Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by

CASPAR WISTER, M.D., TREASURER,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved.

PHILADELPHIA

COLLINS, PRINTER,

705 Jayne Street.

PREFACE.

In explanation of the delay which has attended the publication of the present volume, the Editor would invite attention to the diversified character of its contents, which has necessitated the sending of proof-sheets to more than threescore authors, residing in all portions of the country, and has thus required a much greater expenditure of time than would have been needed under other circumstances.

The volume contains all the Addresses delivered before the Congress in its General Sessions, and, with few exceptions, all the Papers read in the meetings of the several Sections, and by them recommended for publication. Abstracts of the Discussions which ensued upon the reading of the several papers, are also appended in many instances, and, it is believed, will be found to add materially to the interest of the whole.

A few papers have been withdrawn by their authors, and three have been omitted by the Committee of Publication: one on account of its inappropriateness to the work of the Section before which it was read, and of its fragmentary nature, the paper to which it was really but an introduction not having been furnished by the author; another on account of the great expense which would have attended the reproduction of the drawings with which it was illustrated, and without which it would have been valueless; and a third because, though it was referred to the Committee by the Section before which it was read, yet the President and Secretary, and several prominent members, of the Section, afterwards united in declaring that it had been so referred by mistake, and that it was not designed for publication. One paper which was recommended for publication has not been received, and appears to have been lost before the records of the Congress were placed in the Committee's hands.

Two papers were considered too voluminous for the Transactions, and are, therefore, represented by condensed abstracts, one furnished by the author, and the other by the Secretary of the Section to which it had been presented. The Committee of Publication has not felt justified in rejecting any paper on the sole ground of want of merit, after it had been deliberately approved by the Section which heard it read, and to which the responsibility of accepting or refusing it properly belonged; but, in justice to itself, the Committee cannot avoid expressing the

opinion that, in some few instances, the censorship exercised by the Sections might properly have been more rigid.

To the actual proceedings of the Congress and of its several Sections, are prefixed Lists of the Officers and Members of the Congress, the Minutes of the General Sessions, the Address of Welcome of the Presi dent, Professor Gross, and, in order to complete the history of the Congress, a brief account of its inception and of the Centennial Medical Commission, prepared by Dr. Hutchinson.

Though authorized by a resolution of the Congress to call upon each delegate for a further contribution towards the expense of issuing the volume, the Committee of Publication determined, after mature deliberation, that it would be better not to make an additional assessment, but to endeavor, by the exercise of a careful supervision, to reduce the cost of the volume to the sum actually in hand from registration-fees and from subscriptions; this has been done, and the Committee has the satisfaction of terminating its labors with no deficit in the treasury.

The Editor offers his sincere thanks to the other members of the Committee of Publication for the cordial support which they have uniformly extended to him in the laborious, and occasionally ungrateful, duties of his office. For any errors which may be detected in his work, and he does not presume to hope that many such do not exist, he bespeaks the friendly indulgence of the reader; and, in bringing his task to a close, he ventures to express a hope that this volume, on which he has expended more than a year of arduous labor, may be found to furnish a not unsatisfactory memorial of the meetings of that important body of which it records the acts-the First International Medical Congress of America.

JOHN ASHHURST, JR.

2000 WEST DELANCEY PLACE,

PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1877.

THE project of holding an INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS in Philadelphia, during the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by the United States, seems to have been entertained by the profession as early as 1872, and to have grown out of a resolution originally introduced by Dr. J. G. Stetler, at a meeting of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, held in October of that year. This resolution proposed that a general conference of the different medical societies and colleges in the city should be held to determine what part the medical profession should take in the approaching celebration, which was just then beginning to excite general interest in the community. The form which the proposed celebration should assume, had not, however, been fully agreed upon, and the time at which it was to take place was still far off in the future. Moreover, its advocates had not yet succeeded in convincing our people that it was destined to be one of the great events in our history. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Dr. Stetler's resolution did not bear immediate fruit, and that the subject was allowed to lie dormant for more than a year.

The question was, however, reopened in January, 1874, in the same society, which then appointed a committee, consisting of Drs. L. Turnbull, J. G. Stetler, and M. O'Hara, to take the matter into consideration. This committee, in due time, reported in favor of the project, and proposed the Fourth of July, 1876, as the day upon which the Congress should begin its sessions. It recommended, also, that the other medical societies of the city should be requested to appoint committees to co-operate with that of the County Society in preparing a plan. At this time, but one other society responded to the request; and the committee soon after, finding that it did not fully represent the profession in the city, extended invitations to several prominent physicians to take part in its deliberations. These invitations were in most instances cordially accepted. The committee, thus increased in numbers and influence,.

organized on the 29th of March, 1875, as "THE CENTENNIAL MEDICAL COMMISSION OF PHILADELPHIA," with the following officers :

It was at this time also decided that the Congress should meet in September, instead of in July, as originally suggested, and that it should continue in session for at least six days. It was, moreover, proposed that the mornings should be devoted to business and to the reading of discourses upon topics of general interest, and that in the afternoons the Congress should meet in Sections for the discussion of scientific questions. After much discussion, it was determined that there should be nine Sections, as follows: (1) A Section on Medicine; (2) A Section on Biology; (3) A Section on Surgery; (4) A Section on Dermatology and Syphilography; (5) A Section on Obstetrics; (6) A Section on Ophthalmology; (7) A Section on Otology; (8) A Section on Sanitary Science; and (9) A Section on Mental Diseases. The Commission further decided that the Sections should meet on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons of the week during which the Congress should be in session; that, on four of these afternoons, the deliberations of each Section should be opened by the reading of a paper upon a subject of scientific interest, by a gentleman specially chosen for that purpose, and that the paper should afterwards be submitted for discussion. The remaining afternoon was to be left free for the reception of voluntary papers. The elaboration of this plan, together with the choice of subjects to be discussed, was left to special committees.

At the meeting of the Commission which was held on the 19th of April, 1875, another and a successful effort was made to secure the co-operation of the other medical societies of the city, all of which appointed committees to

1 The subjects finally chosen for the discourses, with the names of the gentlemen selected to deliver them, were as follows: 1. Medicine and Medical Progress, Dr. AUSTIN FLINT, of New York; 2. Surgery, Dr. PAUL F. EVE, of Tennessee; 3. Obstetrics, Dr. THEOPHILUS PARVIN, of Indiana; 4. Therapeutics, Dr. ALFRED STILLÉ, of Pennsylvania (declined); 5. Medical Jurisprudence, Dr. STANFORD E. CHAILLÉ, of Louisiana; 6. Medical Biography, Dr. JOSEPH M. TONER, of the District of Columbia; 7. Medical Institutions and Education, Dr. N. S. DAVIS, of Illinois; 8. Medical Literature, Dr. L. P. YANDELL, of Kentucky; 9. Hygiene and Social Science, Dr. H. I. BOWDITCH, of Massachusetts; 10. Mental Hygiene, Dr. JOHN P. GRAY, of New York; and 11. Medical Chemistry, Dr. THEO, G. WORMLEY, of Ohio.