In Minneapolis

Six thousand doctors signed their names in the registration book of the American Medical Association in Minneapolis last week. The 79th annual get-together was in session; from all parts of the U. S. doctors had come to pool their problems and share their results. Minnesota's governor, the Hon. Theodore Christiansen, gave them hearty welcome, then the 15 scientific divisions went into action, 400 learned papers were presented and earnestly discussed.

Free clinics have gone too far, objected Dr. Jabez N. Jackson (Kansas City), president of the association in his address to the house of delegates. The money and time investment of the modern physician equip him to give competent service to the public; the public should realize the debt and pay it, instead of crowding into clinks.

Drug manufacturers no longer work under cover, turn now to the A. M. A. council for endorsement of new medicines, reported Dr. Olin West (Chicago), secretary of the association. They have been frightened out of extravagant claims; the number of fraudulent devices is decreasing. Some unscrupulous cosmeticians still scamper naughtily on the sidelines, putting poisons into paints and powders, putting false statements into advertising. For these legislation is sought.

Irregular medical schools, such as schools of chiropractic, naturopathy, optometry, physical therapy, naprapathy, sagliftology, electronic medicine, enerology, divine metaphysics, are falling before onslaughts from the bureau of legal medicine and legislation. The 171 such institutions of 1920 had been reduced to 96 in 1927.

Sterilization of persons considered dangerous to society is now legal in 19 states.

Francis' Disease. Dr. Edward Francis, U. S. Public Health Service, Washington, D. C., told his astonished audience the facts of tularemia (TIME, July 23, 1923). Long known as "rabbit fever" among land-workers for its annual toll of thousands of rabbits and ground squirrels, this disease has been recognized as dangerous to man only in the last three years. Discovered in Tulare County, Calif. (1910), it was named tularemia. The germ in man was identified by Public Heath Server Francis in 1925, and the disease is known among the profession as "Francis' disease." Peering through microscope, poring over petrie dish, Dr. Francis and six of his assistants were infected. They recovered, having learned more about the strange malady. It is a slow fever with all the attendant aches, pains, chills, prostration, incapacitating the victim for months. Before achieving the dignity of a disease with a name, it had often been confused with typhoid because the germ resembles typhoid bacillus. Since its recognition 430 cases have been reported, 18 deaths; only nine states in the extreme northeastern U. S. appear to be unaffected.

High Liver. Drs. James Howard Means (Boston), Thomas Ordway (Albany), E. H. Heath Jr. (Baltimore), reported spectacular improvements in pernicious anemia patients on liver diets. But publicity means popularity. Healthy people are stuffing themselves with liver. Canny wholesalers profiteer. Many a poor pernicious anemiac, for whom liver meant lustier living, can no longer afford to buy it. Dr. W. S. Middleton emphasized the fact that patients must keep on eating liver to prevent relapse; deplored its present high priced popularity.

This efficacy of diet in pernicious anemia suggests it may be a deficiency disease, as pellagra or rickets, rather than an infection or a toxemia, as had been supposed. The work of Dr. George Hoyt Whipple, of Rochester, N. Y., on the effect of dietary factors on severe experimental anemia in dogs indicated that certain anemias in man were due to lack of certain elements in food.

Injections of liver extract have been found beneficial in the toxic conditions and convulsions previous to childbirth. Drs. Harold A. Miller and D. Benigno Martinez (Pittsburgh), treated 28 women, benefited 27, had one death.

Stomach ulcers may be due to deficiency of vitamins in the diet. So.thought Dr. Scale Harris who outlined a diet rich in vitamins for use during treatment and convalescence of such patients.

Deaf Children. A study of schoolchildren with a view to preventing deafness revealed 3,000,000 children in the U. S. with definite hearing defects, and many more borderline cases. Dr. Edmund P. Fowler (New York), is now working on treatment to keep these borderline cases from going over.

Goiters four years ago were more prevalent in Michigan than were Fords. The condition was traced to lack of iodine in the water; a statewide campaign put iodized salt in every home. Today the condition is not only singularly rare among schoolchildren, but not a single baby has been born with goiter when the mother had been using iodized salt, reported Dr. O. P. Kimball.

False Nose. Successful surgery is not a question of careful carpentry, protested Dr. John Shelton Horsley (Richmond, Va.), chairman of the section on general surgery. The surgeon must know all the relationships of all the parts of the body. In grafting a nose he should know that a piece of rib would be better than a bit of leg bone, because the ribs hold the chest as the bones hold the face, whereas the leg bones are subject to quick changes of stress and strain. Knowledge of what takes place around a foreign substance in the bone, contributed by chemists, bacteriologists, has changed the technique of the surgeon from the blacksmithing of days when rivets, plates, screws were used to the present methods of bone grafting.

Forcing Fevers by injections of typhoid fever vaccine have been clearing up disturbances of the circulation for Drs. Arthur W. Allen and R. H. Smithwick (Boston). The general rise in temperature which follows the injection warms up abnormally cold extremities, has in many cases checked or averted gangrene, has healed ulcers of long standing.

Drugged Babies. Crying, colicky, vomiting babies are in many cases suffering from congenital instability of the involuntary nervous system stated Dr. Hyman S. Lippman (New York). If allowed to continue, this restlessness makes for emotional difficulties in school and afterward. Dr. Lippman studied 63 bothersome babies; found that when ordinary measures failed atropine would relax the nervous tension, allowing the child to sleep or rest. Forty-four of the 59 infants who received the drug showed definite improvement; four were sensitive to it, developing redness of the skin, high temperature, semi-stupor; eleven were not relieved, their symptoms having been due to air swallowing.

Midwives still live and thrive in rural districts, announced Dr. Joe P. Bowdoin of the Georgia Board of Health. Many counties in Georgia have no physicians. Of the 65,000 babies born in 1927, about one-third were delivered by midwives, most of whom were old, ignorant, superstitious Negroes. Dr. Bowdoin told of the health board's work in instructing and certifying the 5,000 midwives, accompanied by a gratifying drop in deaths from childbirth.