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ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS IN IRELAND.

THE annual election for office-hearers will take place onthe 7th proximo, when Mr. McClintock will be appointedpresident, Mr. Chaplin vice-president, and Mr. Colles sec-retary. For the Council all the outgoing members are

candidates for re-election, and in addition five Fellows havecome forward for a seat on the Council—viz , Messrs. JohnAndrew Baker, Austin Meldon, F. Alcock Nixon, HenryMacnaughton Jones, and James Good Curtis.

HORSE-POX.

WE learn that an outbreak of horse-pox (Variola equina)has occurred at the west end of London, the nature of themalady having been recognised by Mr. Fleming, who has de-scribed it in his " Veterinary Sanitary Science and Police."The affection derives its interest from the fact that it was

supposed by Jenner to be the source of cow-pox, and alsothat it is communicable to mankind, and some other

species, by inoculation, producing effects somewhat analo-gous to those of vaccinia. In the present outbreak severalanimals have been successfully inoculated ; and medicalmen may be interested to know that the attendant on thediseased horses has accidentally contracted the complaint.Last year, in the Second Life Guards, there was an out-break of horse-pox among the troopers ; and the Farrier-Major was infected, the symptoms resembling those observedin vaccination, as appears in the report of the case publishedin the Veterinary Journal for March. We hear that experi-ments are being conducted at the Brown Institution withmaterial obtained from the diseased horses in London.

SUNSHADES FOR HANSOMS.

THE inconvenience of holding an umbrella or a sunshadein front of a hansom is very great. Why should not thesevehicles be fitted with a light projecting shade like thatworn by little children on their bonnets, or the screens some-times attached to the front of ba,thing machines, and soworked that it may be under control of the

" fare " ? Nothingwould be easier than to devise such an apparatus. The hoodshould stand flat back against the front of the hansom whennot in use, and it need add nothing to the difficulties of

ingress, while it could be made to fall forward at will,sheltering the eyes from the sun in bright weather, or afford-ing protection in rain. -

THE summer classes this session at Edinburgh are evenmore largely attended than last year, and the overcrowding in the botanical class-room once more compels ProfessorDickson to lecture twice daily. Over two hundred studentstook part in the first botanical excursion, and visited theFife coast between Aberdour and Burntisland. Professor

Alleyne Nicholson is acting for Sir Wyville Thomson, whois not yet able to undertake the class-work. In the extra-mural school two new lecturers have qualified-viz., Mr.Geddes in Zoology, and Mr. McAlpine, B.Sc., in Botany.

THE death of Pershouse W. L. Langley, M.D. Q.U.I.,M.Ch., of Liverpool, has been announced, under circum-stances of more than ordinary sadness. Dr. Langley wasbut twenty-three years of age, and died of typhus fevercontracted in the discharge of his duties as senior residentmedical officer of the West Derby Union Hospital. Thedeceased was the only son of Inspector-General Langley,who held an official post in the Crimea during the war in1854.

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SUMMONSES have been issued for a meeting of the Execu-tive Committee of the General Medical Council on Tuesday,June 15th, 1 P.M.

DR. G. A. KEYWORTH has proposed the applicariou of hotair as a remedy for cancer. By means of a foot.bellows, hedrives air through chloride of lime and hot iron tubes, andthen forces it against the surface of the diseased growthThe New York Medical Record states that the effect is therelief of pain with considerable desiccation of the parts.

THE annual meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Collegeof Surgeons, for the election of four members iuto theCouncil of the College, is fixed to be held on Thursday,July 1st, at 2 o’clock P.M. The circulars announcing themeeting are now about being delivered to all the Fellow:whose addresses are known at the college.

His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland has madethe following appointments : -Surgeons in Ordinary’Edward Dillon Mapother, Robert McDunnell. Phj siciansin Ordinary : George Hatchell, Thomas Nedley, ChristopherNixon. Dentist : Daniel Corbet.

THE managers of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary willshortly proceed to elect a third assistant physician, inorder that the work in the out-patient depiirtmeut andelsewhere may be somewhat lightened, and the teachingpower of the staff increased.

PROFESSOR W. H. FLOWER, F.R.S., will distribnte the

prizes and deliver an address in connexion with the Univer.sity College Faculty of Medicine, on Wednesday, June 2nd,The Earl of Kimberley will take the chair at 4.30 P.M.

IT is rumoured that during the present session a Bill willbe introduced into the House of Commons to grant a Parlia.

mentary representation to the newly-constituted Universityof Ireland.

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THE annual session of the American Medical Associationcommences on June 1st, at New York.

Public Health and Poor Law.LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.

REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICEES OF HEALTH.

Bradford, Yorl"slzire (estimated population in 1879,191,046).-The report of the medical officer of health (Mr.Harris Butterfield) for this important borough during theyear 1879 is, for numerous reasons, of peculiar interest.Bradford is the capital of the Yorkshire worsted and stuffdistrict, and it had grown to be a great and densely-populatedtown before public-health legislatioi and administration hademerged from their rudimentary gtate. As a consequence,the sanitary evils and defects which characterised our townsthirty years ago-defects of drainage, defects of water-

supply, defects of excrement-disposal, defects of house-accommodation-were to be witnessed in Bradford, and thisindeed in a most aggravated form. Bradford at the periodreferred to was, in respect to one evil only, a hideously.offensive Cyclopean midden-privy fenced in with inhabiteddwellings; and its sanitary deficiencies made their unwhole,some influence ghastly apparent in its swollen mortality,But things sanitary have changed and are still changing M!the better, especially since the appointment of the present ablehealth officer, and a transformation has already been effectedin the sanitary conditions of the town which redounds to thecredit of the Corporation, and which is of the most gratityingnature, whether regarded in the interests of its populationor as encouraging the sanitary authorities of other town-which have to contend with similar difficulties. Last year

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the death-rate of Bradford (21’1 per 1000 of population), Mr.Butterfield tells us, was "the lowest ever recorded in

Bndford, and 3’1 below the average of the six precedingyears." Moreover, none of the large manufacturing townshad a death-rate so low as that of Bradford The diminutionof mortality was particularly noted in the disease most likelyto be iutluellced by sallitary and social causes. Infantile

mortality, calculated on the proportion of deaths to births.has declined front 20 5 itt 1873 to 15’2 in the present year,wlile there is a marked diminution in the number of deathsfrom tuhercular diseases, the convulsive diseases of infants,and from "fever" and diarrhoea. Glancing at the particularsubjects dealt with in the report, in the order they are given,we note first an outbreak of small-pox, which is of intereston two accounts, first wtth reference to its particular source,and next with reference to the measures by which it wasextinguished. The person first attacked was engaged in

sorting rags, a large portion of which had come from London,and it is believed she contracted the disease from infectedportions among them. Other persons engaged in the sameoccupation were also attacked with the disease. Thesepersons were at once removed to the infectious-disease hos-pital of the borough, vaccination and revacciuation, withdisinfectants, diligently used in the infected families, and thespread of the disease beyond afew scattered cases stayed. Thiswasnota solitary instance during the ear of the arrest of small-pox infection by the Corporation having at command, in thefever hospital, the means for immediate isolation. Measles,as usual, trom the early stage of its infectiousoess, and thetrivial light in which it is too commonly regarded, foiled theefforts of the sanitary authority in endeavouring to arrest itsspread ; but in respect to scarlet fever Mr. Bu ttt-rfield is ableto make the following important and encouraging state-ment :-" The most hopeful circumstance in the preventivetreatment of the disease is the increasing popularity of theFever Hospital, which last year admitted 157 case?, manyof them being private patients." The following is, more-

over, of much practical interest :-" In many cases wheremothers were unwilling to part with their children at theoutset of the disease, the patients have been sent to the hos-pital when convalescence was established. Instead of beingisolated in one room for three or four weeks during the pro-cess of desquamation they are allowed at the hospital toplay in the grounds, and have companionship and amuse-ment, as well as medical supervision, careful nursing, whole-some diet, and abuudant ablutions. Mr. Butterfield recountsan interesting outbreak of diphtheria, in which the disease ap-pears to have been determined by the use of milk from a dairywhere diphtheria existed. The conditions under which themilk was exposed to infection deserve quotation. The milk-cans, which were found dirty, " were kept in a scullery orwash-kitchen, in which was a sink with an untrapped pipe.Under this sink was a chamber utensil containing excreta.Near the milk-cans was a washtub half full of dirty water,and resting on the milk-cans were two bundles of dirty linenfrom the bed and person of the infected chdd." The reportgives most interestung- information as to the diminution of"fever" and diarrhoea in the town following upon improve-ments in drainage and privy arrangements. During theperiod 1S70-74 the deaths from "fever" and "diarrhoea" were respectively 689 and 1106. During the period 1875-79they had fallen to 323 and 830. But if much has been doneto improve the sanitary condition of Bradford in respect towater-supjdy, drainage, and excrement disposal, much de-tailed sanitary work still remains to be done. But we maytake assurance that a Corporation which has done so muchwill not halt in its course until it has done all that isneeded.East Grinstead (estimated population, 16,500). -Dr.

Fussell, reporting to the Rural Sanitary Authority of thisdistrict, gives a txrth-rate of 36’0 per 1000 population, and adeath-rate of 17’21 for the year 1879, in the combination ofwhich it forms a part. The death-rate tanged in the differentparts of the combination from 0’4 per 1000 population (Lind-lield Urban) to 19 2. No very noteworthy health-disturb-ance chequered the course of the year, and the sanitaryadministration had a pretty even path throughout. Scarletfever did little mischief, and there were but three or fourcaes of typhoid fever throughout the district. Several cases ofsmall-pox occurred among a body of excavators engaged inrailway construction, which was successfully combated andconfined to this body of labourers by isolation. The con-tractors for the works provided huts for the hospital accom-modation and isolation of the men seized with the disease.

Dr. Fussell nortes another instance of the value uf havinghospital accommodation at hand for the isolation of firstcases of infections disease—an imported case of small-pox,which it was po-sible to deal with immediately by isolation,and which did not give rise to any other case. Dr. Fusselladverts to a communication from the Local Government B andasking for information as to the hospital accommodation pos-sessed by sanitary authorities in hisdiarict for isolating casesof illfectlous diseases. He appears to think that the accommo-dation possessed hy the Board of Guardians at the WOI khouseis amply sufficient. for the wants of the district, but. weimagine that Poor-law hospital accommodation wilt not heheld by the Local Government Board as meeting the wants ofsanitary authorities He menti us the great advantages whichhave r’een derived by the district from the access had to thefever wing of the Cuuuty Hospital in Brighturr through sub-scrihers. A system of drainage is nearly completed in EastGrinstead, and schemes of drainage are under considerationfor other parts of the district.Scarborough (estimated population, 30,000) -Dr. Taylor’s

report on the health of this important seastde-resort as yethas only reached us in abstract, as given in the localjournals. Is it possible that a town of this importancedoes not print the annual report of its medical oflicer ofhealth? The abstract, wit.h the comments of the abstracter,gives a highly favourable report of the health-condition ofthe place during 1879, but we are unable to form an

independent judgment of the subject in the absence ofthe detailed report. The Corporation has not the highestreputation for the exercise of care in attention to the

health-requirements of the town in the interest of its popu-lation and visitors, and that no little leaven of apathyIn these matters still exists with the local authority is tobe inferred from certain comments of Dr. Taylor. Hespeaks of "many" " hack - roads, lanes, and semi - publicthoroughfares presenting "Augean nuisances that requireHerculean determination to remove "; and he tells of nearlytwenty back-passages that were reported to he in a filthycondition so far back as the year 1875, and which, although.they have been reported to the Corporation annually sincethat time, remain filthy still. "Surely," writes Dr. Taylor,"the sanitary committee must wink at the reports of theirofficers, or there could not be room for such a statement."The death-rate for 1879 is stated to have been 20-17 per 1000population. ____

THE HOUSING IN SUBURBAN LONDON.46 We find vast numbers of houses being built with drain-

age into cesspools, the drains themselves utterly unven-

tilated and unprovided with any means for preventing theentry thereto of cesspool-air or sewer-air; soil- pipes un-ventilated, sink - pipes directly connected with drains,foundations hopelessly darnp, and so forth. We find themajority of the sewers are unventilated, and the ditchesand watercourses turned into vast receptacles for decom-posing filth." We quote these words from a letter printedin the columns of the Willesden Chrunicle, aud signed "P.Gotdon Smith,"—in other words, we surmise, the Architectof the Local Government Board. The words refer to thedwelling-houses springing up "by leaps and bounds" in thenorth-western suburbs of London, but they apply equally tonew houses in other suburbs where bye-laws for the regula-tion of certain structural details of new buildings are not inforce. The statements quoted come with particular forcefrom Mr. Gordon Smith. He has written them in warningto the Local Board of Willesden, the district in which helives, of the sanitary evils they are peimittiug to grow uparound them, and which must prove increasingly dangerousto the community. The mischief already done can only inpart be undone ; but the sanitary authority may, if it thinkfit, put a stop to the further creation of evils of the sort re-ferred to, if it adopt and put in force bye-laws for the regu-lation of the structural arraugements of new buildings, as thelaw provides—that is to say, if they proceed to lock the doorafter the first horses of the stud have been stolen. Mr.Gordon Srnirh’s letter is intended for the special enlighten-ment of a particular suburb; but it conveys a much wider and,we may say, graver lesson, which we have often had to urgeupon our readers. It furnishes another and most strikingillustration of that feature of sanitary legislative policy towhich we gave particular notice in THE LANCET of the l5thinstant, under the name of "Partingtonianism"—a policywhich does not interpose aiiv etl’ectual barrit-r to the growthin new centres of population of the very evils which it is the

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express purpose of the lrublic-hea.lth law to remove. Sanitarylaw is too generally powerless in these new centres until theevil. which it, w,ra devised to obviate have been first created.It substitutes for the adage " Prevention is better thau cure,"the maxim "Cure is better than prevention." Mr. Dodsonand the present Government have an enviahle chance ofpurging sanitary law wholly of this mischievous absurdity,and of getting it into a straighter course.

THE REGISTRATION OF DISEASE : PROSECUTION.

On the 10th inst. Dr. David Robertson, of Moldgreen,Huddersfield, was charged with having, contrary to the pro-visions of the Huddersfield Waterworks Improvement Act,1876, faled to report a certain case of infectious disease in ahabitation where there was not sufficieut accommodation forenabling the case to be properly attended to, so as to preventthe spread of the disease and the proper treatment thereof.The case, one of scarlet fever, happened to he in the houseof a milk-dealer, who sold in bulk, not in retail. A firstcase was followed by a second in the dealer’s house, both

being children of his, and were attended by his wife. Noquestion appem-j to have arisen as to the sufficiency ofSplice in the house for the isolation of the children from thefamily; but the medical officer of health and the sanitaryinspector for the borough tendered evidence to show thatmilk sold from the house, under the circumstances of thetreatment and attendance upon the cases there, was liable tobecome infected with the contagion of scarlet fever. Dr.Robertson observed in his defence that he should have re-ported the first, case had he thought it necessary to do so;but if he had to report every case of contagions disease wherehe thought there was a deficieucy of accommodation nineout of ten of the -ases in Moldgreen would have to be takento hospitnts. The magistrates adopted the view of themedical mttiuer of heairh, and inflicted upon Dr. Robertson anorrriaal penaltyof five shillings and the expenses.As this case is reported in the local journals it does not

give the impression that the action of the Corporation wasjudicious. Either the Corporation shorrlrl take the entireresponsibility of determining whether infectious cases are

properly or improperly lodged, and cause every case

to he reported to then!; or they should issue definite instruc-tions as to what they are prepared to couslder proper orimproper lodgment to he. It is intolerable that the judgmentof the medical man, who is responsible for the treatment of acase, should be subject, to being traversed unexpectedly andunpleasantly, as 1)r. Robertson’s has been. This is not thefirst time. if we mistake not, that the Huddersfield Corpora-tion has been brought into collision with the medical pro-fession there hy Its ill-considered administration of the pro-visions of their Improvement Ad renting to infectiousdiseases. Has Hurldersfieln any hospital provision for infec-tions disease ? Or is it one of those loeal authoritieswhich shows itself active in imposing duties upon otherswhile neglecting to fulfil a primary dllty as to the limitationof infectious diseases within its own limits ?

"EXECRABLE" HOUSE DRAINAGE IN THE METROPOLIS.

"The execrahle drainage arranrrernents" of many of thenew houses bui)t. within the metropolitan area are, so tospeak, a standing theme of animadversion among Londoners;but, the subject, not witstanding its importance, has neverinduced among the populations of the different sanitarydistricts of the metropolis such an amount of interest asWould lead to concerted action for its arllend ment. MrCharles Campbell, of Cro in well- road, Kensington, hasreceut,ly endeavoured to arouse public attention to it byrecounting his experience of the subject, as a resident and’vestryma.n of the district in which he lives, and he has doneso in a fashion which ought to awnke sounder thought onthe matter than is too commonly the case. He jrtst y re-

gards the careless ignorant, and scamping doings of thebuilders in r(-g.i.i-41 to hou’e-drainage as simp)y an indiction of a deeper and more serious evil ; he rinds that thesanitary authorities in the metropolis have no lack of powerto remedy the mischief of which he comptains, so far as legis-lation is concerne; and he justly seeks an explanation ofthe whole matter in the apathy and carelesness of theauthorities reterrnd to) with regard ro ths subject,. The largepowers’ which the Legislature has given to the metropo-litan sanitary authorities in reference to the drinagearrangements of houses have been and are being, sufferedto remain very largely a dead-letter. They are powers

which experience has long taught cannot be ethn;crexercised without bye-laws, and we are unaware ot a sanitary authority in the metropolis which has fr a

code of hve-laws regulating these arrangements iu definitiveterms. The exclusion of the metropolitan sanitary adminis-trataou from the general public-health legistation of thekingdom, and its freedom from all proper supervisiou as to themode of performance of its health-functions by being plac:cin relation with the Home Office (which has no health-futr..tions and no means of supervising them), instead of wiithe Local Government Board (which has health-furictiolsand the means of supervision), have exercised und still exercise a disastrous influence on the hcatth-welfare, presentand future, of the metropolitan population. Uutitthcsanitary administration of the metropolis is more closel;approximated to that of other urban districts of the kinadom, anomalies of the nature pointed out by Mr. Cdmphellw1l1continue to exist, and the metropolitan populations to sufterfrom them.

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GOVERNMENT CONTROL.

Recent writers in The Times have been makinaknotvntheir griefs as to the interposition of Government control inaffrtirs coucerniub local administration. Their complaintsrelate wholly to matters which come under the coutrol of theLocal Government Board, and betray a painful degree ofirritation with the mode in which the inspectorial functionsof that Board are carried out. The wnters, nufortunately,(to not distinguish hetween the manner in which control isexercised by the Local Government Board, and which solelyconcerns that Board, and the matters to which that controlrefers, which are appointed by the Legislature, and whichcan alone he dealt with by the Legislature. It would beanill day for England and for the English ratepayer if localauthorities were permitted to exercise that unchecked free.dom in local government for which these writers coutend.Taking sanitary matters alone there is too good reason tobelieve that money borrowed on easy terms from the Govern-ment for the pupose of executing sanitary works has, not-with standing extsting checks on expenditure by the LocalGovernment Board, heen wastefully expended hoth in apecuniary and in a sanitary sense; while the pled, that a localauthority can best appreciate and has the completest know-ledge of what is needed for its own district, too often provesto he a plea for the exercise of local ignorauce, uticourrolledby the wider knowledge which may he obtained hy com-paring the experiences of various localities. But, considerations of this sort apart, the indications are too numerous andsignificant of a widening discontent against the Inspectorialand general system of the Local Government Board, whichcannot fail to be seriously detrimental to the influence thatBoard ought to exercise upon local authorities, and whichmust operate most prejudicially against tl)e "educational"functions of the Bomd. We predicted this result when Air.Stansfeld determined at all hazards to franie the adojinistri-tion of the Local Government board upon the trediturusandpractice of the old Poor-law Board, and we regret to findthat this prediction is being fulfilled. The subject deservesthe grave attention of that Board.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES HOSPITALS AND ZYMOTIC FATALITY,

The medicat officer of health for the City of Bristol, inhis Quarterly Return for the past three months of this yearenunciates that ,cariet, fever is "of all the zymotic diseasesthe most intmctahle," and acids, " sanitary authorities andtheir officers may right with it, postpone its visitations, gainvictories in skumishes with it, hut i the long run it holdsIts own sway, deriving its strength from the iruotauceandthe fatilistic beliefs of the public We would not wish todeny that there is much tl nth in Mr. David Davies’s re-marks; hut when we read in his report that during lastquarter only one patient was admitted to the Fever Hospitalwe heg leave to doubt whether the sanitary authority andtheir officers in Bristol have done their best to fight scarletfever with the weapons they have at command. In the Bed-minster snb-distr!or, of Bristol 45 fatal cases of scarlet fevewere recorded during the last quarter of 1879, and iu thetirst three months of this year 41 mipie fatdl caseswere recorded. Thus during six months scmiet fever liasheld its sway in Beri minster, and no successful effort;, havebeen made to contact the Nrevalenne and fatality oi tile4lisea,,,e hy turning the city hospital accommodation to

account for iisulatiun purposes. It would be interesting it

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Mr. Dtvies could explain to us why hospital isolation ofscarlet fever is comparatively a dead letter in Bristol,wherers in L"ndon, Birmingham, and Stiford the medicaloSicers of health have heen able to turn the hospital accom-n:odation provided for the isotation and treatment ofzymotic diseases tu exctlleit account. Dr. Hill, the medicalollicer of health for Birmingham, in his report for the tirstquarter of this year records the fast that 45 cases of scarletfever were admitted into the Birmingham Borough Hospital,while the number of cases of this disease admitted to thisinstitution during 1878 and 1879 were 424 and 184 respec-tively. Bristol is well provided with hospital liceolllllloda-tion for infectious diseases, hut this accommodation will bepowerless to control the prevalence of such a. disease as scarletfever unless its value be recognised and the hospital utilised.

LONDON STINKS.

Attention has at length been drawn in the daily press tothe disgusting smells pervading many of the principal Londonstreets at the present moment. A correspondent, likens thesmell in Victoria-street, Westminster, to that of a charnet-house, and the smell in the Quadrant, Regent-street, orr

Friday and Saturday last was so like that of cartion, thatwe beard the question debated whether it did not come fromsome open windows in the houses near the spot where it wasfelt, and might not arise from some, perhaps unknown,carrion there. But this is not the only part of Regent, streetwhich has recently been distinguished by a foui smell. Thestench (arising from stagnant sewage according to some,from fouluess of the roadway according to others) has liet-nspecially obvious to the passer-hy about the centre of thestreet,, and between Oxf4)id-eiretis and Mdrgaret-street. Inthe latter place it was particularly disgusting on Saturdayevening. Other streets in the West of London have, andare, suffering from persisting stink. It has been suggestedthat this offensive state of things has arisen from the longspell of dry weather, and consequent insntlicirnt flushing ofthe sewers or streets or both. But are the sanitary authoritiesof the metropolis so wanting in ingenuity, energy, and meansthat the effects of ahsence of rain upon the sewers and streetsat this time of the year cannot be counteracted.

The first prosecution under the section of the BlackburnIniproveifteiit Act, which requires every medical practitionerwithin the borough to report to the local authority certainspecifit,d infections diseases under a penalty in defaultthereof, came on for hearing before the magistrates on the12th inst. Mr. Cort, the medical man against whom theprosecution was instituted, was charged, upon the evidenceof a death certiticate given by him, with having reglectedto contpiy with the section referred to. The certificaterelated to a, patient-a child—Mr. Cort had been called tofive days before it died, aud when, we are given to under-stand, it was suffeting from laryngitis. There had beenprevious illness, it seems, before Mr. Cort saw the case, ex-tending over niue days, for which medical aid bad not beensought, and which he carrte to the conclusion had beenscarlet fever. The state of the case when he first saw it,was such that he did not consider it necessary to report to thelocal authority ; but holding the taryngitis as a seqnel tothe scarlet fever he certified that disease as a cause of death.The magistrates convicted Mr. Curt., and imposed upon hima fine of ten shillings with costs. Mr. C"rt was not repre-sented ix court by a solicitor. The cae has caused a gooddeal of irritation among the members of the profession inBlackhurn, A correspondent writes to us : " If the Corpo-rate authorities of Blackburn wish to have the cordial co-operation of the medical men in the town, they will haveto administer their newly-acquired powers in a very different,spirit to that shown in this prosecution of Mr. Cort ; themore especially as there have already occurred cases inwhich the authorities and the medical m-n of the town havebeen brought into antagonism. Ooe medical man who hashitherto reported all cases Jetrrred to ill the Act has rlrter-mmrrl th.Lt. he will report no more, holding that prosecutionauù tine will he a source of less irritation and annoyancethen reporting as it now has to be carried out."

As an example of the state of things which exists inWt!)es’)en, and of the sort of intelligence (?) which governssanitary proceedings there, we may mention that at a recent,meeting of the jocat board complaint was made of an"abominable stench" iatriua from a sewer ventilator. The

surveyor attrihuted this to stagnaut sewage in some of theI) t)use drains connected with the sewers—in other words, com-plailled that thp house drams were poilnting the sewer andthe sewer-air. Whereupon a member of the hoard stated that,after standing over the grating of the otfeusive veuttlarur fora minute or two, he had had to keep in-doors for two dayssuffering from a bad throat, and he added " he thought theventiiator should be at once stopped ulr." To this the

Board’s surveyor immediately responded "It is"(!). Onevoice only appears to have protested against this comsf, andthe Board constituted for the sanitary safegnard of thepopulation seems to have assented to a measure whichwould subject the inhabitants of the houses connected withthe section of sewer where the offensive ventilator existed tothe imminent risk of poisoning by sewer-air forced backfrom the sewer and drains into their d wettings.

It may he useful to note that at a recent meeting of theHayton-with-Roby Locat Buard, a clxim was made npou theBoard for £ 10, as The cost of a bed ordered to tre dt-st.royedby the medical onicer of health. The bed, a new featherone, bad been occupied for a month by a patient sufferingfrom scarlet fever, and the medical officer of health, iu theexercise of a discrt’tion given to him by the Bard, orderedits destruction as the only feasihle moans of disinfection.The bed was the property of a well-to-do ratepayer, and theBoard took exception to a claim from such a source as wellas to the amount ctaimed. The clerk of the Board thoughtthat the medical officer of health had perhaps been a little

hasty in ordering the destruction of the bed, but he heldthat compensation must be given to the proprietor; and itwas decided that an endeavour slionlci he made to come toan arrangement with him which would be less heavy uponthe ratepayers. ___

A committee was appointed at a meeting of medical menheld in the Perth Infirmary last week to wait, on the policecommissioners to advise with them on the whole subject ofthe public health. From the statement of .-.evera! gentlemenpresent at the meeting, the sanitary condition of Pprt h wouldappear to be far from satisfactory. Excessive sickness anda high death-rate were attributed to pullution of the water-supply and serious defects in the drainage of the city.The Town Council of Oswestry have determined to oppose

the Bill introduced into Parliament by the Town Council ofLiverpool for supplementing the water-supply of the lattertown with water taken flom the river Verniew, unlessclauses are included in the Bill which would permitUswestry and other towns along the course of the Liverpoolmain to have water from it.The report of the medical officer of health for Plymouth

for the week ending the 22nd May recotds only two deathsfrom measles. This would indicate that the epidemic ofthis disease which has been so severe in this district is comingto an end.

The Rnncnrn Rural Sanitary Authority has received thesanction of the Local Government Board for horrowing thesum of £ 2921 for sewerage works in the township of Appleton.’ Scarlatina has been very prevalent in New Swindun andits neighbourhood, but is now declining.

VITAL STATISTICS.

HEALTH OF LARGE ENGLISH TOWNS.

THE death-rate in our large towns continues to decline,andwas lower last week than in anv week since the middle ofOctober last,. In twenty of the largest English towns,estimated to contain ill the middle of this B ear seven a halfmillions of person-, or nearly ou-third of the e population of England and BValeo:, 4760 hitths aii,i 2949 dea.rh3were registered last week. The tiiitlis were 425, and thedeaths 326, belmv the average weekly numbers during 1879.The deaths showed a further dei-.Iiiie of 80 from the numbersretiirtjeit in recent weeks, and were eqlliil t an annual rateof 20 5 per 1003, a-,tiiisr 21-2 and 21’1 in the two precedingweeks. During the past seven weeks of the currentquarter the dectrll-late in these towns averaged only 2).’5lot-r 10)0, against 240 0 and 244 in tlle corresponding periodsof 187S and 1879. The lowest in tlm twentytowns last week were 14-4 in Portsm h, 18’1 iii 18.5 in LONDON 18 5 in Briahtou, aud 18 6 lu Bristol. Tha