dition of some of the tissues or fluids of the body. The definite specific poison which, it is alleged, produces a definite specific disease, has no more than a hypothetical existence.

It is not shown, moreover, that the exhalations from decomposing animal and vegetable matter do not produce other deleterious effects than diarrhoea. On the contrary, there are many facts which tend to show that many other morbid conditions besides diarrhoea are caused by the alleged definite specific | poison and that therefore neither the supposed poison nor its alleged effects are definite or specific.

The clinical history of diarrhoea again is not that of a specific disease generated by a specific poison. It affects no particular period of incubation, it exhibits no characteristic prodromata, and has no peculiar sequelæ or complications.

Again it does not propagate itself as true zymotic diseases do. It does not generate a specific contagium which reproduces diarrhoea and nothing else.

It stops suddenly short as a killing disease, at a certain period of existence. Not that absolutely no children die of diarrhoea after a certain period-say after one year of age, but that practically diarrhoea ceases after that age to be destructive, or very prevalent. Is it conceivable that a true zymotic disease should be contagious only as regards children under one year of age, or that a definite specific contagium or poison should only enjoy the right of entry into the human body up to so sharply defined a limit of age? Such an hypothesis is as absurd as the old notions of impotentia versus hanc and sterilitas versus hunc.

Parturient women are well known to be peculiarly prone to receive specific contagia. How is it that diarrhoea does not follow the rule of the zymotics if it be a zymotic?

No number of attacks of diarrhoea again are prophylactic against another, and this is not a general character of the zymotic diseases. It is true that not all such diseases follow this rule, but the major part do, and the facts are therefore at any rate not in favour of the zymotic nature of diarrhoea.

There is no evidence that the exciting cause of diarrhoea is anything more than an irritant. The occurrence then of summer diarrhoea is as explicable on the supposition that it is caused by a simple irritant plus heat, as by a definite specific poison developed from decaying organic matter only at or above a certain temperature. I do not say this is the true doctrine. It is only an hypothesis, but then it is a less complex one than the zymotic hypothesis, and by so much the less to be objected to.

It is not true moreover that the highest mortality from diarrhoea does coincide with the greatest heat. It matters little what may be the heat of May or June-diarrhoea does not become epidemic in these months. July is the hottest month of the year, and the mean temperature of June and July is above that of August and September, but August and September are much more months of diarrhoea than June and July. It is pretty clear then that some other agency or circumstance than heat acting on decomposable organic matter is at work. What that agency or circumstance may be I am not prepared to say. Perhaps it may be duration of high temperature, or some more subtle quality in the heat of August and September which does not attach to the heat of June or July. It is well known that, temperature for temperature, organic matters and especially animal

matters decompose much more rapidly in the later than in the earlier part of summer. Every butcher, poulterer, and fishmonger, knows that flesh taints more rapidly in the autumn or latter summer heat than in early summer, whatever the heat may be. That which is true of dead animals is probably not wholly untrue of the living. Either long continued heat, or something subtler still in the quality of the heat, or some meteorological condition which has as yet eluded observation and identification may engender a crasis or habit of body which favours the irritant action of the poison, not necessarily specific, which excites diarrhoea. We are here once more in the region of hypothesis, but at any rate we are using an hypothesis which is consistent with the analogy of nature, and not a figment of the imagination invented for the purpose of manipulating statistics.

I might continue this argument, gentlemen, until we were all weary. I might remind you that not only has diarrhoea been asserted to be a disease of excrementitious origin but typhoid fever also. And yet one is essentially an urban disease and the other is most prevalent in rural districts. If this be so under conditions of concentration of excrementitious matter so widely different, where is the missing link to connect the two chains of circumstances, which at present seem so disjointed and far apart? I am at a loss to say, and I venture to assert that the nexus is not so easily discoverable as some would have us believe, nor certainly likely to be fished out of an 'olla podrida' of death-returns, which, though nominally classified, are in reality so confused and inaccurate that, however useful they may be for administrative purposes, they are utterly without etiological value.

The conclusions which I desire to draw from all that has gone before are these.

I. That the Registrar General's catalogue of zymotic diseases is drawn up upon too speculative a basis.

2. That it is not expedient to foreclose questions which are really as yet sub judice.

3. That as materials for promoting etiological science the Registrar General's returns are not to be trusted.

4. That for administrative purposes they are invaluable.

5. That the classification of the future must be arranged by the general body of those who devote themselves to sanitary theory and practice.

6. That the official nomenclature hereafter to be agreed upon must be compulsory in making out certificates of the cause of death.

7. That in the meantime the existing system is provisional only, and is chiefly valuable as a means of cataloguing facts with more or less accuracy; principally less.

8. That the system of classification of the future must be a natural system based upon the observed resemblances and affinities of morbid processes and not upon quasi-metaphysical speculations as to the nature of those operations in the arcana of nature which are never likely to become the objects of

sense.

AT a recent meeting of the Liverpool Town Council, a special committee was appointed to consider the condition of the disused churchyards in the town, with a view of rendering them ornamental in appearance and contributory to the health and recreation of the inhabitants.

THE

than one respect, the social life of the inhabitants of our crowded cities and towns; and the evils which result from the present state of things will be intensi

SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1876.

The Editor will be glad to receive, with a view to publication, announcements of meetings, reports of proceedings, and abstracts or originals of papers read before the members of any sanitary or kindred association.

NOXIOUS VAPOURS.

IT is impossible to overrate the importance of the inquiry, which the Government has consented to entrust to a Royal Commission, 'into the working and management of works and manufactories from which sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and ammoniacal and other vapours and gases are given off, to ascertain the effect produced thereby on animal or vegetable life, and to report on the means to be adopted for the prevention of injury thereto, arising from the exhalations of such acids, vapours, and gases.' When, on February 24, a petition was presented to the House of Lords by Lord Winmarleigh from landowners and other inhabitants of the manufacturing districts, praying the Government to introduce legislation to amend the acts relating to noxious vapours, the Duke of Richmond, whilst admitting the importance of the subject, and promising that it should not be lost sight of, said that, considering the number of measures which the Government already had in hand, he could not promise the early introduction of a bill dealing with the subject. No doubt the subject is one that cannot be hastily dealt with. But its importance is so urgent that not a day should have been unnecessarily lost in commencing the investigation which must precede legislation; and it would have been better had the Government set a Commission at work when the question was brought before the House of Lords in February, instead of waiting until the question was, a month later, again brought prominently forward by the Duke of Northumberland. The noble duke at first intended to limit the scope of the proposed inquiry to the manufactures on the banks of the Tyne, but he rightly decided, in view of the fact that complaints of the injuries produced by noxious manufactures came from all parts of the country and referred to works of so many kinds, to propose that the investigation of the subject should be general; for the injury resulting from the noxious vapours emitted from these works is not confined to foliage and vegetation, but concerns the health of great masses of the people.

the speedy attention which it demands. In the discussion which took place in the House of Lords last week on the motion of the Duke of Northumberland for a Royal Commission, the Archbishop of Canterbury touched upon the most important social aspect of this question. His Grace said truly that it must be regarded as 'a great social evil' if the circumstances under which manufactories were conducted were such as to drive away from the neighbourhoods in which these manufactories were situated all the rich people who could afford to live elsewhere, for in this way we should have enormous towns growing up whose inhabitants would be of the poorer class only, and thus there would be a greater distinction existing between the rich and the poor than there is at present. As it is, this distinction is only too widely marked, and its existence is largely due-in fact almost entirely due to the unhealthiness of towns produced not by the mere aggregation of their inhabitants, but by the poisonous fumes given off from their numerous manufactories. The daily workpeople must crowd near their work, for neither their means nor the limited opportunities afforded by their occupations permit them, as a rule, except during very brief periods, to live away from their workshops or breathe any atmosphere except the noxious atmosphere of the factory. Employers on the contrary never, except in cases of the most absolute necessity, live even in the neighbourhood of their unhealthy manufactories. Even when these do not give off poisonous vapours employers choose their residences as far as possible from the crowded homes of their workpeople. But when the air is not only vitiated by the density of the working population, but positively poisoned by noxious fumes, the very visits of employers to their places of business are compressed into the shortest possible space, and thus, of course, the gulf between the rich and poor is widened; and this state of things will necessarily be rendered worse even than it is at present so long as it is recognised that the law is ineffective to prevent not only the continuation but the increase of the evil.

indeed, all of the tolerably well-to-do can live in the remoter suburbs of the metropolis, or at least away from the immediate influence of noxious fumes, and they do avail themselves of the opportunity of doing this. Thanks to the facilities offered by metropolitan railway companies, large numbers of the working classes can also live some little distance from the most crowded parts of the city. But immense numbers cannot do this, and it is for the sake of these that it is imperative something should be done, and that speedily, to abate evils which are rapidly debilitating and destroying our industrial population. And the circumstances of London are, in a greater or less degree, the circumstances of numbers of other towns. We cannot, of course, dispense with the manufactories which give off noxious fumes; but they can at least be made less prejudicial to animal and vegetable life, and this is the point to be attained. In numbers of instances offending manufacturers are utterly careless of consequences, and will prefer to pay sometimes heavy fines levied as damages in actions brought against them, rather than alter their way of conducting their business or conform to regulations already laid down in acts passed in the public interests.

The Duke of Richmond admits that neither the Local Government Board nor local authorities generally can effectually deal with the question; and Mr. Sclater-Booth has practically recognised this by the appointment of one of the officers of his department, Dr. Ballard, to make inquiry in several large towns into the nuisances arising from manufactures and other industries, with especial regard to their effect upon the general health. Dr. Ballard has also been instructed to ascertain, or to endeavour to ascertain, in what way such nuisances can be abated. The inquiry in London has been respecting nitric and sulphuric acid, dip candle, alkali, and salt cake making, soap and bone boiling, chemical manures, and knackeries. At Manchester the inquiry has had reference to chemical manures, soap boiling, alkali making, and dust sifting; at Plymouth, to soap boiling and candle making, etc.; at Devonport, to the preparation of fish oils, etc.; at Wolverhampton, to bone boiling, varnish making, and galvanising works; at Birmingham, to chemical manures; at Warrington, to galvanising works, glass works, and candle making; and at St. Helen's, to alkali and salt cake making, and copper works. The Royal Commission will have the benefit of Dr. Ballard's report when it is completed.

Lord Winmarleigh, who joined in the debate raised on the Duke of Northumberland's motion, mentioned cases which had come under his own notice in which 'whole villages and towns were covered with noxious vapours.' But in these cases it was only the poor who were subjected to the unhealthy influences, for the rich owners of the factories which gave forth the poisonous vapours, as usual, lived away from them. It is, no doubt, the

personal immunity of such employers from such dangers to their health that induces them to defy the law, and hence the special necessity for speedy legislation in the interests of the industrial classes.

On behalf of the Government, the Duke of Richmond objected to the part of the motion moved by the Duke of Northumberland relating to an instruction to the Commission to report upon the legislative measures required to amend the defects of the present state of things, and this clause of the motion was accordingly left out, the remainder being | agreed to.

The only point to consider now is how long will this Royal Commission on noxious vapours take to fully investigate the subject it has to deal with. It is, indeed, a subject of most vital and pressing importance; but, by energetically pursuing their labours, the Commissioners might in a comparatively short time arrive at some conclusions which might suggest the kind of legislative action needed to put an end to the great evils produced by the poisonous emanations from manufacturing works. With four months of the present session_still remaining, there does not seem to be any good reason why the inquiry should not be completed in time for the question to be dealt with this session. This, at least, is a consummation devoutly to be wished, in the interests of the poor and crowded inhabitants of our great towns.

Notes of the Weck.

IT is to be regretted that no comprehensive drainage scheme has yet relieved the sluggish Cam of its filthiness, satisfactory to know, however, that the health of Cambridge and the drainage question remains a question still. It is is very good.

A LADIES Committee in Manchester has caused a circular to be forwarded to all local shopkeepers employing female assistants, urging upon them the propriety of providing seats for their saleswomen when not engaged in serving customers. The document has been approved of by many members of the medical profession.

THE inspectors of factories state that in the half-year ending with October last there were reported to them, under the Factory and Workshop Act, accidents by which 165 persons were killed, 489 had to submit to amputation of the whole or part of a limb, 274 sustained fractures, 243 suffered injuries to the head or face, and 2,136 were otherwise injured to an extent preventing their return to work within forty-eight hours. The total is 165 persons killed and 3,142 injured.

The

THE Rev. A. H. Mackonochie presided at a lecture given last week, in the Drill Hall, St. Alban's, Holborn, by Mr. Buckmaster, who, with the help of one of the Sisters, prepared a number of dishes from materials purchased in Leather Lane, the market for this district. cost of each material and the recipes were written on a large black board. A supper consisting of two soups, haricot beans and bacon, fried haricot beans, stewed haricot beans, bread pudding, potatoes, bacon_dumpling, and herring dumpling, was provided for twenty-five persons at a total cost of 2s. 8d.

Ar a meeting of the Warwick Sanitary Committee, the committee stated in their report that the result of the measures carefully taken by Mr. Pritchard, C.E., was such as to lead them to believe that a sufficient and ample supply of good water might be obtained from the Tagwell springs. The committee further recommended the appointment of Mr. Pritchard as the engineer to carry out the works, in whose skill and ability they had the greatest confidence, and, whom they believed would give them satisfaction, both on the score of efficiency and necessary economy. The report was adopted, and it was imously resolved that Mr. Pritchard be appointed the engineer for carrying out the necessary engineering works.

unan

MR. EDWARD WORTLEY, Ridlington, Uppingham, member of the late Uppingham Sanitary Authority Committee, states that during the last three months the health of the parish has been remarkably good, and he sends a statement of the deaths which have occurred during that period. It is as follows: January 26, Sarah Wilford, 75 years, old age; February 20, Michael Cant, 78 years, old age; February 29, White (infant), twelve hours, convulsions; March 7, Mary Elizabeth Bull, 16 years, pleurisy and consumption. Deaths in the Union House.January 22, George Taylor, 67 years, old age; March 12, Job Brown, 75 years, old age; March 27, Mary Lane, 67 years, old age.

CHOLERA.

THE master of the ship Akbar, of Shoreham, arrived in the Clyde, reports that while the vessel was lying at Sourabaya, the boatswain of the ship, named John Harris, died in the hospital of cholera. Deceased, who was a native of Pembroke, was aged thirty-two years.

THE INSPECTION OF HOSPITALS. THE Local Government Board has received a request, which is of some importance as a precedent, from the Board of Management of the Royal Infirmary, Manchester, to order a medical inspection of the sanitary state of the infirmary. The board has consented to do so, and has deputed Mr. J. Netten Radcliffe to undertake the duty.

THE INCREASE OF LUNACY. IN their last annual report on Hanwell Asylum, the Commissioners of Lunacy state that during the past year 150 patients were discharged, and of that number only fourteen males and fifteen females returned to the asylum not quite cured. When it was considered that the authorities had 250 suicidal cases in that establishment, and not one of them required any very serious interference, it showed that there was a perfect system of kindness and watching on the part of the officers which did them great credit. It was lamentable, however, to know that with all the science and appliances which had been brought to bear upon such cases, that lunacy still continued to increase. The average increase of lunatics was about one a day for every day in the year during the last six years. In Hanwell there were 1,875 lunatics; in Colney Hatch, 2,100; and, when the new asylum at Banstead was completed, it would receive 2,000 more; but, as the total number of lunatics in the county returned by the various parishes amounted to 8,543, it left 2,568 unprovided for. It is a serious question whether or not the increase in lunacy is produced by drunkenness, and by the increase of licensed

inns.

A NEW PROCESS OF PRESERVING MEAT. A NUMBER of gentlemen were invited to meet on the 21st inst. at the Cannon Street Hotel for the purpose of discussing a new process of preserving meat in Australia, calculated to overcome the difficulties hitherto attendant on bringing it to this country in a palatable condition.

The meat itself was afterwards tested at a luncheon

subsequently given which included beef steak à la Texas; steak pie à la Buenos Ayres; steak pudding à la Gipps Land; mutton chops à la Falkland Isle; haricot mutton à la Kuipara, and Irish stew à l'Otago. The viands, without exception, were cooked on the premises, and the chef of the establishment bore willing and spontaneous testimony to their excellence, their nutritious qualities, and the ease with which they were prepared for the table. It is, in fact, fresh meat preserved by a new process. The guests, for the most part, if not the whole, had no personal interest in the matter, and there was an evident intention on the part of the company to judge it solely on its merits. The meats, notwithstanding they had for the most part been brought from the Antipodes, were as ruddy and freshlooking as if they had been purchased that morning in Smithfield or Leadenhall Market, and were quite as appetising, if not more so.

Mr. Eyre briefly explained that the cost of preparation was about Is. 6d. a cwt., and that there was no chemical or deleterious substance used. Its comparative freedom from salt would render the meat invaluable in the Royal Navy and the mercantile marine, while undeniable proof had been obtained that the meat lost none of its nutritive qualities in the process of preservation.

CONFERENCE ON THE SANITARY LAWS.

THE following are the points to be discussed at the forthcoming sanitary conference: 1. Do the existing boundaries of urban and rural districts furnish such a division of the country as enables authorities to exercise their powers and fulfil their obligations, for sanitary and all other purposes of local government, in the most effective manner? 2. What preliminary inquiries, if any, are necessary to determine the question ? and if, ultimately, districts should be reconstructed-a. What principles should govern their reconstitution? b. How can this reconstitution be best carried into effect? 3. Should there be more than one authority within the limits of any one of the boundaries so reconstituted, or should area and authority coincide? and should all authorities be governed by the same sanctions, and be invested with the samepowers? Should new authorities be constituted, and is it desirable to have any intermediate representative local board between sanitary authorities and the Local Government Board? 4. Are the powers already granted to local sanitary authorities in any respect inadequate to fulfil their intention? and should all powers and purposes of local government be vested in, and carried out by, one and the same authority? 5. What, if any, alteration should be made in the incidents of taxation for sanitary purposes, so as to insure that payments should, as nearly as possible, coincide in amount with direct benefits? 6. What officers are essential to good government, and how should they be The conference has been appointed, regulated, and paid:

fixed to take place on May 11 and 12, at the house of the Society of Arts. It will be preceded by a conference of the Society of Arts on the sewage question.

POISONOUS COSMETICS.

AT the meeting of the Academy of Medicine, on April 18, M. Gubler said, that fifteen years ago a somewhat singular fact in a family of Creoles who had lately arrived in Paris, came under his observation. In this family, consisting of from seven to eight persons, every one of them, with the exception of the father, had been attacked by a sort of epidemic disease, which was prevalent in the country whence they came, and several of the younger children had succumbed to the malady. M. Gubler discovered the existence of various symptoms of lead-poisoning in the mother and daughters, and particularly of paralysis of the extensor muscles of the limbs. The patients had previously had violent fits of colic. The ordinary physician of the family had suspected lead poisoning, but he had vainly sought the cause of this evil. One day, one of the girls | having a stye on the eye, asked M. Gubler if she might

apply half the yolk of a hard egg over it, that being a popular remedy in the colonies, to which M. Gubler consented, adding that this remedy was equally popular in France. The next day on his visit, M. Gubler observed, with surprise, that the skin of the girl's eyelid had become perfectly black. He then learned that she, as well as her mother and sister, had the habit of powdering the face with a powder of which great use is made in the town where they lived in the colonies, and of which they also made use to powder all the children. The chemist of the locality manufactured and sold this powder wholesale. M. Gubler requested M. Chevallier to analyse the powder, which was found to be composed of 20 per cent. of white lead. The cause of the supposed epidemic disease was discovered. The chemist was requested to leave off this dangerous branch of trade, which had already unhappily caused the death of a large number of children.

A BOULEVARD FOR NORTH LONDON. ANOTHER important step has been taken in the direction of improving both the appearance and the healthfulness of London. The St. Pancras Vestry have decided to carry out a suggestion for the transformation of one of the thoroughfares in that district into a boulevard. Not very long ago a suggestion was made to the Marylebone Vestry by one of its members, Mr. Harlowe, for making a boulevard of Portland Place, and the subject was specially referred for consideration and report to a committee of the vestry. Shortly afterwards a proposal was made by Mr. Michael Young to the Hackney Vestry for the planting of trees throughout the Hackney district; not, however, in this case in any particular thoroughfare, or with any particular regularity or system, but generally throughout the district, in any vacant spaces, or wherever the presence of trees would be likely to add to the appearance of streets or corners of streets.

But the St. Pancras Vestry, a body not usually foremost in promoting good works, has now outdone both Marylebone and Hackney. It has not merely passed a resolution in favour of the planting within the St. Pancras district, but it has actually ordered to be carried out a very bold and liberal experiment of this kind. The whole of the Camden Road, a thoroughfare three miles in extent, is to be transformed into a boulevard. A little while ago, Mr. John Rahles, a prominent vestryman of St. Pancras, presented to the vestry, on behalf of the inhabitants of the Camden Road, a memorial asking that trees might be planted along the road on both sides of the way. At first, on a reference of the memorial to the Works and General Purposes Committee of the Vestry, a recommendation was adopted by the Committee against the prayer of the memorial. But Mr. Rahles persisted in his endeavours, and, after inviting the View Committee of the Vestry to inspect the road, and to have the proposal for tree-planting explained to them, he brought the subject again before the Vestry, fortified by the favourable opinion of the View Committee. He argued that it would be highly advantageous to the inhabitants of the metropolis if some of its suburbs had their thoroughfares shaded by trees, as in Paris, Brussels, and other cities and towns of the Continent. No one, he very properly remarked, who had visited those places could fail to recognise how much more beautiful they were in appearance, owing to the presence of their trees, than this metropolis. Finally, he showed that there could not be found in London a more appropriate thoroughfare for the trial of the experiment than the Camden Road; for, with its pavements on each side ten feet in width, it made, with its roadway and the forecourts of its houses, a thoroughfare as wide, if not wider, than Northumberland Avenue. The objection that the trees would take up a good deal cf room he met by stating that each tree, and the necessary iron fraine for protecting it, need only occupy a space fifteen inches in diameter.

The sight of Northumberland Avenue appears to have wrought a beneficial change in the feelings of several St.

Pancras vestrymen, who had at first opposed the treeplanting proposals of Mr. Rables, for these gentlemen spoke in favour of the plan for the transformation of the Camden Road into a boulevard when it came on for discussion the second time. Although some slight opposition was offered, the resolution of Mr. Rahles was carried in the end by an overwhelming majority, only five members of the vestry out of the entire body present voting against it. Reference was accordingly made to the surveyor to make the necessary arrangements for carrying the resolution into effect.

We certainly congratulate the St. Pancras Vestry on this result, and we are glad that they have triumphed over the petty consideration relating to the cost of an improvement which will largely add to the healthfulness of the northern suburb of the metropolis. There are, however, many other long and broad metropolitan thoroughfares that would equally with the Camden Road be largely benefited by an extensive planting of trees on both sides of the way. The mind of the average vestryman is unfortunately slow to perceive the, to other minds, obvious advantages of such improvements to our thoroughfares. The transformation of the whole of the Camden Road, however, into a boulevard is a bold experiment, and we must hope that so liberal and sensible an example to the other metropolitan local bodies will not be without its effect.

Special Report.

NOXIOUS VAPOURS IN SCOTLAND. IN view of the forthcoming inquiry by the Royal Commission moved for by the Duke of Northumberland into the subject of noxious vapours or fluids, Mr. Sclater-Booth, President of the Local Government Board, has ordered to be prepared for presentation to Parliament the report of the chief inspector under the Alkali Acts, 1863 and 1874, of his proceedings since the passing of the latter Act. With it is included a report by Dr. Charles Blatherwick to the chief inspector, dated from Glasgow, October, 1875. He reports that there can be no doubt as to the beneficial working of the new Act in Scotland and Ireland. The whole district is busy with additions and improvements; there is more general care shown in conducting the manufactures, and certainly more alertness in remedying evils. One of the most striking benefits of the new Act is the increased facility it affords in stopping a nuisance. Under the old percentage clause relating to muriatic acid, there was some difficulty in establishing an offence, and frequently a difficulty in demonstrating the percentage itself with accuracy. Now, however, he has no hesitation in stopping a work, or part of a work, that is at fault. No doubt, with the concurrence of the chief inspector, legal actions might have been raised in some cases; and, indeed, there are few manufacturers who at one time or other could not have been summoned under the strict letter of the law; but Dr. Blatherwick has preferred using vigilance in stopping evils, and endeavouring to get the manufacturers to establish permanent improvements. This pressure, properly exercised, will, he thinks, probably mature many new discoveries and expediencies which may become undoubted benefits to the public. With regard to the other provisions of the new Act (those relating to sulphur and other gases), he was certainly surprised to find so large an escape. Either from carelessness or want of proper preventive measures, much gas was allowed to pass away. The remedies