March, 1897. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press.
We find ample excuse for the lato: appearance of the journal.in the fact that it has had to come out under the supervision of anew editor, that the charts, etc., embodied in the work mist have taken time for reproduction, and also that the writers the editor necessarily depends on' for contri-Dutions are mostly overworked men. It is a noteworthy fact that only a small proportion of the medical missionaries have sup-ied material for the journal from its start. in the President's address which opens the quarterly before us, he points out that Of about three hundred and fifteen articles, written by one hundred and thirteen authors for the ten volumes of our journal, tone hundred and twenty-seven of them, or more than one-third were written by eight persons, and more than two-thirds of all the articles were written by. thirty-four writers. Or in other words, eight persons contributed more than one-third, twenty-six the second third and seventy-nine the other third.. This will be seen to be out of all Proper proportion to. our membership and ability."
Considering the circumstances, therefore, the editor, Dr. Stuart, is to be congratulated on the excellent namber Just issued. - One or two flaws. strike us on first perusal. The qualification of the medical man who supplies. two contributions has been omitted; then, in the President's address there is an occasional exclusion of the Indies, Each member is more than once enjoined to do his share, a0 what about the Indy doctors. who we suppose are members jr. Christie supplies two short artletes on Peripleuritic abscess and Atresia the last paragraph of the former attic ho refers to the etidlogy of the disaas being obscure. Unfortunately he had been unable to watch any-cases from the commencement, the majority. coming under treatment after the abscesses had burst and the condition become aggravated by the application of irritating native plasters. He adds:—"'My own opinion is that, although the patients do not them-solves attribute the disease to strain, the carrying of heavy loads suspended to the bamboo pole, already referred to, has a Jango share in its causation. All the cases T have seen wore mon of the working class, and this is the: universal method in'Manchuria of carrying heavy burdens."
Dentists are supposed to be busy-men—requiring to 'a "hand to-mouth" living. We are glad therefore to seo Dr. Ivy contributing some particulars regarding wisdom teeth. He says:—From my own observation I should say that wisdom teeth are more constant in appearance, more normal in shape and less predisposed to decay in the Chinese than in the foreigner. Out of fifty natives varying in age from eighteen to forty, I found twelve who had never developed any wisdom teeth thirty-four having these organs fully developed, undecayed and of good structure, and four having lost them. Taking the same number of foreigners, Europeans and Americans about the same ages, I found eighteen in whom they had never erupted, twenty-three had already had them operated on by a dentist, either filled or extracted, the remainder (nine) had them fully developed and in good condition."
He adds:—'* The increasing contraction of the jaws in the higher civilised races is doubtless a factor in the gradual. suppress sion-of the wisdom teeth, for all anthropologists have observed that the jaw of animals is larger in proportion to the cranium than that of man, and the jaw of savage races is larger than that of ci races. With imerease in the capacity of the brain case there seems to be a decrease in the size of the maxilla. The substitution of food which requires but little exercise and power of the muscles of mastication will in a long series of generations at least diminish the size of the jaws. The evolution of food is now going on, with regard to the race, without regard to the intellectual development of the individual. But the cause of the degeneracy of the wisdom teeth and maxilla is found in their This cause has been transmitted with increasing force to succeeding generations, for it is a recognised fact that the posterior dental portion of the jaws is always shortened in civilised races, which shortening may be attributed to civilised mankind habitually feeding on soft, cooked food, and thus using the jaw less."
Dr. E. WW. von Tunzelmann contributes evaluable and well illustrated article on.
"non-malarial remittent fever and its heematozoon." In connection with this and the selected article by Dr. Thayer on the clinical value of Ehrlich's methods of examination of the blood, it is interesting to note the growing importance of the clinical and diagnostic value of blood examination.
The department of Medical and Surgical progress occupies thirty-four double-co-Tumned pages and is fully up to date. Evangelistic and other debs tain much interesting matte editorial notes from the preliminary ''bow" to the scholarly discussion of anatomical terms show how well Dr. Stuart is fitted for the task he has undertaken.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.