the opportunity to say that in my experience I have found no class of men who had the brains, knowledge, culture, and conscientious devotion to what appeared to them to be their duty, exhibited by physicians. And I should like to say a word for their most able co-adjutors, the trained nurses. They differ, of course, like every other class taken from our imperfect human'ity. But, on the whole, I do not believe that any other vocation develops in women equal sagacity, skill, and delicate manifestation of tact and sympathy. And, while there are probably those who fail to appreciate them, I think they have the regard and in many cases real affection of the great majority of their worthy patients.".

THE PRIEST AND THE PHYSICIAN.

In this article we shall consider the priest as one who acts as a mediator between man and the Divine Ruler, without any references to churches or denominations, but having in mind the fact that in the New Testament Christ is designated as a Priest.

In the sermon referred to in the previous article, the Rev. Mr. Conger took as his text the following: "Give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go from thee for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands

there is good success. For they also shall pray unto the Lord that he would prosper that which they gave for ease and remedy to prolong life." Ecc, xxviii. 12-14.

The rector urged strongly a more cordial relationship between the physician and the priest. He said: "Please do not leave word that we be excluded from the sick-room; it may be that some priests have not every gift of delicacy and tact, but might not the same be said of some physicians? I think you will find in all but exceptional cases, typhoid fever for instance, that relig ious people physically benefit by our visits, and in a large percentage also of those whose spiritual life may gain its first serious impulse through the chastisement of illness, wisely directed by the experienced priest."

In an editorial in the same issue of the New York Medical Journal we are told that Mr. John Brooks Leavitt, one of the wardens of St. Mark's Church, published a letter in the New York Times, November 9, in which he stated that "the medical profession and the clergy have drifted into such antagonism that doctor and parson too often glare at each other over the dying bedside, each regarding the other as an intruder, the clergyman thinking the doctor to be godless, and the latter looking on the former as a simpleton."

That a statement like this should appear in a paper such as the New York Times, and that it should come from a warden of an Episcopalian Church is simply astounding. Who and what are we, as physicians, that we should ever presume to stand between a dying patient and one of God's priests? We are glad to be able to say that we know of no antagonism between physicians and priests in this country which would go so far as to prevent both from ministering to a dying man. There may be some difference of opinion as to the advisability of allowing a priest to visit a patient when life is not endangered; but we hope there are very few in our profession who try in any way to prevent the visits of the patient's priest or pastor, providing the latter shows an inclination to be reasonable, as he generally does, according to our experience.

We quite agree with the final sentence in the editorial under consideration: "It is surely true that co-operation rather than repulsion is manifested whenever the priest and the doctor meet at the bedside of the sick. And so may it ever be."

BANQUET TO DR. GEIKIE IN DETROIT.

The "Old Boys" of Trinity Medical College, Toronto, and a certain number of graduates from other medical institutions resident in Detroit and Windsor, tendered to Dr. Walter B. Geikie, the well-known Dean of Trinity until June, 1903, and for several weeks after the last session of the college had ended, a banquet at the Cadillac, Detroit, October 17th, 1908, under the

chairmanship of Dr. Hislop, of Detroit. Interesting and kind speeches were delivered by Drs. Samson and Casgrain, of Windsor, and Drs. Knill, Palmer, Lennox, and others of Detroit.

Dr. Hislop, in proposing the health of their guest, said: "I feel it a great honor to preside at a banquet given in honor of so eminent a guest. It gives me great pleasure to find so hearty a response from the Canadian graduates of Detroit and Windsor who are assembled here to-night to meet the grand old Dean who has been justly termed the Dean of the medical profession of Ontario. We are glad to know that, in recognition of his long and faithful services to education in Ontario, our guest was honored last year by Queen's University conferring upon him the degree of LL.D." He concluded by saying: "Dr. Geikie, it affords me great pleasure indeed to have you present here at this banquet of the Canadian graduates as our deservedly honored guest."

Dr. Geikie, the founder of Trinity Medical College, in replying, spoke with much earnestness and affection about the career of his college, especially emphasizing the grand work she had done for so many years in the cause of medical education without any cost to the Province, and he expressed his deep sense of the very great injury done to practical medical education in Toronto by her destruction in 1903. He said this injury was so great that it will take years and much hard work to undo its disastrous results, and that it is being increasingly deplored by every true friend of practical medical education all over Canada and wherever the widespread reputation of this famous college had gone.

In Toronto, for more than fifty years prior to 1903, when students of medicine were much fewer than they are now, there were two medical colleges. They both did excellent work, which was much the better for the stimulus of healthy competition, ever an indispensable aid to full success. Long ago it was well and truthfully said that monopoly in educational, as in all other work, is the grave of excellence, and that nothing more certainly encourages negligence and ignorance. It is never desirable to have a number of students attending any one college so large as to make it impossible to take an individual interest in them. It

is equally undesirable that the faculty of any one medical college should be so large as to make it practically unworkable. This necessitates the subdivision of all large subjects into several small parts so as to give an insignificant portion only, to each of the many teachers. Under such circumstances neither teachers nor students can be interested in their work as they should be. Without this interest, enthusiasm is impossible, nor can many of the students so taught pass their examination creditably, or become as efficient physicians and surgeons as the public have a right to expect all Canadian medical graduates to be. Those students who pass well under disadvantages so great deserve the utmost credit.

A special feature of the banquet was the presence of Mr. Harold Jarvis, formerly of Toronto, the well-known tenor, whose splendid singing was highly appreciated.

ANAPHYLAXIS.

The dreadfully sudden deaths that have occurred immediately after the administration of antitoxin, especially in those who are subject to asthma, has led to a great deal of experimental work, with some therapeutic result. We now understand that these unfortunate individuals are highly sensitive to some constituent of the horse serum, probably the proteid content. Perhaps, too, the unpleasant symptoms that occur in some persons after eating mussels, honey, eggs, raspberries, etc., are due to the same kind of susceptibility. The fault in every case lies not in the serum or the article of food, but in the individual. To this peculiar phenomenon the term anaphylaxis has been applied.

We now know that many, if not all, of these sudden deaths were due to the fact that the serum was introduced into a vein. Many patients have been very sick after the administration of diphtheria antitoxin, have developed urticaria, but they usually recover in a few days. When, however, the for

eign proteid of the serum is introduced into the blood-stream the individual is overcome in short order.

The practical application of this knowledge is to use the greatest precaution in administering any serum. Select a portion of the body where there is no large vein. If the patient has suffered from asthma, urticaria, angioneurotic edema, or other allied neurosis, give only a portion of the dose at first. It has been shown that all the unpleasant symptoms will develop from a small dose, but, of course, not so acutely as from a large dose. After waiting an hour, the rest of the tube may be injected with perfect safety, provided the patient has not been affected.

It is interesting, too, in this connection to note that Rosenau and Anderson (Hygienic Laboratory Bull., No. 45) have some experimental evidence to prove that puerperal eclampsia is a form of anaphylaxis. They sensitized female guinea-pigs by injecting extracts of their own placentas. A little later, the same extract produced convulsions and other toxic symptoms. The experimenters found that it required what may be called an incubation period of seven days before the anaphylaxis developed, and that when once sensitized, the animals remained so for a long period, two years in a guinea-pig. We await with great expectation the results of some further observations they are now making.

F. A. C.

THE DEANSHIP OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY.

Dr. R. A. Reeve's resignation of the position of Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University has been accepted. In our last issue we expressed our own opinion, and probably the opinion of the University world, respecting the admirable work accomplished by Dean Reeve during his term of office. Dr. Reeve has issued the following letter to the members of the Medical Faculty:

"Dear Doctor,-I desire to sincerely thank the members of the Medical Faculty for the courtesy and consideration extended to me while Dean, and to bespeak for my successor the continuance