736 THE CLOSURE OF WELLS LIABLE TO POLLUTION.

the Wycombe councillors have but recently taken ad- vantage of the facilities offered by the Infectious I,Diseases ’Notification Act; but certainly suspicion attaches ’,itself to all authorities who are unwilling to make them-selves cognisant of the dangers in their midst, and

perhaps enteric fever may be found to be more or lessendemic in High Wycombe. The town council is said tobe at last bestirring itself in the matter of stopping theleaks in the sewers ; but the amount voted for the purposeis not regarded by all as adequate, and it has yet to beproved that the sewage can be so treated as to afford anyguarantee that pathogenic organisms arriving on the farmmay not retain their virulence until they reach the sub-soil water of Wycombe Marsh. The town councillors are

naturally angry at their affairs being discussed in public, butit is their obvious duty at once to set their house in order ;and it appears from the reports which we have read that apure water-supply for the whole of High Wycombe and forWycombe Marsh is not the least pressing question for theurban and rural district councillors to grapple with.

UNIVERSAL HYPERTRICHOSIS AND PREMATUREMENSTRUATION IN A CHILD.

THE following case, published by Lesser, appears in theJuly number of the -Revite des S‘ciences Midicales. A girl,aged six years, who was not abnormal at birth, showed forthe past two years a remarkable development of hair. The

body, especially in the lower limbs, was covered with hairsmore abundantly than in a very hairy man. The pubichairs were more developed -than in many adult females.There were whiskers on the face. The hair of the

’head was normal. Menstruation began at the age of

three ; it lasted six or seven days, and was profuse. In the

following eighteen months it reappeared eight or nine timesat almost regular intervals, and then ceased. The intel’’ligence was advanced in a corresponding degree. The child’sparents and elder brothers and sisters had normal develop-ment of hair, but two brothers, aged sixteen and twelveyears, and next in age, had precocious beards. We mayDirect attention to one point. The case shows somethingmore than precocious sexual development in the case of

the hair. There is also production of male characteristics.Now, curiously, in the adult female this event is also asso-ciated with abnormal conditions of the genital organs.

THE SPAS OF SPAIN.

, SpAlx possesses many mineral springs, but very few of

them are at all well known in other countries. Amongstthe few exceptions may be reckoned some aperient waters,the sulphurous springs of Panticosa in the Pyrenees near theFrench frontier, and also the alkaline waters of Vidago,termed the Spanish Vichy." From the official statistics

published by the Spanish Government it appears that the, total number of establishments is 169, and that they arescattered over forty-three different provinces. The total

. number of springs is 443, and those of Alhama (Zaragoz a),Alhama Nuevo (Granada), and Fitero Nuevo (Navarra)yield the most copious supply of water. Amongst the, hottest springs are those of Caldas de Montbuy in Barce-lona (122° to 158° F.) and Archena in Murcia (131° F.).The spa of Panticosa in Huesca has the loftiest position,being about 5600 English feet above sea-level and nearly

rivalling St. Moritz in altitude. Amongst strong sulphatedwaters the Spanish sources of Rubinat, Carabana, andVillacabras are tolerably well-known in other parts of Europe,

. especially in France; the aperient water of La Margarita,Loeches (Province of Madrid) is widely known in Spain, andis sold in bottles everywhere. The annual number of visitors

1 La Gaceta de Madrid, May 8th, 1897.

is nearly 2500 at Caldas-de-Oviedo and at Montemayor(Caceres) ; some other spas, as Archena, attract considerablymore. The greater proportion of the springs can be classedin either the common salt, simple thermal, or sulphurousgroups.

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THE SPECIAL CANADIAN SUPPLEMENT TOTHE LANCET.

SOME copies of the Special Canadian Supplement to THELANCET produced, printed, and published in Montreal on

Sept. 3rd on the occasion of the meeting of the British

Medical Association in Canada have reached us by the lastmail. Such a publication is, we venture to think, a new

departure in medical journalism. The supplement appears asa journal of forty eight pages and contains the addresses ofDr. Roddick, Dr. Osler, and Mr. Mitchell Banks, a leadingarticle, and editorial notes and comments upon the pro-ceedings of the meeting, together with a (necessarilybrief) report of the proceedings in the different sections.

THE CLOSURE OF WELLS LIABLE TOPOLLUTION.

THE interpretation which the law usually places upon theprovisions of Section 70 of the Pablic Health Act is far fromsatisfactory to the medical officers of health, who, in spiteof a well being in a most dangerous environment, may beunable to effect its closure unless the water from it can bedemonstrated by analysis to be polluted. That liability topollution is a far more important point than the result ofchemical or bacteriological examination is admitted byevery epidemiologist, but, as a matter of practice, a givencase must, as a rule, stand or fall according to the finding ofthe chemist at any given time. The decisions of the law

have, however, a way of being modified in a remark-able manner, and when a legal position is obviouslyopposed to what may be called the common sense

view the law tends to place an interpretation uponwords and sentences in keeping with the spirit of the

moment. This point was illustrated in an interesting fashionby a decision arrived at recently at the St. Albans divisional

sessions, when the St. Albans rural district council soughtclosure orders against twenty-three owners of wells in theBowling-alley, Harpenden. The contention of the councilwas that the whole of the area in which the wells in

question were situated was pervaded by the enteric feverbacillus owing to the fact that the subsoil was permeatedwith infected excreta ; furthermore, it was shown bychemical analysis that the water from the wells pre-sented different degrees of organic pollution, althoughthe wells were all supplied from the same source. Itwas urged, too, that the variations in the analysesduring dry and wet weather showed the wells to beliable to intermittent pollution. For the defence it was

argued that no chemical analyses had been produced, andthat it must be proved before the Court that a well wasactually polluted, and not that it was liable to pollution.The Bench, however, after much deliberation, decided toissue orders for closure, as they considered that the wellsmight prove dangerous in the event of a fresh outbreakof enteric fever taking place. Whatever may be themerits of this decision from a strictly legal stand-

point, no epidemiologist is likely to quarrel with it.A locality where the excrement is placed in one

pervious hole, and the drinking water taken from anotherbut a short distance away, cannot be other than a dangerousone, and if the law does not enable wells which are thussituated to be closed the sooner an alteration is effected thebetter. Dr. Frank Dobbin, the deputy medical officer ofhealth of St. Albans, is to be congratulated upon the

manner in which he supplied the evidence in this case, and