and people who are moving the world and who are ordinarily considered great, are by them, without much ceremony, labelled "degenerate.'

At a reception given Prof. Lombroso in Paris by Prof. Pozzi, the former delivered himself, in a lecture, of some opinions regarding the rulers of Europe and other notable personages. He paid his compliments to Kaiser Wilhelm, King Edward, the Czar of Russia, King Alfonso, the Sultan of Turkey, Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, etc. They were all pronounced mentally unsound, degenerates or criminals. Both the Kaiser and the Sultan were declared irresponsible, incorrigible criminals. If born of low rank the Sultan would have probably turned out a bank thief; while the Kaiser would have frequently gotten in bar-room fights, etc., and would be a frequent guest in the jails. About the Russian Czar he had the following to say: "The ruler of Russia is a lunatic; he is not criminally inclined, but he is an innocent, melancholy idiot, the softest tool in the hands of flatterers." This conclusion was based on an examination in the presence of the audience of the bumps on a plaster cast of the Czar's head, made by a French sculptor who was to execute a bust. About King Edward he said that his bumps showed general degeneracy, inability to grasp abstract propositions, and a mediocre mind, "rebellious" to all philosophy. Joseph Chamberlain, Cecil Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling were also, among others, pronounced unsound.

It is curious to relate that recently some criminologists declared that an examination of Lombroso showed that he himself possessed the "stigmata of degeneracy." And so it goes. If one is anxious to find physical signs of degeneracy or criminality, he will find them in Apollo of Belvedere and in Venus of Milo. But those who are not hobbyists will be very careful not to declare a man a congenital criminal or degenerate simply because there is a slight deviation in his physical make-up from the perfect form, or because he has an imperfectly developed antitragus.

The Lombrosian school of criminologists and the tomfooleries of which they are guilty are beautifully satirized in Valdés' novel "Origen del Pensamiento." The novel is delightful in the original Spanish, and whoever can should read it in that language. An abridged translation of it appeared some years ago in the Cosmopolitan, under the title "The Origin of Thought.'

What Is Idiosyncrasy?

Idiosyncrasy is a peculiar susceptibility of the system to the influence of a drug. This is a good definition of the term in the medical sense, and is all right as a definition. But does it really explain to us what an idiosyncrasy is? Not a bit. What the underlying condition is that makes a person idiosyncratic towards a certain drug, even in the minutest doses, of this we

so far have no idea. Why, for instance, should I grain of antipyrine produce an erythematous rash accompanied by most intense itching, in one person, while not producing any such effect on thousands of others? And what is there in a person's system that causes 2 grains of quinine to produce a nearly fatal collapse, with intense bullous eruptions, etc.? The strangest part of the idiosyncrasy is that it often runs in families, thus showing some hereditary influence. The subject is a fascinatingly interesting one, and he who should unfathom the mysteries of idiosyncrasy would deserve well of the medical profession.

Rest in Bed in the Treatment of Constipation.

We have become so imbued with the idea that lack of exercise, indoor occupation, or sedentary life forms an important factor in the causation of chronic constipation, and long walks, physical exercise, massage, bicycling, and horseback riding are so often and so confidently prescribed as almost infallible in the treatment of the condition, that it is rather startling to see those measures greatly disparaged and an entirely opposite method of treatment recommended. Did the recommendation come from an obscure source, it would probably attract but little attention; but anything coming from Boas in relation to gastro-intestinal troubles is entitled to a careful hearing. Boas says that purgatives, mineral waters, water, and oil enemas, massage, hydrotherapy, balneotherapy, electricity, etc., are only too frequently attended with little or no success in the treatment of chronic constipation. Temporary success can obtain with any of the above measures, but he speaks of lasting benefit, and by that he means that after the completion of the treatment the patient should have regular, spontaneous, and copious evacuations for at least one year. From a well planned and carefully followed dietetic therapy, he has had better results, but even here he observed many failures. The rest cure yielded him excellent results, especially in the varieties known as spastic and neurotic constipation.

The rest cure is best carried out in a sanitarium, and is begun by at once withdrawing all purgatives and enemas. Only one thoro cleansing enema of several quarts of soap suds is given. The nourishment is regulated for each day and each meal, visits from friends and relatives are strictly prohibited during the first fourteen days of the cure, during which time the patient is also not permitted to leave his bed. Later, as the patient improves, he may be permitted to walk about a little. Neither massage, electricity, nor hydrotherapy is employed during this treatment, which is persisted in from four to six weeks. The diet is well regulated even after the completion of the treatment, until one can be sure of a lasting effect.

As proof that physical exercise is not a panacea for constipation, Boas refers to the fact, mentioned by Ewald, that con

stipation is not at all rare among persons addicted to continued physical exertions, such as farmers, military officers, etc., and he states that his observations have led him to the conclusion that physical exercise in cases of chronic constipation due to defects in nutrition is most improper. Even in persons of sedentary habits, long walks, mountain climbing, bicycling, etc., yield1 few good results and these only of short duration.

June 24th, 1909.

It is a burning, sizzling day. We live right in front of the park, no houses opposite us to obstruct the circulation of the air, the rooms are large, high and airy, all the windows are open so that there is perfect ventilation, our costume is as near Adam's before Eve bit the apple as propriety will admit, there is ice cold buttermilk, vichy and lemonade in abundance, the bathtub and shower are within immediate reach, and we know that in a few days we will be fanned by the cool ocean breezes and after that we will be in a place in Switzerland where we will have to use at night two heavy blankets or a large feather bolster, and still -the heat is enervating, weakening, oppressive. It is horribly, killingly hot, and that's all there is to it.

And if we feel this way, what are the feelings and the condition of those poor unfortunates-and their number runs into the millions-who are obliged to live in the huge tenements, in three or four little rooms, with little air or ventilation, some of them even without any windows? And what shall we say of those who in this killing heat are obliged to work ten to fourteen hours a day, on the machine, in stifling sweatshops, in nonventilated work-rooms, in ill-smelling factories? And think of the poor devils who have to work in sugar-refineries, near furnaces, of the stokers in steamships, etc., etc.

Pity the poor, pity the poor. Pity them whenever it is very hot, pity them whenever it is very cold. And pity them also when it is neither very hot, nor very cold. They deserve pity always, always.

The Gould Divorce Case.

If we do not wish to plant the seed of discontent in the brains of our people, we should forbid the publication of any and all newspapers-not merely the radical and socialistic, but the capitalistic ones as well. For even in the latter the average citizen will find daily enuf material to make him grouchy and discontented. And discontent sometimes leads to independent thinking. And this is dangerous, you know.

When the citizen of average intelligence reads in his morning paper, for instance, that an utterly worthless scamp, Howard Gould by name, who has never done a stroke of useful work in his life, is getting an income of 775,000 dollars a year; when

he reads that the wife of that useful citizen, herself a common ignorant scold is spending thirty or forty thousand dollars a month for clothes; when he reads that and begins to thinkthoughts sometimes come to our minds unbidden-how hard he has to work for a dollar, when he ponders that a good skilled mechanic would have to work steadily for 700 years to earn what Gould gets (without earning a cent) in one year, when he recollects that that artist friend of his is dying from Bright's, because he has no money to go away to a warm equable climate, when he recollects that sad case of another friend of his, a promising young writer, who died prematurely of pulmonary tuberculosis, because they could not collect a paltry thousand dollars to send him to Davos, when he thinks that the sum of money which another noble scion of a noble family, Alfred G. Vanderbilt (brought into the limelight by the suicide of Mrs. Ruiz) spends annually on wine and women, would be sufficient to make a thousand families happy and comfortable for their life time, when he thinks of these and a thousand other things brought to his notice by the daily newspapers, his contentment is liable to take wings, and he is apt to begin to see that the dictum about this world being the best of all possible worlds is wretchedly false. And this is a dangerous state of mind for a man to be in. Especially before election. And the newspapers really ought to be more careful. They should print only all the pleasant news that's fit to print.

The Mirror and the Confessions of a Barbarian. The circulation of William Marion Reedy's Mirror, we learn, is growing rapidly. That's good. For the Mirror is a good journal. It is an excellent journal. Reedy is one of our foremost stylists. But he is not only a stylist-style without ideas is a shell without a kernel-he has also something to say. His comments on current events are among the best, clearest, and most sanely-radical in the country. By all means get the St. Louis Mirror.

And speaking of the Mirror I must not fail to call attention to the "Confessions of a Barbarian" which have been appearing there during the last ten or twelve weeks. They are from the pen of that youthful prodigy, George Sylvester Viereck. They make charming reading. They are also interesting. They give us some unique glimpses of Europe. They show us that after all we are still provincials. That in very many respects effete Europe is tremendously ahead of us. And they are an excellent antidote against our all-blighting prudery. And, last but not least, they present to us George Sylvester Viereck in all his delightful, limitless and boundless egotism.

By all means read the Mirror and read Viereck's Confessions of a Barbarian. Which latter, we trust, will be given us in book form.

The Sigel Case.

The brutal murder of the unfortunate Sigel girl has filled the country with horror. But tragedies have the effect of making people stop and think, and if this tragedy should have the effect of putting out of existence the stupid, useless, wicked and hypocritical Chinese Sunday schools, Miss Sigel will not have died in vain. The trouble is that our people know nothingand want to know nothing-of sexual physiology and pathology. If they did, they would know that sex plays a much greater part than religion in Chinese Sunday schools-and perhaps also in some others.

Also, it is about time we recognized that the religious missionary's work is a sorry business, and the proselyting spirit which attempts to convert the whole world to one religion is nothing but a silly fatuous piece of impertinence. Let us leave the heathen alone: We have our hands full of work right here at home, right at our doors.

If the mother Sigel, instead of trying to teach religion to the Chinese, had instilled some common sense into the head of her daughter, the latter would probably not have forfeited her young life.

Changes in the Practice of Medicine.

The past fifty or sixty years have witnessed greater and more important changes in the practice of medicine than have the preceding two thousand years. And it is safe to predictwe stake our reputation as a prophet on this-that the changes within the next twenty-five years will be even more important, more far-reaching, than have been those of the preceding half century. The important discoveries will be, however, more in the line of prevention than of cure.

If the results of antimeningogoccic serum in cerebro-spinal meningitis continue to be as favorable as they have been up to the present, Simon Flexner's claim to immortality will be unquestioned and ungrudged by anybody.

CHEMISTS' REPORTS will, we fear, soon be given about as much credence as is given now to the testimony of our "expert" witnesses. In very complicated organic analyses any good chemist seems to be able to prove whatever he starts out to prove.

THE SADDEST THING in the practice of medicine is to see a patient with a disease which it took years-one, two, five or twenty-to develop, to come to you with the expectation of curing him in a week or two. And when you tell him that it might take a year or two to cure him, or that he cannot be cured, only improved, he thinks that the practice of medicine is not much