good-or that you are not much good. And at this point enters the quack, and reaps a rich harvest.

SKEPTICISM in a medical student is a bad thing, for when you doubt something, the learning of it becomes extremely difficult. But in a medical practitioner, skepticism-within proper limits is a necessity, for without it no progress in medicine would be possible.

ORATORY IS DOOMED. It is the written, not the spoken word, that will influence the destinies of the world. More and more often do we meet people, who refuse to go to listen to a speech or lecture: "What for? We can read it with better advantage and with more comfort when it is printed." And the orator refuses to waste much energy on a speech which can reach but hundreds, knowing as he does, that the printed address can reach millions. Can you name any great orators of to-day?

The Factors in the Causation of Sex.

The problem dealing with the determination of sex has been of deep interest since time immemorial-and will continue to be, until we have learned the truth. But we must admit that, tho about six hundred theories have been put forward during the last 2000 years, we are not in possession at present of any theory which is of the slightest value. All the theories are fanciful, not based upon scientific evidence, while some are simply idiotic. We will probably get there-but so far we have not yet even an inkling of the truth.

Paracelsus was the first one to make a study of Chorea or St. Vitus' dance. He objected however to the latter name. He did not want to admit "that the saints have the power to inflict diseases, and that these ought to be named after them, altho there are many who lay great stress on this supposition ascribing them rather to God than to nature, which is but idle talk. We dislike such nonsensical gossip, as is not supported by symptoms, but only by faith."

More sensible than many people of to-day.

The value of lemon juice in scurvy was discovered accidentally in 1564 by some Dutch sailors, who had a cargo of lemons and oranges from Spain on their ship.

Van Helmont [1578-1644] was the first to use the word "gas" in the sense in which it is used at present. He discovered the fact that gas is evolved from many substances when they are heated, or when acids are added to carbonates. He discovered carbon dioxide. He studied medicine, but became dis

gusted with it, on finding that he was unable to cure himself of the itch. He afterwards practiced medicine as charity.

Leeuwenhoeck, born 1632, died 1723, discovered the blood corpuscles and the spermatozoa.

In 1671 Daniel Ludwig published a paper on useless and worthless drugs. He was so iconoclastic as to deny the therapeutic value of earth worms and toads! We want a Daniel Ludwig now. Half of the stuff in the Pharmacopeia and Dispensatory is merely-truck.

Vesalius the anatomist and surgeon of the 16th century is considered by Portal one of the greatest men that ever lived.

"People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his kindness they still remain in his debt." Thus spake Seneca. The men and women of to-day do not seem to think so. They think if they pay the doctor's bill, they have done all that can be expected of them. And some forget to pay that, too.

To Morgagni we owe the following maxim: Observations should be weighed, not counted. What a wealth of wisdom is there in these six words! They should be weighed over and over again, and not merely counted.

In 1518 the Barbers and Surgeons of England were united in one body, but their respective spheres were more strictly defined. The barbers were forbidden to perform any surgical operation, except drawing teeth, while the surgeons had to give up haircutting and shaving.

WE HAVE ALWAYS MAINTAINED that August is the month for taking things easy and we always try to make the August issue as "light" as possible. We have also done so this time. You will find it light, but we trust not dull.

Au Revoir.

I leave to-morrow (July 10) for a little vacation to effete Europe, which I do not find effete at all. Will rest and write, will visit many new places and incidentally will take in the International Medical Congress, which takes place this year in Budapest (August 29th to September 4th). Will be back about the Ist of October.

The CRITIC AND GUIDE will not be neglected during my absence. Quite the contrary.

Au revoir.

Some congenial physicians, tired of the deadening drudgery of a physician's life, decided to meet at more or less regular intervals, to dine together, to exchange impressions, in short, to have a jolly restful time. It was suggested that each of the members of this informal club prepare for each meeting a brief article-even of only a few lines for the amusement of his fellow members. The article should preferably be a mild satire, or a comment, on some of the evils of our profession, or on the foibles of our leaders. Some members objected on the score that they could not write. They were told that an interesting or amusing clipping would do. It was decided to print the members' contributions in the CRITIC & GUIDE, and we are glad that our readers will be able to participate once a month in this feast of wit and good humor.

Neurasthenics are All Right.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And, when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:

His coward lips did from their color fly;

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:

Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius;
As a sick girl.

-Julius Caesar.

Cæsar sick is an unheroic figure. Physicians would be the most cynical of men, did they permit the psychology of the ill to distort their general views of mankind. "When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; when the devil was well, the devil a monk was he." When Cæsar was sick, a mollycoddle mayhap was he; when Cæsar was well, hell's scourge in sooth was he.

Do not think too ill of the big man who, whenever he has a cold, imagines he has pneumonia and calls you out of your snug cot to allay his fears and prescribe ammonium chloride. We have known this same fellow to acquit himself gallantly in behalf of somebody in dire peril, perhaps risking his own life that the other's might be saved.

Your neurasthenic patients sometimes exasperate you and your patience is sorely tried by the recital of their queer fancies and subjective torments. You may be prone to ascribe their physical and mental weaknesses to faults of character, inherent selfishness, morbid introspection, etc. But these poor people are really the salt of the earth, as Weir Mitchell has said. Their sensitive souls react too keenly against the sordid frictions of life, thereby actually proving their souls' worth. The fight that they make against their obsessions is often an heroic one, too. He who hath not in some degree this fineness of organization is fit for strategy and spoils.

Your Crokers are never neurasthenics. Your Rockefellers are never found in sanatoria. Had they the virtue of a sensitive organization they would commit harikari on themselves.

Generally speaking, your neurasthenic is simply an individual who consciously or unconsciously clings to standards and ideals that are sadly out of tune with the tough old world in which we live; he cannot "adapt" himself to its sordid conditions.

Wisely or not, we are taught a lot of fine things during childhood in the home, the school, and the house of God. Then we go out in the world and find these fine things heavily discounted. Those who cannot accept this condition without soul friction pay the penalty of neurasthenia.

Scattering the Social Evil.

Could your Parkhursts sleep at night, had they Emersonian souls?

How can a man, if he have a sensitive organization, realize that he has worked incalculable harm to a community thru fool efforts to destroy or abate the social evil, the efforts resulting, not in mitigation of the evil one jot or tittle, despite the specious arguments of his puritanic admirers, but in a widerspread promulgation of the cult of whoredom, making the grass of immorality to sprout in riot where but one blade grew before-how, say we, can such a man sleep at night?

Transplanting vice from a tenement district into a good residential one may result in less harm to the population of the latter than would be the case were the transplantation to be made to another tenement district, with its more easily corrupted population. Very good, but you have made vice more respectable and have more permanently habilitated it. More moral harm has been done in another guise. Possibly the puritans do not see the matter in this way. With them deodorization seems to suffice. Give vice a factitious respectability and they are content. They cannot see that they are doing the worst of things from a purely moral point of view.

Parkhurst can sleep at night because he has achieved his object. Torn was his soul, not by the desire to rescue any woman from the degradation of the brothel and the street, but by the fierce determination to write his name upon the wall of fame, that all men might read it and call him famous, or infamous, as we do now. The object attained, he sleeps well, nor cares a rap for any unfortunate.

As the Sun said the other day, if anybody has ever doubted Parkhurst's greed for cheap notoriety, they need no longer; read his column in the most prominent of the daily yellows.

ever.

Ye mock Savonarolas, neurasthenia is not your portion,

The very Christianity (so-called) of such men is an ægis against nervous demoralization. Unquestionably, by auto-suggestion, they salve their consciences with the balm of assumed

righteousness and scriptural justification, even as the iniquisitors of Torquemada fortified their consciences against the moral boomerang of hellish deeds by the armor of religious chicanery.

It is an old recourse, this to the smug contentment conferred by religion. For evil men, as for good, the cross bears all burdens-is made to bear them.

The Abrahams of to-day still sacrifice their Isaacs, that Jehovah (another name for self) may be glorified, according to their psychopathologic way of thinking. Their sacrifices are always vicarious; they never spill any of their own blood. No matter what crime is committed against society one may sleep well, for religion furnishes an antidote for each and every one. Only fools who are slaves to conscience suffer insomnia and

remorse.

All hail, then, ye who are not built after the pattern of our mock Savanarolas and captains of industry. Your neurasthenia is your proof of mental and moral decency.

Know ye not, neurasthenic, that thy weakness comes of the attempt to develop self-reliance and character unassisted by supernatural fetishes?

Shall the race not reach the only rational, worth-strivingfor goal? Is it not worth a little suffering? Shall we return to the clay-footed idols that have thus far sustained superstitious man, in his wickedness as in his good acts?

Clergymen as Physicians.

The Rev. Dr. Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York City, speaking at the commencement exercises of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, said that ministers should leave medicine to the doctors for many reasons. He discussed several of the reasons, one of which was that in proportion as men from the ranks of religion seek the office of physician, in that proportion would there be scandal. As the practice grew the scandals would increase. For who, asked Dr. Aked, would the successful practitioners be? The young, the handsome, the virile, possessing personal magnetism, declared the Doctor. Exactly those men who are not to be trusted with the exercise of such powers would be trusted with them. Should the temperament of the preacher be added to the functions of the physician we would have to expect disastrous results.-Good for Aked: wish there were more of him.

No longer need the church bemoan its inability to induce the strong young men in the colleges to enter the ministry. Here at last, and just in the nick of time, is the strongest possible inducement for our virile youth to take up consecrated, if herculean, labors in the Emmanuelistic vineyard. Can it be longer doubted that the cult is not destined to languish?

But joking aside, what colossal effrontery and impudence the clergymen display who do not hesitate to calmly discuss be