wide world. Money and population will pour in and Buffalo -well, we Buffalonians are a sanguine lot and there's no knowing where we will stop when once our growing pains begin in earnest.

But to make this a model city it must be absolutely and unequivocally clean and healthy. It must be perfectly and systematically and regularly inspected and the inspection should begin at once. Not next year, but now. The city should be districted and reports on each district, detailed and exhaustive, made each month. Violators of ordinances should be relentlessly pursued and mercilessly punished.

To make Buffalo a model city of health and cleanliness, a city which would be the wonder of the world and rival even Paris, Dr.

Wende should be given authority to increase his staff of inspectors. Every new inspector should be a physician. Each physician should be chosen because of his fitness for the particular branch of inspecting he is to do. There should not be any guess work. To guess is to woo failure. Every nook and cranny in this city should be inspected and kept under inspection from now until the last visitor has left Buffalo.

For two years this would cost the city, say $20,000, and Buffalo would be a $1,000, coo richer in fame.

A full force of inspectors is not necessary just now, but the increase should be begun at once, and additional inspectors added from time to time up to the spring of 1900, when a full force should be at work and a perfect system of inspection in operation.

IT

THE PREVALENCE OF SMALL-POX.

T IS our desire very briefly to call the attention of the profession to the widespread prevalence of small-pox in the United States, and also to the necessity of vaccination and revaccination as an invaluable means of prevention.

At the present time, according to information gleaned from Public Health Reports, the official organ of the Marine Hospital Service, just issued, small-pox prevails to an enormous extent, having invaded twenty-eight states and territories and existing in eighty-nine localities, including the cities of New York and Dunkirk.

However, from our knowledge of it in New York State, it would appear that these statistics only partially represent its prevalence, for a telegram received from Dr. Baxter T. Smelzer, secretary of the State Board of Health, dated February 27, 1899, gives, in addition to the localities named, the following places in this state that have been invaded—namely, Rochester, Penfield, LeRoy, Town Line, Darien and Tonawanda. In all probability there are still other localities afflicted that have not been made known to the state health officials.

Thus the deductions to be drawn from the incompleteness of the statistical record as stated for the Empire State, would be that other states and localities have likewise, in many instances, failed to report its existence to the Federal authorities.

The most efficient means for preventing the spread of small-pox is by vaccination and revaccination. The statistical evidence of the value of this procedure is so voluminous that selection is difficult.

It will be sufficient to quote but a single paragraph from Dr. Bizzozoziro's lecture on the success of vaccination in Germany, delivered at Rome. He said: "Germany stands alone in fulfilling in a great measure the demands of hygiene, having in consequence of the calamitous small-pox epidemic of 1870, enacted the law of 1874 which makes vaccination obligatory in the first year of life and revaccination obligatory at the tenth year. What was the

result? With a population of 50,000,000, having in 1871 lost 143,000 lives by small-pox, the mortality diminished so rapidly that today the disease numbers only 116 victims a year.'

With pure vaccine lymph from a recognised source, vaccination is an absolutely harmless operation. To insure this, the modern glycerinised lymph only should be used and in this form it is

endorsed by the highest authorities known to medical science.

THE Christian science fake is now and then in various parts of the country finding itself within the grasp of the law, where, we regret to say, it is too infrequently allowed to escape with inadequate punishment for its crimes. The Cleveland Journal of Medicine for January, records one of the latest convictions of a "healer" as follows:

Harriet O. Evans, a "Christian scientist" of Cincinnati, complacently allowed Thomas McDowell to die of typhoid fever without any treatment, except the much-vaunted prayer of these peculiar people. Under the energetic initiative of Dr. Charles A. L. Reed, of Cincinnati, who is a member of the State Examining Board, she was prosecuted for practising medicine without a license. The police-court jury is reported to have employed just twenty minutes in deciding that she was guilty as charged. The case has been appealed, of course, but it is a most excellent beginning. The thanks of the medical profession of the state are due to Dr. Reed for having shown in this and many other cases what a sincere and energetic member of the board can accomplish.

Later advices indicate that a higher court has reversed the decision in this case.

PERSONAL.

DR. GEORGE H. SIMMONS, of Lincoln, Neb., was chosen editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association at a regular meeting of the board of trustees, held at Chicago, February 17, 1899. Dr. Simmons has been editor of the Western Medical Review since it was established. He is a vigorous writer and a man of affairs, hence his work in his new field is likely to prove agreeable and successful.

In

DR. GEORGE B. STOCKER and Dr. B. P. Hoyer, of Buffalo, were appointed post mortem examiners for the County of Erie by the board of supervisors at the annual meeting, held in January. the City of New York the coroner's physician is the official designation given to analogous service.

DR. G. A. HIMMELSBACH, of Buffalo, has gone to St. Augustine, Fla., to enjoy the balmy atmosphere of that delightful region. He was accompanied by Mrs. Himmelsbach and they sailed from New York by the Clyde Line early in February.

DR. N. W. ALDRICH, of Buffalo, has been appointed junior assistant physician at the Buffalo State Hospital.

DR. W. H. MANSPERGER, of Buffalo, has removed from 66 West Chippewa street to 1003 Main street.

DR. H. C. ROOтH, of Buffalo, was recently appointed a member of the Riverside Hospital staff.

OBITUARY.

DR. GEORGE HENRY ROHÉ, of Baltimore, Md., died suddenly at New Orleans, La., February 6, 1899, aged 48 years. At the time of his death he was in attendance upon the National Prison Congress, serving as a delegate from Maryland by appointment of the Governor. His parents were natives of Bavaria, but he was born in Baltimore county, January 26, 1851. His preliminary education was obtained in the public and parish schools of Baltimore and his professional studies were carried forward at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, from which he graduated in March, 1873.

He afterward studied dermatology in Boston under Dr. Edward Wigglesworth. After some years spent in travel he returned to Baltimore and engaged in general practice until his appointment by Mayor Davidson as city health commissioner in 1890. For a short time in 1885, he was acting assistant surgeon in the United States Army. He had been professor in the College of Physicians and Surgeons since 1881 and at different times had filled the chairs of

He was

therapeutics, materia medica, hygiene and mental diseases. appointed superintendent of Spring Grove Hospital for the Insane in

1891, and in 1896 was elected to take charge of the new hospital at Springfield, near Sykesville.

Dr. Rohé was a member of the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, of which he was president