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Dermatology is a subject to which the general practitioner probably pays less attention than he does to any other department of medicine, except, perhaps etiology—a fact which is most probably due to the little attention given to the subject in the college courses. Yet our readers may be interested in an analysis of a paper read at the late annnal meeting of the British Medical Asscciation by one of the great masters of dermatology, Dr. P. G. Unna, of Hamburg. For many years there has been a vast amount of discussion as to the absorptive power of the skin, and it is not very long since physiologists carried the day against the balneologists and general practitioners, and proved that the absorptive power of the skin is very limited. But while it has been shown that indifferent salts, applied to the outer skin in the form of ointments, pass into the