302 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
tion of thought and inquiry, emanating from minds actuated 
by a love of research, ennobled by being free and unre- 
strained, and strong with the conviction that it is only by 
a free interchange of ideas among those who follow kindred 
professions, that science can hope to progress, or make any 
real advancement for the general good, — the object and the 
end of all scientific pursuits. 
There is yet another point connected with these meetings, 
which we are desirous of commenting on, but w 7 ant of space 
prevents our doing so now ; we will, therefore, reserve it for 
some other opportunity. 
Although not written for the press, we have ventured to 
insert in the present number the communication received by 
us from Mr. F. de Fair Elkes. We have done so from an im- 
pression that our readers w’ould like to be made acquainted 
with some of the diseases prevalent in the Crimea, and also 
the difficulties, or otherwise, their professional brethren have 
had to contend with at the seat of the late war. Further, we 
believe that the profession will derive great and lasting advan- 
tages from the opportunities that have been offered to the 
rising members of our body, by the numerous appointments 
recently made in the army, arising from the new^ field of inquiry 
and investigation thus opened up to them. We are so well 
acquainted with the writer, that we are under no apprehen- 
sion whatever of his being displeased wfith us for giving pub- 
licity to that which, we repeat, w^as not written by him for the 
public eye ; and it w r as only the conviction that the subject- 
matter was interesting to the profession, beyond w hat we have 
already said, that has induced us to do it. This explanation 
will suffice to account for the seeming disconnection of some 
of the statements he has made ; there being, of necessity, 
much left out that was of a private and friendly nature. 
Of the ready adaptation of a means to an end, necessity 
being often the parent of discovery, we have only to refer to 
Mr. Elkes’s employment of horse-radish as a stomachic. Its 
general properties we are all familiar with, but more, perhaps, 
