No abstract

Probably every botanist who has turned his attention to this genus has suspected it to be of more than one species. But those who have attempted to deal with the numerous now extant forms have been baffled in their endeavors to distinguish and define them. In the Synoptical Flora of North America I could do no better than to arrange the forms loosely tinder seven varieties. If I have now done better in the attempted discrimination of five species the credit is largelv due to indications and specimens supplied to me by two western correspondents, Mr. Suksdorf, of Washington Territory, and Prof. L. F. Henderson, of Oregon, to the latter especially in pointing out to me the anomalous character of the form which I have accordingly designated by his name.If the assigned characters hold ouit it will be in good part by their fruits that we shall know them; and fruit is rare in our specimens, so that many of them can only be guessed at, and the value of the present scheme is still to be tested. But present indications point to five species, the principal characters of which are exhibited in the subjoined CLAvIs DODECATHEORUIM.

The problems in otology already solved by otologists are very considerable. If we look back twenty or thirty years and remember how little we knew and what a small amount we could do, even for a case of suppuration of the middle ear, to relieve patients from their ultimate fate, and when we see such cases now treated successfully, both by means of operation and without, we shall appreciate how much advance has been made. We must consider how many lives have been saved, and how frequently hearing has been restored, or at all events improved. This certainly gives us hope for the future. But we have now to consider what difficult problems lie before us. Take the cases unassociated with suppuration or with catarrhal conditions ; how very misty the subject appears to us. We may first try to explain why it is that there is such a sharp line between those cases associated with catarrh or discharge on the one hand, in which we can forecast complications and do something to alleviate, and those case the other hand, concerning which we are still very much in the dark. I think the explanation will be found to be this : With the discoveries of Pasteur and Lister of the influence of microorganisms in producing disease the whole medical profession began at once to turn their energies into that channel. Bacteria received great attention, with the most wonderful results in all branches of medicine. Innumerable investigators sprang up to make a special study of this subject, and we know what remarkable consequences have followed. I t has been said that there is the soal of good even in things evil. I submit that it is equally true that there is the soul of evil even in things good, because this extraordinary development of bacteriology entirely absorbed minds which might otherwise have devoted their attention to other aspects of pathology. Consequently, for many years the tissues and their manner of response to the invading bacteria were practically left out of consideration. The bacteria were considered as everything, the man as nothing. But, obviously, there cannot be disease without an animal-man or other. Disease, after all, is response to injury, whether by toxins of bacteria or other origin, or by chemical or physical agents. Therefore, the outstanding factor is not the organism or the poison, but the tissue that responds. If individuals were exact replicas of each other, then the same disease would always present exactly the same clinical phenomena. Cases of pneumonia would always have the same temperature, and the rise and the crisis would occur on the same day, the same hour. But no two individuals are alike! Consequently, when a poison or an injury affects the tissues we may give the condition a certain name, but it is never in the strict sense the same disease in all.