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and Mr. Henry Lee. One candidate prints twelve testi-monials, another seven, and the third six. We see no

resource for a lay governor but to cancel altogether thenames we have mentioned, and to decide in accordancewith the testimonials that remain. We are greatlyindebted to Mr. Jabez Hogg for furnishing us with thisreductio ad absurdum,; and if he will also tell us in what

way the testimonials will help the lay governors, or whatpurpose they fulfil other than that of very undesirable

advertisements, we shall be indebted to him in a still largermeasure.

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SMALL-POX IN LONDON.

THERE were 157 deaths from small-pox registered inLondon last week, or less by 31 than in the week preceding.The disease continues as fatal as ever in the east districts,and is increasing in the districts south of the Thames. TheRegistrar-General wishes to distinguish in his returns thenumber of deaths occurring among vaccinated and unvac-cinated persons; but the large proportion of cases in whichthe medical certificates do not specify whether vaccinationhas or has not taken place has hitherto prevented him fromdoing so. He has therefore issued a circular to the regis-trars, instructing them to obtain, if possible, the necessaryinformation from death informants, where the medicalcertificate does not give it. The matter is one of greatpublic importance, and we would urge upon medical men inall fatal cases of small-pox coming under their charge, totake a little extra trouble, if necessary, in order to satisfythemselves whether the deceased had been vaccinated or

not, and to state the fact on their certificates. We doubtif ordinary death informants will be able to help the regis-trars much in an inquiry of this kind. It would be pre-mature to attach much importance to the registrationof fewer deaths than in the previous week. The numberof cases reported to the Poor-law Board increases still weekby week. It is most unfortunate that we have not a regis-tration of sickness as well as of deaths. ;

THE SANITARY CONDITION OF MERCHANTSEAMEN.

AMONG the many members whose "out-of-town" lucu-brations have been particularly laborious or specially vo-luminous, Mr. S. Plimsoll, member for Derby, occupies aconspicuous place. He has been occupied for two or threedays lately in descanting to the people of Manchester uponthe condition of our merchant seamen, and the unsea-worthiness of ships, intending to take legislative action onthe subject during next session, and having we supposeas his object in this instance, to arouse the enthusiasm ofinland as well as waterside constituencies. It appears, fromthe report given in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, that hesucceeded in this endeavour passing well, though, to quotethe words of the honourable member, he 11 might not be ableto talk to them like John Bright." Mr. Plimsoll, however,omitted several important points in connexion with his

subject, so that, on the eve of a new session, we take leaveto remind him and those interested in the question, of thesanitary enactments that exist, and those that are requiredto be made, to ensure the safety of our ships at sea, and ofthe crews that man them.

Since the year 1865 reports well authenticated, and factsfully proved, have gone to show that sailors were frequentvictims of scurvy in our sea-going, and of fever in our

coasting vessels, and that unhealthy men signed articles,went to sea, and-to quote from the 11 Ship- Captains’Medical Guide"-" laid up for days, weeks, and months,gave thereby additional labour to the rest of the watch, andeventually took money from the owners that they had in

nowise earned." It was also shown that the diet commonlygiven to sailors was provocative of scurvy, absurdly mono-tonous, and quite as costly as a varied scale of rations; andlastly, overwhelming evidence was recorded, setting forththat the lime- and lemon-juice furnished to the crews ofships was in most cases useless, and in many cases utterlyand entirely worthless. Urged on by countless representa-tions, public, private, and journalistic, the Board of Tradedetermined, in 1867, to bring in a small Bill to remedy someof these evils, and, accordingly, the Merchant Shipping Billwas introduced into the House of Lords, and became lawunder the conduct of the Duke of Richmond.

It is unnecessary in this place to recapitulate the objectsof this Act, because they have been exhaustively set forth

many times in these columns. It suffices to say that theclauses relating to lime- and lemon-juice have worked well,and that scurvy has diminished. But no improvementhas taken place as to the kind of diet given to our sea-men, and no sort of care is taken that healthy hands areshipped. It is notorious that British vessels go to sea

considerably undermanned. It is equally notorious, ac-

cording to Mr. Plimsoll, that they go to sea in an unsea-worthy state. It is therefore our duty to point out to thisgentleman that, in endeavouring to improve the conditionof the mercantile marine of this country, it is necessary, aswe have continually and persistently maintained, to inspectand survey the vital material carried, fully as much as thehull, spars, and gear that constitute the ship. Healthycrews, and proper scales of diet for these crews, are twonecessities of nautical success, and two very importantitems in computing the safety of ships at sea.

DECAPITATION BY HANGING.

AT a meeting of the Surgical Society of Ireland heldon the 20th ult., Mr. Humphrey Minchin, surgeon to theDublin city prisons, exhibited several cervical vertebræ

belonging to a man executed for murder some months sinc&in Dublin, and whose head during the execution was-

wrenched off. On examination there was not found anydislocation, the atlas was intact, but the axis was fractured.A peculiar point in this remarkable case was that the neckwas severed below where the injury to the axis had oc-curred. The quantity of blood which flowed from thehead after the execution was twice as much as that ob-tained from the trunk, which may be explained by theunskilful manner in which the executioner performed hisduty-tying the noose round the unfortunate man’s neckso tightly as to cause great congestion in the cerebralvessels. The carotid arteries, it may be mentioned, beatfor fully five minutes after death, ejecting at stated intervalsa jet of blood. This peculiar termination of the case causedsuch excitement in Dublin that it was investigated, by orderof the Lord Lieutenant, by Drs. Lentaigne and Hatchell,who attributed it, not to the fall of fourteen feet, but tothe badness of the rope, which was incapable of resiliency.

A COTTAGE HOSPITAL FOR SWINDON.

FOLLOWING in the wake of its near Gloucestershire neigh-bour, Cirencester, a proposal to establish a cottage hospitalhas just been discussed at a public meeting in Swindon, butwith a different result, as the inhabitants of the latter townhave affirmed the desirability of such an institution, andhave appointed a committee to take the necessary steps forraising the funds, and the like. Our remarks of last weekrelative to Cirencester apply with equal force to Swindon.Only one of the Swindon practitioners attended the meet-ing, and he holds the post of medical officer of health to thelocal board; the others seem to have been invited to co-

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operate, but gave no sign of their willingness to do so.Much, therefore, as a cottage hospital may be necessary-seeing that at present the nearest available hospital or in-firmary to which a patient from Swindon could be sent is asfar away as Bath,-we should regret to see one establishedthere unless some means can be taken to ensure the co-

operation of all the town practitioners on strictly equalterms. We are glad to observe that the importance of thisconsideration was fully recognised at the meeting; and asat Fairford and other places cottage hospitals are conductedsatisfactorily to all the practitioners whose interests areconcerned, so, we hope, may be the case at Swindon,should the project now on foot be carried out. Either leteach medical man retain the charge of any patient of hiswho may have need to go into the hospital, or else providethat each one shall take his turn in principal charge of thehospital for a year, the rotation being strictly observed, andno extension of term allowed on any consideration. Swindon

appears by the Registrar-General’s Quarterly Return tohave been excessively unhealthy of late; and Dr. Morris,the health officer to the Old Town local board, reported atthe beginning of last December that the mortality duringthe preceding two months had been at the annual rate of46 per 1000. With its fine natural position and other ad-vantages, the Old Town of Swindon ought to be one of thehealthiest places in the kingdom, yet the death-rate justmentioned is far higher than that of our most denselypeopled manufacturing towns.

THE UNITED SERVICE MEDICAL SCHOOL.

WE have every reason to believe that a proposal whichappeared some time ago in this journal as to the advisabilityof establishing a medical school for the medical service ofthe navy, in conjunction with that already existing for thearmy, will be carried into effect. There is little doubt,moreover, that the authorities, not feeling justified in in-curring the great expense that would attend the establish-ment of separate schools for the two services, will utilisethe Netley institution for the purpose. Some slight modi-fications or additions to the present course of study couldeasily be effected, so as to adapt it to the requirements of thenaval medical service. An appointment might be made inthe school for an officer of the naval medical service-forsuch a man as Dr. Macdonald, F.R.S., for example.

DOES REVACCINATION REQUIRE REPETITION?

A CORRESPONDENT asks us if the operation of revaccina-tion is repeated on the nurses of the Small-pox Hospital.The following are Mr. Marson’s words in his article on

Small-pox in " Reynolds’s System of Medicine":—"For justupon thirty years we have revaccinated all the nurses andservants, who had not had small-pox, on their coming tolive at the Small-pox Hospital, and not one of them hascontracted small-pox during their stay there." We haveMr. Marson’s more recent authority for saying that this Iremarkable immunity of the nurses continues. Doubtless it is due not alone to the fact that they are revaccinated, but revaccinated by Mr. Marson. All people cannot be re-vaccinated by Mr. Marson, but they can be revaccinated II,carefully and upon scientific principles-that is to say, withmoist lymph, and plenty of it, in four places. We are in-clined to doubt even Dr. Seaton’s statement on this subject,that even careful revaccination will fail in probably a halfor one-third of the cases; at least, at the present time goodrevaccinations are far more frequently successful than this ’,estimate would imply, and some of them take quite in in- ’Ifantile fashion. i

There is reason to think that vaccination needs not to be ’’,

repeated more than once. But it should be well done.

Nobody should consider that he has been revaccinated

satisfactorily who has, been revaccinated only with drypoints, without results, as seems to be the case with a

large number of the people who say they have been re-vaccinated and ,did not take." Wherever there is anyspecial prevalence of the disease, and any doubt as to theefficiency of the revaccination, there is nothing but wisdomin the repetition of the operation. But if revaccinationhas once been successfully practised in grown-up people, itneed not be repeated.

" DEAD DRUNK."WE have received a report of an inquest that has been

held at Halifax, N.S., on the body of Lawrence Burns, latea private in the 61st Regiment. It appeared that deceasedwas found °‘ dead drunk," and was placed in a cell at 10 P.M.The guard in charge looked into this cell two or three timesin the course of the night; ’but made the first real exam-ination of the prisoner at 5 A.M., when he was found to becold and stiff, having manifestly been dead for some hours.The jury returned the following verdict:-" Death wascaused by the combined effect of alcoholism and asphyxia;and, while the jury can attribute no blame to anyone, theybelieve that a helpless insensible man should not be carriedby the police authorities with his face downwards, as a,

mutinous man is carried, and that he should receive carefulattention from time to time from those who are in charge ofthe men in the prisoners’ cell. The coroner’s jury desire tomake public the following statement: A man who is help-lessly drunk, or what is called ‘dead drunk,’ is in thecondition known to medical men as comatose, has his brainand nervous system blunted, and is unable to feel an in-

jury, or to be conscious of its effects. A man in such a con-dition is liable to die from many causes that would nothave the slightest injurious effects in a state of sensibility?such as the simple act of vomiting ; lying partly on his face,so as to cause a slight obstruction to breathing ; lying in aconstrained position, with his head bent very much for-wards or backwards; a small amount of cold or wet ;-anyof these causes may produce death in such a state. Ittherefore becomes the duty of the military and civil autho-rities to issue such instructions to their police as would setforth in detail the proper management of persons who arehelplessly drunk."We congratulate the inhabitants of Halifax upon the in-

telligence of their jury; and trust that the sound advice

given will be followed by the authorities. In England it toooften happens that 11 dead drunk " means fatal coma fromdisease. It is quite manifest, however, that soldiers or

police are in no case to be trusted with the charge of in-sensible people, and that for such medical advice shouldalways be obtained. It is more than probable that the lifeof poor Lawrence Burns might have been saved; and, inthese days of economy, we may be permitted to remind ourrulers that a trained soldier is worth preserving at thecost of a doctor’s fee.

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" PASSING RICH ON FORTY POUNDS A YEAR."OuR contemporary, the Islington Gazette, which sometimes

ably supports the Poor-law doctors against the shabbinessof the guardians, has an unworthy defence of the fact that,while the guardians give a bandmaster £50 a year for

teaching music to 250 or 300 boys, one day a week, anda chaplain ,850 for attending twice a week, they onlygive the poor doctor C40 per annum for daily visits, dis-pensing, &c. The defence is as curious as it is unworthy.The Islington Gazette states that the said doctor has, bythe grace of the guardians, two other appointments. No-