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among the native population during the four summermonths. This is without doubt partly due to summerheat and partly also due to the low Nile, when drinkingwater, both from the river and from private wells,is much less pure than before and after low Nile. This

year an extensive epidemic of measles, chiefly among thenative children, has raised the death-rate to a terribly highfigure. The normal Cairo death-rate rises gradually from46 per 1000 in May to 51 at this time of year. But this

year it has risen from 70 to 87 per mille per annum, andout of 3403 deaths which have occurred in Cairo during thelast six weeks, no less than 2410 have been in childrenunder five years of age. Out of this number (2410) only285 have been returned as measles, because the nativeswould not dream of returning deaths under that heading,unless the child actually died in the eruptive stage ; butthere were 550 deaths from respiratory diseases, nearly allbroncho-pneumonia, and as many as 955 from diarrhoea,which is a very common sequela of measles here.

Infectious Diseases.Measles is reported also from Fayoum in Middle Egypt,

but as yet only 37 cases, with 4 deaths. Small-pox hasbeen reported from three villages, but has only occasionedfive deaths during six weeks. Five provinces, with a totalnumber of nine villages, have still a few cases of typhusand relapsing fevers, from which there have been fortydeaths in six weeks. Infiuenza appeared in a very oddway about two months ago in Upper Egypt, and has sincethen furnished many temporary victims among the soldiersand civil population between Wady Halfa and Assiout.One body of men 150 strong marched into Korosko inperfect health, and set out again the next day, leavingfifteen men behind in hospital. There have during the lastmonth been a few rare cases of influenza in Cairo, with in-definite symptoms chiefly of the nervous prostration type.The disease has not yet spread to Alexandria, and itsexistence is hardly recognised even in Cairo.

Scarlet Fever in Cairo.

This fever is practically unknown among the natives,and it has been for some years an interesting questionas to how soon the English would introduce it. A few

sporadic cases occur almost every year at Alexandria, wherethere are very many Europeans, and daily intercourse withEurope. In Cairo three cases have occurred in May, and itis believed that these are the first seen since the Englishoccupation. The cases were all mild, the sufferers being ofEnglish nationality.

Griesinger’s Bilious Typhoid Fever,By those who carefully look for it, relapsing fever with

its attendant, spirochaete Obermeieri, may be seen everyspring in the villages near Cairo, but it is still a questionwhether Griesinger’s special form of the disease is ever there.At Alexandria, on the other hand, true typhus fever is wellknown, and the ordinary relapsing fever seldom seen; but itis maintained that fcevrc bilieuse is sometimes present, and that this spring there has been quite an epi-demic of it. It is certain that in the native quartersof the town there have been several hundred cases offever, including some of typhus, not always diagnosed, andvery many patients without eruption, who have beenthought by some of the European doctors to be sufferingfrom "malaria." Excluding all known sources of error,there remain the facts that some fifty cases resemblingrelapsing fever have been treated in the native hospital,and that competent observers, such as Drs. Schiess andKartulis, and a German colleague have invariably failed tofind the pathognomonic spirocbsete, or the malaria parasite.The patients, speaking generally, have fever for six days,none for ten, then a relapse for six days, and occasionally,after ten or twelve more days, a second relapse ; and thecrisis is invariably accompanied by the rapid and typicaldescent of temperature known in relapsing fever. Dr.Kartulishimself caught the disease in April, had seven days’ fever,then a rapid drop from 104° to 968°, with profuse sweating,the ten days without fever, 97° to 98°, then three days’ feveras high again as 105°, a similar crisis, then twelve dayswithout fever, then a second relapse of three days, endedby a critical sweat and dropping of the thermometer from104° to 97° once more. There is nothing in this historyunlike relapsing fever, except that the spirilla could neverbe found. The crisis was not attended by a ravenousappetite, as in some epidemics, and the tongue remained

coated for a longer period than is usual, while every patienbcomplained of great epigastric pain and tenderness, aniabout one-third of them were affected by jaundice andvomiting. During convalescence there were much debility,muscular pains, cramps, and sometimes temporary anaestheticpatches of skin. Patients varied in age from four to sixtyyears, and evidence of contagion was furnished by eighthospital attendants who caught the fever, in addition totwo others-the hospital cook and the post-mortem porter-who died of it.

Tuberculin Injections.Koch’s fluid has been tried on eight lepers, and although

it evidently has some influence, it is too early yet to giveany opinion as regards improvement. Injections are now ;being given at the Alexandria Hospital twice a week,1 milligramme at a time, but doses as large as 200 milli-grammes every two days have been given without badresult. One boy aged ten, with well-marked tubercules on’his face, arms, legs, and feet, is the youngest case I have-seen in Egypt. He is said to be the son of a leprous mothernow dead. Dr. Schiess is injecting twice a week, with dosesvarying from one-fifth to one milligramme, some twenty-five patients with tubercular disease of bones, lungs, or cervical glands, and proposes to continue these small doses iif necessary for a year. He maintains that he has seen no.deaths, no patients made worse by the Koch treatment, andmany considerably improved by it.

, Cairo, June 22nd.

AUSTRALIA.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Murders in Victoria.FOR the last few months there has been quite an epidemic

of murder in Victoria. Every Monday morning of late hasseen an unfortunate on the scaffold, so that the Government,of which Mr. James Munro is the chief, has earned the-unenviable title of the " Hanging Ministry." One of thecriminals lately executed was a Hindoo, who, after beingsentenced, refused to take food, hoping thereby to cheatthe gallows. It was said that the executive held a meetingto consider the advisability of hanging the wretched manright off, but better counsels evidently prevailed, and theprison surgeon kept the prisoner alive by artificial feedinguntil he was led out for execution. But the hanging boomreached its climax last week, when the Ballarat murdererwas put to death. The case presents some features ofinterest for students of mental and forensic science. Last.December a man—Johnston by name-poisoned his fourchildren with prussic acid, shot his wife, and themattempted to destroy himself with arsenic. After recover-ing from the effects of the arsenic he was found to be deaf,dumb, and paralysed, and his trial was postponed fromtime to time to allow him to recover sufficiently to be able-to plead. Eventually, while deaf, dumb, and paraplegic,he was placed on his trial, when be offered no defence, andbeing found guilty was sentenced to death. He maintainedthat he remembered nothing of the tragedy. It was also-proved that he had been a loving father and a kind hus-band, but that he was finanically involved, and it was,

suggested that he committed the tragedy to escape financialdisgrace. There was no plea of insanity put forth at the-trial, and the medical advisers of the Government certifiedthat the prisoner was quite sane. The paralysed condition.of the man excited pity, and the public felt that, althoughsane at the time of the trial, the man must have been madwhen he committed the fearful deed. Petitions for mercywere got up, but the executive was firm, and decided that,the sentence should be carried out. On the night before.the execution two local doctors gained admittance to the>gaol in an informal manner, and certified that Johnstonwas insane. This certification was wired to the Governor-early on the following morning, and Lord Hopetoun.at once granted a respite, which arrived at the--gaol only a few minutes before the time fixed forthe execution. The executive, while concurring in thegovernor’s action, were determined to carry out the law,and they au once appointed a medical commission toexamine the condemned man. After a full and carefulexamination, the commission reported the prisoner to bequite sane. Dr. Yaull, indeed, was of opinion that the

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paraplegia and the other nervous symptoms were not real,but that the case was one of malingering. Acting on thereport of the commission, the executive gave orders for theprisoner’s execution, which was carried out last Monday

:-after a week’s respite. He was carried to the scaffold on a<chair specially made for the purpose, and died protestingthat he remembered nothing of the crime. So ended avery gruesome tragedy.

Vaccination in Melbourne.

Quite a novel method of estimating the number of un-vaccinated infants was recently adopted in Melbourne. Ababy show was being held, at which there were some hun-dreds of exhibits, when the two State medical expertsappeared on the scene, and made a most searching examina-tion of the infants’ arms. They found that one-half ofthose examined had no marks whatever, and the marks om

. the remainder were very unsatisfactory. If the exhibitedbabies are a fair sample of the Victorian infants, it wouldappear that vaccination, although compulsory, is not carriedoat) in a proper manner.

Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney., The exclusion of Irishmen or medical men holding Irish

qualifications from the honorary staff of the Prince AlfredHospital, Sydney, has been a matter of frequent commentof late. This hospital was founded to commemorate thefailure ’of the attempted assassination twenty-three years ’,ago of the Duke of Edinburgh. The would-be assassin wasan imbecile Irishman, and a great deal of political andveligious capital was made out of the affair. The Irishmedical men are naturally very indignant at their exclusionfrom the Prince Alfred Hospital, more especially as atSt. Vincent’s Hospital, which is a purely Catholic institu-tion, the staff is appointed quite irrespective of nationalityor creed. The following table shows the number of medicalgentlemen holding respectively an Irish, English, or Scottish.qualification on the working and consulting honorary staffs- of the various hospitals : .........

.

Though, as a matter of fact, one ’of the surgeons in thePrince Alfred Hospital holds the Fellowship of the RoyalCollege of Surgeons, Ireland, it is suppressed on the listin the report, while his Scottish medical qualificationonly is recorded. Seeing that the Prince Alfred Hos-pital is to a great extent the teaching school of the SydneyUniversity, and is thereby destined to have a wide innu-ence on medical education in this colony, it seems to be a,petty and narrow-minded policy to exclude the graduates ofthe ancient and honourable Irish corporations.

Another Death under Chloroform.. There was another death under chloroform last weekin the Melbourne Hospital, making the fifth during thelast twelve months. The coroner again waxed verywroth with the authorities for not appointing an expertanaesthetist to teach and superintend anesthetics, and thejury added a rider to their verdict, pointing out the neces-sity of such an addition to the staff. There is a feudbetween the coroner and the hospital staff on this subject,which, the Melbourne Age points out, would be ridiculousif it were not likely to be followed by tragical con-sequences. And the same journal closes an article onthe subject in this wise :--"If there were an expert- chloroformist connected with the hospital, he would takecare to ascertain that members of the staff, likely to bepresorted to when there was not time for his services to besecured, should have a thorough knowledge of their duty.At present there is no expert, and no instructor, and the- young men who are called upon to administer chloroformhave to depend largely on information picked up at theiruniversity lectures. This is not a state of affairs calculatedto inspire confidence, either in the public who support thehospital or the patients who claim its assistance."Your readers will hear with regret of a very serious

accident which happened to the venerable Chancellor of theMelbourne University, Dr. Brownless. While attending acharitable entertainment he fell and sustained a fractureand dislocation of the right femur. My latest advice isthat he is progressing as favourably as could be expected.May 24th

Obituary.CHARLES EDWARD SHEPPARD, M.D. LOND.,

F.R.C.S. EN/:.

THE sudden death of Dr. Sheppard, which took placelast week, is a loss not only to medical science, but to anunusually large circle of private friends. Few men are

gifted with such accomplishments as he possessed, andwhen those accomplishments are centred in one who wasabove everything a trusted friend and a true-hearted

gentleman, his death becomes little less than a publiccalamity. Dr. Sheppard’s academical career at the Uni-versity of London was an unusually brilliant one, and itwas crowned by his winning the gold medal at the M.D.Examination ten years ago. After occupying several positionson the j anior staii’ of St. Thomas’s Hospital, he was appointedresident assistant physician there, but the state of his healthcompelled him to resign the post after he had occupied itonly a year. It is but two years since he seriously resumedmedical work, and he then devoted himself to the branch ofaumstbeties, bringing to bear upon his practice all the forceof a powerful and highly trained intellect, and the resourcesof a mechanical skill of a very high order. No one whodiscussed the subject with him could help being struck bythe original way in which he regarded the various vexedquestions of anaesthetics, and the acuteness and suggestive-ness of his criticisms; and it may safely be said that had helived even a little longer he would have thrown much freshlight upon many of the obscure problems of the subject.But Dr. Sheppard was not a man with one hobby. Hetouched life at many points, and his interests were numerousand varied. His knowledge of music and his marvellouspowers of execution were the delight of many audiences,and there are few, we believe, who are so intimatelyacquainted with books and pictures as he was. Yet theseare only, as it were, facts of a many-sided character, andeven to those who had known him intimately for yearssome fresh phase of his character was ever and anon dis-playing itself. But in some things he never varied-in hiskindness to his friends and his devotedness to their interests,and in his courtesy and considerateness to all with whom hecame in contact. Everyone who knew him even slightlywill feel that he has lost in him a personal friend, but tothose who knew him best, and whose regard for him wasconsequently deepest, his death cannot be described as otherthan an irreparable loss. -

F. E. MAN BY, F.R.C.S. Ea G., J. P.WE regret to have to announce the death, on the Ist inst.,

at Guernsey, of Mr. Frederick Edward Manby of Wolver-hampton, at the age of forty-six years. About eighteenmonths ago he suffered from an attack of influenza, fromwhich he seems never to have thoroughly recovered.

Lately he had been far from well, and on June 24thhe journeyed to the Channel Islands for his health’s sake.Unfortunately, however, whilst there he was again attackedwith influenza, to which he succumbed, as above stated, onthe 1st inst. The son of a surgeon, Mr. Manby was bornat East Rudham, Norfolk, and educated at Lynn GrammarSchool and Epsom College. Having completed his medicalstudies at Guy’s Hospital, he became a Fellow of theRoyal College of Surgeons in 1870, having obtained theApothecaries’ licence in 1865. The deceased gentlemanwas placed on the Commission of the Peace for the borougha few months before his death. He was returned to theTown Council in 1879 for St. George’s Ward, was mayorin 1888, and at the time of his death was deputy-mayor.Throughout his association with the Town Council he tookan active part in all sanitary matters, including the Artisans’Dwellings scheme, the Infectious Diseases Hospital, andsimilar movements. As a member of the Sanitary Com-mittee his medical knowledge was especially valuable. TheFree Library was at all times the subject of his attention.Some years ago Mr. Manby occupied the position of medicalofficer of health for the borough during the severe small-pox epidemic. He was gazetted a brigade-surgeon in theVolunteers two years ago, and was subsequently presentedat Court. In the local branch of the St. John Ambulance