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prisoners, children of tender years, apprentices, orhelpless persons, it is manslaughter to cause deathby neglect to provide the requisite food, care, andmedicine. The statutory duty of parents is setout in Section 12 of the Children Act, which re-enactedearlier provisions to the same effect. Religiousbeliefs are no defence. This was established in1899 in Reg. v. Senior, where the charge related tothe death of an infant of 8 or 9 months from diarrhoeaand pneumonia. The jury found on that occasionthat the child’s life would have been saved if medicalassistance had been given. The father was one ofthat sect which declines to call in a doctor and prefersto rely on a literal adherence to verses 14 and 15 ofthe fifth chapter of the Epistle to St. James :-

Is any among you sick ? Let him call for the elders ofthe church ; and let them pray over them, anointing himwith oil in the name of the Lord : and the prayer of faithshall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ;and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.

Mr. Justice Wills, who tried the case at the CentralCriminal Court, drew the father’s attention to thetext: " They that be whole need not a physician,but they that are sick," but received the reply thatthose words were understood to apply to moral,not physical, sickness. The judge’s careful summingup was referred to the Court of Crown Cases Reserved,where the observations of Lord Chief Justice Russellmade it plain that the deliberate omission to call inmedical aid, where necessary, for a child of tenderyears is not excused by the parent’s peculiar religioustenets. A young man of 20, as in the recent case atDoncaster, is not a child or young person within themeaning of the Children Act ; in such a case, therefore,there is no statutory duty on the parent underSection 12. There may, of course, be a moral duty,and there have been judicial dicta, which suggestedthat the existence of a merely moral duty wouldsupport a charge for manslaughter.

Crime and Epilepsy.Robert Williams, indicted for the murder of Julia

Mangan, a young Irish girl, who was found besidehim in Hyde Park last October with her throat cut,has been found guilty of murder at the CentralCriminal Court at his second trial. The jury haddisagreed at the earlier trial before Christmas. Atboth trials evidence was offered for the defence tosuggest that Williams might have murdered the girlin a state of epileptic automatism. A witness, whoknew the accused’s family, said he had known fiveinstances of insanity on the mother’s side. Dr.Gordon Hume, of Fitzroy-square, who attendedWilliams for neurasthenia, said that in Octoberhe considered him abnormal but not certifiable.Dr. J. C. Woods, lecturer on mental diseases atSt. George’s and London Hospitals, said that Williamswas sane when he saw him in December, but he hadformed the opinion that at the time of the tragedyWilliams was suffering from an epileptic mentalattack. Questioned by Mr. Justice Swift at thefirst trial, Dr. Woods said that many people of highintelligence were going about their work althoughsuffering from epilepsy ; he did not say they mightcommit murder to-morrow, but there were many whowere subject to periods of automatism in which theywere completely irresponsible. Dr. W. R. K. Watson,senior medical officer at Brixton Prison, said he hadseen no signs of insanity or epilepsy in Williams. , Hesaw nothing to show that Williams did not know Ithe nature and quality of his act on the materialdate in October, but he could express no definite Iopinion, in view of the lapse of time between thatdate and his own examination of him. Williams’sown story was that, while he was talking to thegirl in the park, noises came into his head ; it seemedas if steam were coming out of the sides of his head,and as if a red-hot iron were being pushed in behindhis eyes. He thought lie saw Lon Chaney, the filmactor, in a corner making faces at him. He did notremember taking a razor from his pocket or using it onthe girl or on himself ; the next thing he remembered

was a nurse washing his feet at the hospital. Aftersentencing the prisoner to death at the second trial,Mr. Justice Humphreys told the jury that, in accord-ance with usual practice, exhaustive inquiries wouldbe made by the Home Office into the allegation ofepilepsy. The Home Office had powers which neitherjudge nor jury possessed, for judge and jury werebound by the rules of evidence.

An Escaped Criminal Lunatic.On the following day the same judge sentenced

a man to 15 months’ imprisonment for house-breaking and theft of jewelry who was an undoubtedepileptic. Dr. Watson said the prisoner had had twofits in prison since Dec. 15th. There was evidenceof very gallant service by him at Zeebrugge and inother naval battles. He had an injury on the leftside of the skull, and there might be a depressedfracture there, or a foreign body in the brain. Dr.Watson did not think him insane. Since beinginvalided out of the Navy the prisoner has had manyconvictions for larceny, false pretences, house-breaking, and receiving. He was certified as insanewhile serving his last sentence, but escaped fromBrentwood Mental Hospital. The judge observedthat his present sentence would probably mean thatthe prisoner would go to prison and then be sent toan asylum until the expiration of his previous sentence.It would be for the prison medical authorities todecide if he were certifiable or not.

BERLIN.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Indications for Artificial Abortion.FORTHCOMING reforms in the criminal code will

include many items of great interest to the medicalprofession. Under the present law medical men areauthorised to induce abortion only in cases wherepregnancy or birth endangers the life of the mother.For many years there has been a movement to allowthem to do so when the financial or social condition ofthe pregnant woman makes it practically impossibleto bring up the child properly. The Berlin MedicalChamber discussed this question at its recent meeting,and there were many different opinions. TheCommunist members proposed a resolution thatmedical men should be allowed to perform abortion’for social reasons and that the endeavour to preventconception should be encouraged instead of beinghindered. After a long and animated debate theChamber turned down this resolution by a smallmajority, but a motion that with the vital indicationthe social and eugenic indications should be givenconsideration was easily passed. The " eugenicindication " refers to cases of mental disease, epilepsy.abuse of spirits or alkaloids, and also to conceptionafter rape. It was stated in the discussion that inBerlin the number of normal births and abortions isabout equal and that 50 per cent. of the abortions arecriminal. There are, of course, differences in variousclasses and places ; according to the report of a greatBerlin sick club there were 750 abortions against150 normal births amongst its members. Thecriminal abortions are largely explained by theshortage of dwellings and the difficulty of bringing upchildren owing to lack of money. The prejudiceagainst unmarried mothers, leading to their dismissalby private employers as well as State authorities, alsopromotes abortion on a large scale.

Schneeberg Disease.The Occupational Diseases Compensation Act of

1925 has attracted attention to the so-called Schneeberglung disease-a form of pulmonary cancer prevalent inworkmen of the metal mines of Schneeberg in Saxony.According to Prof. Saupe, of Dresden, the stone dustof the mines where the men are employed contains upto 0-5 per cent. of arsenic and has a radio-activity of

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50 Mache units, or more than twice that of the neigh-bouring radium spa of Oberschlemrna. No organic viruswhich can be held responsible for the disease has beendiscovered. The workmen are permanently exposedto the pernicious dust produced by drilling machines.The clinical features of the disease are that they sufferfrequently from chill and cough and from a dischargesometimes containing blood. There is a marked

pneumokoniosis, and by and by they become weakerand unable to work. Dullness to percussion is notedin one or more regions of the lung, and a swelling ofthe axillary and supraclavicular glands may bedetected. The blood shows leucocytosis and eosino-philia,. Eventually the patients develop severe

dyspnoea and cardiac insufficiency, and deathfollows a period of severe pain. Examination of thegrowths found in the lungs proves them to be cancerous,and the remarkable statement is made that sometimestwo primary growths are present in the same patient.There is no doubt that the arsenic contained in thestone dust, the large quantity of radium, and the hardconditions of work are responsible for the disease.Schneeberg cancer develops rather slowly-sometimesafter 10-12 years’ work in the mines. In the neigh-bouring radium mines of Joachimsthal, Bohemia, asimilar disease is seen, but not in other mines eitherin Europe or elsewhere. Fortunately these mines,which were opened in the Middle Ages, are already littleworked, and there are now only about 100 miners left.

Glass D1’ain in the Pleural Cavity.Dr. Relhef, a Bavarian country practitioner, has

lately described an interesting case in the MedizinischeWelt. A labourer was seriously injured at his workand three weeks later developed an abscess on theright side of the thorax. On being opened this showeda connexion with the pleural cavity and a glass drainwas accordingly introduced. Some days afterwardsthe drain had disappeared, notwithstanding itsaccurate adjustment, and it was assumed that thepatient in his delirious stage had thrown it away.His condition went on improving and he was able toresume his work a few months after the accident. Hedid so and experienced no pain during the subsequentnine years. Then in 1927 he twice had heemoptysis,and radiography showed the glass drain broken in theregion of the upper lobe of the lung. How it had beenbroken was not ascertained, although it seems probablethat this happened when the man was kicked by ahorse some time ago. There is no other case onrecord in which a glass drain has remained for solong in the thorax without producing any symptoms.An operation is under consideration, but the patientstill withholds his consent as he has no pain from hisforeign body.

Genital Derangements in Tobacco Workers.Dr. Unbehann has recently published an account of

the health of tobacco workers under treatment at theclinic for women’s diseases in Giessen University. Hesays that they are especially liable to disturbances andirregularity of menstruation with severe pain. Thefertility of these women, who mostly live in the ruraldistricts of Hesse, is nearly that of the averagepopulation, but abortions are more than twice ascommon among them as among other women in thesame part of the country. In three women smokingenormous quantities of cigarettes where a pathologicalexamination of the ovaries could be performed thefollicles showed a marked degeneration.At the annual meeting of the German Red Cross it

was reported that the Red Cross has 7363 localbranches and subsidiary societies with 1,300,000members. The number has increased since last yearby 78,000 members. There are 8000 trained nursesbelonging to the society. First aid was given duringthe year in about one million cases, and there is nowhardly a place of importance in Germany without aRed Cross institution.

The wife of a medical man was fined M.20 because Ishe drove her motor-car at a speed of nearly 35 miles I

an hour through a busy thoroughfare in Hamburg.On appeal she pleaded that on this particular occasionshe was fetching her husband to a severely ill patientwho had asked for an immediate visit. The courtfined her only M.5, but regarded it as undesirableto endanger the life of several people in the hope ofsaving the life of a single individual.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

(FROM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Gove7°n.mezt Health Reports.THE surgeon-general of the army, in his annual

report, is satisfied with the health of the forces in1927. The admission-rate for disease was 527 per1000 ; for external causes 128. A slightly increasingrate for traumatism is attributed to more generalparticipation in athletics and to the increasinguse of motor vehicles. An increase in the annualdeath-rate is attributed to the occurrence of 90 casesof cerebro-spinal meningitis. The morbidity listis headed by bronchitis, tonsillitis, and gonorrhoea ;the leading cause of death was suicide, whilst themost common reasons for discharge among enlistedmen were dementia prsecox, constitutional psycho-pathic state, and mental deficiency. The director ofthe Veterans’ Bureau reports tuberculosis as thechief cause of death, 1753 deaths out of a total of3831 in veterans’ hospitals being caused by pulmonarytuberculosis. Of the 25,899 patients remaining undertreatment more than half are in hospital on accountof neuro-psychiatric disability. The majority ofadmissions to veterans’ hospitals at the present timeare for disabilities unrelated to war service.

In his report for the public health service Surgeon-General Cumming states that health conditionsthroughout the world were generally favourableduring the fiscal year 1928. Only two cases ofbubonic plague were reported in North America,both contracted from infected ground squirrels inCalifornia. For the calendar year 1927 the UnitedStates recorded 34,000 cases of small-pox, a totalexceeded by only one other country-namely, India.In the summer of 1927 there was a widespread out-break of infantile paralysis. Twenty-three Statesreported between them 73 deaths from rabies in thefiscal year 1928. Tularaemia has now been recognisedin at least 31 States and in the district of Columbia.More than 200 cases of Rocky Mountain spotted feverwere reported from nine States, and the surgeon-general expresses the opinion that many more casesescaped report. A large programme of researchwas carried through by the Hygienic Laboratory,including research in tularsemia, undulant fever,typhus fever, and small-pox vaccination, and thestandardisation of scarlet fever antitoxin. Thesurgeon-general asks for increased facilities for theHygienic Laboratory and for coordination of thepublic health activities of the Government. A Billto establish a National Institute of Health wasintroduced on Dec. llth to the House of Repre-sentatives and referred to the Committee on Inter-State and Foreign Commerce which, under theConstitution, is the committee most nearly suitedto deal with public health. This Bill not only providesfor the enlargement and improved equipment of theHygienic Laboratory, but also authorises an appro-priation of a million dollars for the foundation of anew research institute. Gifts are to be invited fromthe American people, and the income from such giftsmay be used for the establishment of researchFellowships.

Health of Pre-school Children.The National Congress of Parents and Teachers

is a powerful organisation with 20,000 units repre-senting every economic plane. In the last three

years they have sponsored a movement to ensure thatthe children entering school each autumn shall do sowithout physical handicaps. A " summer round-up "