Philadelphia, May 21, 1896.
To the Editor:
—My attention has just been called to a passage in Dr. W. E. Owen's excellent paper on the "General and Special Treatment of Tuberculosis," in your issue of Jan. 11, 1896, which unintentionally of course upon Dr. Owen's part, is liable to be misconstrued into a recommendation by me of a certain instrument mentioned in the paper, Dr. Hawley's "pneumatic dilator." This apparatus may be capable of doing all that is said, but as I have never seen or used it, I can have no opinion about it specially worth expressing. The passage referred to is on page 67 and reads as follows: "By it [the aforesaid apparatus] the cardio-vascular and the pulmonary capacities are greatly increased, and to use the words of Solis-Cohen, 'resulting in increased function, increased elimination of waste products of function; with increased buoyancy of spirits which is no