HIS journal, being of a humorous nature, seems a proper medium in which to discuss a subject which has its serious side also. Quite frequently, perhaps regularly, I have received clinical case records, more or less interesting. A footnote explains that these records are published weekly at a price which might be attractive to those interested in their tenor, but which is equal to that of quite large professional journals. However, they are also reprinted by the State Department of Health and apparently distributed gratuitously. Also, the U. S. Public Health Service co-operates with the latter in some way not specified, except that it issues through one of its surgeons, a letter emphasizing some points of the clinical report.

Now the question arises as to just why there has been a partnership of a federal service, a state health department, a hospital in another state, why the particular case of fatal congenital syphilis was selected and why I should be favored, gratis, with a communication decidedly outside my line of practice. Being a very modest man, the last question is easily solved: I am simply a unit known momentarily to a clerk who prepared a stencil from a directory list, the stencil taking care of me for the future. This explanation, however, raises other questions: Is the distribution of this and analogous reports gratis? Let us not be too mercenary and inquire, individually, how much we pay for the compliment or how much the medical profession pays and how much is ultimately assessed on the public generally. But the question remains whether the expense borne by the public and by the profession as part of the public, is justified.

As a further indication of my modesty not to boast too much about this virtue, but, having so few others, some little arrogance on this point may be pardonable-I may say that my medical studies and experience have never been such as to give me more than a very rudimentary knowledge of hereditary syphilis, or syphilis of any kind, or even of venereal diseases in general. Thus, I am a good test of the value of this sort of professional education, in estimating whether it is worth the public expense incurred. After careful reading of the pamphlet, the one thing that stands out as a new point of information, is that a skin eruption in hereditary syphilis on the

eleventh day after birth is exceptional and that the earliest symptoms-from the context, implying the eruptioncommonly occur in the second week as well as in the third and fourth, these three weeks accounting for the majority of instances. It is tantalizing, not to be informed on just what day between the eleventh and the fourteenth, the change from a rarity to a common phenomenon takes place. However, my ignorance of the general subject, paradoxically, qualifies me to offer some criticisms of the report, considered as an educational propagandum for the unenlightened. Without in the least implying a therapeutic dissent, the definite prescriptions of mercury with chalk, 1 gr. t. i. d., calomel ointment, and 33 1/3 per cent. argyrol and glycerin, each, for nasal instillation, should be more thoroughly discussed. Either the recipients of educational matter of this sort do not need it or they need more definite instructions in dosage, choice of medication and, especially in regard to whether the best general average treatment is being presented or whether the details are determined by peculiarities of the particular case.

The statement: "February 6 . . . culture from the eye showed staphylococci. February 9 double paracentesis was done. Three days later he was in wretched condition. Two large furuncles developed on the back" leaves one rather in doubt as to what cavities were opened. If the eyes are referred to, the allusion is rather too sketchy to be a safe guide for the inexperienced. From the discussion, apparently prompted by questions from students, it is made plain that the baby died of "erysipelas and the infection, presumably staphylococcus, complicating the congenital syphilis," but one is left in doubt as to whether the staphylococcus infection was independent of the erysipelas or whether the latter is regarded as of staphylococcus nature. I am not attempting a mere criticism of words. Anyone not fairly well versed in the theory of bacteriology would gather the idea that the staphylococcus was the cause of the erysipelas and anyone not thoroughly conversant with laboratory work to date would be in doubt as to whether erysipelas is now regarded as including such infection, either generally or by those giving the clinic. Just who gave the clinic is not definitely stated, but it is definitely stated to have been edited. Otherwise it might be placed in the "dictated but not read" class.

It occasionally happens that one is tempted to discuss a paper remote from his own line of practice on account of some point in which divergent lines coincide. The writer may be pardoned for the somewhat old-fashioned view that a milk and water mixture containing about 12 per cent. of a proprietary starchy food is not exactly appropriate to the third week of life. He may also be pardoned for admitting his own inability and ques tioning the ability of others to diagnose "slight excess of fats, slight to marked excess of soaps" from the examination of faeces, especially when also stated to be microscopically negative. If the examination for fats and soaps was chemic, why not state so and give the

percentages? The form of statement suggests the Schmidt method of inspection of the chemically treated slide mount, which is not conclusive unless very marked.

The letter accompanying the report contains the most banal and trite observations. If it were taken as personal, one might be insulted by its implication of ignorance. If needed by the profession at large, the task of instruction by propaganda may be abandoned as hopeless. What would be more to the point would be compulsory attendance on post graduate schools or revocation of licenses. A. L. BENEDICT, A. M., M. D. Buffalo, N. Y.

In recent years much doubt has been cast on the authenticity of Shakespeare's plays. Mark Twain's work, "Is Shakespeare Dead?" which appeared in England in 1909, says that one can find out nothing about Shakespeare, and presumably for the very good reason that he had no history worth preserving. "Nothing even remotely indicates that he was ever anything more than a distinctly, commonplace person a small trader in a small village that did not regard him as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten all about him before he was cold in his grave."

...

An English writer, Sir Edwin Durning Laurence, in 1910, wrote: "Bacon is Shakespeare." In this work he showed that Shakespeare could not possibly have been the author of the plays that bear his name.

To quote from his pamphlet, "The Shakespeare Myth:" "The Shakespeare myth is now destroyed. Does any educated person of intelligence still believe in the Tar Baby,' the illiterate clown of Stratford, who was totally unable to write a single letter of his own name, and of whom we are told that he could not read a line of print. No book was found in his house, and neither of his daughters could either read or write.

This writer points out that "Shakespeare's name never appeared upon any play until he had been permanently sent away from London, and that his wealth was simply the money-£1,000—given him in order to induce him to incur the risk entailed by allowing his name to appear upon the plays. Such risk was by no means inconsiderable, because Queen Elizabeth was determined to punish the author of Richard the Second."

The plays, he says, show that the author was a man of culture and education, familiar with the classics and with law, and having a most intimate acquaintance with society and Court life.

This description would not apply to William Shakespeare, the petty tradesman, whose only literary output must have been his weekly accounts (sent out by his clerk).

"A careful examination of the First Folio of 'Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies,' 1623, will prove that Bacon signed the plays in very many ways."

He points out numerous cryptograms in "Merry Wives of Windsor," as "Hang hog is latten for Bacon, I warrant you." Again in "King Henry the Fourth," where the second carrier says, "I have a Gammon of Bacon, and two razes of Ginger, to be delivered as farre as Charing-crosse." (Part I, Act II, Scene I.)

SIDNEY HOPE.

T was night. I was fishing for lake trout in one hundred and twenty-five feet of water off Bluff Point, on Lake Keuka. During the afternoon I had carefully examined the main line, and leaders, and gangs, on my Seth Green

rig, and found everything in fine condition. It was nine o'clock when I lighted the gasoline lamp that rests in a socket twenty inches above the gunwale of the boat. It was now eleven o'clock, and not a solitary nibble yet. My watch was out of commission and I had put an alarm clock before me in the back of the boat.

Then he struck. The line was torn from my fingers; I grabbed it again and pulled. As I pulled I realized he had either broken the main line, or was running towards the surface, because I could not feel the weight of the four ounce sinker. I leaned my head over the side of the boat and looked down expecting to see the end. of the broken line, and was just in time to catch a half a cupful of water which he threw in my face as he rocketed out of water and landed with a thump on the top of the lamp. For one instant I saw the single gut leader slide along the top of the round cap on the lamp, and in that instant I realized if it fell between the lamp and the boat, the battle was lost. As he struck the water the leader fell on the outside and the fight

went on.

There was now more than a hundred feet of slack line between him and me, and slack line is just the thing one does not want on a mad trout. As rapidly as possible I pulled in the slack and the instant he felt pressure he broke water again sixty feet away. Then more slack line and he was running madly towards bottom at an angle that would place the line across the bottom of the boat. I had taken one oar out and with the other oar turned the boat around, then the line again under pressure ran freely.

Will he ever stop? The main line was two hundred and fifty feet long, and as I pushed the box out with my foot I glanced in it.. Heavens! Not more than ten feet left. I grabbed the wooden box to which the end of the line was tied expecting to toss it out. Then he stopped running and sulked. If he started away again the chances would be in his favor, for I would be compelled to throw the box overboard, and nothing is so hard to find as a small object on a lake on a dark night.

To add to my troubles the lamp burned dimly, the blow from his tail had broken the gas mantle. Then he chugged. I once saw a trout chug. I was fishing at Crosby on Lake Keuka and hooked a large trout on the top leader, toward the end of the fight he chugged.

I looked over the side of the boat and there in perhaps fifteen feet of water he was backing up and swinging his head from side to side. This motion seems to loosen the hooks more than any other I know of, and trout at that time often escape.

Under pressure he gradually gave way and I pulled him in until I could see the top leader, then he broke water, ran a dozen feet and broke again landing an oar's length from the boat. He seemed to be tiring, but turned and rushed straight to the bottom. With one hundred and twenty-five feet of line in the boat to play on I felt safe. Glancing out I saw a string of large bubbles come to the surface, a sure sign of distress on his part. Then I drew him slowly in, this time I got hold of the top leader.

I have a shelf four inches wide and eighteen inches long running parallel to and flush with the gunwale of the boat, and on this shelf I lay the gangs of hooks with the (Alewive) minnow attached. As the leaders came in I placed the gangs on the shelf with my left hand, laying them from left to right, the main line and balance of leader I let fall in the bottom of the boat.

If a fish ran when half the leaders were in I used to pick up the gangs of hooks with my fingers and throw them out, but a year ago I learned a lesson I shall never forget. An ugly trout was rushing toward bottom and as I reached to pick up the gang he got there first and drove a hook into my thumb to the bone; since then I snap them out with my fingers.

I now had three leaders in (he was on the seventh leader down) when he broke water for the fifth and last time. There he lay a dozen feet away slowly turning from side to side.

If my light would only hold out a few minutes longer, the decision would be against him. Then he righted. himself and swam directly towards me and I realized he intended to pass under the boat. He was swimming in three feet of water and my gaff which lay in its place at my right hand was but two feet long. Grabbing the end of the handle and reaching out well over the side. I jabbed downward until my elbow was in water and

pulled. I hooked him in the belly between the fore-fins and lifted him into the boat. As I rapped him on the head I looked at the clock, it was 11:27. What a beautiful fish! A landlocked salmon weighing ten pounds and measuring seven and three-quarters inches across the square tail.

This was the second trout I had caught in a week that broke water five times, the other was a rainbow trout and weighed five pounds.

I pulled to shore, tied on a new mantle, filled the lamp and went fishing again. When the east was changing from gray to rose I started for camp. I had caught I had caught four more trout that averaged a little more than five pounds each.

After breakfast I slept until ten o'clock and then took the fish to the hotel. I could not get the landlocked trout in the half-bushel basket with the rest of the fish

to I carried him in my hand. As I neared the hotel someone called to me, it proved to be a young doctor (the doctors held a convention at Keuka that week). "Heavens! What a fish!" he exclaimed. "Do you mind if I show him to a friend of mine, a physician?"

He took the trout and went out the back door of the hotel. I waited. Twenty minutes after I looked out the window and there stood the little doctor with the landlocked salmon in one hand its tail curled up on the gravel walk, in the other hand he had a steel fly pole with fly attached to leader, while a few feet way was the friend manipulating a kodak.

Then I thought of the deer heads and elk heads and moose heads I had seen in doctors' offices, and wondered, just wondered.

R. D. 2, Penn Yan, N. Y.

J. D. BUCKLEY.