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Deaths under Chloroform. The daily press is making a great to-do about two cases of

death which have recently occurred in the hospitals duringthe administration of chloroform. The first fatality occurredin an infant, a year old, at the Trousseau Hospital, where thechild had been anæsthetised for the purpose of a congenitalclub foot being operated upon. Heart failure set in and thechild died despite all the efeorts made to restore him,including a tracheotomy. The second case was that of aman, aged thirty years, who was anaesthetised at the TenonHospital for the purpose of having a badly set fractureof the leg rectified. The police officials have commencedan inquiry as to the responsibility of the medical men in these two cases.

An Explosion at the Sorbonne.A rather grave accident happened on the evening of

June 28th during one of a course of lectures given by ’,M. de Lacaze-Duthiers, Professor of Zoology, Comparative I

Anatomy, and Physiology at the Paris Faculty of Science.Just as M. Lanceplaine, who is nephew and prosector to theprofessor, was arranging the lantern so as to throw somemicro-photographs upon the screen a violent explosionoccurred and the fragments of the lamp wounded M. Lance-plaine in the face. A splinter of glass from the manometeralso wounded another demonstrator, M. Brumpt, in the leg.Care had been taken not to use the vapour of ether in thelamp, and probably the explosion was due to the defectivecondition of the manometer. It is only by a happy accidentthat none of the students present were hurt, for the debriswas scattered as far as the topmost rows of seats in thetheatre. M. Brumpt is going on as well as possible, butM. Lanceplaine is seriously wounded in the right eye, andthe medical men in attendance say it will be some daysbefore they can definitely pronounce as to the result.

Death of M. Schützenberger.At the last meeting of the Academy of Sciences signs of

mourning were apparent owing to the death of M. Schutzen-berger, the celebrated biological chemist, Professor at theCollege of France, member of the Institute and member ofthe Academy of Medicine. The deceased professor, whowas born at Strasburg, commenced his career by beingdemonstrator of chemistry at the Conservatoire of Arts andCrafts. He was afterwards professor at the high school atMulhouse, joint director of the laboratory at the Faculty ofSciences at Paris, and head of the chemical depa,rtment atthe College of France. M. Schiitzenberger has left behindhim a number of important works bearing on the mostdiverse questions of organic chemistry. His admirablestudies in fermentation are worthy to be the work of Pasteurhimself. M. Berthelot, the permanent secretary of theAcademy, reported its loss to the Academy in a speechrecalling the services rendered to science by the deceased,who had been successively demonstrator to Dumas andBalard and who never ceased throughout his whole careerto take an interest in the work of younger men.

The Monument to D2cehenne of Boulogne.On Sunday, June 27th, a monument was unveiled in the

square of the General Infirmary of the Salpètrière to the

memory of the celebrated Duchenne, who was born at

Boulogne in the year 1806, and is universally known by thetitle of Duchenne of Boulogne. M. Barthou, the Ministerof the Interior, presided at the ceremony, and ProfessorJoffroy, physician to the Asylum of St. Anne and pre-sident of the memorial committee, pronounced an eulogiumon Duchenne. He recalled the two great names ofTrousseau and Charcot : of Trousseau, who made generallyknown the work of Duchenne with regard to locomotor ataxy,and of Charcot, who was, he said, the great worker in thescience of modern neuro-pathology and one who had ren-dered the greatest possible service to the study of affectionsof the nervous system. On the pedestal of the monumentis the following simple inscription : " 1806-1875. ToDuchenne of Boulogne. Localised electrisation; Physiologyof movement ; Neuro-pathology." Professor Raymond,physician to the Salpetriere, charged himself in his officialcapacity with the duty of demonstrating in their midst theinnumerable labours of Duchenne. Dr. Lerboullet, ofthe Academy of Medicine, read a paper by ProfessorMathias-Duval upon the works of Duchenne, and after anaddress by Dr. Motet, of the Academy of Medicine, whcspoke in the name of the Medical Society of Paris.M. Barthou concluded the series of speeches. In the mosi

brilliant fashion the Minister of the Interior tenderedhis respectful homage " to the marvellous unity and’

modesty of the great savant to whom they that day,perhaps somewhat tardily, were giving his well-deservedtribute of glory." A point to which the Minister did not referat this official ceremony, at which the faculty and a host ofmedical office-holders were present, was that Duchenne neverat any time was either a professor or a hospital physician..He worked all alone, going round the wards every morningexamining and questioning the sick himself, and was lookedupon as a madman by all the officials. Only by the worthof his works, and that at a long time after his death,has he attained his right position, for during his life hemet with nothing but scorn from the official scientific world.

Congrès National d’Assistance at Roiten.This congress has just finished its labours. M. Budin read)

a remarkable report upon infant feeding in çrèches. Accord-ing to him the chief cause of infantile mortality is dia,rrhceabrought on by bottle feeding such as bas been in use duringrecent years. If cow’s milk is sterilised this diarrhoea dis-

appears. The milk should be given pure ; it is useless andeven dangerous to dilute it. Dilution increases the amount.of fluid taken and the amount of urine passed bythe infant, but stops growth. What is important is to.avoid over-feeding. The amount of milk given with eachbottle should be carefully limited and only increasedvery slowly, and in this way all digestive troubles.will be avoided. Since the infants’ department was institutedby M. Budin in June, 1892, at the Charity Hospital resultshave been obtained which exceeded his hopes. During thesefive years, even during the hottest weather, not one child hasdied from diarrhosa so long as they have been exclusivelymilk-fed, either on breast milk, or that of the cow sterilised,or a mixture of the two. The proceedings at the last sitting;of the congress, presided over by M. Peyron, the headof the Assistance Pablique, were most interesting. Thefirst speaker took for the basis of his paper the systememployed at Rouen, a system showing a remarkable.progress. The organisation of the dispensaries had savedthe hospitals great expenses, and by the establishmentof dispensaries in various quarters of the town adviceand treatment were brought to the very doors of thenecessitous without their having to lose a day’s work..M. Hendle, prefect of Rouen, continuing the debate, askedthe congress to pass a resolution that home medicaltreatment should be developed on the largest pos-sible scale and that dispensaries should be multiplied..Dr. Cerne argued that there should be some provision forrational treatment outside the hospitals, but not, he thought,at the patient’s home. Experience showed that it was notnecessary for every case, even though home treatment was-impossible, to become an in-patient ; it was quite sufficient.to have an out-patient department of the hospital wheretreatment could be carried out and necessary operations per-formed. The surroundings would be better than those ofthe patient’s home, and when he had been treated he couldreturn there.

7)?*. Boisleux and -Dr. de la Jarrige.Dr. Boisleux, who has recovered his health, has been

transferred to the central prison at Melun. Dr. de la.

Jarrige remains at the Conciergerie, where he awaits the-result of the appeal for a commutation of his sentence.June 29th.

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BERLIN.

(FBOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Bacte7ia in Yellow Fever.DE. HAVELBURG, a German medical man residing at-

Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and well known by his researcheson leprosy, has recently published in the Berliner KlinischeWochenschrift a communication on bacteria in yellow fever.Having found in necropsies of yellow fever patients greatmasses of a special micro-organism in the contents of thestomach, he endeavoured to isolate it in order to ascertainwhether it was pathogenic or not. He found that from 1 to2 c c. of the contents of the stomach injected into the skinof guinea-pigs caused the death of the animals, and greatmasses of the above bacilli were discovered in the blood,while control experiments in which portions of the gastriccontents obtained from patients who had died from other-

60

diseases were injected into guinea-pigs had no fatal result. i

The alleged yellow fever bacillus is very small, its length 1

being about 1!1-, = 2.oho of an inch, and its breadth from 1

()-3!1- to 0-5 /t. It id straight, and is for the most part c

isolated, the cohesion of two individuals being rather rare. i

The outlines of its extremities are especially well marked. lIt is easily stained by basic aniline colours, but not by i

Gram’s method. It has not yet been ascertained whether it i

13 motile or not. It can be grown on a gelatin plate, forming 1

in twenty-four hours a white spot which in from twenty-four Ito forty-eight hours becomes larger and assumes the form of apin’s head. The gelatin is not liquefied. In a test tube the ibacillus penetrates into the gelatin, giving the appearance of 1a white thread, and forms a thick white coating on the sur- 1face. On agar round white discs are developed, which may 1either remain isolated or may join together. Koch’s bouillon lis rendered opalescent by the bacillus in twenty-four hours, ]with formation of a g’ey, cloudy sediment. Broth containingsugar undergoes fermentation. In agar mixed with sugara gas is produced which causes fissures in the agar. Thebacillus coagulates milk within twelve hours ; on potatoes itsgrowth is rather slow ; on blood serum it grows without anycharacteristic feature, producing opalescence and a sediment ;on coagulated serum a pale grey film is formed.

Farther Observations on the X Rays.Professor Roentgen has again made a communication to

the Royal Academy of Sciences on his great discovery. Hestates that while the x rays are passing through the air theytraverse it in every direction. When a plate impervious tothe rays is placed between a fluorescent screen and a sourceof the rays, so that the screen is overshadowed by the plate,the platinocyanide of barium nevertheless becomes luminous,and this luminosity is visible even when the screen lies’directly upon the plate, so that one might imagine that somerays had traversed the plate; but if the screen placed on theplate is covered by a thick piece of glass the fluorescencebecomes weaker and disappears completely when the glass isTeplaced by a cylinder of lead 0-1 cm (=-<}&otilde; of an inch) in thick-mess surrounding the fluorescent screen. Professor Roentgen’sexplanation of this phenomenon is that x rays emanate fromthe irradiated air. He considers that if our eyes were assensible to the x rays as to ordinary light the appearancewould be as if a candle were burning in a room filled withtobacco smoke. Professor Roentgen has, moreover, inventeda new apparatus for measuring the intensity of the x rays.He has succeeded in ascertaining by means of this apparatusthat the intensity of the rays is influenced : (1) by the courseof the primary current ; (2) by the interposition of a Teslatransformer; (3) by the rarefaction of the air in the tube ;and (4) by some other agencies not yet known. He concludesi(l) that the rays issuing from a discharging apparatusconsist of a mixture of rays of different absorbability andintensity; (2) that the combination principally depends on*the course of the discharging current ; (3) that the

absorption of the rays varies according to the absorbingmedium; and (4) that as the x rays are produced by thekathode rays, and have similar fluorescent, photographic,and electrical qualities, it is very probable that they areboth phenomena of the same nature.

The late Pastor Kneipp.Pastor Kneipp, the founder of the therapeutical system

called the Kneipp cure, died last week at Worishofen, inBavaria. He must not be confounded with the ordinaryquacks-unfortunately so numerous in this country-firstly,because he took no fees for his attendance, but was recom-pensed only by donations given by his patients to charitiesunder his patronage ; and, secondly, because m’my personsreally derived some benefit from his advice. His injunctions ofplain diet, cold bathing, walking barefooted on wet grass, and<3arly going to bed and early rising were undoubtedly usefulto patients with nervous troubles brought on by an injudiciousway of life ; but as he paid little attention to diagnosis histreatment often did harm to patients with organic diseases,whom he caused to live like the robust peasants of theBavarian mountains. Nevertheless, the number of peoplecoming from every part of the world increased from year toyear, so that the little village of Worishofen in course oftime was changed into a modern health resort, provided withlarge and comfortable hotels. With the money he receivedPastor Kneipp founded asylums, infirmaries, and otherbenevolent institutions, which, however, according toan inquiry conducted by the Munich Medical Society,<did not by any means fulfil the requirements of

modern hygiene. He never left his village except whenae was once summoned to attend the Pope and on

;he very rare occasions when he visited some of thecities of Germany for the purpose of addressing publicmeetings and propagating his views. His theoretical know-

ledge of medicine being far beneath that of a first year’smedical student, the speeches which he delivered at thesemeetings were a source of amusement to the medical menwho happened to be present ; but, strange to say, manysanatoria have, nevertheless, been formed throughoutGermany by medical men and others where his treatment isfully carried out. His personal character was recognised asblameless even by his adversaries. Although raised to thehigh rank of a prelate of the Church of Rome, he continued toLive as an ordinary country clergyman, and died withouthaving made any personal pecuniary profit out of the greatpopularity he enjoyed.June 28th.

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ROME.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The Bacillus Icteroides.

THE LANCET has already told its readers the circum-stances under which Dr. Giuseppe Sanarelli, sometime privat-docent at the University of Siena, now Professor of Hygienein the Medical School of Montevideo, set himself to discoverthe bacillus of yellow fever j how he conducted his observa-tions, clinical and bacteriological, at the Lazzeretto of theIsland of Flores and at the hospital of S. Sebastiano at RioJaneiro ; and how, after having himself contracted the feverand fortunately recovered, he continued his researches until,in the later months of last year, he satisfied himself thathe had found the bacillus, and embodied his conclusionsand the investigations that led up to them in a mono-

graph which he deposited with the Accademia Medica diRoma. Thereafter, having by fresh studies checked hisprevious ones and confirmed his conclusions, he thought fitto give the result to the profession and the world. This hedid lately before a scientific audience at Montevideo, andthe substance of his lecture, first announced in the laypress by telegraph, I can now supplement by minuter details.It was at the Lazzeretto on the Island of Flores that hefirst came upon the microbe of yellow fever." At the out-set he had difficulty in distinguishing among a varyingnumber of microbes the unvarying one of which he was inquest ; but at last he found it-never, indeed, unaccompaniedby others, but always preserving its characteristic features,while its occasional companions were protean. Contrary toexpectation, it was not in the alimentary canal that he cameupon it. Never, indeed, has he detected it there ; but in thecirculation and in the tissues he found it invariably, and sowas able to correct the current belief that the poison of yellowfever resides in the intestinal tract, showing, on the contrary,that it is formed in the vie intime of the tissues and in thecirculation itself. Morphologically, the microbe, to which hehas given the name of Bacillus Icteroides " presents atfirst sight little or nothing characteristic. Closer investiga-tion identifies it as a very small " baston. cino" " (rod) withrounded extremities, generally combined in pairs in thecultures and in little groups in the tissues; in length fromtwo to four thousandths of a millimetre, and for the mostpart twice or thrice as long as it is broad. It is pathogenicfor the majority of the domestic animals-a conclusion arrivedat by Professor Sanarelli after experiments made on 2000 ofthese. Few microbes, indeed, have a wider diffusion, everymammal on which he experimented having shown itselfmore or less sensitive to its pathogenic action, while thefeathered tribe, on the other hand, were quite irresponsive.White rats it kills in five days, the infection gaining afoothold through every channel, including that of respiration.Once admitted into the organism the microbes collect ingreatest force in the spleen, where they remain during thewhole evolution of the malady without noteworthy multi-

plication. After from six to seven days they all at oncepass into the circulation, enter on a period of proliferation,and kill by septicssmia. The rabbit is highly sensitive tothis pathogenic action, dying in from four to five days ifthe poison has entered by the subcutaneous tissue, and in

1 THE LANCET, Jan. 9th and April 3rd, 1897.