old school, and incidentally related one or two incidents in practice that fell under his observation. If Dr. Spencer had read the paper, which is published in the last volume of the National Transactions he would have been better informed and would not have done Dr. Munn the injustice he did.

Our Boston friends seem to think that the old school physicians treat them as gentlemen, but we know to the contrary. About a year ago we had a patient visiting at Cambridge, and we advised her on leaving New York to send for Dr. E. E. Spencer, if she needed a physician while there. On her return she told me that her friend's doctor had informed her that Dr. Spencer was an irregular, and therefore she did not send for him, though she was sick for three weeks and needed a doctor every day. This digression is intended to show how uncalled for was the attack made on Dr. Munn, who should be honored for 'the enemies he has made."

The matter of reviving the Worcester Medical College, was called up by Dr. Merkell, and was referred to a committee for consideration.

The business completed, the members sat down to the annual dinner, at which Dr. C. E. Miles presided.

Dr. Huldah T. Gunn, of New York, was present as a delegate from the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New York, and Drs. Beuermann and Hyde, from the New York Eclectic Medical College.

MISCELLANY.

PATHOLOGY OF EXTENSIVE BURNS.—Oscar Silbermann, of Bresslau, finds that in extensive burns the corpuscles alter their form, and are able to exert less than their normal resistance to heat, drying, compression and staining. In consequence of these changes, thrombosis and stasis in different organs are very frequent, especially in the lungs, kidneys, stomach, bowels, spleen, liver, skin and brain, and most of all, in the smaller branches of the pulmonary artery. The stasis in the lungs produces a very considerable impediment to the emptying of the right ventricle, with enormous venous congestion and dangerous arterial anæmia. This again leads to apoplexies and parenchymatous alterations in the above mentioned organs, also to dyspnœa, cyanosis, coma, a small pulse, angina pectoris, eclampsia, anuria and to a diminution of the surface temperature.-Lancet.

TREATMENT FOR CHRONIC LEG ULCERS.-Dr. Ivan A. Praxin, of St. Petersburg, warmly recommends a simple method of treatment, successfully practiced by him in atonic crural ulcers with sclerotized edges. The method consists in making multiple radiating incisions, penetrating through the whole thickness of the edge, and situated so that the inner third of each incision divides the granulating bottom of the ulcers, the middle one its edge, and the outer third the adjacent healthy skin. The distances between the incisions should be equal approximately to two or three breadths of the edge. To secure gaping, plugs should be inserted into each wound for a few days. When treated after this plan, callous ulcers, varying in size from a dime to half of the palm, are said to heal as swiftly as any simple ulcer, provided their neighborhood is free from inflammatory oedema and venous congestion.-Weekly Medical Review.

The Medical Tribune.

ROBERT A. GUNN, M.D., EDITOR.

VOL. VI.

JULY 15, 1890.

No. 5.

THE NATIONAL ECLECTIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. THE twentieth annual meeting of the National Eclectic Medical Association was held at the International Hotel, Niagara Falls, N. Y., June 17, 18, and 19, 1890. The chair was taken at 10 o'clock on Tuesday morning by Dr. William T. Gemmill, of Forest, Ohio, and the Rev. George F. Rosenmuller, Rector of St. Peter's Church, offered prayer.

The attendance of members and delegates was about two hundred and fifty.

Dr. Robert A. Gunn, President of the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New York, was introduced, and in behalf of the Eclectic Medical Society of Western New York welcomed the Association to the Empire State in the following brief address:

MR. PRESIDENT, OFFICERS, MEMBERS, AND DELEGATES OF THE NATIONAL ECLECTIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION :

In behalf of the Eclectic Medical Society of Western New York, and by virtue of my position as the President of the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New York, I stand before you to-day to welcome you within the borders of the Empire State; and I can assure you that all that loyal hearts and willing hands can do to make your stay among us enjoyable will be done, and heartily done. You have all made great sacrifices to come here to attend this meeting. Some of you have come from the sloping hills and pleasant valleys of New England; some from the cotton fields and orange groves of the sunny South; some from the mountainsides of the picturesque Alleghenys; some from the great prairies of the West; some, as I understand, from beyond the Rocky Mountains, along the Pacific Slope. You have come here, expecting to be benefited by the interchange of thought which must

necessarily occur among so many representative men; and we, the physicians of the State of New York, certainly trust that you will not only enjoy yourselves so far as the pleasures of your trip are concerned, but that this meeting may prove one of great profit to each and every individual present.

Standing here as I do to welcome you at this time, my mind reverts back to a period twenty years ago, when I had the honor, as the representative of the Eclectics of the city of Chicago, to extend the hand of welcome to the large body of Eclectic physicians who represented the several State societies there assembled for the purpose of organizing this National Association. Then I welcomed your predecessors, the representatives of your societies at that time, to the great city of Chicago-much greater since then. To-day it is certainly a great pleasure to me to stand before you to welcome you to the great State of New York, to see our greatest of all wonders, the Niagara Falls. We welcome you here, and assure you that you will have a free view of the Falls. You can buy all the curiosities you desire on almost every corner, and you can have rides free, and from that all the way up to any price you wish to pay. We of New York (for I am a New Yorker now) feel that we have much to boast of; while each of you, coming as you do from every quarter of our vast country, no doubt thinks that your particular section can beat the universe. In this particular section of the old Empire State we boast of our great Niagara and our greater Falls, which commands the wonder and admiration of the world. With all your wonders of later date, we ask you to go and look upon ours, and beat it if you can.

The history of this Association is one in which I have been deeply interested, and with which my entire professional career has been to a great extent associated. I was Secretary of the Chicago Committee of Arrangements, and as such conducted the larger part of the correspondence preparatory to holding the first meeting of the Association in 1870. At the banquet given by the Chicago Eclectics on that occasion it was, as I before mentioned, my privilege to welcome the representatives from the several States. I served as Secretary of the Association for five years, and was an active member till 1884. Since then I have watched your progress with interest and pleasure; and I believe that there is no similar body of men in the United States by whom so much is done year by year for the best interests of suffering humanity. It may be

true that we do not have such elaborate papers; that our researches are not conducted on the same so-called scientific scale as those of our Allopathic friends; but there is one thing very certain, that the practical work that is done, and has been done, by this Association and its auxiliaries will compare favorably with that of any similar society in the world; and so far as our therapeutics are concerned, we may certainly feel that we stand head and shoulders above them all. This is particularly apparent at the present time, when we know that our remedies are, day by day, and year by year, being adopted by other schools; and although we do not always get the credit, still we have the satisfaction of knowing that our good work, and the good works of those who have gone before us, are bearing the ripe fruits of the labors that have been spent in the direction of therapeutics.

It is not my purpose to take up the time of this Association, because I know there is much business of interest to come before you. I will therefore conclude by again welcoming you on behalf of the Eclectic physicians of Western New York, and the State of New York; and we trust that this meeting will prove one of the most prosperous in your history. We believe that the scientific papers to be presented and the discussions that follow will prove of inestimable value to our literature, and add to the renown of Eclectic Medicine, which is purely American in its origin and development.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your kind attention. I bespeak for you a pleasant re-union at this time, and wish you all a bon voyage on the journey of life. (Applause.)

The President called upon Dr. Alex. Wilder, the Secretary, who replied briefly as follows:

DOCTOR GUNN :-Permit me, by the direction of the President of this Association, and in the name of the Association itself, as representing it, to thank you for this cordial reception. We are glad, coming into this old Empire State, upon her western frontier to find here brothers, friends and a cordial reception.

As an Association we are now virtually of age. You have told us that you were yourself at Chicago to greet us upon the inception into existence.

We are now completing our twenty-first year, and I trust that when we come to full age it will be a manly manhood and not a drivelling fag-end of a disgraceful childhood. (Applause.) We

should be, and I trust we are, above the notion of using this Association as a mere partisan tool, an instrument to carry out personal ends that are selfish and dishonorable; and I further hope and ask that we bear in mind that our mission is not simply to bear an evangel of health to the world, but also a better Ethics, a better Therapeutics, a better Practice of Medicine. (Applause.) That is our professed purpose, as set forth in our constitution; that is the purpose set forth in our charter, the statute of incorporation under which we hold our legal existence, and in full accordance with that it should be our aim to walk worthily.

We have assembled here beside the Niagara. Behind that immense wall of limestone there is held back the water of four great lakes-four inland seas, the accumulations of nature, a vast stone of the past. After it passes that wall we find it collected in another lake, and then coursing onward to the ocean. That figure should be our own. As Eclectics, who prove all things, it is our part and allotment to take the mighty accumulations of others' learning, so like and analogous to those great lakes, as our lawful inheritance, and having taken them, having received them as our own, with all our researches, holding fast to the things which are good, and making the best of them, to pass the stream onward, not merely to a Lake Ontario of our own, not merely for the establishment of our own school of medicine, but for the purpose of moving still further on and mingling with the mighty ocean of Everlasting Truth. (Applause.) That is the vocation to which we have been called. With such an aim in mind we certainly have enough to charge us with the deepest solemnity, with the fullest conviction, and with the most intrepid purpose.

Coming hither into the State of New York I have a little the advantage of you. I was born in it, reared in it, and not imported into it, an exotic growth from across these waters. I think, therefore, that I have some right to speak for this commonwealth-imperial in her dimensions and power, the first to utter the gospel of reformed medicine to the American people, however much it may have been carried and nurtured elsewhere; her children of the light are still able to uphold the standard, to sustain the course, and to carry it to its ulterior triumph.

We are now here for professional purposes, and I trust that when we are through we shall feel, and have good cause to feel, that we have done that work which shall place our