of prolonged liquid breathing, as if through a layer of wet sponge, heard before or after mucous rales, which we venture to name moist respiration. 7. Another new and really useful "physical sign" we have to communicate, is the comparative stiffness of the shoulder over the lung most diseased, in strong breathing, seen and felt from behind. For this we may use the "sixth position." [Fig. 6.] Facing the back of patient, a yard distant, near a window or white wall, you tell him to drop his arms, let them hang easily by the sides, "as if dead," and then breathe deeply for a few moments, "like a man a little out of breath." You now "take aim," like a rifleman, across the tops of the shoulders, and

Fig. 5.

then shut your eyes and feel them gently swell. Drawing nearer, you notice that the "inferior angles" of the scapula move gently in breathing like the fins of a fish. You can both see and feel this movement. This stiffness of the shoulder in breathing may be decided, or slight, local, or general. When most at the top, we term it, for convenience, "acromial," and when most at the lower extremity, or inferior angle, we call it "angular." Curiously enough, these last features seem to depend on the higher or lower location of the disease which thus, as it were, parylyzes the parts nearest. An elegant way of testing "angular stiffness," even in a lady fully clad, is to place your two index fingers on the lower points of her shoulder blades, and watch and feel their movement as she sighs. The causes of this stiffness are supposed to be loss of upward expansion in the lung, tenderness, pleuritic adhesions, and weight of morbid deposits. A table of eighteen cases is added, illustrative of this sign. It was least in recent attacks; varied most in phthisis; was slightest in pneumouia, and greatest in chronic pleurisy.

8. A statement of measurements of ten males, shows the gain in inches, and decimals, by "third," "fourth," or "fifth," positions respectively, between the inferior angles of the scapulae, and the lowest lumbar vertebra; the "superior angles" and the vertebra prominens of the neck and between the two upper and two lower angles of the scapula. Of the whole of the six positions, the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth are the most frequently useful. The others apply to particular cases. Taking into account the pulmonary complications of other diseases as well as the range of "chest disease," it is believed these various improvements, slight as they seem in detail, really throw light, perhaps, upon many forms of one-third of the fatal maladies of the race.

9. On account of its fearful importance, it its hoped they will mainly benefit tubercular consumption. Tracing, faithfully by various "marks," and the unhealthy habits of the patient, the agencies leading to the two prevailing causes, feeble organization and depraved nutrition-by prompt reform of abuses, generous animal food, and free exercise in the open air, with tonics, and cod-liver oil-we may do much to arrest the disease. Occasionally we may cure. The encouraging researches of Hughes Bennett, and Messrs. Rogee and Boudet, show that from the numerous chalky concretions, puckerings and cicatrices found at the tops of the lungs in very aged persons, it is probable that about one half have recovered from more or less tubercular deposits during their lives. Four living cases from several others are reported by the writer of arrest or cure of phthisis of several years' standing. The great question of this paper then is, what may be the result of average notice, say three months sooner? Time can only tell. Each physician who reads this is earnestly requested to aid by a faithful trial of this system of examinations in at least three suitabte cases. The malady is still widely and deplorably fatal. From extensive trial, we firmly believe that, simple as they may seem, this management of the shoulders, these expedients for thinning, condensing, and tightening the fleshy walls of the chest, add fully one third to our power of detecting the earliest signs of consumption.

We must beg those of our contributors who have sent us communications, to exercise a little forbearance. Their productions will appear soon.

Editorial Department.

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

In its social aspect, we hope that the delegates to the annual meeting of the Association just past, were fully satisfied with its results—in a scientific point of view it fell short of some of the preceding sessions. We do not mean that there has been a greater amount of scientific discussion or investigation during former periods of convocation, for we believe all of them have been quite barren in this particular; but we mean to say, that there was a decided falling off in the number of essays and reports presented, so that the volume of Transactions will, in all probability, fall short of the dimensions of any of its predecessors, though we do not doubt, from all we know of the character of the comittees who have reported, that so far as they go, the papers will possess the usual scientific interest.

The failure on the part of commitees to discharge the duties assigned them was a natural sequence upon the conduct of the Association towards its committees during the session of 1858. at that meeting, time which should have been occupied in hearing abstracts, at least, of the various reports, was taken up with the discussion of ethical questions, and some of the reports were not even called by title. So unusual does this course of procedure seem to some readers of the minutes of 1858, that a reviewer in the Buffalo Medical Journal, charges the omission to the fault of the Secretaries, and supposes it to be by a neglect of their duties, that this hiatus in the record occurs. It should not be attributed to neglect of these officers, but to the hasty manner of dispatching a portion of their scientific duties on the part of the Association, which scarcely permitted notice of some of the most elaborate and valuable essays. Such cavalier treatment does not encourage the production of reports. The laborer who serves a master without other hope of reward than a smile of approval, will not enter with enthusiasm upon new toils, if after having performed an allotted task, he does not receive even a nod of recognition. The division of the Association into sections will almost entirely remove this source of mortification to those who bring reports; they will now have ample time for the consideration and even discussion of the various papers that are brought before the Association.

We are indebted to the Nominating Committee, how much VOL. 1, No. 10-201

to its energetic chairman we are unable to say, yet we attribute a moiety of this good work to his zeal and acuteness, for an important reform in the exercise of some of the duties entrusted to this committee; they will in future, not dwindle into mere channels of publicity to any and all seeking notoriety, by being paraded through the public press as committees chosen by the American Medical Association, to report upon subjects of which, as the chairman has intimated, they may be as ignorant as darkness itself. But the committee will hereafter take this matter into their own hands, and select as committees, men of acknowledged abilities, and those who will serve. The Nominating Committee should be held exclusively responsible for the character of the appointments, and should exhibit as much interest in the propriety and wisdom of their selections, as the Senators of the United States in the endorsement of appointments referred to them. This remark does not apply alone to the choice of committees, but to the selection of such names as they recommend to the prominent offices. There is no reason why the whole Nominating Committee should not have an equal voice in the selection of presiding officer, and not leave the matter, as they now do by courtesy only, to the nominating member located where the meeting is held; this individual may be personally hostile to one or another prominent member of the Association, living in the same town with himself, or he may be a man of straw, under the influence of a school, or some "Kappa Lambda" clique, or a partisan in local medical politics, often, as many of cur profession will with a sense of painful humiliation bear us witness, more corrupt and infamous in trickery than State politics. We are for doing away with this precedent, which now seems to have assumed the authority of law, that no choice of president is to be had outside of the place of assemblage. It may have happened, that in all previous observances of this custom as it certainly did here, that the choice has fallen upon gentlemen in all respects eminently meritorious, but it may not always be so, and besides the disagreeability of delegates being beset by resident 'drummers, borers, and electioneerers,' immediately upon reaching the place of meeting, the practice has another strong objection in the fact that the large towns have no just claims to a monopoly of these honors, and the rule or "courtesy" as it is termed, inures to this end, and many of our most worthy compeers from inland towns are utterly excluded from this covetable honor.

We are the more free in these remarks, since the beautiful town selected as our next point of convocation, is the residence of one (it may be more than one), whose claims to this position rest upon a more substantial basis than that of mere locality.

Semi-Monthly Medical News.

VOL. I.

LOUISVILLE, KY., JUNE 1, 1859.

NO. 11.

A Discourse, addressed to the Kentucky State Medical Society, at its Annual Meeting in Lebanon, April 18, 1859. By JOSHUA B. FLINT, President of the Society.

GENTLEMEN :

There are times in the history of every living and progressive art which are aptly denominated transition periods, when the authority and prestige of old ideas and methods are questioned by intruding novelties, and a state of chaos or confliet occurs, out of which, if rightly treated, is developed not only a new life, but new modes of life and improvement. Such may be said to be the appointed method of human progress. Trace back the pathway that has led to any of the signal attainments of our race, and you will find it broken into stages indicative of unsteady, and often devious efforts, by which the progress has been made. Even, in the crowning achievement of scientific endeavor, the electrical current must be broken, before the subtile element will acknowledge and record the subserviency to which human genius has reduced it. Only the august energies of Omnipotence march steadily on, to the consummation of its great designs.

Medicine is, at present, in the midst of one of these transitions. The Hunterian epoch, in which most of us have lived, and learned and practiced our profession-though brief, as memorable and prolific as any in the history of our art-has encountered one of those inevitable vicissitudes in human thought, judgment and action, and is, in dignity and honor, passing away.* What

*Says a pert commentator on the recent obsequies in Westminster Abbey: "Strange coincidence r rather contradiction, that just when the world is forgetting his doctrines, it is striving to immor. talize the man." Ah, no, my sagacious friend-at the price of spoiling an antithesis, let me tell you that the world can not forget John Hunter nor much of his teachings, and may spare itself any trouble about the immortality of either. That is already secure. In the progress of the religious developement of our race, the dispensation of Moses has been superceded; but do you think that the stern old prophet of Sinai or his Decalogue are ever to lose their hold on the moral convictions and sensibilities of mankind? I shall not be misunderstood, then, in saying that the "Hunterian epoch" in passing away.

VOL. 1, NO. 11-21.