The means at the command of the physician for the relief of pain now include, not only the general anæsthetics,--chloroform, ether, and nitrous oxide,--but also the hypodermic use of the concentrated alkaloids of opium, belladonna, and other narcotics, and the local use of cocaine; and restful sleep for the weary brain may be obtained by sulphonal, chloral, etc. Some agonizing forms of neuralgic pain are now promptly relieved by the section or excision of a portion of the affected nerve; or it may be forcibly stretched into a condition of innocuous desuetude. Relief to the sufferings of thousands of neurotic women, and of their families and friends, has been produced by the systematic scientific application of the rest cure of Dr. Weir Mitchell. A hundred years ago the medical advertisement which was most prominent in New York and Philadelphia newspapers was one of a remedy for worms. Many symptoms of nervous and digestive troubles in children were in those days wrongly attributed to worms. Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that parasitic diseases derived from animals were in those days much more prevalent in this country than they are to-day. Our knowledge of the mode of origin and development of the tapeworm, the _trichina spiralis_, the liver fluke, and the itch insect has been gained during the nineteenth century. Much the same may be said with regard to the peculiar worm known as _anchylostum_, the cause of Egyptian chlorosis, and of the St. Gothard tunnel disease, although prescriptions for this parasite are found in the Papyrus Ebers, written before the time of Pharaoh.