Wertenbaker, C, P., passed assistant surgeon, granted leave. of absence for seven days on account of sickness, Nov. 23, 1897.

ARMY.

Leave of absence for one month is granted Captain R. G. Ebent, assistant surgeon.

Lieutenant Colonel J. V. D. Middleton, Deputy Surgeon General, granted one month's extension to present leave of absence. Leave of absence for one month is granted Captain Isaac P. Ware, Assistant Surgeon, Fort Grant, Arizona.

By direction of the President, the retirement from active service this date, November 15, 1897 of Lieutenant Colonel William E. Waters, Deputy Surgeon General is announced.

Captain Richard W. Johnson, Assistant Surgeon is relieved from duty at Fort Logan, Colorado, and ordered to Fort D. A. Sussell, Wyoming, for duty.

Captain Charles E. Woodruff, Assistant Surgeon, will upon the abandonment of Fort Custer, Montana, proceed to Jackson Barracks, La. and report for duty at that point, to relieve Major William C. Shannon, Surgeon.

Captain Isaac P. Ware, Assistant Surgeon, is relieved from duty at Fort Grant, Arizona, to take effect upon the expiration of his present leave of absence and ordered to Benicia Barracks, Cal, for duty.

Captain Merritte W. Ireland, Assistant Surgeon, is relieved from duty at Benicia Barracks, Cal, to take effect upon the arrival at that post of Captain Ware, aud ordered to the Presidio of San Francisco, Cal. for duty.

PROMOTIONS.

Major Peter J. A. Cleary, Surgeon, to be Deputy Surgeon General with rank of Lieutenant Colonel November 15, 1897. vice Waters, retired

Captain Charles Qichard, Assistant Surgeon, to be Surgeon, with the rank of Major, November 15, 1897.

Lieutenant Paul F. Straub, Assistant Surgeon, to be Assistant Surgeon, with the rank of Captain, November 4, 1897 after five years service.

RETIREMENT.

Lieutenant Colonel William E. Waters, Deptuy Surgeon General, November 15, 1896.

Dr. William D. Cooper, aged 77 years, died in Fanquier county, Virginia, October 30, 1897.

A druggist was recently fined $150.00 for practising medicine in New York without a license.

Dr. Gonin, of Lyons, recommends for bites of insects and serpents, that the wound be painted with formal, a second coat being applied after the first has dried. The soothing effect is said to be instantaneous.

A specialist of St. Louis, recently arrived from San Francisco, is sending to the medical press reprints of papers on his specialty, and takes the precaution to accompany the reprints with a biogrophical (auto?) sketch and portrait of himself. The doctor evidently intends to "get there."

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH.-At a meeting held recently, the New York Board of Trade and Transportation adopted a resolution declaring the health of the people of far more importance than the proposed enlargement of the navy or other preparations for war, and calling for the appointment of a committee to consider the desirability of the establishment of a national department of public health.

REPRESSING FLIRTATION.-A telegram from Louisville to the daily papers says that it has been found necessary to place two policemen on guard before the Louisville School of Medicine. every day at the time the girls' high school is dismissed, in order to prevent the medical students from flirting with the young women of the high school, which adjoins the medical college. The students deny that they have ever so much as glanced at the high-school girls, and say that the charge was brought merely to induce the city authorities to build a new schoolhouse in another locality.--Med. Record.

AN EXTRAORDINARY LETTER COUNTER.-M. Ginestous lately presented to the Anatomical and Physiological Society of Bor

deaux, one of his college friends, age 27 years, who since the age of 10 has counted and is obliged to count the letters contained in the sentences which he thinks, speaks, writes or hears. He practices this habit from the moment he wakes to the time when he goes to sleep, snd without experiencing any difficulty. This automatic and continuous work does not in the slightest degree interfer with his other occupation, holding a conversation, reading a book, or following an argument. By what process has he arrived at this result?—Maritime Medical News.

By a system of very tall lying.

STARVATION AND DEATH IN THE KLONDIKE. -The tales brought by returning miners are of terrible suffering and pri vation endured by the gold seekers who have gone to Alaska this year, and they give every reason to fear that the misery of this coming winter will beggar description. The members of a party that returned two weeks ago to Victoria gave a moving account of their return over the mountain trail from Dawson City. During the trip they were reduced to boiling and eating pieces of raw hide and their boot tops. At one time they had nothing for three days, when an owl was killed, and on this they subsisted for three days longer. When they reached Dalton's cabin two of the party were mad from hunger. The leader of the party said that when he left Dawson City four hundred persons had purchased tickets for St. Michael, intending to go down on the steamers, which will, however, not get up until spring releases the river ice. To add to the misery of their position, every day sees new arrivals. Now that they are there they find curses their welcome, and they would give anything to escape. The supply of food is insufficient for those already there, and the only escape of many from starvation is through typhoid fever, which is reducing their number at the rate of five. or six a day, and so leaving a smaller number of consumers of the lessening food supp.y.-Med. Record.

The Philadelphia Medical Journal. This will be the title of a new weekly journal to begin with the new year under the editorial management of that experienced and able editor, Dr. George M. Gould. That in itself ensures an excellent journal.

The vending of spectacles will not be permitted on the streets of Buffalo. Mayor Jewett has invariably declined to grant licenses for such purposes. Morever, in every license granted by the mayor the following prohibitive clause is added: "No eye glasses are to be sold under this license." It has been stated in the newspapers that a lawyer proposes to test the matter in the courts, by applying for a writ of mandamus to compel the mayor to issue a license permitting the sale of spectacles. The mayor holds that he has the power to refuse such a license, that he has habitually refused them because the sale of spectacles not scientifisally tested before purchase might work great injury upon the eyes of people who buy them, and that he will willingly defend a suit to compel him to issue licenses in such The attitude of the mayor is undoubtedly correct and deserves the approbation of all intelligent people.-Buffalo Med. and Surg. Journal.

cases.

An editor has been inspired, after looking over his list of delinquent subscribers, to compose the following: "How dear to our heart is the old silver dollar, when some kind subscriber presents it to view; the liberty head without necktie or collar, and all the strange things which to us seem so new; the widespreading eagle, the arrows below it, the stars and the words with strange things they tell; the coin of our fathers, we're glad that we know it, for some time or other it will come in right well; the spread eagle dollar, the star-spangled dollar, the old silver dollar we all love so well."-Troy Times.—Col. Med. Jour. Send us one, doctor, to look at?

An antiseptic residince has recently been constructed at Yokohama, Japan, by Dr. W. van der Heyden, the bacteriologist, according to the Journal d'Hygiene of October 14. The walls are made of large blocks and slabs of glass, mounted in metal, and the whole hermetically closed. One of the windows open. A row of small openings near the ceiling of the upper story allow the egress of the air without permitting the entrance of the outer air, which is exclusively supplied through a pipe extending some distance beyond the house, into which it is forced, filtered and sterilized by passing over glycerin. The house is entered through a long hall and no germs can enter except those

brought on the persons or clothes of the inmates. These microbes, however, find no further chance to develop, as is shown by the fact that butter and milk can be kept a long while without turning rancid or sour. The space left between the glass in the walls is filled with a special saline solution which absorbs the heat of the sun and moderates the temperature within even on the hottest days, while the slow radiation of the absorbed heat and chemic processes in the solution keep the house warm at night.-Jour. Amer. Med. Asso.

A BUREAU OR CLINICAL MEDICINE AND SURGERY.-There has been established at the Hall of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, northeast corner of 13th and Locust Streets, a Bnreau of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, having a central office with telephone connection, in charge of a clerk, whose duty it shall be to receive and post notices of the daily work in the various branches of surgery and medicine taking place at the different hospitals in the city. This is accomplished by notice to the bureau by postal card or telephone. By this means the numerous physicians who visit the city may be able to take advantage of the great clinical facilities offered by the hospitals of Philadel phia. A physician calling at the central bureau can thus ascertain what medical or sugical work may be going on during that day in any one of the different hospitals. The officers of the bureau are Roland G. Curtin, M.D., President; Henry R. Whaton, M.D., Secretary; Guy Hinsdale, M. D., Treasurer.

CARBOLIC ACID AS A POISON.-On September 14th three women swallowed carbolic acid for the purpose of terminating their lives, and between August 13th and September 14th no less than fourteen persons, including the three mentioned, attempted suiscide in this way in New York. In most of them the attempt was successful, and all but three of the unfortunates were females. The selection of this drug for the purpose, notwithstanding the agonizing suffering to which it gives rise, is supposed to be on account of the readiness whith which it can be procured. No prescription is necessary to get it, and pharmacist is simply required to label the bottle "poison" and preserve the name and address of the purchaser for future reference, should occasion arise.--Boston Med. and Surg. Jour.