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preventive prophylactics for plague, cholera, and typhoidfever, and added that the few experiments so farmade showed the treatment to be harmless and promising.It is only fair to say that the bacteriologists who in Belfastare making most careful investigations of oerebro-spinalfever do not accept Dr. Gordon’s views on many points andare sceptical-from their work-of any preventive vaccine orserum being discovered. They have worked direct fromthe cases and ’not from any borrowed strains of themeningococcus. The serum sent from Germany hasbeen shown to be useless both clinically and bylaboratory experiments, and, what is still more peculiar,the blood from cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis inLondon does not react to the meningococcus present in theBelfast epidemic ; and the cases seen in Belfast are, many ofthem, clinically quite different from those which under theterm posterior basic meningitis or cervical opisthotonos ofinfants were supposed to be endemic examples of the disease.It will be interesting to note whether the menirgococcus offuch cases will react to the meningococcus present in theBelfast epidemic. This, of course, goes to suggest that thecoccus on which Dr. Gordon bases his observations is not themeningococcus present in the Belfast epidemic.May 7th.

PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The Work of Port Sanitary Authorities. ]

M. Clemecceau, Minister of the Interior, has recently obtained the signing of a decree by which the rights andduties of port sanitary authorities with respect to vessels iarriving in a port are defined. In future every vesselarriving in a port of France or of Algeria must be visited byan officer of the sanitary authority before communicating withthe shore, and if such officer has reason to suppose that thereis a case of doubtful or febrile illness on board a visit mustalso be made by a medical officer, who will decide whetherthe illness is, or is not, one of those contemplated byArticle 4 of the law of Feb. 15th, 1902, relative to the

protection of the public health. When the medical officerhas decided that the illness is of the former class it will behis duty to see that the regulations of the port sanitaryauthority are carried out with respect both to the vessel andto the persons on board ; he will also invite the municipalityin cooperation with the crew to remove the patients to theisolation hospital, and in carrying out the measures pre-scribed either by the law of 1902 or by the local sanitaryregulations he may have recourse to the services connectedeither with the municipality or the department so far as oneor other of them is respectively concerned.

Com.p,ressed-Air Illness.At a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society held on

April 8th M. Berruyer gave an account of cases of com-pressed-air illness which had occurred among the men

employed in various works in Paris since October, 1905. He

explained that there was a material difference between theill-effects experienced by divers (scaphandriers, plongeurs)and by tubistes or men engaged in subaqueous work, such asthe foundations of bridges. This difference depended on thefact that divers descended to greater depths than were

required for subaqueous constructional work, and further,that the conditions of diving were quite unlike thosein which the tubistes passed into and out of the air-locks (l’éclusage et le deséclusage). The illness affectingthe tubistes was known also as caisson disease. It rarelyoccurred while the men were in the compressed air chambersbut showed itself for the most part either during de-compression or a few hours afterwards and had a directrelation to the rapidity of decompression, the duration ofwhich ought not to be less than three minutes peratmosphere of extra pressure. The most usual symptomswere violent pains in the limbs, particularly in the lowerlimbs, sometimes accompanied by temporary paraplegia.M. Berruyer did not observe any instance of aphasia or worddeafness or any indication of a cerebral lesion. Disorders ofthe gastro-intestinal tract, such as vomiting and obstinateconstipation, were not infrequent. The respiratory organsmight also be involved and cardiac arrhythmia, a symptom

not previously recorded, had been observed on severaloccasions. The illness did not in general exceed 10 or 20days and none of the cases terminated in death orpermanent disablement.

Sad Death of a Medical Man.

Dr. Rabuel, a young medical man practising in Paris, hasjust died in extremely sad circumstances. Having underhis care two patients, a woman and her son, suffering fromdiphtheria, and both of them dangerously ill, he applied hismouth to that of the child and used forcible suction for thepurpose of removing false membrane which was choking thepatient. He then employed the same means for the relief ofthe mother. The condition of both patients improved almostimmediately, but two days afterwards the unfortunatemedical man had to take to his bed and he died from diph-theria in a few hours. He was married two years ago.

The Campaign against Tuberculosis.M. Albert Robin delivered a lecture on April 23rd at the

Academy of Medicine on a very important and compre-hensive scheme for the suppression of tuberculosis and theeconomic measures by which he has been trying to carry itout. His method is in opposition to the costly and incom-plete sanatorium system which swallows up such large sumsof money and can only effect the very hypothetical cureof a small number of tuberculous patients, and consists ofa set of measures to which he has given practical trial inthe anti-tuberculous department that he has establishedat the Beaujon Hospital; these are free consultationsrestricted to indigent persons, the distribution of medi-cines and clothing, educating tuberculous patients and theirrelatives, attending to the hygienic conditions of their homesand surroundings, sending early cases to the country, securingthe admission to the Angicourt Sanatorium of cases likely tobe benefited by treatment there, and giving medical andother aid to its patients after their discharge. It also pro-vides for cooperation with different charitable associations ofthe tuberculous patients of which the department takes chargeand which in return help the patients of the department in theirseveral ways. This comprehensive plan has proved practicablewithout either establishing any new organisation or cost-ing the public funds anything, owing to the great supportwhich it has rEceived from its well-wishers, and it has re-duced the cost of effectively treating a tuberculous patientand looking after his surroundings to 7 francs 27 centimes’per head per annum, whilst the treatment of a single patientin the sanatorium varies in cost between 4 francs and 5 francs90 centimes per day. The general adoption of this system inthe Paris hospitals would admit of the treatment of 30,000

. tuberculous patients a year in this manner and would needat the outside figure an annual sum of 300,000 francs, whichis infinitely less than the enormous estimates required by allthe other plans.

Death of Professor Poirier.

Professor Poirier has just died at the age of 51 years.-

For the last six months he had symptoms which made himfear the presence of gastric cancer, and he had taken

gradually increasing quantities of morphine ; recently he hadbeen submitted to a " morphia cure " at a private institution,but acute failure of the hepatic and renal functions super-

svened and he rapidly died in coma. Professor Cornil per-formed a necropsy and found a small nodule of growth in thehead of the pancreas but nothing in the stomach. The’ late professor succeeded Professor Farabeuf in the chair

of Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine, and he had-

a brilliant career, successively holding the posts ofhospital interne, demonstrator of anatomy, agrégé professor,and surgeon to the hospitals ; for three years he had been a,78 member of the Academy of Medicine. He was a fine worker

y and leaves behind him a treatise on anatomy which is animportant work. His qualities were brilliant and he was a man’ of wide acquaintance and of a charming personality. He

was a representative member of the French medical deputa-s tion which visited London in 1904 and his eloquent speech

on the occasion of the luncheon given by the Editors of

I- THE LANCET will be fresh in the minds of those whod heard him.

May 6th.________________________________________

1 The sum quoted by our correspondent seems surprisingly small.—ED. L.