523I RELAND. —PARIS —ITALY.

standing that the drains should pass the oilicer’s inspection,and should refuse a licenie for occupation till such officer’srecommendation had been complied with, the present dis-graceful state of our house-drainage system would soon beset right, so far as new erections are concerned. This is amatter which very closely touches the public health, and itis to be hoped that Mr. McEwen’s suggestion will not be lostaght of.

IRELAND.(From our own Correspondent.)

MEDICAL OFFICERS’ SUPERANNUATION ACT.

DURING 1883 there were 83 Poor-law medical officers inIreland receiving superannuation allowances. Of thisnumber 61 were dispensary medical officers, 14 medicalofficers of workhouses, and in eight instances the medicalgentlemen held both these appointments.

RICHMOND HOSPITAL, DUBLIN.The whole nursing system in this institution has been

pointed out by the Medical Board as very defective. Thereis no one to give the nurses instruction or to overlook theirduties. The matron visits the wards during the day, but asshe has to superintend three hospitals, it is impossible thatshe can see that the individual requirements of the patients areattended to. The Medical Board some time since suggestedthe appointment of a skilled lady nurse as superintendent,and it is satisfactory to find that the governors have at lastconsented to the arrangement, and that a meeting will beheld on the 25th inst., in accordance with a notice given byProfessor Stokes, when the salary and emoluments of atrained head nurse for the hospital will be considered.OPENING OF BERKELY HALL, QUEEN’S COLLEGE, CORK.Berkely Hall, which has been erected at a cost of some

£9000, for the accommodation of Protestant students attend-ing this college, was formally opened last week by the LordBishop of Cork Part of the cost was obtained on loan fromthe Board of Works, and among the contributors was Mr.Crawford, who gave JE2500, leaving a debt remaining ofupwards of £2000. The building, which contains forty bed-rooms and grounds attached for the use of the students, hasprincipally been erected owing to the exertions of the Deanof Residence, the Rev. Dr. Webster.

CORONERS AND MEDICAL WITNESSES.

A person recently died at the Hammam Baths, Dublin,and a medical gentleman being sent for found that life wasextinct. The gentleman in question, Dr. McVeagh, verynaturally expected that as he first saw the case, hewould be the proper person to give evidence at the inquest,more especially as his name and address were taken by theconstables in charge for that purpose. Another medicalpractitioner was, however, examined by the coroner, whowas not sent for at the time of the man’s death; andDr. McVeagh complains, and with reason, of the want ofcourtesy and justice adopted by the coroner in this case

towards the profession and himself.Dr. Cameron, medical officer of health for Dublin, in

his report for August states that the death-rate was un-usually high, owing to the great mortality caused bydiarrhoea, due to a considerable extent to the high tem-perature which prevailed.The Dublin Corporation has arranged to add swimming

baths to the baths and washhouses now being erected in thatcity.The late Mr. James German of Dublin has left £1000

to Jervis-street Hospital, i6000 to the Cabra Deaf andDumb Institution, and £400 to the Mater MiserieordiasHospital.Dr. Fleetwood Churchill of Dublin died very suddenly from

cardiac disease on the 6th inst.. The deceased was highlyesteemed and respected, and his untimely death is deeplyregretted by a very large circle of friends and acquaintances.Dublin, Sept. 15th.

VACCINATION GRANT.-Dr. Richards, of Birming-ham, has, for the second time, received a Government grantfor successful vaccination in the Edgbaston district of theKing’s Norton Union.

PARIS.

(From our own Correspondent.) j

THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC.

I HAVE nothing new to report in regard to the progress ofthe cholera in the south of France, and although it is still

raging, it is doing so with diminished intensity, and is con-fined to the localities already named. Even in Spain thesituation is about the same, but in Italy the epidemic isassuming alarming proportions, particularly in Naples,where, however, the mortality and the number of admissionshave been somewhat on the decrease during the last two orthree days. The incursion of the epidemic into these partswould seem to point to the futility of quarantines and"cordons sanitaires " so zealously carried out by the Italian

Government., Two cases were reported to have occurred in Paris, but, asusual, were found on inquiry to be nothing more than severecases of seasonal diarrhoea, which, however, proved fatal.The deaths having occurred in a hospital, the same precau-tions were taken as are now prescribed for genuine Asiaticcholera.

Paris has not for a long time been so healthy as it is atpresent, and although the mortality is rather higher thanthat of the preceding week (985 against 932), it is about theaverage of the corresponding periods of the five previousyears.

THE DISINFECTION OF ROOMS.

At the requisition of the Prefect of Police, MM DujardinBeaumetz, Pasteur, and Roux performed experiments withthe view of ascertaining what would be the best gas for dis-infecting rooms in which patients suffering from contagiousaffections had sojourned. These gentlemen have come tothe conclnsion that sulphurous acid gas would be the mostefficacious for such purposes; but instead of simply burningsulphur as is done in the barracks and military hospitals,they recommend the burning of the sulphur of carbon asbeing the least expensive and the least injurious to thefurniture or articles of metal in the rooms.

A MONUMENT TO FRESNEL.

A rather interesting ceremony was performed last Sundayat Broglie (Eure) in the inauguration of a monument thathas been erected in honour of Augustin Jean Fresnel, theiltustrious physicist and member of the Institute, where hewas born on the 10th May, 1778, and who died at Villed’Avray, near St. Cloud, in 1827. The ceremony was pre-sided over by the Due de Broglie as Maire of the district,and was attended by the Municipal Council of the place, anddelegates from the Academy of Sciences. Fresnel was theauthor of several important works on the phenomena of thedispersion, refraction, and polarisation of light, which ledto the invention of "Phares à lentilles à echelons," or

lighthouses with gradation lenses, which have renderedsuch material service to navigation.

Paris, Sept. 17th. _______________

ITALY.(From our own Correspondent.) )

" Sempre avanti, Savoia ! (Ever forward, Savoy -thenow historical exclamation of Queen Margherita when, onthe eve of the royal visit to Sicily, the commandant of theDuilio, hesitating to put out into the stormy sea, took HerMajesty’s opinion on the point-seems no less the watchwordof King Humbert. When besought by his retinue of states-men, soldiers, and physicians to pause in his pilgrimagethrough cholera-stricken Naples, he simply bows and con-tinues his progress from bedside to bedside and from ward toward. Before starting for the doomed city be receivedfrom the town council of Pordenone a memorial to honourwith his presence the races about to come off in that

I Venetian town ; and his reply, sent by telegram, has such atruly Roman ring that I cannot forbear’quoting it in theoriginal, if but to show how modern Italian, equally withancient Latin, condenses into force and crystallises intoepigram-" A Pordenone si fa festa ; a Napoli si muore.Vado a Napoli." (At Pordenone they are merry-making ; atNaples they are dying. I go to Naples.) And he was as

524 ITALY.-OBITUARY.

good as his word, though the danger to be encountered was an

as great as when he faced the Austrian fire at Custozza, or DIas when his father, while also a youth, had his hussar th,jacket riddled with seventeen bullets at Novara. in

Courage is the requisite the Neapolitans are most in G(need of, and had they possessed but a fiftieth part of it as " it lives and moves in the King, their mortality due to ducholera would have been lessened in the same ratio. Of re

this none are more cognisant than the Italian physicians, datwo of whom, Dr. Paolo Mantegazza and Dr. Angelo Mosso, fohave written classical treatises on ‘° La Paura [fear] ; and toits Influence in courting and aggravating Disease." The su

truth is that in sudden explosions of epidemic maladies the itSouthern are no better than the Northern races when the p!cry of

" fire " has been raised in a theatre and the audience den masse makes for the door. Seventeen years ago the town pof Albano, perched on the hills some fourteen miles from riRome, was the scene of a panic disastrous in the same pro- piportion with that now decimating Naples. Rome had just pbeen visited with cholera, and a few sporadic cases sent ojcrowds of the inhabitants to the Alban Hills. One fugitive, rl

who had certainly the germ of the disease in him before his Pflight, took refuge in the Cappuccini monastery just above tiAlbano itself, and in twenty-four hours he died. The bCapuchins, in their wisdom, interred his body wrapped in o

its cholera-stained garments at a spot within a few feet ofthe one well which supplied Albano with water ! The con- sequences may be imagined. In two days the mortality in a ppopulation not numbering 7000 rose to hundreds. First one pchurchyard was filled, and then another had to be opened. v

The demon of terror seemed to have possessed the inhabi- ttants. All fled who had the opportunity-ecclesiastics (with Ione or two honourable exceptions), shopkeepers, even the r

apothecary. The one physician who remained had more to r

do in exorcising fear than in any other treatment, and case B

after case came under his observation which (I quote his c

words) " died of sheer panic." Before the week was outthere was no escaping from Albano, as the townsfolk ofCastel Gandolfo on the one side, and those of Ariccia on theother, planted artillery at every point of egress and forcedthe Albanese to simmer iD their own juice. The patricianCardinal Altieri was among those who died at his post,which was immediately filled by another Monsignore. Apowerful description of the scene presented by the usuallyslumberous Alban town during the August of 1867 was con.tributed by the late Mrs. Robert Macpherson to Blackwood’sMagazine of the same year.

It must also be remembered that liability to panic in presence of a mysterious danger like that of cholera is inti-mately dependent on bodily well-being, as no one who hasany knowledge of the modus vivendi m Southern Italy can fail to see. The population have no physical sta,mina, nomoral resisting power. They sleep in overcrowded rooms-

. rabbit hutches rather. They are very ill-clad, in winter especially, flannel being well nigh unknown among them,while a clean skin means a cold skin, and the ablutionsrequired by’health are neglected accordingly. Then, theirfood is the least sustaining imaginable, nine-tenths of it

being macaroni - that is, starch and water with a littlelettuce or an olive doing duty as salad. Butcher’s meat oraliments of any kind containing the proper proportionof nitrogen they seldom taste. In summer they consumelarge quantities of fruit, invariably unripe, as the produce oforchards is never allowed to ripen, lest it be stolen or an-nihilated by hailstorms. Their poverty is such that theycan barely afford fuel enough to cook their macaroni,which is generally eaten half raw and conveyed to theirmouths with their fingers from unutterably filthy tables un-furnished with plates or forks. In point of education ormoral enlightenment they are pretty much as they havebeen for centuries back-ignorant, superstitious, at themercy of every quack, medical, religious, or political. Suchis the population which on every occasion of a cholera epide-mic furnishes victims by the thousand, particularly in citieslike Naples, where the water-supply has long been execrable,and where twenty-five years of constitutional freedom andparliamentary representation have not sufficed to bring backeven the semblance of the magnificent reservoirs, aqueducts,and fountains of ancient Rome, republican or imperial.

Special treatment in cases of cholera is still undeterminedin Italy. That which has proved most successful has beenthe hypodermic injection of water saturated with chloride ofsodium-hypodermoclysis, as the Italian physicians call it

under; aepga, skin ; and &kgr;&lgr;ú&zgr;&ohgr; lave). This is simply

an extension of Pacini’s recommendation, practised also byDuchaussoy in Paris, and fully described in the " Report onthe Results of the different Methods of Treatment pursuedin Epidemic Cholera, addressed to the President of theGeneral Board of Health,"?. 13(London,1855). Pacinisays:-" It is clear that the injection of salt water into the veins pro-

, duces immediate reaction, but it is easy to see that the saidreaction cannot be maintained so long as the intestinal transu.

dation lasts. Everyone will admit that the primary curefor a leaking wine barrel is not to keep filling it, butto make it tight; all the more is this the case in the human

, subject, where the vascular system has the power of refilUNge itself the moment the overflow ceases. So long as the; patient is capable of swallowing astringent and antiseptic:e drinks, I do not believe the physician is authorised toi practise those injections, since, besides being attended withi risks, they are not absolutely required until the stage of ap-- parent death, at least, in bodies presumed to be dead whicht present some return of warmth or some movement. The uset of astringent and antiseptic beverages may be reverted towhen, reanimation manifests itself." Acting on these indications,s Professors Perli, Amoroso, and Adinolfi, when in consulta.e tion one evening on a case of cholera collapse, practisede bypodermoelysis according to Cantani’s method. Then operation itself was performed by Professors Perli and)f Adinolfi. In fifteen minutes the patient had absorbed a

lItre of water, and it was observed by the other physiciana present, as well as by a non-professional bystander, that thee pulse became perceptible, the countenance, previously cada.1. verous in colour and feature, assumed something of anima-i- tion, the anuria ceased, and a general improvement set in.h During the night the amelioration was more and more pro-e nounced, until the temperature touched fever point and theo reaction commenced. The next morning the patient, though!e very weak, was comparatively well. Some interesting recordsis of hypodermoclysis may be looked for from Naples.it Rome, Sept. 15th, 1884.of

Obituary.JOHN NETTEN RADCLIFFE,

WE deeply regret to have to announce the death after &

long illness of this well-known member of the profession,Mr. Radcliffe was born in Yorkshire, and received his medical education at the Leeds School of Medicine, of which hewas in later years practical teacher of anatomy and pro-sector ; he also was for some time medical superintendent oithe Hospital for the Paratysed and Epileptic in Queen-square.Bat it is in connexion with his labours on public healthquestions that Mr. Radcliffe secured his most lasting repu-tation. Having acquired some considerable experience on

, questions of health in the East during the Crimean cam-paign, he was selected by Mr. Simon in 1865 to prepare a

: report on the sources and development of the diffusion of.

cholera which then existed in Europe ; a report was also,prepared by him for the Privy Council office at about the

L ; same date on an outbreak of cholera at Theydon Bou; an’t. it is certainly not too much to say that had Mr. Radcliffer never again written on the same subject his name would

ever after have been identified with the standard literature-r

on this important subject. The wide knowledge whichr Mr. Radcliffe obtained as to the topography of the East,e and his immense power for accurate research, are brought out in a striking manner in these reports ; indeed, from 1hat1 date forward the Government invariably sought his ai 1 irr’ connexion with their investigations of Eastern epidemics ins

Europe. In 1867 followed Mr. Radcliffe’s now famous reporton cholera in the east of London, a report which embodied

k the results of an elaborate and impartial inquiry which ledI, him to the conclusion that the terrible outbreak in questiond

had been produced by the distribution of infected wa’ern

from certain reservoirs of the E’t’!t London Wdter Com-

of pany. It was not long after the issue of this latter re-it port that the Privy Council office secured the permanenty services of Mr. Rrdcliffe as a medical inspector, and later