vertisers not only deserve, but should have the support of the members of the Association."

Leaving aside the propriety of an official journal lowering itself to such buffoonery, we may be permitted to ask the question: Approved by whom? Certainly not by the Council. By whom then? By Mr. Jervey? Since when is he an authority as to what advertisements are proper and what advertisements are improper for admission into the pages of a medical journal? If he has the sole right to decide on the propriety of advertisements, why is he not willing to accord the same right to the independent journals, to whose publishers certainly greater latitude should be permitted, because they have to pay their own bills, while the official journals have not?

No answer will be forthcoming to these questions and criticisms, for they are unanswerable. There is a type of journalists that is out for the money, and with such journalists, such little things as fairness, honesty, consistency, etc., are relegated to the second plan. But-and this is the last question—if pelf is superior to principles, if commercial gain is preferable to a consistent attitude, why foolishly make protestations of fairness, honesty and ethics? Off with the mask!

You cannot serve two masters at the same time-not with the same zeal.

How Long Should a Woman Stay in Bed After Labor?

A decided reaction has set in against the long confinement in bed to which women after labor and patients after operations are being subjected. We used to admire the hardiness which permitted, and to grieve at the necessity which compelled, the savage or poor woman to be up and about on the second or third day after being delivered, or having delivered herself, of a child. And the better off a woman was, the longer she thought it necessary—and her doctor thought so with her to stay in bed. A reaction, however, has set in, as we said, and we are beginning to find out that the savage and the poor were not in need of pity on that score. For we are beginning to find out that staying in bed too longwhether after a confinement or after an operation-is not devoid of many disadvantages, while “early getting up" contributes materially to a more speedy convalescence.

Many papers on this subject have been appearing within the past year or two in foreign and American medical literature and the advantages of early getting up after normal labor may be presented in the words of Dr. F. Hinchey, who thus summarizes a paper with the title: "How Long Should the Woman Remain in Bed After Normal Labor?" (Inter. Med. Jour.):

"1. Early rising is beneficial because the lying-down position reverses the normal curve of the utero-cervical canal, conducing to sub-involution and to retro-deviation of the uterus, consequent

upon the inability to secure uniform anemia and atrophy of that

organ.

"2. In the early days after labor, there is an absence of unusual tension of the pelvic floor, in the upright posture, because the uterus rests upon the pubis.

"3. Exercise favors involution of the pelvic-floor structures, so that by the time the uterus has reached the pelvis, these structures can afford the necessary aid to the internal uterine supports, thus preventing prolapsus.

"4. Hemorrhage and embolism are not to be feared.

"5. Early rising affords drainage which may prevent infection.

"6. General metabolism is often impaired by prolonged rest to such a degree that lactation is inhibited and any tendency to invalidism is encouraged."

In our opinion, the most important advantage is the one present in paragraph 5. While we believe that the confinement to bed should be somewhat shortened, we trust that our professional brethren, who follow so readily the swings of the pendulum, will not go to extremes in this matter. The middle ground is generally the safest.

Woman Suffrage.

Is there any reason why women should not have the right to vote? Is there any reason why the most degenerate bum should have such a right, while refined intellectual women should not? But here the opponent of woman suffrage comes with an argument that he considers a stunner. "Just think of it," he says, "if you give women the right to vote, all the fallen women, all the female dwellers of the tenderloin will have a part in our government." And they chuckle in their triumph, thinking they have floored you. "Think of your wife having to stand in a row with a common prostitute, both waiting to cast their votes." And how about the pimp and the cadet? If it is all right that these low loathsome wretches, who are morally a thousand times lower than the poor fallen creatures on whose shame they live, should vote, it is all right, that the fallen women should vote.

We emphasize: In comparison with the pimp or cadet the fallen woman is a white robed saint; and if the former has the right to vote, why not the latter?

I am not so sure that unqualified universal suffrage is the best thing in the world; I am not so sure that women actually need the votes-we, men, have been fighting their battles and have taken pretty good care of them, so that for instance here in the State of New York woman is better off, is better protected in every respect than man is. But in the abstract, there is not a single solitary argument that is worth listening to, that can be offered. against granting woman the right of suffrage. In the not very distant future it will be a matter of surprise that there could be found men-and, alas, women too-to argue against it.

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.

The literary output presented at the first meeting was, we think, highly satisfactory. 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. Everything not otherwise credited is by a member of THE BANQUET TABLE.

A medical journal must needs have a soul, as well as a body. Your dry-as-dust sheets, which are legion, not only lack souls, but their bodies, too, suffer from anemia. Sometimes obesity is mistaken for wholesome substance. The fat journals, many of them, are like condensed-milk babies, bulky, but rachitic and scorbutic.

It is sometimes said that the medical profession gets just what it wants and just what it deserves. If, however, it be alleged that the majority of its journals are supplying all its needs and representing its morale adequately, we denounce such an affirmation as nothing less than gross calumny, for a profession whose condition were truly reflected by these journals would itself be rachitic, scorbutic and guiltless of much red blood.

The truth is that the profession wants better journalistic fare than it is now receiving.

The average physician is not a scientific prig, without any red blood and altogether insufferable. His manhood is proven, we think, by the fact that he doesn't read his journals. Who would expect him to, considering the journals? He subscribes to them, yes, but what does he get-Answer: gold bricks. He expects the wine of science, but what is his portion-Answer: roofpaint.

We, the guests at the Banquet Table, believe that the average physician is positively grateful for the CRITIC AND GUIDE. We here and now pledge ourselves to use our efforts to make the CRITIC AND GUIDE still more interesting, to appeal to the doctor's scientific sense, to his sentiment and to that portion of his intellect not concerned with râles and rhubarb.

A genius is a man who takes the lemons that fate hands him and starts a lemonade-stand with them.

MEDICAL TIN GODS.

So live, that, when thy time has come to join the innumerable doctors ho have died of innutrition, thou go not like the general practitioner alled at night, scourged from his office, but, sustained and soothed by the motto, "NEVER TRUST," approach thy grave like one who wraps his stocks and bonds about him and lies down to pleasant dreams-G. F. LYDSTON.

The medical tin god is truly a "self-made man in love with his maker." He has "genius stamped upon his brow-writ there by himself." His evolution is interesting. It is history repeating itself: Apsethus the Libyan wished to become a god. Despairing of doing so, he did the next best thing-he made people believe that he was a god. He captured a large number of parrots in the Libyan forests and confined them in cages. Day after day he taught them to repeat, "Apsethus the Libyan is a god," over and over again. The parrots' lesson learned, Apsethus set them free. They flew far away, even into Greece. And people coming to view the strange birds, heard them say, "Apsethus the Libyan is a god; Apsethus the Libyan is a god." And the people cried, "Apsethus the Libyan is a god; let us worship Apsethus the Libyan." Thus was founded the first post-graduate school.

"In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king."

Do we pay any physical penalties for our virtues and moralities? Primitive man must have been a pretty free lance in his sexual relations. Our system of morality-an absolutely necessary thing for our social order-does not alter man's real nature very much.

We believe that such a penalty takes tangible form as the hypertrophic prostate of elderly men.

Shakespeare has written down the pathogenesis of prostatic hypertrophy in stanza 14 of A Lover's Complaint:

"Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,

He preached pure maid, and prais'd cold chastity."

Some day, they tell us, physicians are to be mere clerks in a great sanitary trust of hygienic bureaucracy. It is a conceivable thing, but how enlightened would a commonwealth be that would tolerate such an arrangement?

While it is a possible contingency that such a social expedient may yet be the accepted order of medical practice, we think it pertinent to inquire whether it would mark progress or decadence.

SAGAS IN COURT.

A little over twenty years ago my uncle, a Judge in New Zealand, was obliged to issue an order to the effect that "in future singing would not be taken as evidence" in his court. It was the

constant habit of the Maoris when pleading a cause to sing long and quite poetic sagas. As these generally began with legends of their remote ancestors sometimes many hours, even days, would be spent before the point (possibly trivial) was reached. There is something Gilbertian in this idea, but any old New Zealander could vouch for the facts.-From the London Chronicle.

Will somebody please issue an order restraining some of our Maoris of the medical societies?

Cannot Teddy help us ere he does the political dissolving view act (sad, sad event).

AN ESSAY ON CONSUMPTION.

From the Boston Transcript.

A composition by a child after seeing a tuberculosis exhibit: "Tuberculosis was started in 1884 by Dr. Trudeau, who had it in the Adirondacks. Although consumption is herited and does not belong to this climate it is getting very popular. It is often cured. For instance a young boy was operated on for appendicitis but when opened his appendice was found to be full of tubercule. He was quickly sewed up and his father bought him a sweater and out-of door outfit and now he is doing very well.

"In Colorado where people have consumption they had to take their furniture out and build a tent to live in out-of-doors. In one of the pictures of Colorado show where a man sat twelve hours with his hands folded. The people of Colorado are very healthy but Colorado is a very consumptive State. Also Massachusetts is. Twelve good breaths a day will cure consumption.

"Consumption is a germ disease and three-fourths of all the consumptives are cured. The sleeping-bags are very useful to the consumptive people because they can put their heads alone into them or leave their heads out and put the rest of the bodies into them. I saw the germs. It is a big white ball with blue spots on it. I think it would be fine to sleep in one of those beds with the head inside and the lungs outside.

We have heard all about the relation of adenoids to backward mental development in children and also their relation to crime. Lombroso and Nordau have surfeited us with the data of degeneration. Now comes Dr. H. A. Smith, of Delta, Colorado, and tells us that girls of tuberculous tendencies have no moral stamina (quoted by Peters in the New York Medical Journal, Jan. 16, 1909; article on "The Sexual Factor in Tuberculosis").

This is the way they impress him. He has no definite data to offer. Generalizations are ever attractive. Smith goes so far as to declare that phthisically inclined girls should be safeguarded in every possible way against immoral influences.

Perhaps it is beside the point, but we think all girls should be most carefully protected against immoral influences.