188 
SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
dairies; no State method for the gathering of useful statistics; and no State 
laboratory for investigation ; all of which ought to be in existence as a part of our 
public health system. 
lie attributed our condition in this matter to our English inheritance, as in 
Great Britain they have no organized system of State medicine, and there and 
here only do we find endowed schools and “subscription plans.” 
As to the 'practical portion of State medicine, he earnestly advocated the reg¬ 
ulation of the practice of medicine by law, each practitioner to be required to 
pass an examination before a Board of competent examiners. 
In conclusion the essayist called attention to the great importance of this 
subject, that “public health is public wealth ,” and remarked how seriously a 
visitation of rinderpest or cholera for example, would affect the Nation’s 
prosperity, and earnestly advocated a radical change in our system of Stale medi¬ 
cine, that such calamities may the more certainly be avoided. 
Part II.— Kooh’s Method of Bacteria Cultivation. 
This was a very interesting description and illustration by Dr. Billings of 
Koch’s process of cultivating bacteria. 
He first gave us a brief history of the life and work of Koch, and then went 
on to describe, first, the preparation of the media for the cultivations. On the table 
before him was all the laboratory apparatus necessary for complete illustration, 
and a hundred test tubes containing cultivations of different ages, both of Koch’s 
comma bacillus, and that of the genuine Asiatic cholera. 
He described how the media were made from gelatin, chopped lean meat, 
peptone and salt, together with a species of Iceland moss, which renders the 
media solid; he then showed how the bacteria were developed in glass chambers, 
and next went through the modus operandi of inoculating the gelatin. 
By means of different cultivations he showed how the different bacilli could 
be recognized, simply by their method of development in the media, cultivations 
only twenty-four hours old of the bacilli of cholera morbus and Asiatic cholera 
being easily differentiated; showing of what great diagnostic value these methods 
of bacteria cultivation may become. 
All present were very much interested, and at the conclusion of Dr. Billing’s 
•remarks a unanimous vote of thanks was tendered him. 
Dr. Stickney of Springfield, said he had been very much interested, both in 
the paper on State medicine, and in the practical illustration of bacteria cultiva¬ 
tion, and thought that the address on the former subject ought to be published 
broadcast. 
He also thought that veterinary medicine ought to be more fully recognized, 
and he was ready, as a practitioner in the department of human medicine, to 
extend to it the right hand of fellowship; appreciating fully how its investigations 
and results can assist those in the other branch of the same great science. 
Dr. A. R. Rice, Chairman Springfield Board of Health, said that he wished 
to indorse the remarks of Dr. Stickney, and to compliment highly the paper on 
State medicine. He remarked that he was ashamed of the State of Massachu¬ 
setts not having a law to regulate the practice of medicine, becoming, as it is, 
the “ Botany Bay ” for charlatans and quacks. 
Drs. Gardner, of Springfield, and Forrest, of Rockland, and Dr. Bland, also 
