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1054 attractive to the public as an exhibit, perhaps, was the admirable display of soda-water machinery designed by such well-known firms as the Riley Manufacturing Company, Dan Rylands, Limited, Bratby and Hinchcliffe, Meadowcrolt aud Son, Chapman and Sons, Barnett and Foster, and Jackson and Co. In this section we did not fail to observe that the machines were so constructed as to provide against metallic contamination and to ensure the purity of both the gas and water employed. The manufacture of carbonic acid gas from various sources has now become a distinct industry in con- nexion with the manufacture of aerated water. Some makers keep to the old method of acting up’*n carbonate of soda or upon chalk with sulphuric acid ; others use the pmified gas obtained in the combustion of coke, and others the natural gas evolved at springs condensed into a liquid in steel tubes ; while the carbonic &cld gas, which was formerly wasted in large quantities in the fermentation vat of the brewer, is now recovered and stored for aerating purposes. Some excellent specimens of °’solid gas " were shown by the Carbonic Acid Gas Company of Anceats, Manchester, and bicarbonates and allied products formed the interesting exhibit of Messrs. Bowman, Thompson, and Co. of Northwich, Cheshire. Of temperance drinks there was a great profusion, and some idea of the strenuous endeavours that are being made to provide the public with wholesome, palatable, and non-alcoholic beverages may be gathered from the fact that in this class of competition alone no less than 141 boná.fide manufacturers entered their names, as against 127 in 1893. We may look with some amount of hope for the satisfactory solution of a problem which has long been unsolved, and for the solution of which temperance advocates and others will be grateful. The attempts in this direction, we find, are chiefly made with the view of producing a beverage of the character of ordinary beer. A markedly ,uccessful produc- tion of this kind is the Anti-Burton Ale of Messrs. Cox and Co., of J78, York-road, King’s-cross. It is really an excellent and palatable substitute for alcoholic malt liquor, while as to appearance it exhibits no difference. Another satisfactory beverage is the light fermented, non-intoxicating beer pre- pared by the Kentora Brewery Co., DeIing-street, Nottingham; and yet other preparations affording excellent malt liquor substitutes are the hop bitters and hop stout of Mr. G. Heckton, Phoenix Works, Nottingham. Further types we noticed in the Bassana ale prepared by Messrs. Duckworth and Co.. Corpora- tion-street, Manchester, and the hopbitters of Messrs. Wheatley and Bates, Sheffield-this latter a really most excellent imita- tion, possessing all the charactelÍ6tics of genuine beer, but containing no alcohol. To compensate in some measure for the absence of alcoholic stimulants, Messrs. Clayter and Jowett, of 102, Fenchurch-street, prepare a very agreeable aerated beverage containing the extract of kola nut. Of small novel appliances more or less connected with the manufacture of beverages there was, as usual, a goodly representation. Such are, for instance, improvements in the construction of sypbons, chiefly to avoid metallic contamina- tion, we were pleased to observe, as evidenced in the exhibit of Cruerat Freres, Paris. Most of the large makers of mineral water machines exhibited several types of corking machines, some of which are self-feeding. A distinct novelty in corking was shown by the Vacuum Corking Machine Co. of Crayfield- square, Edinburgh. This company cork in vacuo, which is regarded as an introduction of some imrortance, since the tendency of wine to turn sour when the air is withdrawn would be of course greatly diminished. while the method will have an important field in the bottling of foods, fruit, &-c., in preserving the contents from oxidation or the growth of mould. It is hardly necessary to add that the spirit and wine industries were very strongly represented. ST. JOHN AMBULANCE ASSOCIATION. Lord Sandhurst, Under Secretary of State for War, who is Director and Chairman of the St. John Ambulance Associa- tion, presented certificates and medallions on Friday evening to the classes at Charlton, and delivered an interesting address, pointing out the advantages of a knowledge of "first aid to the injured" in both military and civil life.-Drs. Closs, Jeffcoat, and Stenhouse, of Dunedin, New Zealand, have been elected by the London Central Executive, at St. John’s Gate, honorary members of the St. John Ambulance Association in appreciation of professional services rendered to the Dunedin centre. Public Health and Poor Law. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH. Kensin.qto,n Urban Sanita?’Y District.-The report for 189a which Dr. Orme Dudfield has presented to the Vestry of St. Mary Abbott’s, Kensington, contains much valuable information, not only in respect to the parish more particu- larly referred to, but also concerning London as a whole ;. in fact, all who take an interest in the sanitary admini- stration of the metropolis will do well to read this report. Unfortunately the volume is too bulky, and the subjects touched upon too extensive to allow of our dealing witlr them in full in the present notice. Dr. Dndfield gives a very succinct account of the outbreak of small-pox which occurred in North Kensington in 1893, and which well illustrates the means by which the disease is often spread by unrecognised cases. In the outbreak in question the disease had been smouldering in the district for a month before the first notification was received. In connexion with the work of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, Dr. Dudfield, according to his usual custom, gives aD abstract of the reports issued by the chairman, the Statistical Committee, and the Ambulance Committee of that Board, and we can commend the abstract as an excellent digest to. our readers. In this portion of his report Dr. Dudfield iefers to the danger of the spread of small-pox which is created by persons congregating around the door of an infected house when the ambulance drives up to remove the patient; and during the outbreak in North Kensington Dr. Dudfield was so impressed with the reality of this danger that he requested the Asylums Board to obtain the aid of the police in preventing this undesirable and unnecessary ex. posure. The subject of duplicate notification is one tc- which Dr. Dudfield devotes some three pages of his report, and he gives the figures relating to the notifications received by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, showing that during 189S there were 2114 duplicate notifications, or 3 per cent. of the total notifications. In Kensington there were 32 such dual nctifications. In dealing with the compulsory removal to hospital of cases of dangerous infectious disease, Dr. Dud- field refers to the fact that at the present time the term " without proper lodging or accommodation" has been held to refer to the patient himself only, and not to the safety of persons exposed to infection in the same house, and he draws attention to Section 3 of Sir Henry Roscoe’s Bill to amend the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, where it was pro-- posed to remedy this defect, and to make the words apply to a person not housed in such a manner as to prevent the spread of the disease. It appears that in a case of death from diphtheria the authorities of a certain church refused to allow the bcdy to be taken inside the edifice for the purpose of the funeral service. Dr. Dudfield, who was consulted as to the propriety of the proceding, entirely supported the authorities, and he further sent a circular letter to the clergy in the parish with reference to the desirability of exercising caution as to admitting bodies dead of infectious disease into their churches. The cir- cular, we hear, has been very favourably received by the clergy. Dr. Dudfield has gone very thoroughly into the subject of the regulation of bakehouses, and altogether his remarks form a most interesting résurné of the legislation affecting bakehouses. Dr. Dudfield, in commenting upon the transfer of control of common lodging houses to the County Council, reiterates his protest against the duty being rele- gated to the central metropolitan authority rather than to the local sanitary authorities. He considers that the Council should make by-laws, but that the local authorities should enforce them. The increased recognition of the need of the cm public mortuary of Kensington is well shown from the fact that in 1884 only 24 bodies were there deposited, while in 1892 there were 252. The duty of providing a shelter for the persons from infected houses which is imposed upon the metropolitan sanitary authorities by Section 61 of the Public Health (London) Acr, 1891, has, it appears, been so far dis- regarded by Kensington. The report of the Royal Commis- sion on Metropolitan Water-supply confirms, Dr. Dudfield states, "the accuracy of the views which from time to time during the last twenty years I have submitted to your vestry,
