509

reasonable being expect the whole supply of serum manu-factured at the Pasteur Institute to be given away ?

The Activity of the Paris University.The total number of students inscribed in the various

Faculties of Paris (law, sciences, medicine, &c.) was for the

year 189412,325, as against 11,914 in 1893. The number ofexaminations undergone was 8340 at the Faculty of Medicine,as against 6064 at the Faculty of Law, 8108 at the Facultyof Sciences, 11,000 at the Faculty of Letters, and 1951 atthe School of Pharmacy. The number of readers at the

Library of the Faculty of Medicine was 158,754 and thenumber of volumes lent 275,000. At the School of Pharmacythe corresponding figures were 16,605 and 76,813 respectively.

Paris Sausages and Horsefles7t.The Comité d’Hygiene tells us that an inquiry recently

conducted reveals a greatly increased consumption of horse-flesh in Paris. Thus in 1892 there were killed for this pur-pose in the Paris abattoirs no fewer than 20, 000 horses ; butit must not be supposed that all this horse meat was

sold by the 120 horse butchers found in Paris. The largerportion serves for the manufacture of sausages. Now thesanitary inspection of the abattoirs of Paris is so con-

scientiously conducted that it may safely be said that not aparticle of horseilesh is exposed for sale that has not beencarefully examined by a capable veterinary authority.The increasing popularity of the horse-sausage impelledthe Syndicat de a Charcuterie de Paris to demand acompulsory declaration of the nature of the meat used forthis purpose. But the difficulty was how to distinguishbetween the ehevaline and the ordinary contents of sausages.Now it would appear that, thanks to two German investi-gators, MM. Edelmann and Brautigam, the problem is solved.The meat is thoroughly chopped up and boiled for thirty tosixty minutes in four times its weight of water. The bouillonthus obtained has added to it, after cooling, 5 per cent. ofcommercial nitric acid, and it is then filtered through paper.A few cubic centimetres of the filtered product are pouredinto a test tube, and a few drops of iodised water (saturatedwhile hot) are allowed to flow down the sides of the tube.With the horse bouillon there is formed a violet-red-brownring which is not developed in veal, beef, mutton, pork, dog,or chicken bouillon. The hot saturated solution of iodinemay be advantageously replaced by Gram’s solution, whichyields a more pronounced colouration. The Comite d’Hygienehas, therefore, determined to give satisfaction to the Syndi-cat, and henceforth horse sausages will be labeledaccordingly.

17te Sore-throat of the Menstrual Period.M. Raymond Petit! is disposed to consider the above

curious ailment an outcome of the local activity of the strepto-coccus. He points out that although the prognosis isgenerally good an abscess may develop or erysipelas of theface appear. He recommends the use of antiseptic napkinsdnring menstruation, and would have every menstruatingwoman employ systematically antiseptic gargles and mouthwashes, woman constituting during her genital periods(accouchement, menstruation) a favourable medium for thegrowth of the streptococcus. I may add in support ofhi. Petit’s contention that having recently to attend a youngEnglish girl for sore-throat during the menstrual period Isucceeded in cultivating in serum colonies of the streptococcus,no other micro-organism being present.

Death of Dr. Dujardin-Beaumetz.This morning the largely attended funeral service of the

above well-known physician took place at the ancient churchof St. Germain-des-Pres. This distinguished therapeutistdied on the 15th inst., aged sixty-two, at Beaulieu-sur-Mer(Alpes-Maritimes), where he had gone to recruit his shatteredhealth. I hope to be able to give next week a résumé of hisscientific career.Feb. 19th.

ROME.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

ne Health of Leo XIII.THE issues depending on the Pope’s health are indeed.

momentous; his demise would bring to the front a. questionwhich has lain undisturbed since 1523. That year wasthe last in which a non-Italian Pope sat in the chair of

1 Gazette Hebdomadaire de Médecine et de Chirurgie, Feb. 2nd and 9th

St. Peter ; but for some time it has been seriously considered,in Italy as well as abroad, whether a departure from what isonly consuet,udinary law might not be taken. That a French,an Austrian, or a British cardinal might succeed to the:Pontificate has but to be suggested to open up a battlefieldof international jealousies. With this in prospect the wishthat Leo XIII. may "see the years of Peter " or live to thoseof Pio Nono is sufficiently intelligible and explains the almostfeverish anxiety with which reports as to his health are-scanned and discussed. On Dec. 15th, 1894, I announced inTHE LANCET the precautions taken by Dr. Lapponi inpresence of the catarrhal symptoms under which His.Holiness was labouring. On the 2nd inst. I de-scribed the return of the same symptoms between.Jan. 10th and 16tb, and to-day I resume the thread,,a titoli di cronista, as Italians say. On the 10th inst., aftercelebrating mass in his private chapel before some twentyprivileged persons, His Holiness held no audience, but retiredto the seclusion of his a,partments. He felt weary and wornout, and certainly looked more emaciated than usual. Forsome days previous the catarrhal symptoms, never wholly gotrid of, had become aggravated, and his voice even on the10th was still feeble and hoarse. Shortly before,during the religious function for the anniversary ofPio Nono’s death, his exhaustion was manifest - hischanting the prayers of absolution being scarcely audibleby those at a few paces from him. Dr. Lapponi,is most vigilant as to the heating of the Pontifical apart-ments, and, on finding that the temperature had been raisedabove what His Holiness could bear with comfort, reduced itat once to a less relaxing degree. But with all his vigilanceand authority it seems impossible to restrain the Pope’from over-exertion, mental if not physical. He revels inwork, and keeps in personal touch with high-placed eccle-siastics, Italian and foreign, and with the heads of the variousCatholic congregations ; while even at night he labours

indefatigably in preparing documents for the guidance of hisrepresentatives in the two hemispheres. Such energy dis-played by an octogenarian suffering from senile anaemia andsubject to a catarrhal cachexia increases the responsibility ofhis body physicians and quickens the anxiety of the

diplomatists accredited to the Holy See, knowing as theydo that in the event of the Pope’s decease the fact will bekept undivulged till the cardinals present in Rome have com-pleted certain acts preliminary to the Cocclave—acts prescribed by a secret Bull issued four years ago by Pope Leohimself.

Cold and Famine.The severity of the season has told heavily, particularly Srr,

the rural districts, all through Italy. A fuel famine hasfollowed the food famine, and almost within the gates ofRome have been deaths from sheer cold accelerated by mal-nutrition. At Sambuci in the Sabine country the villagershave been subsisting on herbage and weeds, and even if wholesome food is forthcoming they have no fire with which tocook it. Too wretched and improvident to face any suchvisitation, the adscripti glebae of Italy succumb to their fatewith the helpless, hopeless submission of the fatalist, and, asat Sambuci, leave it to the chance-comer in their neighbour-hood to reveal their misery to the great world. Since theconfiscation of the conventual and monastic houses by theState the charity these used to dole out in their respectivelocalities has had no adequate equivalent, and Parliamentseems too engrossed with its own internecine quarrels, whennot voting subsidies for Abyssinian campaigns, to attend to.the far more pressing duties within its legitimate jurisdiction.Those contrasts are not hopeful for the Italy ot the future,and the apathy of the upper and middle classes of the popu-lation must be replaced by a "sense of citizenship "if thecountry is to assert its claim to be a Great Power.

Death of Dr. Francesco Ziliani.A striking peroonalityhas just left the stage in Dr. Francesco,

Ziliani of Brescia, one of Garibaldi’s Thousand, who withDrs. Ripari ard Bolddni constituted the sanitary corps of the-romantic expedition which liberated the two Sicilies. LikeBertani, the General’s body surgeon, whose Codice Sanitario-has rehabilitated the public health of Italy, he was a manof austere virtue, carrying into public and professional lifethose moral standards to which he had conformed duringthe long years of silent preparation in the study and activeservice in the campaign. Italy is losing rapidly the fewsurvivors of that heroic generation, and Dr. Ziliani’s death on

the 13th inst. makes her all too appreciably a man the poorer.Feb. 17th.