5th. Medical affairs in New-York, with a weekly report of local novelties and intelligence in all the departments of the profession. 6th. Medical education in New-York, including the public and private schools, their facilities for imparting knowledge, and a comparison with those to be found elsewhere. 7th. Abstract from other periodicals. 8th. New publications, with analysis or criticism. 9th. Reports of interesting lectures, cliniques, operations, &c. in each of our colleges, hospitals, pensaries, &c. or in private practice. 10th. Transactions of medical societies in the city. 11th. Original communications, from the profession, of remarkable cases of disease, surgical operations, &c. nication with each other and with the public; and let them now unite, as one man, to sustain, by their patronage and contributions to its pages, at least one medical newspaper devoted exclusively to professional service, and to the elevation of New-York to the relative position our city ought to hold in view of our numbers and our population. The form and size of the publication will, it is hoped, meet the approval of all, in view of its adaptation to binding, should it be deemed worthy of permanent predis-servation by the subscribers. Much consultation and reflection have led to its issue in the present shape, instead of the ordinary newspaper form, which has been urged by some, but which was finally decided to be better adapted to ephemeral publications than to one designed for future reference. It very nearly corresponds to the London Lancet. 12th. Clinical teaching in New-York, its indispensable necessity as a pre-requisite to the safe or successful practice of our art. 13th. Quackery, its varieties, its arts and impostures, its unutterable mischiefs, its auxiliaries, its successes, its rewards and its remedies. 14th. Nostrums and patent medicines, their nature, their effects, their evils to the body politic, the method of overthrowing them and protecting the public from being deceived thereby. 15th. Pharmaceutists and apothecaries, their qualifications, their importance to the profession, the mischiefs of their lack of education and practical training. 16th. Surgeon-Dentists, their value to the profession and to the community, the necessity of their being educated and qualified men. 17th. Dietetics, comparative nutrition of common and fashionable articles of food, drink and luxuries, erroneous cookery and popular mistakes in living, which are pernicious to health, mischievous to invalids, and fatal to convalescents: 18th. Nurses for the sick, their need and value, their proper training, importance of systematic arrangements for procuring and multiplying them as a distinct class of domestics. 19th. Fees for professional services, amount of gratuitous labor performed by medical men; how they are requited by the public and treated by the press, by the courts and by the legislature of the city and state; methods of self-protection and redress. 20th. Absolute necessity of medical newspapers, advantages to the profession, utility of such a press to the public, duty of physicians to encourage their patients to patronise such newspapers. Such is an outline of the topics which will be successively discussed in the future numbers of the Gazette; so that it will be perceived how ample is the field for a medical newspaper, without at all occupying that of the secular or religious press. Let our profession deplore the lack of enterprise which has so long left us in New-York without a medium of weekly intercommu Those who receive this number, if they wish to subscribe, will please notify the Editor without waiting to be called on. Medical Education in the City of New York. In our advertising columns the several announcements of the regular courses of lectures, by the Facul ties of our Medical Colleges in this city, will exhibit the programme of public teaching for the ensuing session. A reference to these will show that a third school has been recently chartered by the State, and already or ganized as the "New-York Medical College," with a new Faculty appointed, so that students of medicine from every portion of our country may be expected to congregate here in still greater numbers, attracted as they must be by the obvious superiority of New-York over other cities, in the extent of our population and the consequent increase of opportunities for acquiring practical knowledge in the vast field of observation and experience, which our numerous hospitals and other public charities present. Experience moreover may be cited in proof, that as two colleges in the same city have, in every instance, more than doubled the number of students annually collected thither while there was but one, and this by mutually stimulating each other to enterprise and effort to excel; so also we may reasonably presume that three colleges, with their respective exertions and influence, will augment the aggregate heretofore gathered in the classes of two; for in this business of teaching, as in other employments, "competition is the life of business' if not absolutely overdone; as the history of professional teaching in our own city, and likewise in Philadelphia, amply proves. The new college, therefore, will open without any deprecatory or hostile feeling, either on the part of rival institutions or among the profession at large, so that the Faculty will be estimated by their individual and collective merits. They will doubtless expect to be judged by their intrinsic and comparative claims as teachers in the several departments of the profession, and exert themselves accordingly. The venerable "College of Physicians and Surgeons," which for forty years has maintained a high character in the work of professional education, pursues the even tenor of its way, and, as will be seen, conforms to the recommendation of the profession, as promulgated by the National Association, by extending the term of each session to five months, in addition to a brief preliminary course which is free. No change has been made in the faculty, which includes eight professorships. The chair of Physiology and Pathology is ably filled, and including, as it does, microscopical investigation and analysis, constitutes a popular feature in the instructions of this school. The stated cliniques of this college will be continued, as heretofore, by Dr. Parker. The Medical Department of the University of NewYork will resume their course of instruction, as usual, in October next. The new features introduced into their plan for the next session will be seen by their announcement in our advertising columns. These consist—1st, in the increase of opportunities for practical teaching, by the establishment of three cliniques weekly during the course;-2d, in giving additional lectures by the Professor of Anatomy on one evening of each week;— and 3d, in assigning to Professor Draper the department of Physiology, upon which subject he is to lecture in the evening, twice in each week, in addition to his course of Chemistry. The enfeebled health of Professor S. H. Dickson, who has heretofore so ably filled the chair of Practice in this school, has rendered it necessary for him to return to the sunny south to escape from the rigors of our climate. His resignation left an important vacancy in the Faculty, which it will be observed has been filled by the election of William Detmold, M.D. long and favorably known both as a practitioner and private teacher in this city-an appointment which will be exceedingly popular among students, if we may judge by the throngs of pupils who have annually sought admission to his lectures and cliniques, while he has been unconnected with any school. He is to teach the "Institutes and Practice of Medicine" in the University during its next session, and also, in conjunction with Professor Pattison, conduct a medical and surgical clinique every week. The College of Pharmacy, after Twenty years experience, also resumes its labors in November next. The importance of this Institution is more and more manifest, and the time must soon come, when its diploma will be, as it ought henceforth to be, the only passport to reputable recognition as apothecaries, either by the fraternity, or the public, in this city. The New-York Hospital, the Bellevue Hospital, and many of the public charities of the city, will be accessible to students, of the definite arrangements for which announcement will be made in due time. There are also several private medical schools, of the particulars of which our readers will be notified in future numbers of the Gazette. Demonstrative Midwifery. A newspaper war seems to be in progress in Western New-York, instigated by the course pursued by one of the professors in the Medical College at Buffalo, which is alternately approved and condemned by a portion of the secular and medical press. Without ex pressing any opinion in the absence of more definite in be some indiscretion in the publicity given to the introformation than has yet reached us, there would seem to duction of this French mode of teaching, which, to say the least, is in bad taste. Clinical instruction has been given in this department for many years, by our professors here, in an unobtrusive and unexceptionable way, without any offensive demonstrations. The evil, if there be any at Buffalo, will be likely to be corrected, now that public attention is called to the subject. If not, of transferring obstetric practice to the other sex, for it will be a Godsend to the pro whom medical schools are now in limine at Boston and Philadelphia. nication on the subject has been received, and is inserted Since the above was written, the following commuin view of the respect due to our correspondent, whose initials are appended. "Demonstrative Midwifery.-The expressions of opinion in the various public journals, and at the late meeting of the American Medical Association, show a sound state of professional feeling throughout the country. "When Professor White attempted this innovation, it was very natural, and quite in the category of "things to be expected," that a hubbub should be made about it—that many should talk of delicacy shocked, propriety outraged, &c. &c. We can all remember when the same terms were applied to the use of the vaginal speculum. We know too that there are those among us now that talk in the same strain of the attendance of men-midwives, as they are pleased to call us. The clamor raised at Buffalo was nothing new or strange; nor perhaps was it very new or very strange that medical men should join in, or perhaps lead on the assault. But that medical men should in any way countenance the discussion of such a subject in newspapers-that they should aid in vituperative assaults on the character of a brother practitioner, is deeply to be regretted. This is an offence on which the profession will not fail to frown. As to the merits of the question-that clinical instruction in midwifery is quite as valuable as in surgery-no one can doubt that, for want of it, young men, in their attendance on their first cases, are at every step beset with doubts, difficulties and perplexities, which three words of explanation, aided by demonstration, would remove; as public teachers, all who have given out cases to their pupils, well know. The advantages of demonstrative midwifery are, then, great. Can they be secured without undue offence to public opinion? We believe they can, and we hope that the profession will unite in some attempt to attain this result. But to do this cency or indelicacy shall not be predicated of professional we must unite upon one cardinal principle, viz. that inde conduct. Unless the contrary is proved, it should always be presumed, that in all that a physician does for his patient, or a medical teacher for the instruction of his pupils, he is influenced by motives too high and honorable for indelicacy to mingle with them. It is the motive with which he acts that is to be his defence; and if this defence will not avail “In three years we have a mortality from premature births of 400; and from still-born of 3,139; making a total of 3,539(!) human beings that never breathed. “Since 1805, when returns were first made to this office; the number of these accidents have steadily and rapidly augmented. With a population at that time of 76,770, the number of still-born and premature births were 47; in 1849, with a population estimated at 450,000, the number swells up to 1,320! Thus, while the population has increased nearly six times since 1805, the annual number of still-born and premature births has multiplied over twentyseven times!! fession, very many of whom, while they deplore the evil and appreciate truly the horrible crimes of the guilty parties, yet still lack the moral courage to expose the authors of these secret infanticides and murders, for such they are in a multitude of examples, and might, if followed up, be fastened on the criminals. There are among us, however, those who do not shrink from duty in the premises; and it is due to Dr. Bedford, of the New-York University, that his example be cited, and allusion here made to the fearless manner in which he has publicly exposed the principal offender, who has outraged her sex and insulted humanity by her shameless avowal of this terrible iniquity. His articles-published in the "New-York Journal of Medicine" ences for 1843, and in the " American Journal of Medical Scinal hysterotomy-may be referred to as the first public for 1848, professionally reporting cases of vagiexposure of this crime in a form calculated to arouse the attention and constrain the action of the authorities, to the arrest and punishment of one of the guilty parties. In his first paper-after describing the case and the operation, and furnishing the evidence upon which he takes the responsibility to become an accuser of the guilty abortionist, whom he exposes by name-Dr. Bedford said: "It indeed seems too monstrous for belief, that such "To show the rapidity of this increase, I have prepared gross violations of the laws both of God and man should be the following table: says: 66 "This is a state of mortality from these accidents truly alarming, which, while no remedy in this connection can be advised, demand our most serious consideration. What of crime and recklessness there is in this sum dare not be expressed, for we cannot refer such a hecatomb of human offspring to natural causes. An honest and fearless expression of the causes or circumstances attending these events, on the part of the medical attendant, would bring into this department an amount of valuable knowledge that might be useful in checking this horrible and increasing waste of life." We have italicised this last sentence, and cordially assent to the implied rebuke it contains against our pro suffered in the very heart of a community professing to be Christian, and to be governed by law and good order. Yet these facts are known to all who can read. This creature's advertisements are to be seen in most of our daily papers; there she invites the base and the guilty, the innocent and the unwary, to apply to her. She tells publicly what she can do, and, without the slightest scruple, urges all to call on her who may be anxious to avoid having children. Here, then, is a premium offered for vice, to say nothing of the prodigal destruction of human life that must necessarily result from the abominations of this mercenary and heartless woman. "With all the vigilance of the police of our city, and with every disposition, I am sure, on the part of the authorities to protect the public morals and bring to merited punishment those who violate the sanctity of the law, this Madame Restell, as she styles herself, has as yet escaped with impunity. "Occupying the position I do, and fully appreciating the important trusts confided to my care in connection with the department over which I have the honor to preside in the University, I have felt it to be a duty I owe to the community, to the profession, and to myself, publicly to expose the facts of this case; and I fervently hope that the disclosures here made may tend to the arrest of this woman, and the infliction of the severest penalty of the law." There can be little doubt that this exposure by Dr. Bedford, which was extensively copied by the public press, was the occasion of the subsequent arraignments and ultimate conviction of this wretch, and of her punishment by imprisonment in the Penitentiary. In a subsequent number of the Gazette this subject will be again introduced. Quackery. In our profession the unworthy are denominated quacks, and their employment is called quackery. These are not mere nicknames, which are used to degrade rivals, or gratify malignity and spleen, as will be appa rent when these words are defined and understood. posite religious doctrines are held and taught by men. equally intelligent and honest, and why may it not be so in medicine?, Nor do we believe that our citizens select their physicians solely, or even chiefly because of in their general intelligence and supposed integrity. their peculiar sect or school; but rather from confidence Very few of the physicians of either of the new schools, deem it safe or politic to announce themselves either homoeopathic or hydropathic, but call themselves by the generic name "Doctor," thus becoming all things to all men, deeming "all fish which come to their net." And this is the case even with those with whom policy is the rule, and who have no medical character to lose, as well as those who craftily claim to have superadded the new to the old system, and like the fabled boatman "look one way and row another," "hiding with the hare and running with the hounds," treating their pa The term quack is properly applied to an ignorant The term quack is properly applied to an ignorant or unprincipled practitioner of the healing art, and to such only. He who dares to give remedies, of which he knows little, in diseases of which he knows less, and applies them to living beings, of whose structure or functions he knows nothing, is demonstrably a quack by reason of his ignorance and temerity. While he who imposes upon the public by seeming to be what he is not, and who, for the sake of filthy lucre, sacrifices principle, honesty, and conscience, in the sale of nostrums, or specifics; promising to cure incurable diseases; and exacting extortionate fees from the afflicted, by taking ad-tients by either mode of practice, or both, if they will vantage of their ignorance or credulity, is a quack because he is unprincipled. Such knaves abound in the profession, and they are such whether with or without diplomas, and to whatever school they belong; they are all alike,-whether called allopathists, homoeopathists, hydropathists, or chrono-thermalists; and whether they employ mineral, botanical, electrical, galvanic, magnetic, or metaphysical remedies. Their ignorance and unprincipled conduct constitute them quacks; and to protect the public from being plundered and victimized by such, is the only and all-sufficient reason for the warnings against quackery, which the regular profession are ever reiterating through the public press. That these warnings are to a great extent unheeded, is the chief cause of the great mortality, especially in the large cities, where ignorant and unprincipled physicians abound, and where they find their most numerous victims. Let it be henceforth understood then, that when the medical press, in its legitimate guardianship of the health and lives of the community, denominates any practitioner of medicine a quack, it is not because he is of this sect or that, nor that he adopts different remedies from ours; but simply and only on the ground of his being either an ignorant or unprincipled man. Our maxim is, that a truly learned man, is not, and should not be called a quack, whatever opinions he may hold in medicine, or whatever modes of practice he may adopt. Such a man may become a quack, irrespective of either learning, or his medical creed, by unprincipled conduct in the profession, and then only can he be justly styled a quack, for the reason that he is a knave. But while his conduct is irreproachable, he may be a heretic in the estimation of the regular profession, but his medical scholarship protects him from being called a quack. We have no fellowship with the narrow views of those bigots in medicine, any more than in theology, who adopt the dogma, "my doxy is orthodoxy, and your doxy is heterodoxy." Very different and even op pay their fees. When homoeopathy or hydropathy will serve their turn, such men will adopt the one or the other; but when neither will suit the patient, they will « bleed, purge, and blister" according to Moliere's definition of a doctor, suiting their mode of practice to the market. Such men, from whatever port they hail, show that they regard "money as the chief end of man," even at the forfeiture of reputation and self-respect. Physicians call them quacks, and all honorable men, of every school, deem them outlaws. They sacrifice honor, principle, conscience, and character, for money, and verily they have their reward.” Clerical Testimony. The following extract from a sermon, delivered by the Rev. Dr. Krebs, of the Rutgers-street Church, on the occasion of a recent public calamity, has been preserved by one who heard it, and politely furnished for publication as a just and indignant rebuke of the mischiefs of quackery. The preacher was remarking upon the responsibility of men for disasters and various evils that result from their agency, and especially through ignorance and temerity, but especially the prevalent recklessness of human life, when he said: "Formerly the laws and courts paid some regard to the sacredness of human life, by precautionary restrictions of the practice of medicine, and by strict inflictions for malpractice. But a change has come over us. An impudent charlatan invents some worthless pill, or deleterious syrup, and thousands upon thousands are deceived into a fatal reliance upon it. In the meantime the made for blood, happy for him if, while he gazes in pride upon the inventor battens upon the imposture. But when inquisition is stately edifices which his gains have built, there is no cement in their walls compacted of dead men's lives, and the stone shall not cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber, to bear witness against him.” Our limits forbid the insertion of further extracts from this timely discourse, which, from this specimen, ought to be published in extenso. To the Editor of the New-York Medical Gazette. DEAR DOCTOR,-The enclosed morceau is at your service. The child referred to in it is about four years old; her disease was simply a mild attack of Infantile Remittent, depending on gastric derangement, and accompanied with a spongy state of the gums, from which a slight hæmorrhage occurred. Her parents, previously to sending for me, applied to a clairvoyant. The ap The same learned gentleman has also communicated another paper on the communicability? of Asiatic Cholera; and in fortification of his theory, two letters are superadded, the one from Newark, N. J., and another from Rockaway, L. I.-Homer sometimes nods, else Dr. S. would not have committed himself even by this equivocal aid to the contagionists of the profession, who are few now, and will be fewer in the next half century. In a future number of the Gazette this novel doctrine of “communicability" will receive respectful attention. "Dr. J. B. Beck has furnished an "historical sketch of the state of Medicine in the American Colonies, from their first set pended document is the written opinion and prescrip- tlement to the period of the revolution." This is a document of tion. New-York, June 1st, 1850. Yours, &c. ALFRED S. PURDY. Copy of a written opinion, by a female somnambulist, after being made clairvoyant by animal magnetism, together with her prescription, the whole verbatim, and the original may be seen at this office. We commend it to those M. D.'s who have participated in the spoils of this imposture. In the present case, she was in the pay of a root doctor, and she prescribes accordingly. When. employed by a homoeopathist, she directs the infinitesimal potenzes. "This child has Scrofulous Tubercles in the Spinal muscles along the neck and back and in the carotid glands. There is a cluster near the lower point of the shoulder-blade that causes pain when excited by cold which darts through the lungs. The liver is tuberculated in clusters of small shot-like lumps some of which appear to have discharged. The duodenum has a slimy deposit that obstructs some of the most important chyle vessels inducing heated urine at times and bad state of the blood. The diaphragm is weak, as is also the heart and the whole viscera of the chest. The left lung appears to be enlarged in one of its upper lobes and a shriveled state of the lower lobe. There appears to be a deposit of thick matter in the air cells. There are three or four small vessels that have been uncap'd and bled in this part of the lung into the air tube. "Dissolve a piece of alum, as large as a walnut, in as little water as will dissolve it, and give teaspoonful every morning. "Take 2 lbs. raisins, 6 cents' worth slippery elm, 6 cents' worth comfry, 6 cents' Jesuits' bark, spikenard root 6 cents', 3 cts'. worth gum myrrh, 6 cents' white cohosh-lady slipper root a handful, handful of Green elder Bark, bruise these articles and simmer them in 2 quarts of water, until reduced to one quart, then strain and add the strained liquor in which the raisins have been boiled, then simmer until the whole is reduced to one quart, then add 3 lbs. sugar of sugar and one pint of Port wine. Dose wine glass full three times a day." NEW PUBLICATIONS. Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of New-York, during its annual session, held at Albany, Feb. 5th, 1850.Albany, Weed, Parsons & Co. Public Printers. 8vo. pp. 280. This large volume, embodying the fruits of the labors of our State Medical Society during the last year, will be found to be a really valuable contribution to the literature of our science. The address of the late President, Dr. A. H. Stevens, which opens the volume, was delivered in the Capitol, before the Legislature of the State, then in session, and like his former inaugural, of which it is a continuation, is an able and interesting discourse upon the public health, and the claims of the medical profession in this regard, are here forcibly presented. Dr. Stevens has also furnished an appendix upon the sanitary construction of country dwellings, ventilation, drainage, &c. which abounds in practical hints of great public utility. very high merit, demonstrating that the learned professor, whose industry and ardor in his profession, have made him an exemplar to his brethren every where, has lost none of his love for the science, his zeal in its cultivation, or his ability as a medical writer. This paper cannot fail to add to his exalted reputation. May we not hope that his health will be restored, and that he may be enabled to continue and complete his historical sketch down to his own times. We shall notice this paper hereafter more at length. There are a large number of other papers contributed by mem bers in various parts of the state, which, for the ability with which they are drawn up, and the importance of the topics discussed, and the cases reported, deserve attention if our limits did not preclude detail. But without being invidious where all are valuable, we cannot forbear specifying, in addition to those named above, the excellent address of Prof. McNaughton before the Albany County Society, and the able Report on Hygeine and Medical statistics, by Prof. Charles A. Lee. These documents will richly repay perusal; and the publication of this volume of the Transactions of the State Medical Society, by the authority of the Legislature and at the expense of the State, is ominous of a better appreciation of the claims of our science. We commend this example to imitation by the civil authorities of other states; and trust that the profession will organize such societies in every state of the Union, holding their annual meetings during the sessions of their respective legislatures, and aiming to secure similar patronage. Such a course will add greatly to the value of our American Medical Association, and augment its usefulness. Pennsylvania State Medical Society. The third annual meeting was held in Philadelphia, April 17th, 1850. Professor Jackson's address is spoken of as a masterly performance, worthy of the author and his theme. The various sections of the state were well represented, and important subjects were discussed and disposed of, the proceedings being marked by great unanimity. Dr. Worthington, of Chester County, was chosen President. A detailed record of the proceedings appears in the Medical Examiner for May. Cazeaux's Midwifery. Translated by R. P. Thomas, M. D.Lindsay & Blakiston. Philadelphia, 1850. 8vo. pp. 765. The adoption of this work by the Royal Council of Public Instruction in France, together with the high reputation of the author, have prepared the profession to anticipate its republication with much interest, notwitstanding the numerous recent issues from the press in this department. The diseases of pregnancy and parturition are here investigated by a truly practical man, while the conservation of the author in relation to difficult labor, interference, which is one of the errors of our fraternity in Ameriin his testimony against the mania for manual and instrumental ca, render the work worthy of extensive circulation. The translacopious index. The illustrations are numerous, and the typogrator has performed his task ably, and improved the work by a phy creditable to the publishers. American Medical Formulary, by John J. Reese, M. D. Lindsay & Blakiston. Philadelphia, 1850. Our unknown namesake has here furnished the student of medicine and pharmacy with a highly useful digest of the Materia Medica, et Alimentaria; in fact a condenser, which, within |