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genitals. This local immunity of macaques could notbe overcome either by inserting the virus into artificialwounds ol t the skin or by combining the syphiliticvirus with vaccine. With regard to the course of the diseaseit was found that in the lower monkeys the animal’s generalstate was not at all altered, whilst in orang-outangs dyspepsia,dysentery, and debility showed themselves. Primary adenitiswas observed only in the anthropoid apes ; in the lower

species glandular changes were not perceptible until thenecropsy was made. As to the secondary symptoms, papularexanthemata were observed in some of the gibbons on theface, on the abdominal and gluteal regions, on the hands,and on the mucous membranes. In the orang-outang nosecondary symptoms developed ; in the lower monkeys therewere local eruptions of annular and serpiginous formin the neighbourhood- of the primary chancre. ProfessorNeisser further states that he was unable to producesyphilis by subcutaneous injection, either in gibbonsor orang-outangs or lower monkeys, nor was immunityobtained by these injections. The virus is therefore ob-

viously destroyed in the subcutaneous tissue of a healthyanimal, but possibly subcutaneous injections of the virusinto a syphilitic animal may produce immunising antitoxins.The experiments are, however, not yet finished. Injectionsinto the blood-vessels and into the peritoneal cavity werealso unsuccessful. It was found that the virus lost its

efficacy within six hours ; material taken from a deadbody after 18 hours was inert and attempts to preserveit by means of glycerine, paraffin, and other sub-stances were unsuccessful. Experiments were alsocarried out for the purpose of ascertaining whether thedevelopment of syphilis could be cut short by excisionof the place of the injection at varying intervals previouslyto the appearance of the chancre, the result being that thechancre developed in eight out of 14 cases. In two casesthere was no formation of chancre, while in the remaindereither the appearances were uncertain or the animaldied at an early stage. It is remarkable that in onecase where the part was excised eight hours afterthe infection chancre nevertheless developed. Other ex-

periments were made for the purpose of determiningthe time within which syphilis may become generalbut were not yet finished. The administration of mer-

curials did not prevent the eruption of general syphilis.Professor Neisser finally discusses the possibility of immuni-sation against syphilis and the results of bacteriologicalexaminations. He stated that the spirocbaete pallida, recentlyalleged to be the cause of syphilis, was probably in etiologicalconnexion with the disease but that practically the presenceor absence of the spirochsete did not prove anything eitherfor or against the question of infectivity. Professor Neisserhas returned to Germany but the research will be continuedby his assistants who remain in Java.

A Model Institlltionfor Infants.On the occasion of the silver wedding of the German

Emperor and Empress a series of benevolent institutions willbe founded by public subscription. One that will certainlybe received with approval by the medical profession is amodel institution for infants. At a meeting of the com-mittee under the presidency of Dr. Schonstedt, late Ministerof Justice, when among others Dr. Heubner, professor ofchildren’s diseases in the University of Berlin, was present,some particulars were given about the proposed institution.The "infants’ home " is to be erected at Charlotten-

burg, a subuib of Berlin, on a site presented to the

Empress for this purpose b the municipal authoritiesof that town. The institution will include several de-

partments. In the first department pregnant women

will be received three months previously to their confine-ment and after it they will stay there for a fortnight. Thechildren must be fed by the mother and they are thereforetransferred to another department termed the "mothers’home," where they stay for three months. For childrenwho have to be fed artificially on account of their mothersbeing unable to suckle them a third department will be pro-vided, where, moreover, children born outside the institutionare to be received. A fourth department is destined for-sick infants. In connexion with the institution there willbe a large dispensary (FÜrsO?’gestelle), which will undertakethe after-care of mothers and children who have left thehome and where mothers and pregnant women may obtainadvice and will be provided with food. Large chemical andbacteriological laboratories and a model cow-house are to be

erected, and in addition to the medical and nursing staff atraining school for special nurses for children will beattached to the institution.I Jan.22nd.

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ITALY.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Measles in Milan.THE health conditions of the Lombard capital have a

more than domestic importance. Representatives of everynationality in Europe pass through Milan or pause on thewing within its gates on their way to or from the greatItalian centres or to or from Egypt and the Far East.Short as is their sojourn, it is, as experience has shown, quitelong enough to expose them to the risks of infectious diseasewhich in one form or another is never quite absent from acity the water-supply of which is still drawn from subsoil orother sources leaving much to be desired. In the day nowpassing it is measles which is the most prevalent in theMilanese environs and central quarters-measles not only of apronounced infective type but prone to assume complicationsmostly broncho-pneumonic in character. Starting from thecommunal villages, where the returns for December give 212cases at Boffalora Ficino, 146 at Abbiategrasso, 43 at Assago,100 at Magnago, 45 at Turbigo, and 40 at Canegrate,it has invaded the city itself till the sojourner within itcan hardly venture with safety into its railway station, or itsgalleries, or its houses of public entertainment, or even itstramcars and omnibuses. It is but just to say, however,that the sanitary authorities are fully alive to the dangerbesetting the city and are carrying out the most stringentprecautions by way of circumscribing its "sphere ofinfluence." All cases, for instance, declaring themselves inschools, asylums, and industrial establishments employingjuvenile labour, are at once isolated and subjected to

appropriate treatment, and so far with a success whichimplies intelligent cooperation on the part of the heads ofthe said establishments or institutions. As a great eM<7’epoof foreign travel Milan owes it to the outside world fromwhich she derives so much solid gain to follow up the

sanitary measures which she is now putting in practice witha still wider and more thorough-going programme whichwill include improvement of her water-supply and thesweeping away ot her "fever preserves."

The 1Verv Surgical Cliniq1te at Pisa.The ancient University of Galileo and Cesalpino, of Vacca

and Puccinotti, has been holding high festival on the occasionof the opening of its "Nuova Clinica Chirurgica." This

adjunct to its teaching equipment, long required but

inevitably postponed, has at length been carried to com-pletion, mainly through the energy and personal influence ofDr. Antonio Oeci, professor of surgery in the Pisan Schooland respected throughout Italy as one of her best teachers andoperators in that department of medicine. Private liberalityon his own part and on that of his friends, reinforcedby munificent contributions from the King and theGovernment, has been rewarded by the realisation of itsobject in the fine, commodious, and eminently serviceablestructure in which the Pisan medical student will now

perfect himself in surgery under conditions second tonone in any other Italian seat of learning. Theinaugural ceremony, in which the Senatus Academicusof Pisa and representatives of all the other sister universi-ties took part, was graced by a peculiarly felicitous addressfrom the rector, Professor David Supino, who took occasionto review the successive stages through which surgical andmedical practice and teaching had passed within the PisanSchool itself-from the days when in 1543 there were twonecropsies within the twelvemonth, graciously conceded orauthorised by the Grand Duke, to the present time whenevery year witnesses 300 necropsies at least; while no fartherback than 1870 the number of operations averaged 70 perannum and now there are as many as 500 within the sameperiod. After the rector came the professor of clinicalmedicine, Dr. Queirolo, who, speaking in the name of theMinister of Public Instruction, evoked repeated salvoes ofapplause in his enumeration of the services of ProfessorCeci and ot the architect, Professor Caselli. He was followedby these two latter who, each in his own department, drewan impressive picture of the difficulties to be surmountedbefore the result so universally admired could be achieved.

263

In the evening Professor Ceci entertained at the HotelNettuno a large number of guests, including the localmedical faculty and the delegates from the sister schoolsand again the oratory was of that brilliant charactertraditional in the academic Saturnalia of Italy.Jan.22nd.

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VIENNA.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Hypertrichosis graviditatis.A NOVEL symptom of pregnancy, or at least one which

has received little attention, has been noted by Dr. Halbanand he made it the subject of a paper which he read at arecent meeting of the Vienna Gynaecological Society. Hehad noticed for several years that brunettes who in Austriavery often show rudiments of a moustache developed duringpregnancy a fairly visible masculine type of hair on the

upper lip. Systematic observation has convinced Dr. Halbanthat pregnancy stimulated excessive growth of hair not onlyon the face but also on all other parts of the body. In par-ticular the lanugo of the abdomen and the extremities wasvery often influenced by pregnancy, but Dr. Halban was notprepared to state whether the hair of the axilla or pubeswas affected. The increased growth might be noticed fromthe second month of pregnancy and continued till the end ofnormal gestation or, to speak more exactly, till the expulsionof the placenta, when these hairs had a tendency to fall outagain, as could be seen very clearly on the mamm&aelig; and onthe linea alba, where hair of from one to two inches in lengthmight disappear a few days after delivery. Dr. Halban

thought that certain active principles connected with theplacenta or with the epithelium of the chorion were respon-sible for the changes by producing hyperaemia and thusbetter nutrition of glandular organs, as is already knownfor the mammas. This hypothesis, which was well sup-ported by many experiments on rabbits and dogs,would give a good explanation for the increased growthof the hair seen on the foetus from the sixth month,and would be consistent also with another fact noticedby a number of obstetricians-namely, that many femaleswho become pregnant at a time when the growth oftheir bones has not yet been arrested grow more rapidlyduring pregnancy than either before or after it. The womenbecame aware of this by finding that the skirts which theyhad been wearing for six months required to be lengthened.

A Case of Congenital Dilatation of the Colon.Professor Escherich recently showed at a meeting of the

Pediatric Society some specimens taken from a child, threeand a half years old, who had been suffering since birthfrom a very rare form of intestinal disease called Hirsch-

sprung’s disease after the name of the observer who firstdescribed it. The birth was normal but the child’s abdo-men was enormous. An enema which was immediatelyadministered succeeded in bringing away three-quartersof a pint of meconium and after a few hours theinfant vomited masses of meconium. The abdomendiminished a little but it remained always unusuallylarge, with a well-marked caput medus&aelig; (dilatationof the umbilical veins). Evacuations of the bowels hadto be obtained by enemata, as spontaneous motions neveroccurred. Therapeutic measures in the form of faradicirritation of the abdominal muscles, massage, and passiveexercises intended to strengthen the muscular walls weretried but without any appreciable effect. When the childwas weaned the condition was still worse. An operation wasultimately performed, the ampulla recti, with a part of thecolon, being amputated but the child died soon afterwardsfrom exhaustion. The post-mortem examination revealed anenormous dilatation of the caecum, the transverse colon, andthe sigmoid flexure, whilst the muscular coats of the partslying between the distended sections were greatly hyper-trophied, the increase taking place chiefly in the stratum ofcircular muscles. The stomach measured only two and

three-quarter inches in its longest diameter. There are only50 cases of such a condition on record. It is mostlycongenital ; it may also be acquired very early in childhoodand is usually fatal from auto-intoxication or exhaustion.

Sarcoma of the Mediastinum.Dr. Sternberg showed on a recent occasion some of th(

viscera of a man who died half an hour after admission t(

hospital and who presented extensive oedema of the upperhalf of the trunk and arms and cyanosis of the face. Thenecropsy explained the condition. A spindle-celled sarcomaoccupied the whole anterior half of the mediastinum, hadattacked both lungs, and was three inches in thickness onthe frontal aspect of the heart. The pericardium had dis-appeared and the right auricle, the right ventricle, and partof the left ventricle were in contact with the diaphragm.The remainder of the heart was invaded by the hetero-plastic mass and could not be detached from it. Thecavities of the heart were exceedingly narrow and themuscle was very friable. All three coats of the aorta andthe pulmonary artery were involved in the tumour and fromthe ostium of the superior vena cava there protruded along polypoid mass into the lumen of the auricle. Thevein itself was nearly blocked by the tumour, only a verynarrow lumen being left. Numerous secondary depositswere found in the lungs and the liver. The interest of thecase centred in the abnormal mechanical condition involvingthe heart. It was hardly possible to surmise in whatmanner the systole and diastole of the heart took place,as nearly the whole of the muscular wall was fixed byunyielding tissue and as there was no pericardial membraneleft. Another remarkable fact was the absence of depositswithin the bones or in the lower parts of the body, althoughthe vessels were mere canals within the foreign mass.

Spiroch&aelig;te Pallida in a Primary Chancre and in the Liver.Dr. Volk, who is endeavouring to prove the existence of

the supposed micro-organism of syphilis in all manifestationsof that disease, has prepared several films from an excisedchancre in which there could be seen several spiroch&aelig;teswithin the fibres of the connective tissue and between thecells of the deep portions of the Malpighian layer. They werestained by Levaditi’s method, which has the effect of render-ing the micro-organism black by a precipitate of silver. Outof five slides only one was useful, illustrating the difficultyof looking for the faintly coloured organism. In the liverthey were found much more frequently. The liver was that ofan infant, aged six months, who had died from intestinalcatarrh, and in whom syphilitic symptoms were manifest atbirth, but subsided quickly after treatment with iodine. Inthe blood of the patient from whom the chancre had beenexcised the spirochaste had been found on several occasionsbut could not be demonstrated as the films were spoiled.Jan. 20th.

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NEW YORK.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

A New Hospital for New York City.THE late Mr. Charles T. Yerkes in his will directed that a

,

sum not to exceed$800,000 is to be used for the purchase. of a suitable site and the erection thereon of a hospital, building in the Borough of the Bronx, a section in the

northern part of the city now growing very rapidly and at’

present but poorly supplied with hospital facilities. The support and maintenance of the hospital are also provided

for by the setting apart of an endowment fund of about!$5,000,000, the income of which is to be used for this. purpose. The testator further directs that the institution

shall be open to the public without regard to race, creed, orcolour, and that those unable to pay shall be cared for free

: of all charge. According to the provisions of the will the&iacute; necessary funds would not be liberated for this purpose until. after the death of Mrs. Yerkes who is to receive the income: of the residuary estate during her life but she is said to have : expressed the intention, if legally possible, of beginning the

work at once. Obstetric Rarities.Obstetric Rarities.

From Bristol, Virginia, comes the remarkable story that a- ten-year-old coloured girl of that town has just ’,.een deliveredf of a full-sized infant. To parallel this it is reported from1 Albany in New York State that a woman, aged 20 years, arr short time ago gave birth to a child 116 days after having

brought another infant into the world. The first labour wasattended by a midwife but the medical man who was presentat the second one states that both children are normal.

A New Army Hospital.e Congress has provided for the erection of a new Armyo General Hospital at Washington at a cost not to exceed