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year’s arts students is 251, the total first year’s sciencestudents 52, and the total first year’s medical students 198.

Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh.The opening meeting of this society was held on Wednes-

day of last week, when the retiring president, Professor H.Alleyne Nicholson of Aberdeen University, delivered his

valedictory address on the Doctrine of the Permanence ofthe Ocean Basins.

Formal Opening of the Viotoria Hospital for Consumption,Edinburgh.

This hospital, an account of which was given here sometime ago, was formally opened on Thursday of last week byLord Stormonth-Darling, in presence of a large number ofladies and gentlemen who had been invited to the ceremony.Both his lordship and the speakers referred to the goodwork the Victoria Dispensary had already done, and of theneed for this hospital. It was not a rival to any othermedical institution in the city; and, as showing the needthere was for ib, it was stated that it could have been filledten times over, the number of applicants was so large.

Edinburgh Afedical Missionary Society.The annual meeting of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary

Society was held last weak, Professor Sir Thomas GraingerStewart, president of the society, occupying the chair. Inthe report submitted by the superintendent, Dr. Fry. it isstated that the winter session had begun with forty-twostudents, including eight ladies, a larger number than hadever before been enrolled.

A Plea of Arrested -4Iental Development.A destructive fire recently occurred at Trinity College,

Glenalmond, Perthshire, for which one of the boys at thecollege was arrested and pleaded guilty to the charge of fire-raising and of having made a second attempt in another partof the building. The boy was remitted to the High Court ofJusticiary in Edinburgh for sentence. Evidence was adducedwhich showed that when a child the prisoner had meningitis,that recently his head had been hurt at football, after whichhe suffered from pain in the head, and his school work hadmarkedly fallen off. There was no motive for the fire-raising,for the boy had not been punished. The deed was donethe day after the lesson in the Old Testament happened tobe a chapter in the Book of Daniel, in which there was anaccount of the fiery furnace, and the clergyman in preachingmade some reference to fire. The boy had also told two ofthe other boys what he intended to do, but they had nottaken the matter seriously. Dr. Clouston was examined onbehalf of the prisoner, and stated that he considered it acase of arrested mental development, that the boy manifestedno appreciation of the gravity of the act, and that his mannerwas frank and more that of a child. Dr. Littlejohn concurredin this view. The boy was sentenced to one year’s imprison-ment. He is a son of Sir James Fergusson, Bart., M.P., andnephew of Sir Charles Dalrymple, Bart., M.P.

Infectious Diseases in Edinburgh and Leith.Last week there were four deaths from small-pox in Edin-

burgh, and forty-one fresh cases of the disease were reported.In Leith one case of small-pox was reported.

Edinburgh University and Lady Medical StudentsThe case of female students of medicine is being attended

to by the University Court, and a committee is going into thecase of each individual student and deciding who have passeda sufficient preliminary examination for matriculation.

Public Health of Glasgow.The most important event of the past week as regards

public health was the discovery of a case (the first for manymonths) of small-pox in Glasgow. The patient was literallycaptured under somewhat dramatic circumstances in a publicdispensary connected with one of our infirmaries. Wheninformed of the nature of his illness and of the necessity forremoval to hospital he rushed for the street, accompaniedby the physician on duty, however, who managed to anti-cipate his movements and lock the door. While waiting fortha sanitary officials, who had been telephoned for, the patientmade another attempt to escape by the window, but was againunsuccessful. By prompt removal of the patient (a tramp,who had recently passed through Leith and Edinburgh, wheresmall-pox is just now-prevalent) and vaccination of all whomight have come into contact with him the threatened out-break has apparantly been arrested, as up to the present timeno further case of the affection has been reported.

Glasgow Maternity HospitalThis institution has done good work in the past year B

476 patients were confined within the hospital, 464 living-children being born ; 2359 confinements were attended in theoutdoor department ; 58 nurses were trained ; and 16?medical students have been afforded opportunities for thestudy of practical ob3tetrics. Unlike most Gtaagow hospitals,this one closes the year with a balance of £20 to the good, a;result mainly due to the newly organised Ladies’ AuxiliaryCommittee, which has raised £250 as an addition to thnordinary income of the hospital.Nov. 27th.

____ __________

IRELAND.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.)

Health of Dublin for October.As compared with the previous month the fatal cases of

small-pox were almost double, the number being thirteen,Eighty-seven cases of this disease were admitted into hospital, and as regards other diseases there was no markeddifference between the two months. Small-pox, which atfirst was confined to the north side, has now shifted almostcompletely to the south side of the city ; it has also appearedin some of the suburbs. Every effort continues to be madeto prevent each fresh case from becoming a new focus ofcontagion.

Memento of the Tercentenary of Trinity College, Dublin.The library will shortly be enriched by the gift of a volume-

bound in red morocco, containing the portraits of the moreimportant guests of the University of Dublin during thetercentenary celebrations of 1892. The donors are Messrs.Werner and Son, photographers, of Dublin. Each portraitis signed in autograph, and the title-page bears a richlyilluminated inscription in Latin. There is a portrait of theprovost, printed like the others in platinotype, and amongothers may be mentioned the names of Professor Max Muller,Lord Wolseley, Sir William Gjddes, Professor Gusserowof’Berlin, Mr. Lecky, Sir A. Geikie, Lord Iveagh, the Lord’Provost of Edinburgh, and many foreign visitors, and others

County Carlow CoronersAip.On the 26th inst. the High Sheriff of the county made

( public declaration of the poll. The following was the.voting :-

Mr. Nolan ............ 1915Mr. E. J. Mulhall ......... 954Mr. Colgan ............ 234

Medical Appointment.Mr. Michael O’Sullivan, M.B., B.Ch. R.U.I., has beeri

appointed anaesthetist to the Mater Misericordiæ Hospital eHe had previously filled the office of house surgeon in thesame hospital.

Entries at the Dublin Medical Schools.The following is the official list of the anatomy entries for

the present session :-Trinity College ......... 176Schools of Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons 152Catholic University Medical Sshool ...... 102

As compared with last year there is a decline of 22 in TrinityCollege Medical School, a decline of 15 in the Schools ofiSurgery, Royal College of Surgeons, and a decline of 16 in the:Catholic University Medical School, showing a decrease sincelast year of, 53.

The Royal Hospital, Belfast.From the report presented at the annual meeting held on

Nov. 19th I find that during the year ending Aug. 31st, 1894there were 2325 intern patients, and of these 861 were medicaland 1374 surgical. In the extern department 21,316 patientshave been treated, and, taking extern and intern together,there were 23,551 patients. During the winter session there

. were 174 students and during the summer 114. Owing to the-crowded state of the extern department its extension became,necessary, and new rooms have been built and are now in,daily use. The financial year began with a balance against.the hospital of £145 13s. ld., and ends with a balance of£199 17s. in its favour. On Monday, Nov. 26th, at a meetingof the board of governors, Dr. Mitchell was elected assistant,surgeon.

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,Deat7i of Mr. Hugh Turrettin Heron, MB., B. GA. R. U.I.Sincere regret is felt among a wide circle of friends at the

- death of Dr. Hugh Heron, a distinguished student of Queen’sCollege, which occurred at Wagenaar’s Kraal, Cape Colony,on Nov. 25th, from pulmonary haemorrhage. Dr. Heron,who was a scholar at Queen’s College, Belfast, graduatedM.B., B.Ch., B.A.O. of the Royal University in 1891, havingobtained the B.A. degree in 1887. He practised for a shorttime in Dundalk, but, his health giving way, he accepted theappointment of surgeon on one of the vessels of the UnionSteamship Compa.ny plying to the Cape. He was the thirdson of Professor Heron, D.D.

The Ulster 3-redieaZ Society.The annual dinner of the Ulster Medical Society was held

in the Grand Central Hotel, Belfast, on Nov. 22nd, thePresident, Brigade-Surgeon M’Fa.rland.in the chair. Therewas a large attendance, among the guests being the LordMayor, the President of Qoeen’s College (Rev. Dr. Hamilton),the Presidents of the R)yal College of Physicians and ofthe Royal College of Surgeons, and the President of theNorth of Ireland Branch of the British Medical Association.The following were the principal toasts: "The Queen,""The Lord-Lieutenant and Prosperity to Ireland," "TheQueen’s College and Belfast Medical School," "The DublinMedical School, " and The President of the Ulster MedicalSociety." The dinner was in every respect a marked- success.

The Queen’s College Students’ Union.A sum of £7500 will be available for this object, .64000

from the bazaar and .1;3500 from subscriptions. It hasbeen recommended to erect the new building on the north-east corner of the College grounds (the lower end of

’University-square), and to spend £5000 on the buildings andfurnishing and to keep the remainder as an endowment. A- subcommittee is looking after the arrangements, which will’be pushed on rapidly.Nov. 27th.

PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

A Means of Preserving Urinefor Analysis.IT occasionally happens that the busy practitioner is

obliged to defer analysis of a specimen of urine until decom-position has rendered it valueless for his purpose. Dr.Huguet, professor at the Medical School of Clermont-Ferrand, states that urine can be kept for an indefiniteperiod if to the contents of the vessel there be added 2 c.c.of the following solution : Mercuric cyanide, 10 grammes ;water, 100 grammes. The addition of this salt does not.alter the acidity of the urine, nor does it invalidate theresults of the analysis.

Persistent Amblyopia due to Quinine.A man thirty-five years of age recently came under the

motice of M. Desbrières.1 The patient complained that for the,past three months all objects perceived appeared to him to beeovered with down, and that, in addition, he was colour-blind. This visual trouble had come on one morning after theingestion (on the previous evening) of four teaspoonfuls of.-sulphate of quinine, he being at the time under the influenceof drink. As a rule, this quinic amblyopia disappears rapidly,- but in this case the condition was persistent, probably owingto alcoholism.

Coronary Angina Pectoris.Numerous theories have been advanced to explain the

occurrence of that curious and too often tragical syndroma,angina pectoris. Atheroma, ossification of the costal carti-tlages, neuritis of the cardiac plexus-each of these causeshave been assigned. The theory most in vogue is, perhaps,that which ascribes the heart-pang to obliteration of the

- coronary arteries. Dr. Huchard exhibited a specimen inwhich this condition fully explained an attack lastinghalf an hour, which determined the death from asphyxiaof a man aged thirty-three years. The necropsy broughtto light recent subacute aortitis, with almost completeobliteration of the embouchure of the two coronaries. Theorifices only allowed the penetration of a boar’s bristle. The

1 Gazette des Hôpitaux de Toulouse, Oct. 13th, 1894.2 Société Médicale des Hôpitaux, Nov. 23rd.

coronary arteries had otherwise lost none of their supple-ness and normal calibre. The pain complained of by thedeceased was of the nature of that accompanying intensegastralgia (pseudo-gastralgic form of angina pectoris). M.Duflocq also found at the necropsy of a man who diedsuddenly a partial obliteration, not of the orifices, but of apart of the arteries, five millimetres in length, situated in theintraventricular groove.

Tlte Rationale of the Cold-bath Treatment of Typhoid Fever,It is already known that the employment in typhoid fever

of what is denominated in this country and in Germany asBrand’s method (it should be more justly called Currie’smethod) has the effect of increasing the fiow of urine. Butwhat was not hitherto known is the increase of urine toxicitythat is brought about by this mode of treatment. In typhoidfever the normal toxicity is diminished by two-thirds. Thecold-bath treatment restores from the first few hours thetoxicity to the normal, and perseverance in the method deter-mines its further increase (sometimes to double the normal).It is evident that by this means the system is cleared of alarge quantity of toxines, and it would seem that it is in thisdirection that we must look for the beneficial effects of thecold bath in apparently desperate cases. This observation isdue to a French army surgeon, M. Ausset.3

Fatal Peritonitis from huptured Intestine.4 4A woman aged twenty years was admitted into the Hôpital

St. Lazare for gonorrhoea. On the twenty-seventh day ofher sojourn at the hospital hyperacute peritonitis set in, witha collection of pus in the pelvis. Laparotomy, with drainagethrough the vagina, was performed, but the woman suc-cumbed eight days later. The post-mortem examinationrevealed a rupture of the small intestine. It appears that thepatient had before her admission into the hospital beenseverely kicked in the abdomen by her "bully," and it isprobable that she had at that time a rupture of the intestine.Adhesions must have developed which raised a barrieragainst extravasation. The long interval of twenty-sevendays before the onset of peritonitis renders the case a surgicalcuriosity.

Is lodoform an Antiseptic ?Most practical surgeons would unhesitatingly say "Yes" to

this question. Heyn and Roosing showed, however, in 1887,that the presence of iodoform on gelatine plates did notimpede the growth of colonies of microbes, such as thestaphylococcus aureus, the pneumococcus, &c. They like-wise stated that a plug of iodoform gauze introduced into thevagina of a healthy woman abounded, on its extraction, withbacteria. M. Stchegoleff has recently reinvestigated thisquestion in the laboratory of Professor Straus of Paris.5He found that beef-peptone-gelatine bouillon, which is an

excellent culture medium for Koch’s tubercle bacillus, losesthat property when it has incorporated with it 5 per cent.of iodoform, the tubercle bacilli sown in it dying in forty-eight hours. When an emulsion of virulent culture oftubercle bacillus and 10 per cent. of iodoform was employedto inoculate guinea-pigs, the animals survived longer thanthose that had received non-iodoformed inoculations. Thusiodoform kills the bacilli in the cultures, but only attenuatestheir virulence when introduced into the system at the sametime as the tubercle bacillus. The action of iodoform on thestaphylococcus is just the reverse of what it is in the case ofthe tubercle bacillus, for that micro-organism (the staphylo-coccus) flourishes in an iodoformed culture medium, whilethe inoculation of the staphylococcus previously sub-mitted to the action of the drug is inoffensive. From1½ c.c. to 2 c.c. of iodoformed culture could be in-

jected with impunity, only a trifling local reaction beingproduced, whereas other animals inoculated with the

staphylococcus grown in ordinary media were affected withabscesses or died in a few days from septicsemia. When, how-ever, the iodoform is mixed with the staphylococcus at themoment of inoculation a small local abscess results, show-ing that there is only attenuation and not suppression ofthe virulence. M. Stchegoleff thought that perhaps theiodoform, while not attacking directly the staphylococcus,acts nevertheless on the toxine secreted by the microbe. Todetermine this point he prepared two kinds of culture-onenormal and one mixed with 10 per cent. of iodoform. Aweek later he filtered them in order to deprive them of

3 Ibid.4 Société de Chirurgie, Nov. 21st.

5 Archives de Médecine Expérimentale, November, 1894.