ulating on the consequences of lifting him bodily out of the door and depositing him in the street. Happily Dean saved the possible embarrassment. "Master Marchant's word is good," he growled, and abruptly left the house. Parkes had nothing to do but to follow him, and Larry went back to his broken rest and to fathom, as best he could, the meaning of the lawyer's attack on him. But, as he found that the more he mused the less he could make of it, he finally gave it up and fell into a troubled sleep.

The next morning he surrendered himself to Dean and was taken before Judge Sherman, where Parkes formally lodged complaint against him. Much to the lawyer's discomfiture, the old Judge made no secret of his disgust at the whole proceeding, openly condoling with the young man, explaining that he (the Judge) had had no alternative, under the law, but to issue the warrant, and assuring him of a speedy and fair trial. There was, it appeared, an obsolete statute in Massachusetts, which had been in effect at the time of the famous Salem witchcraft and had never been repealed, which Parkes had resuscitated and invoked against him. Larry assured the Judge that he thoroughly understood his position, and the Judge, with great reluctance, signed the commitment papers consigning him to the village gaol. As the young man left the room, in the custody of the constable, the Judge called after him.

"Is there any particular advocate you would wish to consult?" he asked.

Larry shook his head.

"I will gladly communicate with anyone you may name," added the Judge.

But Larry listlessly declined his offer, and walked impassively away to his imprisonment.

The trial was set for three weeks from the time of his arraignment-three busy weeks for Lawyer Parkes, three weeks of tedious impatience for Larry, who simply gave up trying to fathom his incredible situation, and wished only for the farce to end one way or the other.

Only one thing happened to break his impassivity and arouse a little languid curiosity in him. One night, when he went to his prison bed, he found between the blankets a piece of paper on which was scribbled, in unfamiliar scrawl, Your defense will be provided

Do not worry.

for.

But even the authorship and manner of entrance of this mysterious communication did not occupy his listless brain for long. In this half-stolid half-irritable frame of mind he waited, with what patience he might, the day of his trial.

(To be continued.)

Variability of the Bacillus Bulgaricus.-E. Christeller, of Berlin, reports his own observation, corroborating previous writers (Zeit. f. Hyg. u. Infect., 1914, No. 1), on the peculiar variability of the bulgarian lactic-acid bacillus (referred to by the author as yoghurt bacilli). In one instance he observed the following changes: After the pure culture had remained upon his milk-agar for several days, a type was split off which already after twenty-four hours grew vigorously upon plain agar, and not at all upon the milk-agar. Furthermore, in milk, it proliferated but very poorly, and then was grampositive. Upon agar it loses its gram-resistence, and no longer coagulates milk.

The Problem of Retained Placental Remnants. That pieces of the placenta positively known to remain in the womb must be removed, no competent practitioner need be reminded; and this is true even if the puerperal woman show no trace of fever. Otherwise, though, the hand never should be introduced into the uterus, G. Winter, of Koenigsberg, strongly argues (Monats. f. Geb. u. Gyn., Bd. 39, H. 5), for the purpose of corroborating the suspicion that pieces of placenta may be there, merely because of the woman's high temperature. Because of the ever attendant danger, only the presence of bleeding justifies manual exploration of the womb; fever-temperature alone never. On the other hand, at the time of delivery the cavity must be thoroughly searched if the placenta did not come away clean, and all remnants be removed forthwith.

NOTES BY

EVENTS AND THINGS

THE WAY

AS SEEN BY THE EDITOR

We have from time to time advised our readers to say what they have to say in the fewest words consistent with accuracy and completeness. As a model of concise diction we can recommend study of the following literary gem, said to be the joint production of two boys in one of the Hull House classes, Chicago. The theme is the making of the flag of the United States.

"Book One. Wunst the soldiers fighting King George found out that they had to have a flag. The soldier that thought of it first said: 'Bill, we ain't got no flag,' and Bill says it was so. Book Two. So they went to General George Washington, the Father of His Country, and they says to General Washington, 'General Washington, we ain't got no flag. Ain't it fierce?' And General George Washington says, 'Yes, that's so, we ain't got no flag. Ain't it fierce?' Book Three. So General George Washington, the Father of His Country, went to Betsy Ross, who lived on the corner of Beacon and Chestnut streets, and General Washington says, 'Betsy, we ain't got no flag. Ain't it fierce?' Book Four. And General Washington says, 'Ain't it fierce?' three times. And Betsy Ross she says, 'I shed say it is fierce, General George Washington, the Father of His Country. Here, you hold the baby and I'll make one.'

In commenting upon this historic narrative, the Dial says: "In strength and simplicity of style it reminds one of the great classics, of the Bible and Homer, of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. And the brevity of it is not its least charm."

But speaking of brevity, do not let our praise of its virtues frighten you, or hinder you from writing something for the Standard. We shall be glad to get almost any kind of communication from any of our readers. We shall not expect you to emulate the pellucid purity of style of the preceding classic-that, indeed, is asking too much. All we ask is that you should have something worth saying and say it. Why is it we have asked this question before-that our readers are so modest?

American Medicine has adopted the care of Belgian physicians as its special mission. It points out that the medical men of that distressed country are suffering, as are their fellow countrymen. Their homes have been burned, their property destroyed, their incomes wiped out. And yet the burden of work and responsibility laid upon them is greater than that of any other class in Europe. Not only do they need money to support themselves and their families, but they also need money to purchase medicines, surgical dressings, instruments, and books. While the American people are sending shiploads of food and clothing, and even our children are helping to bring a little happiness to the Belgian children at Christmas-time, surely we American doctors can do our share by helping our brethren in Antwerp, Ghent, Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, Liege, and other cities and hamlets of war-swept Belgium. It gives the Medical Standard pleasure to support American Medicine in this propaganda, and we hope that many of our readers will contribute something for this cause. Make your checks payable to Dr. H. Edwin Lewis, writing him in care of American Medicine, New York City.

It is estimated that if the Great War lasts a year it will cost about fifty billion dollars. We can hardly appreciate the enormousness of this sum. However, look at it this way: If it could be divided up into sums of $10,000 and put out at interest at 4 percent this amount would provide an income of $400 annually for each of 5,000,000 men-more than the income of an average European family-and place 25,000,000 people forever beyond the fear of want-not only these while they live, but an equal number for all time. Such a sum would abolish private poverty, provide a university education for every boy or girl desiring it, and build innumerable great public works like the Panama Canal. Compare with these benefits all the losses that are sure to follow the expenditure of this sum in warfare. First, a loss of life which we can only guess at now-probably from one to two million men at least. Also, many deaths among the wives

and children from disease and deprivation. Also, the wiping out of thousands of the best brains of the people-the potential inventors, scientists, poets, philosophers, philanthropists, and sociologists of a dozen nations. Also, a reversal to the ideals of primative man-the internecine passions and hatreds which give birth to the lust for destruction.

As a

As one of the consequences of the war there is much talk about heroism. Men who can face artillery fire, or lead a bayonet charge are being extravagantly lauded for their courage. friend of mine points out, heroism-or courageof this character is not of a very high order. It is in the main physical-the unconsciousness of danger which a certain type of men share with the lower animals. The more highly a man is developed spiritually the more prone is he to experience in his own person the pain, the mental anguish, the fear, the exaltation, the passion and the degradation that come with physical strife. Therefore, the man without feeling is likely to become the military leader, because of his very indifference to results as affecting himself or others. And men of this stripe are not those who lead the human race to nobler heights.

The greatest courage-and it is unrewarded is that which some men exhibit in the face of certain failure, or certain death. The individual who can look calmly and cheerfully into the unknown, look Death bravely and squarely in the face, without drum-beat or battle-cry to cheer him on-he is the real hero. As an illustration, read the following from Doctor Huber's essay on "The Cowardice of Brave Men".

He

"I am thinking," said the doctor, "of a case of serenest heroism in which fear had no part, of calm anticipation of certain death, the moment of which could not, however, be assured. There walked into the hospital where I serve a negro, not much over thirty, having the soft, musical voice of his people, a smile that would make you, knowing his sure fate, choke to see, and an ashy-gray hue upon his dark face. bared his breast, from which a tumor protruded the size of a cocoanut cut in half; the sharp stabbing pain of which he complained indicated. how the aneurism was eating through his ribs and breastbone; the veins about his chest were engorged; one could see the heaving, expansive pulsation; the humming bruit could be heard as well as felt. He was at once put to bed where good physicians and kindly nurses could be with him constantly. I was relieved he did not ask me what his chances were; indeed, he knew as well as I as to that. Next day I visited him.

His wife had come with a prattling pickanniny who was trying to play with him and could not understand why it was being thwarted and held back. But sitting up had been absolutely interdicted the father for fear of strain; and the mother had to suppress this absurd little creature as best she could. I had never quite known the meaning of the word resignation until, in these circumstances, I contemplated the quiet, yearning face of the suffering negro. A few nights, after, while a nurse was watching him, his whole body was gripped for a moment in a mighty convulsion, and then he turned flaccid upon his back. The death was merciful; for the aneurism had ruptured while he slept."

Here is real heroism-a conquest of the spirit as well as of the body. How many of us are capable of it?

Among the plagues of the battlefield Dr. Achilles Rose, of New York, gives a prominent place to the body louse. This little pest, it seems, is an inseparable companion of the soldier in the field, and makes no distinction between officer or private, peasant or aristocrat. The incessant torments of this creature make sleep difficult, and waking-hours a torment. On account of the lack of the conveniences of civilization and the sanitary necessities of civil life it is almost impossible to get rid of the insect during a campaign. And the louse carries disease. It may transmit typhus, typhoid, and milder ailments, and it is known to be the carrier for plague.

We have elsewhere called attention to the craze for legislation, with which this country is cursed rather more than it is blessed. The Pittsburgh Dispatch has some pertinent remarks upon this subject:

"A count made in the library of congress shows that the national and state legislatures passed in the five years 1909-1913, some 62,014 laws, and that in the same period there were 65,379 decisions by state and national courts of last resort reported in 630 volumes. How much of the congestion in the courts and delay in the administration of law so much complained of is due to this craze for the hasty making of new laws and the interminable litigation that arises out of them?

"Although it is probable that lawyers make up a majority of every legislature, the bulk of the new legislation added to the statute-books each year is framed and fathered by members having little or no knowledge of existing law or experience in drafting legislation. As a result there is the duplication, the contradiction and the

emasculation of existing statutes, the careless or unintelligible phrasing that defeats the purpose of framers and clogs the courts.

"It is surely time that the impulse to rush a new law upon the statute-books as a remedy for each and every problem was checked or at least modified sufficiently to assure that the additional legislation is actually needed and accomplishes what is aimed at. The suggestion was made at the recent bar association meeting in Washington that there should be a drafting bureau of expert counsel at each capitol to see that measures were written intelligibly, that they were drawn with reference to existing legislation and the decisions of the courts."

His Satanic Majesty is busy these days, and he is pretty much everywhere, especially in Europe. Evidently he is popular-perhaps he has been abused and vilified. If all we are to believe of the paeans in praise of war are true, then he isn't such a bad fellow after all-for war is hell! Let us quote Mark Twain's opinions regarding the devil:

"I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him; but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind this is irregular. Of course Satan had some kind of a case; it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an impolitic publisher. thing which we ought to be able to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay him reverence, for that would be indiscreet; but we can at least respect his talents. A person who has for untold centuries maintained his imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the highest order. I would like to see him. I would rather see him and shake his tail than any member of the European concert."

It is a

Irrespective of their opinions regarding the rights and wrongs of the nations engaged in the Great War, there are many who will agree with the opinions presented in Robinson's editorial, "Are Emperors and Czars Human Beings?" published in the last number of the Critic and Guide:

"This question has been bothering me a good deal. It has been with me for some time, both during waking and sleeping hours. Are they— the Kaisers, Emperors, Czars, etc.-human beings more or less like us, or do they belong to an entirely different species? Is it at all possible for us to have an idea of their mentality, of the workings of their mind and soul? No, it is impossible. We, ordinary mortals feel distressed and sleep uneasily when we do anything wrong, when we cause suffering to a single human being; a tear that was shed through our fault lies like a stone on our heart. How then can they -William, the Crown Prince, Franz Joseph, Czar Nicholas and their entourage-rest their heads on their pillows, how can they live at all when they see before them-with their physical or mental eyes-the terrible anguish they have caused, the broken hearts, the destroyed homes, the burning cities and villages, the oceans of tears, the rivers of blood, the mountains of mangled bodies? Do you mean to tell me that an ordinary human being could cause all this and still bear to live? Never. No, those people do not belong to the human species. Through a perverse bringing up everything human in them is enucleated, destroyed, and they are taught to look at human beings as at cattle, whose happiness or unhappiness is of little consequence, whose feelings and sufferings need not be taken into consideration, whose very lives amount to nothing, when their own caprice, ambition or desire for conquest come into play."

A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE SCHICK TEST FOR DETERMINING THE PRESENCE OF IMMUNITY TO DIPHTHERIA.

Of late, declares the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, research workers and clinicians have expressed increasing confidence in the reliability of the Schick test in the detection of susceptibility to diphtheria, and a practical illustration of its great usefulness is afforded in the report by the New York State Health Department of the suppression of an outbreak of this disease which recently occurred at the Howard Orphanage and Industrial School at King's Park, Long Island. For those who are not familiar with this simple test it may be stated that it consists in injecting superficially under the skin a dose of diphtheria toxin one-fifteenth that which is lethal to a guineapig. A red spot developing about the site of the injection, in about forty-eight hours, indicates a susceptibility to diphtheria, while if no reaction takes place it may be inferred that diphtheria antitoxin is naturally present in the blood, and that the subject is immune to the disease.

During the month of April and May last, six mild cases of diphtheria were discovered at the orphanage, and during June six others occurred. Cultures taken from all the well children in the first week in May showed that 90 out of some 260 inmates, whose ages ranged from two to sixteen years, were carriers of diphtheria germs.

The conditions for the prompt suppression of the epidemic by the usual methods were unfavorable, as the children were largely of unhealthy stock, the funds of the institution meagre, and the helpers few and unskilled. Accordingly, the assistance of the experts of the Research Laboratory of the New York City Department of Health was secured, and by the application of recently developed methods the outbreak was soon under control. The first step was to take cultures from both the throat and nose of every inmate, and it is interesting to note that in many instances it was found that the nasal culture was positive when the throat culture was negative. The carriers were then isolated in separate dormitories.

The second step was to immunize every child not already immune. The Schick test was utilized to detect those who were susceptible, and the findings from this investigation indicated that about one-half of all the children were naturally immune.

A majority of the ninety carriers were on the immune list, and it was regarded as probable that their immunity accounted for their freedom from clinical symptoms. About 75 per cent of the children who had had clinical diphtheria showed a positive Schick reaction within from six to twelve weeks after the disease. Each of the non-immunes was immunized with 1,000 units of antitoxin, and at the end of thirty days the Schick test was repeated, when this was observed to be positive in about 75 per cent of the cases which had been found positive at the first test. Each of these positive cases was then given another dose of 1,000 units of antitoxin.

Schick tests made seven days afterwards showed that 60 per cent of the children were again positive, indicating that their bodies had destroyed the second dose of antitoxin in about one-quarter of the time which they had required to eliminate the first dose. This is explained by the fact that diphtheria antitoxin is a foreign protein, and that one dose sensitizes the body against succeeding doses. Another measure was to remove adenoids and the tonsils from eighteen of the carriers, and of these, sixteen became free from diphtheria germs immediately after the operation. The result of these various measures was a progressive diminution in the number of carriers, and by the first week in August only three or four remained.

This interesting and most instructive report is made by Dr. Overton, sanitary supervisor of Suffolk and Nassau Counties; Dr. Zingher, bacteriologist of the Research Laboratory of the New York City Department of Health; and Dr. Turrell, health officer of Smithtown, Suffolk County, and the following conclusions are drawn by them from the outbreak:

1. The Schick test is of great value in detecting susceptible persons in an epidemic of diphtheria.

2. One thousand units of antitoxin usually