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Annotations." Ne quid nimis."

THE METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL SATURDAY.

WE are very glad to see that the promoters of the HospitalSaturday movement in London are hopeful of a greateisuccess than in previous years. This is a most modest

expectation, and we devoutly hope it will not be dis.

appointed. The fact is-and it ought to be very plainlystated-that the Hospital Saturday collection hitherto hasbeen a thoroughly inadequate business. As the annual

offering of the working-men of London to hospitals, fromwhich they and their families derive enormous and almostexclusive benefits, whose doors are always open to themnight and day, the five or six thousand pounds raised by thewage-earning class in the whole year are simply discreditable.We do not mean to blame the working-men themselvesentirely for this, nor do we wish to blame anybody ; butsomebody must be at fault-either the working classes them-selves or the Board of Delegates-for not devising an organi-sation or a scheme whereby more than about five thousandpounds can be extracted from them for this great cause.We are persuaded that such a sum does not in any wayrepresent either their gratitude or their judgment in thematter. A collection on one given day seems to be animperfect way of reaching them. They want the objectbrought home to them more forcibly and more directly, andthey want to be asked for a repeated and even a systematiccontribution. It is ridiculous to think that the working-classes of London, who are capable of so much organisationfor political and economical purposes, are doing eitherthemselves or the hospitals justice by such collections as

have as yet been realised. One glass of beer a day less fora week would make a splendid improvement. The hospitalsare very needy ; some of them have to close many of theirbeds. It is a time for a great effort, and even for somepersonal sacrifice. The Hospital Sunday Fund has this yearexceeded its last year’s subscription by five thousand pounds.We shall be disappointed if the Hospital Saturday Funddoes not do likewise.

____

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF MUSEUMS.

DR. GUNTHER’S address, delivered before the BiologicalSection of the British Association for the Advancement of

Science, will have the effect of calling the attention of the i

public at large to the high value set upon museums as ameans of instruction even by those who are our pioneers inmatters of science and art. A saying that has become triteis almost of necessity true also ; and scarcely a day passesbut each of us has an opportunity of recognising that

" Segnius irritant animos demissa per auremQuam quas sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."

The collection of modern works of art, quasi-technologicalas it is, which was established by the late Prince Consort atSouth Kensington, and which took its origin in the Exhi-bition of 1851, is the most striking example of the solidvalue which a museum may have for a nation at large. Itis not too much to say that in the thirty years which haveelapsed since the first Exhibition we, as a nation, have gonefrom near the bottom to very near the top of the class inmatters of domestic art ; and no one will doubt that thisresult is mainly attributable to the collections at South

Kensington, and to the science and art classes established,as it were, for the purpose of teaching how excellence, suchas is manifest in the articles exhibited in the museum, is aloneattainable. We have conclusively proved that "taste," afaculty which our fathers believed to be the exclusive pro-perty of the French, is more a matter of education than aquestion of in-born national genius.

It is to be hoped that the Biological Museum at SouthKensington, now about to commence its career, will bearfruit as abundantly as has the neighbouring Museum of" Science and Art." As far as the museum itself is concernedthere is every prospect that it will approach perfection.

l Miles of shelves, plenty of light, hundreds of thousands ofspecimens, and men who comprehend the science of arrange.ment and the art of display, are the factors necessary for the

, formation of a museum, and all these factors have converged,

at the Biological Museum of South Kensington. Thecentral hall of the new building is to be devoted to an Index

: Museum, wherein the student may obtain a comprehensivebird’s-eye view, as it were, of the domain of Biology beforecommencing his more detailed explorations in that particularbranch which may most interest him. This should be anessential feature in every museum, and in a museum

devoted to so wide a subject as Biology it is indis-

pensable. It is to be hoped also that no parsimony will beshown in the matter of the library, which Dr. Gunther

rightly insists is a necessity for the new museum. A museumwithout a library is an absurdity, and it is almost in-conceivable that so grand a building, reared at so vastan expense, should not contain an element so absolutelyrequisite for its utility. This omission will cost the nationan addition of about 9100,000, and the library, whenestablished, will probably be in an out-of-the-way corner,instead of in the most accessible spot possible. We shouldlike to know who it is that is really responsible for this blunder,andit would be interesting to be informed of the history of thenew museum, and what kind and what amount of counselwas taken with the scientific advisers (if there be any) of theTreasury before the architect was instructed to set to workat his plans. Some years ago a great railway company builtat a cost of 80,000 a magnificent new station in a largeprovincial town, and it was not till the foundations weredug that it was discovered that no space had been allottedfor a booking-office, and this omission seems to us to be

scarcely less glaring than the omission of the library fromthe Biological Museum at South Kensington. A library isthe very heart of such an establishment, and without onethe new museum can be nothing but a veritable valley ofdry bones. It is to be hoped also that demonstrations andlectures wiil be given in the galleries of the new educationalestablishment, and that, like its sister-museum, it will beinstrumental in furnishing a stimulus to biological studieswhich will be felt throughout the length and breadth of thecountry and will pervade all classes. The Museum ofScience and Art has made us the rivals, if not the superiors,of the French in matters of art. We hope that the Bio-logical Museum will do something to bring us alongside ourGerman brethren in matters of science.

DERMATOLOGY IN AMERICA.

IN our recent comments on the death of the Baron VOD

Hebra, we noticed the marked influence he exerted in en-couraging in America the study of the branch of medicinewhich he made his special field; and a recent notice of thefourth annual meeting of the American DermatologicalAssociation, and the receipt of the Transactions of thethird annual meeting (edited by Dr. R. W. Taylor), induceus to direct attention to the erudite and well-written ad-dress of last year’s President, and to the character of thework in dermatology emanating at present from America.Professor Duhring of Philadelphia took for the subject ofhis address the " Rise of American Dermatology," andtraced in a most interesting way the progress of the studyof this subject from the time when it was "an obscure andneglected branch of medicine " until the present period. Up pto 1836, when the establishment of a special Infirmary forDiseases of the Skin in New York and a delivery of a

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course oi lectures marked the increasing interest in the

subject, notwithstanding the appearance of translations ofthe works of Willan, Bateman, Cazenave and Schedel,and occasional scattered meritorious memoirs, dermatologywas in an utterly neglected state. From this time, how-ever, American students flocked to the world-renowned

Hupital St. Louis, which for some years impressedthe stamp of its teaching on their papers. Therewas an increasing demand for translations of the best

European works, and from 1853 special clinics at thedifferent dispensaries and hospitals were established. It wasat this time that Hebra’s reputation and the growing Schoolof Dermatology at Vienna began to attract the crowds ofAmerican students, who, without neglecting the importanceof the vast material accessible at Paris, now spent most oftheir time at the former city. On their return to the New

World, stimulated by Hebra’s example, imbued with hisspirit, and fortified by his teaching and their devotion to thesubject, these physicians found lectureships and specialclinics gradually constituted for them at almost all the first-rate universities, hospitals, and dispensaries where *l.heycould pursue their work, so that at the present time Americacan look with pride at the numerous band of workers whoare contributing year by year papers of first-rate importanceon Dermatology, and advancing its studies in a thoroughlyscientific spirit. We must especially congratulate ourAmerican brethren on the establishment of a first-class

journal devoted to dermatology, on their complete union,and the harmony with which they work together, as

seen in the foundation of their association and the meet-

ings of the New York Dermatological Society, as also on therecognition of their position by the profession in America asearnest and thorough workers. All this reminds us of theneed for examination of the state of things at home, whichcertainly compares unfavourably with that abroad; for, not-withstanding the important works of Willan, Bateman,Plumbe, Thomson, Wilson, and others, and the recent earnestteaching of Tilbury Fox, the vast material which GreatBritain and her dependencies affords for the study of skindiseases is not well utilised; and there is no union for thefurtherance of work, as seen in America, or as exemplified inthe newly-constituted society, for fostering the study ofdiseases of the eye in this country. We hope the day is notfar distant when in the land of Willan may be seen an earnestband of workers devoting themselves with one accord to thestudy of this branch of medicine.

STATION HOSPITALS IN INDIA.

THE Government of India have for some time past hadunder their consideration the advisability of establishingGeneral Station Hospitals for their troops, British and

Native, instead of the present Regimental ones; and, underinstruction from Government, the Commander-in-Chief hasrecently issued orders authorising the Surgeon-General ofH,11. British Forces in India to introduce the Station Hos-

pital system at certain garrisons in Bengal. It is orderedthat the existing hospital and other buildings are invariablyto be made use of, the present empty condition of the IndianExchequer forbidding any present outlay for new works.We cannot but express our satisfaction at this contemplatedchange in the organisation of our military hospitals inIndia. Whatever may be the divergence of opinionamongst military men as to the relative merits of the

Regimental or the Station Hospital systems, there can beno doubt that as the latter has now for several years been

successfully worked at home, and in all parts of the globeexcept India, that country should be brought into unison, sofar as climate and general surroundings permit, with thehospital arrangements that are ordered for the Army gene-rally. The introduction of the Station Hospital system will

effect a considerable saving in medical establishments gene-rally, not only in the cadre of the medical officers detailedfor duty in India, but in medical subordinates, hospitalservants and attendants, surgical instruments, medical stores,clothing and equipment. It is patent that the aggregation ofthe sick into one or two buildings, instead of being spreadout into the numerous small units of Regimental hospitals,must conduce to a large financial economy; and if the detailsof organisation are carefully and judiciously worked out bythe responsible head of the Medical Service in India, therecan be no reason why the Indian military hospitals shouldnot, both for the comfort and care of the sick, be as success-ful as are our own in England. In Afghanistan GeneralField Hospitals have been adopted from the commencement ofthe campaign, and with signal benefit; so that the system,tried in time of war, and with all the disadvantages of sucha climate and country as Afghanistan, should readily proveits superiority when introduced under more favourable con-ditions.

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OIL OF EUCALYPTUS.

IN the Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift, No. 30,Dr. Siegen of Deutz narrates some of the results he hasobtained from the use of the oil of Eucalyptus globulus inantiseptic surgery. He was induced to experiment with itat the suggestion of Professor Binz, and since 1872 hascarried on his investigations of its antiseptic properties. He

prepares the solution of the oil by dissolving three grammesin fifteen grammes of alcohol, and diluting with 150 grammesof water. In this solution he soaks ordinary gauze. This

dressing is applied in the wet state, covered with the usualgutta-percha tissue, and the whole kept in position by meansof gauze bandages. Thus prepared, the eucalyptus gauzedoes not appear to irritate or produce eczema upon evensensitive skin, and is perfectly antiseptic.In one case of a child with caseous glands of the neck

Dr. Siegen operated-first dipping the instruments in a 2per cent. solution of the oil and washing the surfaces withthe same-by scooping out the contents, draining, and apply-ing a wet eucalyptus dressing as above described. Althoughthe spray was not used in this case, the discharges whichhad penetrated the gauze were quite sweet upon the thirdday. The slight amount of pus remained odourless, and onthe eighth day the cavities had contracted and healed. Ina second case, of a child with right genu valgum, he removeda wedge-shaped portion of the tibia, and after fracture of thefibula and proper adjustment of the bone, dressed with

eucalyptus gauze, using the thymol spray. The bone woundhealed forthwith, and on the tenth day after the operationonly a superficial strip of granulations remained.In a child with purulent inflammation of the elbow-joint

and fistulous openings, Dr. Siegen performed resection ofthe joint under the thymol spray, and after washing outthe wound with an 8 per cent. solution of chloride of zinc,dressed with thymol. The discharges from the wound re-mained, however, still offensive and profuse, whereupon hechanged to eucalyptus dressings, having in the first placewashed the surfaces with a 1 per cent. solution of perman-ganate of potash. After the first dressing the secretion ofoffensive pus ceased, and the wound rapidly healed.His fourth case reported was an abscess of the knee, which

was similarly treated, and with equally favourable results.Dr. Siegen’s experience has taught him that a 5 per

cent. solution of oil of eucalyptus may be employed withoutany drawbacks. Dressings prepared with this solution maybe left undisturbed for four or five days, whilst the 2 percent. solution dressings remain aseptic for three days.Dr. Siegen’s researches confirm those of Schulz, published

in the Centralblatt f. Chirurgie, 1880, No. 4, on the useoil of eucalyptus in antiseptic surgery.

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MEDICAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

IT is very gratifying to see in the United States indica-tions of dissatisfaction with the low and lax requirementsof many of the schools, which in number exceed any-thing we have to complain of. Every State has severalmedical schools and boards. The period of education isshort, and the examinations are of most various degrees ofefficiency ; there is not, as with us, any uniform require-ment that the student, before commencing medical studies,shall have passed an examination in preliminary education.But many schools lately have made it a condition of admis-sion that entrants must pass such an examination, and theydeserve great praise for making such a stand. This stepmay temporarily reduce the number of their students, butthe permanent effect must be advantageous. It would be

exceedingly desirable to have published annually a list ofthose schools which require a preliminary education, andthose which do not. Amongst those which do we maymention Bellevue College, New York, the Harvard Univer-sity, and the Michigan Medical College. There is a dispo-sition not only to secure that entrants into the professionshall have the necessary mental qualifications, but also to

extend the period of medical study, which in many of theschools is very short. We would impress on the friendsof sound medical education in the States the urgentnecessity of reducing the number of competing schools andboards. If this cannot be done, the only other remedy of agreat evil will be the creation of an Association of collegeswhich make medical education and examination a serious

business, and from which all loosely conducted institutionsshould be excluded. There is already an association withthis object, but we should be glad to know to what extentit has succeeded.

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FCETAL ENDOCARDITIS.

THE recognition of foetal endocarditis during intra-uterinelife is a diagnostic achievement worthy of note. A girl agedseventeen was admitted into Professor Peter’s ward at LaPitie near the end of her pregnancy. An active fcetuscould be felt in the uterus. The double sound of the foetalhead could be heard in the usual situation, but instead ofthe customary tic-tac the first sound was replaced by ablowing murmur, almost immediately succeeded by a sharpsound like the normal second sound, and this was followedby a brief silence. The series was repeated about 130 timesa minute. At first the interne, M. H. Barth (who recordsthe case in La France jll’6dicctle), thought that the murmurwas that described by Naegele as due to the compression ofthe umbilical cord, but its precise limitation to the area inwhich alone the sounds of the foetal heart were heard, andthe absence of any uterine contraction which could causethe compression of the cord, convinced him that the soundmust be due to a lesion of one of the cardiac orifices. Themurmur was again heard next day, when the labour wasactually commencing. The child was born dead, havingapparently died during the last period of labour. The childwas well-formed, and the organs were healthy with the ex-ception of the heart, which was enormously hypertrophied,and seemed alone almost to fill the thoracic cavity. It was

nearly globular in form, the right half being much largerthan the left. The valves on the left side of the heart, andthose of the pulmonary artery, were healthy, but the tri-cuspid valve was the seat of a " plastic vegetative endocar-ditis, the free edge being thickened, covered with projec-tions, and its upper surface being uneven. The chordsetendineae were shortened and thickened, maintaining thevalves in contiguity to the walls of the ventricle, so thatit was impossible for them to fulfil their normal function.The right ventricle was dilated and greatly hypertrophied.The case has a practical lesson. The labour offered no diffi-

culties to which the death of the child could be ascribed,and it was doubtless due to the cardiac lesion. In such a

case, in which foetal endocarditis has been diagnosed, theacceleration of the labour by all possible means is desirable,to afford the child a better chance of life. The mother, itmay be noted, had never suffered from rheumatism, andpresented, in her history, nothing to which the fcetal condi.tion could be ascribed. Whether she had suffered from

syphilis is not noted. -

FEEDING TO LIVE, AND LIVING TO FEED.

THE chemistry and, what may be called, the " phy.siology of food and feeding compose a subject which is,of course, trite to the profession, and has been made almosttedious to the public. Nevertheless, we venture to offer oneur two remarks for general consideration. The points towhich they relate have possibly been overlooked in the atten-tion given to matters which appear to possess claims of

higher importance. First, there is an essential differencebetween appetite and hunger. Appetite is the result or

expression of a number of longings or desires which do notnecessarily indicate a systemic need of nourishment. Mere

appetite may indicate organic need, but, if so, the organ inwhich the requirement exists is the stomach, and it is quiteas likely that the viscus demands the food for its own func-tional purposes, as to pass it on to the system generally.The notion that appetite is a low degree of hunger, andhunger an intensified form of appetite, does not seem to beborne out by facts. The two desires or longings are dif-

: ferent in their nature. Appetite is the craving of the

apparatus of taste, and sometimes of the digestive organs;; while hunger is the demand of the organism as a whole

or of some of its parts for food. Use the words appetiteand hunger how we may, there are actually two needs tobe expressed, and much mischief arises from confounding

, them. The one cry for food which we call appetite is anaffair of habit or caprice, and may, for a time at least, be

, stimulated by appealing to the sense of taste, or promoted: by certain cordials and stimulants ; but, looking at the. matter from a physiological point of view, it is difficult to: see what we gain by exciting the organs of digestion to take, food unless the system is in a condition to receive it. TheI rational mode of procedure would seem to be to wait the

expression of a need arising in the system-in short, to look to: hunger rather than appetite as an incentive to the act ofi feeding, instead of exciting the palate and sense organs totake food when we have no organic reason to suppose that: there is an inner need of it. There are certain evil con-

sequences of the civilised mode of feeding by appetite, on thebasis of habit, which it may be useful to point out. First, sepa-

, rating appetite from hunger, and developing it as an inde-pendent sense or function, there naturally springs up a fashion

, of life which may be described as "living to feed." The pur-i veyor of food trades on the tastes and cultivated longings of: the consumer, and the consideration what to eat and what to

drink comes to occupy a place in the self-consciousness whichit was probably not intended to fill, and in so far as this isthe case man is more animal, and less spiritual and intellec-

: tual, than he ought to be ; although it may be conceded. that the refined taste of the cultivated nature is less offensive

than the simple voracity of the savage. There are somewho contend that man is the gainer by the development 01his appetite. If this be so, the gain is a good not unmixedwith evil. Another drawback is, that by severing appetitefrom hunger we lose the indication of quantity which naturegives with her orders for food. The man who eats a regu-

, lated number of meals daily with a duly stimulated andorganised habit, probably eats much more in the twenty-fourhours than his system requires, or the organism as a whole isconstituted to deal with. The orgaus of digestion and

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assimilation are overworked, and hence, doubtless, many ofthe most troublesome diseases. A glance at any table

showing the length of time which the commonest articles offood take to digest will show that the fashionable stomachcan scarcely ever be empty. Again, so much solid foodbeing taken, or, which amounts to the same thing, small

quantities of food being deposited in the stomach so fre-quently, an artificial system of "flushing" becomes necessary,and a considerable amount of fluid is "required," not becausethe system needs water-which is the only liquid it actuallyappropriates, let us dose it with what we may,-but becausethe apparatus of digestion cannot perform the task imposedupon it except by the aid of fluid to moisten its surface andfree the mechanical reservoirs from the débris of food withwhich they are encrusted. Moreover, this artificial appetitetends to the amplification of bulk in respect to food. Thequan-tity of each description of food taken is diminished, becausethe meal is subdivided to suit the taste ; but the total bulkis increased. We do not say the weight of food consumedis greater, but its substance is extended by the multiplica-tion of dishes and sauces, so that the points of contact-thestimulating superficies of the food, so to say-are extended.Itshould not be forgotten that hunger is the natural expressionof organic need; while appetite may be, and generally is, thepampered product of cultivated modes and habits of exist-ence. Appetite in its development tends to living to feed,while with the guide of hunger a man only feeds to live.

A CONSTANT BATH TREATMENT OF FEVER.

DR. REISS, of Berlin, has proposed the employment of thebath in the treatment of typhoid and other febrile diseases,in a somewhat novel form. The antipyretic effect of briefand powerful refrigeration is often transient, and at the heightof the disease hourly or half-hourly baths have to be em-

ployed. It is proposed, therefore, to employ a continuous butslighter refrigerating agent-namely, to keep the patient con-stantly in a bath of lukewarm water. A temperature of 88°has been found the most convenient. The use of such baths

obviously prevents considerable practical difficulties, whichare, however, not insurmountable. The patient should lie ina sheet suspended, hammock-like, within the bath, and whenthe first inconveniencies are over the patients enjoy it, andcan be kept in it for a whole day or several days. Dr. Reisshas tried the method in forty-eight cases of typhoid (besidesone incompletely treated case). It was used only in pro-nounced cases, for the most part in the early stage, the bathbeing commenced at from the third to the twelth day. The

temperature was taken every one or two hours, in either therectum or axilla. As a rule the bath was continued withoutintermission for the first twenty four hours, unless the fall oftemperature was too great. After the second day the rulewas followed to take the patient from the bath wheneverthe rectal temperature was below 99’2°, and to reimmersewhenever the temperature rose above 101 5° F. The resultsare said to be strikingly good. With the exception of somevery obstinate cases, the temperature fell quickly in the bathso as to reach the normal in from twelve to twenty-fourhours. On removal, the temperature rose rapidly in theearlier stages of the disease, more slowly in the later

periods, so that the intervals between successive baths wereat first short and afterwards gradually lengthened. Inobstinate cases, in which the bath at 88° F. did not reducethe temperature below 102°, transient cooler baths were em-ployed to keep the temperature down.In forty-two cases available for comparison, the duration

of the hath-treatment varied between seven and thirty-eightdays, and was, on an average, 18’2 days. Of the forty-eightcases, three died, giving a mortality of 6-2 per cent. In twoof these there was pneumonia. The latter fact seems to

suggest that this method is not free from the danger of occa-

sionally doing harm, but the influence of the bath on theother symptoms of the disease is said to have been not un-favourable. The pulse remains frequent, contrasting withthe depressed temperature, but it often improves in quality.The most favourable effect is produced upon the cerebral

symptoms, somnolence or delirium rapidly ceasing. Anysevere pulmonary or intestinal symptoms were absent in

most of the cases. ____

ACTION FOR RECOVERY OF SURGICAL CHARGESIN SCOTLAND.

THE Dundee Courier of August 25th gives a good accountof an action for recovery of charges by Dr. McCallum, ofSt. Martin’s, in the case of a patient who had sprained herwrist. The patient, being impatient, went off to one ofthose persons who are apt at discovering fractures and dis-locations which have no existence. He diagnosed " disloca-tion," and the patient declined to pay the charges of Dr.McCallum on the ground that he had misunderstood thecase and had charged too high. Dr. McCallum showed his

respect for his own diagnosis and treatment, as well as hischarges, by taking the matter into the Sheriff’s Court. Byconsent of parties the Court remitted the case for report toDr. Bramwell, of Perth, who made an able statement ofit, and entirely confirmed Dr. McCallum’s diagnosis andcharges. The Sheriff, of course, decreed for the sum claimedwith expenses. The procedure is altogether worthy of con.sideration and imitation. If County Court judges would,with consent of parties, oftener refer to practitioners ofstanding, and be guided by their decision, much time andmoney and good feeling would be saved.

CHOLERA IN INDIA.

WE regret to find by our letters from India received by thelast mail that cholera has made its appearance in severalstations in Bengal and the North-West provinces. In Luck-now the 13th Hussars and Royal Artillery had severalfatal cases in the last week in July. At Moradabad the2nd Queen’s have also had a few cases, though of a mildertype ; while at Allahabad the 2nd Batt. 22nd Regt. hassuffered somewhat more severely, losing ten men and anofficer (Dr. Noad, whose death is referred to elsewhere)in a few days. In the Punjab, cholera has also ap.peared at Peshawur, at Tangi in the Peshawur Valley,and at one or two places in the Khyber. We sincerelytrust the troops returning to India from Cabul by thisroute will not again experience such a severe epidemic aswas encountered last year, and which decimated some of ourfinest regiments, notably the 10th Hussars and 4th Battal-lion Rifle Brigade, whose losses between Jellalabad and AliMusjid were terribly heavy.

PEROXIDE OF HYDROGEN AS AN ANTISEPTIC.

OUR attention has been drawn to an omission in anarticle which appeared in our last number on " The In-fluence of Peroxide of Hydrogen on Fermentation," bywhich an apparent injustice was unwittingly done to adistinguished English observer. In noticing the recent re-searches of M. Regnard on this subject the prior investiga-tions of Dr. B. W. Richardson on the antiseptic propertiesof the peroxide should have been referred to. As early as1858, we believe, Dr. Richardson called attention to this

quality of the gas; and two years ago, in the Cantor

Lectures, delivered before the Society of Arts, he dealtvery fully with the question of oxygen and peroxide of

hydrogen as preventers of putrefaction. A single extractfrom Lecture IV. of the series will suffice as an example :—

" I took a strong bottle with a thick neck, placed in itmuscle of beef, and charged it with ordinary oxygen gas.Then I put into the bottle a measured quantity of solution

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of peroxide of hydrogen, introduced the fluid in such a waythat it did not come into contact with the meat untila cork was inserted into the neck of the bottle and tied

down, after the manner of the cork of a soda-water bottle.The bottle was then turned until a portion of the meatcame in contact with the solution of peroxide. Withthat contact there was rapid evolution of oxygen, and apressure of gas equal to three atmospheres was produced.In this condition small specimens of beef were preservedthrough the return voyage [to Rio Janeiro and back] andcame home in a state of excellent preservation." "

THE DEMAND FOR THE APOTHECARIES’LICENCE.

MR. BRADFORD, in the evidence which he intended to havegiven before the Select Committee of the House of Commons,naturally made a point of the fact that the licence of theApothecaries’ Society is still in much demand. It becomes

interesting to know whether the demand is an increasingor a decreasing one. In answer to our request, Mr. Bradfordhas kindly furnished us with the following data, givingthe average number of persons who, in three successive

decades, have taken annually the licence of the Society :-

Making allowance for increase of population, it appearsfrom these figures that the demand for the licence is con-siderably on the decrease. --

THE CANAL BOATS ACT.

MR. GEORGE SMITH, of Coalville, is still dissatisfied withthe working of the Canal Boats Act of 1877. In a letter toThe Times he complains that the measure is in many placeslittle more than a dead letter, though in others it is workingsatisfactorily. On a visit to one of the midland registrationdistricts a few weeks since, he found the local inspectordoing his work well, but outside his city boundaries andwithin a radius of six miles, twenty-five to thirty boats couldbe seen unregistered and uninspected, and here overcrowd-ing of both sexes existed as flagrantly as before legislationwas attempted. Mr. Smith recommends that the 5s. regis-tration fee be made an annual payment, that the school-inspector be allowed to enter the boats, and the children’seducation be ensured by the use of a pass-book, similar tothe plan proposed to meet the case of gipsy children.

AN earnest attempt is being made by several influentialinhabitants of Sydney, New South Wales, to establish aHospital Sunday movement in that city. The principalmedical charity there, the Adelaide Hospital, appears, how-ever, to be a purely Government institution, and on thisaccount the proposal has encountered the opposition of theAnglican bishop and others. The advocates of the schemehave now obtained the active co-operation of the mayor(Mr. E. T. Smith) as chairman and treasurer, and this

important accession to their ranks is regarded as an auguryof their success.

THE following paragraph appears in the New York Heraldof the 17th ult. :-" Philadelphia, Pa., Aug. 17th, 1880.John Buchanan, dean of the Eclectic Medical College,’who was under heavy bail for his appearance before theUnited States Court to answer charges of fraudulentlyissuing medical diplomas, ended his career this morning bydrowning."

"

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A DISTINGUISHED service reward of £ 100 per annum hasbeen conferred upon Sir W. M. Muir, M.D., K.C.B.,Director-General of the Army Medical Department.

DR. EDWARD B. SINCLAIR, King’s Professor of Iid

wifery in the Medical School of Trinity College, and

Physician to Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital and illaternitv,has received the honour of knighthood in recognition ofthe public service he has rendered by training soldiers’wives as midwives.

___

WE regret to announce the death from cholera at Allaha.bad, East Indies, on the 31st of July, of Surgeon Hartley J.Noad, A.M.D. Mr. Noad obtained his commission as a

surgeon in the Army in August, 1878, and is the first officerwho has fallen a victim to the cholera epidemic this year.

DR. BATEMAN of Norwich and Dr. Hack Tuke of Londonhave been elected Corresponding Members of the Society ofPsychiatry of St. Petersburg. Dr. Tuke’has also beenelected an Honorary Member of the American Associationof Hospitals for the Insane.

AT the meeting of the Pharmaceutical Conference at

Swansea, on the 25th ult., an address and 500 volumes ofbooks were presented to Professor Attfield.

THE fifty-third annual session of the German Naturalistsand Physicians will take place in Dantzigfrom Sept. 17th tothe 24th of the present year.

Public Health and Poor Law.LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT,

REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH.

Kensington.-Among the reports of Metropolitan medicalofficers of health, Dr. T. Orme Dadfield’s annual reportshave long held quite a special position. They treat notonly of the health and sanitary condition of the particulardistrict, the parish of St. Mary Abbot’s, Kensington, overwhich he exercises sanitary supervision, but of thoeenumerous general questions which concern Kensington incommon with the rest of the metropolis. Hence his reportshave a much wider interest than that which attaches to the

locality to which they primarily refer, and they form singu.larly instructive commentaries on questions relating to thegeneral sanitary administration of the metropolis. The

experience of Kensington is reported not merely in the im-mediate interest of that important district, but it is made toserve as a text illustrative of yet unsatisfied requirements,or for elucidating difficult questions concerning the publichealth of that district and the metropolis at large.Dr. Dadfield’s report for 1879 is now before us. We do

not propose to follow him in the careful analysis he makesof the vital statistics of his district ; neither do we proposeto occupy ourselves with his examination of the causes ofdeath during the year. We shall touch only on a few ofthose questions of more general interest which he takesoccasion to discuss in the course of his report.And, first, with reference to the atmospheric diffusion of

small-pox contagion from the Fulham Small-pox Hospitalinto localities adjacent to the hospital, including placeswithin the parish of Kensington. Dr. Dudfield enters intothis question at considerable length, and is enabled tofurnish additional detailed evidence from previously un-published letters of the medical superintendent, Dr.Makuna, to show that the cases of small-pox which occurredin the localities surrounding the hospital had their originin the ordinary mode of communication of the disease fromcase to case, the assumption that the hospital was concernedin the dissemination being wholly gratuitous. The patientsattacked, it was found, had almost without exception beenvisiting localities where the disease was prevalent, or hadbeen in direct or indirect communication with persons suf-fering from the disease. There seems little doubt, more-