MEDICAL SCIENCE AND PKACT1CE. METHODIST (ECUMEN. CONGRESS. 557 



ing definite results respecting the nature of 

 the relations between climate and health or 

 disease. 



Under the head of development by the 

 adoption and application of material from ex- 

 ternal sources, come the application of " drugs 

 which are used with beneficial effect, but to 

 which no particular place or value in medicine 

 has been assigned ; methods which have been 

 employed with advantage, but have not re- 

 ceived a distinct medical function to discharge ; 

 instruments of decided utility, but which have 

 not been adopted as part of the regular pro- 

 cedure of practice ; theories which look very 

 like truth, but have not been positively dem- 

 onstrated. The great characteristic of this 

 category is its state of incessant flux and 

 change." 



Speaking generally, it may be said that the 

 tendency of our generation in medicine has been 

 constructive or synthetic, in contrast with the 

 infinitesimally analytical spirit of its earlier 

 3 r ears. In pathology the great mass of disease 

 has been reduced to a basis of elementary 

 morbid lesions, modified only by the function 

 and structure of the organ in which they ap- 

 pear. In semeiology, the measurement of the 

 extent of the impairment of the vital processes 

 supplies the basis for a definite estimate of 

 every case of disease. In therapeutics, general 

 constitutional treatment increasingly supplants 

 the tinkering of one or two symptoms only; 

 and when the affection can be resolved into a 

 single radical symptom, the remedy often 

 attains the positiveness and completeness of 

 a physiological demonstration; while still 

 broader principles of hygiene frequently super- 

 sede entirely all other therapeutic measures. 

 Medicine also recognizes more and more that 

 its care is for health as well as for disease, to 

 prevent as well as to cure, and, observing that 

 the beginnings of disease are often in more 

 or less avoidable violations of the conditions 

 of health, seeks to prevent these violations. 

 Under this policy, results of the most striking 

 and important character have always been 

 obtained in what is termed public hygiene. 

 Even by the rudimentary- practice of sanita- 

 tion, which as yet alone obtains, the most terri- 

 ble forms of disease have been banished. The 

 plague and leprosy have practically disappeared 

 in every civilized country, and other diseases 

 have assumed a much milder form. With 

 more efficient sanitary measures, the diseases 

 caused by specific poisons, such as small-pox, 

 typhoid, hydrophobia, etc., will, in all proba- 

 bility, entirely disappear. 



From statistics of medical literature, which 

 were presented to the International Medical 

 Congress by Dr. John S. Billings, it appears 

 that the contributions to medicine properly so 

 called (excluding from the category popular 

 medicine, pathies, pharmacy, and dentistry) 

 form a little more than 1,000 volumes and 1,600 

 pamphlets yearly. The " Index Medicus," for 

 1879, shows that the total number of new 



medical books and pamphlets, excluding peri- 

 odicals and transactions, published in that 

 year, was 1,643, divided as follows: France, 

 641 ; Germany, 364 ; United States, 310 ; Great 

 Britain, 182 ; all other countries, 246. Besides 

 these, 693 inaugural theses were published in 

 France alone, to say nothing of those that ap- 

 peared in other countries. Periodicals form 

 about one half of the current medical litera- 

 ture, and constituted, in 1879, 655 volumes. 

 Of these the United States produced 156 vol- 

 umes, Germany 129, France 122, Great Britain 

 54, Italy 65, and Spain 24. This is exclusive 

 of journals of pharmacy, dentistry, etc., and 

 of journals devoted to medical sects and isms. 

 The whole number of volumes of medical 

 journals and transactions of all kinds was, for 

 1879, 850, and for 1880, 864. The total num- 

 ber of original articles in medical journals and 

 transactions published in 1879, which were 

 thought worthy of notice in the "Index Medi- 

 cus," was a little more than 20,000. Of 

 these, 4,781 appeared in American period- 

 icals, 4,608 in French, 4,027 in German, 3,592 

 in English, 1,210 in Italian, 703 in Spanish, and 

 1,248 in all other periodicals. The number 

 was nearly the same in 1880. It thus appears 

 that more articles of this class are published in 

 the English language than in any other, and 

 that the number of contributions to journals 

 is greatest in the United States. The actual 

 bulk of periodical literature is, however, great- 

 est in Germany, owing to the greater average 

 length of the articles. The list of authors 

 shows that the number of physicians who are 

 writers is greatest in proportion to the whole 

 number in the profession in France, and small- 

 est in the United States. 



METHODIST (ECUMENICAL CON- 

 GRESS. An (Ecumenical Methodist Con- 

 gress, in which all the Methodist Churches of 

 the world were represented by delegates, met 

 in the "Wesleyan Chapel in City Road, Lon- 

 don, September 7th. The Congress was com- 

 posed of four hundred delegates, consisting of 

 ministers and laymen in equal numbers, of 

 whom two hundred were allotted to the Meth- 

 odist Churches of Great Britain and the coloni- 

 al and mission churches immediately affiliated 

 with them, and two hundred to the churches 

 of the United States and Canada. The allot- 

 ment among the churches severally was as fol- 

 lows : "Wesleyan Conference (Great Britain), 

 88 delegates; Primitive Methodist Church, 36 

 delegates ; United Methodist Free Churches, 22 

 delegates; Methodist New Connection, 12 dele- 

 gates; Bible Christian Church, 10 delegates; 

 Wesleyan Reform Union, 4 delegates ; Irish 

 Wesleyan Conference, 10 delegates ; French 

 Wesleyan Conference, 2 delegates; Australasian 

 Wesleyan Methodist Connection, 16 delegates; 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, 80 delegates ; 

 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 38 dele- 

 gates ; African Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 12 delegates; African Methodist Episcopal 

 Zion Church, 10 delegates ; Colored Method- 



