SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, iS 



In the Contemporary Review for July is an interesting article 

 by Frances Power Cobbe on 'The Scientific Spirit of the Age,' one 

 portion of which, at least, expresses our own views on the subject, 

 and we presume that of others. She says, " The political press 

 has adopted the practice of reporting the details of illness of every 

 eminent man who falls into the hands of the doctors, and affords 

 these gentlemen an opportunity of advertising themselves as his 

 advisers. The last recollection which the present generation will 

 retain of many an illustrious statesman, poet, or soldier will not be 

 that he died like a hero or saint, bravely and piously, but that he 

 swallowed such and such a medicine, and perhaps was sick in his 

 stomach. Death-beds are desecrated that doctors may be puffed 

 and public inquisitiveness assuaged." We believe, however, that 

 the " political press " is more to blame for this than the " doctors." 

 While it is true that some of these seize with avidity every such 

 opportunity to bring themselves into notoriety, yet there are others 

 (and these we believe are in the majority) who shrink from the pub- 

 lication of their opinions, and would oftentimes prefer to relinquish 

 the case rather than to be brought forward so prominently before 

 the public. It was a matter of deep chagrin to the late Prof. Frank 

 Hamilton that his name figured so often in the public press while 

 he was in attendance upon President Garfield during his fatal ill- 

 ness. The position of a physician who is in attendance upon an 

 illustrious personage is a most trying one. The public demands 

 professional opinions; and, whether the physician communicates 

 them to the representatives of the press or withholds them, he is 

 equally condemned. Miss Cobbe would place the medical profes- 

 sion under great obligations if she would indicate just what course 

 its members should follow under these circumstances. 



firmly established when they succeed in making a sonorous sand. 

 Their experiments in this line have not yet been completed, but 

 promise fair success. 



At the last meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, 

 Dr. A. Julien and Prof. H. C. Bolton gave a report of the interesting 

 results of their long-continued researches on sonorous sands. The 

 cause of this remarkable phenomenon, which was first known to 

 occur in Arabia, has long been a mystery. In course of time many 

 other localities in which sonorous sands occur became known, and, 

 in fact, it may be found almost everywhere on beaches and in 

 deserts. The authors collected samples from all parts of the world, 

 and, on close examination, found that all sonorous sands are clean ; 

 that no dust or silt is found mixed with the sand ; that the diame- 

 ter of the angular or rounded grains ranges between 0.3 and 0.5 of 

 a millimetre ; and that the material may be siliceous, calcareous, or 

 any other, provided its specific gravity is not very great. When these 

 sands are moistened by rain or by the rising tide, and the moisture 

 is evaporated, a film of condensed air is formed on the surface of 

 each grain, which acts as an elastic cushion, and enables the sand 

 to vibrate when disturbed. In sands mixed with silt or dust, these 

 small particles prevent the formation of a continuous air-cushion 

 and therefore such sands are not sonorous. If this theory be correct, 

 sonorous sand must become mute by removing the film of air. Ex- 

 periments of the authors prove that by heating, rubbing, and shak- 

 ing, the sand is ' killed.' All these operations tend to destroy the 

 film of air condensed on the surfaces. On the other hand, samples 

 of sonorous sand were exhibited which had been kept undisturbed 

 for many years. They had retained their sonorousness, but, after 

 having been rubbed for some time, became almost mute. The 

 theory advanced by the authors appears very plausible, and will be 



MEDICAL LEGISLATION IN NEW YORK. 

 It is more than probable that additional legislation will he sought 

 from the next Legislature of New York to control the practice of 

 medicine. Mr. W. A. Purrington, counsel for the Medical Societies 

 of New York County and State, recently read a paper before the 

 American Social Science Association on the extent to which legis- 

 lation can aid medical education. Legislators will do well to study 

 this paper before introducing any new laws pertaining to the sub- 

 ject. Mr. Purrington thinks that a responsible board should be 

 created, that will have in charge the arrangements of quarantine 

 and sanitation, and also the licensing of medical practitioners of 

 every sort ; for he contends that the dentist and the pharmacist 

 should be recognized as medical men. All that legislation can do 

 to aid medical education he believes can be summed up as follows : — 



I. By fixing a minimum age under which they (physicians, den- 

 tists, and pharmacists) will not be allowed to practise their calling. 



II. By requiring of each of them a fixed term of study of certainly 

 not less than two graded years, leaving to the board the care of 

 details. 



III. By requiring proof by examination or certificate that each 

 candidate for license had studied, before beginning his professional 

 course, at least those branches in which law students are examined 

 in this State before they commence their legal studies. 



IV. By declaring that no medical schools (including in the term 

 schools of dentistry, pharmacy, and midwifery) shall be incorporat- 

 ed by special act, and providing a general law for the incorporation 

 of such schools, only upon proof made of the possession by the in- 

 corporators of sufficient capital — say, not less than a hundred thou- 

 sand dollars — and a teaching plant, to justify the belief that the 

 school will be capable of exercising faithfully its franchise. Such 

 an act should contain stringent provisions for its own enforcement 

 and for the forfeiture of abused charters. 



V. A minimum course of medical study should be prescribed, in 

 which a grade of at least seventy per cent should be attained on 

 examination. The regulation of all details of the examination should 

 be left to the board. But the topics in which the examination 

 should be had might well be specified in the statute. It might be 

 well to omit the topics of therapeutics and materia medica, upon 

 which all medical heresies have been begotten by unscientific minds, 

 inferring that one who should creditably pass his examinations in 

 botany, chemistry, physics, anatomy, surgery, physiology, hygiene, 

 diagnosis, obstetrics, and microscopy, especially if his clinical ex- 

 amination should show him to be educated in a true sense to observe 

 and draw sound deductions from observation, might be trusted to 

 form his own conclusions and pursue his own studies as judgment 

 should dictate in the field of therapeutics. The law can have noth- 

 ing to do with medical theories. The utmost it can do successfully 

 is to prescribe that none shall practise medicine except persons 

 educated in those branches of science that all admit are essential to 

 an understanding of morbid conditions of our species, and possessed 

 besides of a fair general education. 



VI. Finally, the law should not recognize any diploma as of itself 

 conferring a right to practise medicine : even if the possession of 

 such document should be required as an antecedent to examination 

 by the health board, it should not be allowed to take the place of 

 such an examination. Any scheme of medical legislation will here- 

 after embrace that great safeguard against imposture and efficient 

 tracer of frauds, the system of registration, where no one is allowed 

 to practise medicine who has not made a public record, under oath, 

 of his name, origjin, and credentials for a license. 



