"Out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer" (Judges V, 14)
Gleanings From the Commonplace Book of a Medical Reader
The subtitle at the masthead of these columns reads "Gleanings From the Commonplace Book." Up to the present these stray observations for the most part have been bound up with the larger sheaves in the form of set pieces, so to speak. There still remains, however, a myriad of items, large and small, lying disconsolately on the pages of the said Commonplace Book. There are necessarily desultory, unrelated, and ephemeral. But some I think deserve to be saved from oblivion and may give a moment's pleasure to the reader.
Sometimes I think that items of this sort are not to be despised. In a sense they are the small change of history. Coming as they do from the chaotic card index of the subconscious, they sometimes bear