A. M. A. Congress

In Chicago, the American Medical Association opened its annual session. There were diagnostic clinics and exhibits on the Municipal Pier, and the House of Delegates (representative: body) met in the assembly room at the headquarters of the Association on North Dearborn Street.

P: An unusual feature was a demonstration, by the Western Electric Co., of a method enabling 750 physicians at one time to. listen to the heart beats and lung sounds of a patient. Radio tubes and amplifiers were used and the physicians in the audience, using their own stethoscopes applied to the radio ear phones, heard the sounds exactly as they were being heard by the demonstrator.

P: Another unique exhibit (by Dr. Julius H. Hess, Chicago) was a completely equipped station for the care of premature infants. It included am electrically heated handbag for transporting premature babies from distant: points to the station, especially made garments, electrically heated cribs arid safe apparatus for bathing and feeding. Premature twins whose combined weight at birth was three and one-half pounds were brought by these methods to seven pounds each within three months.

P: Every U. S. Government department having to do with health and the health section of the League of Nations exhibited the progress of the past year.

P: In the opening meeting of the House of Delegates, Dr. Olin West, Secretary of the Association, pointed out that there are now more than 90,000 physicians holding membership in the A. M. A., out of a total of 145,000 physicians in the U. S.

P: The Judicial Council of the Association, through its Chairman, Dr.. Malcolm L. Harris, Chicago, attacked the secret division of fees. The report said: "The Judicial Council does not know that the practice of fee-splitting prevails generally to anything like the extent indicated by the letters and rumors that have come to the attention of the Council and which purport to describe the situation in the communities from which these come. Moreover, the Council earnestly hopes that the conditions described as existing in these communities have been exaggerated and overstated. As has been done in former reports, however, the Council wishes to record its condemnation of this pernicious practice wherever it may be found, and to urge component societies and constituent associations to purge their membership of any who wilfully refuse to desist from such practice, the continuance of which can only bring dishonor and reproach on the medical profession."

P: Of particular interest to the public was the report of the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals. It was pointed out that the number of medical schools in the U. S. now represents a normal supply, and is sufficient to meet easily the demands for physicians in the U. S. Eighty per cent of the schools are integral parts of universities. The number of students enrolled during the past year was 17,808, the largest number since 1912, when the higher entrance requirements went into effect generally. The medical schools are still not filled to their maximum capacity. At present there is in the U. S. one physician to every 724 people. In the British Isles there is one physician to every 1,087 people; and just prior to the World War there was in the countries of Middle Europe one physician to every 2,000 to 2,500 people. There seems to be a shortage of physicians in rural districts.

P: At the opening general meeting, Dr. William Allen Pusey, emeritus professor of diseases of the skin in the University of Illinois, was inaugurated, having been made President-elect at the San Francisco session in 1923. In his President's address Dr. Pusey attacked socialization of the medical profession. The ancient responsibility of the profession--treat-ing the sick and injured--rather than reforms by organization, wholesale medical programs and government spoonfeeding, was held up as an ideal. President Coolidge was commended by Dr. Pusey for his "wise statesmanship" in "taking a definite stand against federal support" of a wide range of socialized activities.

The outlook of medicine today rests, as always, on the individual progress and courage of physicians, Dr. Pusey declared. "Carry our discoveries to the utmost limit, man is still a machine that will get out of order, will be injured and will ultimately wear out. As long as this is true there will be need for the personal physician to take care of the individual patient. For this service, thousands of physicians will be needed where hundreds can be usefully employed in research and preventive medicine. These men are on the firing line. The battle for relief of suffering depends on them."

P: Official scientific meetings of physicians, including 16 sections covering all the medical specialties, opened at the Municipal Pier.

Dr. William Allen Pusey, descendant of a family of pioneer Kentuckians, was born in Elizabethtown, Ky., in 1865. His father was a physician. On his mother's side there is another President of the American Medical Association, for her grandfather was also the grandfather of Dr. John T. Hodgen of St. Louis, one of the most famous surgeons of his day, inventor of the Hodgen splint.

Having graduated from Vanderbilt University and from the Medical School of the University of New York City, he took post graduate training at home and abroad, then began practice in Chicago in 1893. He was for many years Professor of Dermatology in the University of Illinois, resigning a few years ago. He was Treasurer of the American Medical Association for eleven years, Chairman of the Section of Cutaneous Diseases of the American Medical Association in 1909; twice President of the Chicago Dermatological Society ; President of the Chicago Medical Society in 1918 and of the American Dermatological Association in 1910.

Dr. Pusey has been a constant contributor to dermatological literature. He was a pioneer in the therapeutic use of X-rays and his book Therapeutic Use of X-rays, published in 1903, covered most of the uses of this agent in treatment that have been found available. His work, as recorded at that time, constituted a landmark in X-ray therapy.

During the War, Dr. Pusey was invited by the Surgeon-General of the army to take charge of venereal and skin diseases in the Army in this country. He it was who devised the prac tical and effective program for the handling of the venereal problem in the Army in the U. S. during the World War.

His chief side interest seems to be colonial history. He has written a book (The Wilderness Road to Kentucky) which embod'es the results of his own researches in determining again and recording the location of that old road.