ate some material that is necessary to the health of the organism
and is imparted to the blood. That material, whatever it may be, is
termed an "internal secretion." Some of the internal secretions have
turned out to be of singular value medicinally. It is apparently not the
ductless glands alone that furnish internal secretions; the glands that
are provided with ducts and yield a definite and observable product
secrete also a substance (perhaps more than one) which they give up to
the blood.

Prominent among the therapeutic advances of the century is the direct
reduction of the high temperature of sunstroke and certain fevers by the
use of cold. Although foreshadowed by Currie early in the century by his
use of cold affusion in the treatment of scarlet fever, it did not come
into general use until the closing decades. It is employed principally
in typhoid fever, on the theory that a condition of high fever is in
itself a source of danger quite distinct from the other injurious
effects of a febrile disease. On the other hand, the employment of high
degrees of heat has of late been shown to be a potent agency in the
treatment of certain forms of disease, notably in various affections
classed as rheumatic. Applications of very hot air, provided it is
thoroughly dry, are borne without serious discomfort, and their
employment promises to be of greater service in the conditions in which
it is resorted to than that of any other agent.

A revelation in the treatment of heart disease has been effected by the
Bad Nauheim system of effervescent baths and resisted exercises. It is
not only functional disorders of the heart that are relieved, but grave
organic diseases also. Somewhat elaborate explanations of the way in
which the treatment proves beneficial have been given, but they are not
altogether satisfactory.

Thus far we have dealt chiefly with those developments of medicine that
seem to have been the outgrowth of much thought and experiment, but
there was one that can hardly be viewed as other than a happy discovery,
yet it was one that was fraught with unspeakable mitigation of human
suffering, and that wrought a boundless extension of the field of
surgery. It was that of anaesthesia. The first to discover an efficient
surgical anaesthetic was Crawford W. Long, of Georgia. It has been
established that he performed several minor operations with the patient
anaesthetized with sulphuric ether, but he did not proclaim his
d