Surgical Practice in Bellevue Hospital—Wiring the Fractured Patella—A New Serre-Næud—Charity Hospital Training-School for Nurses—The Antivaccination League—Cremation—A Circulating Library for the Blind.
At the meeting of the Academy of Medicine, on October 15, the paper of the evening, which was a very satisfactory one, was by Dr. Stephen Smith, on "The Comparative Results of Surgical Practice in Bellevue Hospital." He thought that there was perhaps no better place in which to test the progress of practical and operative surgery than the wards of this old institution, since it had within its walls and its immediate environments all the conditions that in modern times are regarded as unhealthful and unsanitary. It was built, he said, between the years 1811 and 1816, on the made lands of East River, without drainage or adequate sewerage, and without regard to ventilation. During nearly three-quarters of a century the sluggish tides have