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796 Widows and Orphans’ Pension Fund, to which all permanent Govern- ment servants are called upon to subscribe at the rate of 4 per ceut. on their salaries. Straits Settlements.—The pay of the (seven) different medical appoint- ments is not luniform in value, but the normal ealary of a colonial surgeon may be said to be at the rate of$2400 per annum, private prac- tice being also allowed. Hong Kong,—There is a colonial surgeon,paid at present at the rate of 2880 per annum, and allowed private practice; he receives$288 per annum for conveyance and$864 per annum as ex-olltcto inspector of the Lock Hospital ; a superintendent of the civil hospital, paid at the rate of $3000 per annum, and provided with quarters, but not allowed private practice; a health officer and medical inspector of emigrants, paid at the rate of $2000 per annum, witti the right to private practice; a resi- dent surgeon of the Lock Hospital, paid at the rate of $1800 per annum and provided with quarters, but not allowed private practice. Gibraltar.-The port surgeon receives ,c150 per annum and has private practice. There are also three district medical officers, two with £70 and one with £60 per annum; all are allowed private practice and receive about 225 each per annum as public vaccinators, ’the visiting surgeon of the civil prison and lunatic asylum receives :E60, and the officer of health to the Sanitary Commissioners .6100. Cyprus.—There is a chief medical officer, paid at the rate of £500 per annum; and two district medical officers, paid at the rate of ,c250 per annum; all enjoying private practice. These are the only medical appointments in the island which are open to English candidates. St. Helenu.—The colonial surgeon is paid at the rate of 2200 per annum, with private practice, and £30 horse allowance. Falkland Islands.-There are two appointments, one of which is paid at the rate of 2300 per annum, and the other at the rate of .e200 per annum. Private practice is allowed in both cases. 4. In addition to the ordinary medical appointments in these colonies, vacancies also occasionally, though very rarely, occur for which specialists are required-as, e.g., to take charge of a lunatic asylum ;-and the particulars of chief medical officer in some of the larger colonies have not been given, as the headship of the Medical Department in such colonies, requiring administrative as well as professional qualifieations, is not reserved to the ordinary medical staff, but is often filled up directlv from the outside. 5. All applicants for medical employment in the colonies must be between the ages of twenty-three and thirty, and must be doubly qualified; preference will be given to those who have held hospital appointments as house-physicians and house-surgeons; certificates of moral character and of sobriety will be required, and every officer before being appointed will be medically examined by one of the consulting physicians of the Colonial Office—Dr. Gage Brown, 88. Sloane-street, London, S.W.; Sir D. S. Maclagan, 28, Heriot-row, Edinburgh ; and Dr. Hawtrey Benson, 57, Fitzwilliam-square, Dublin. 6. Applications for medical employment in the tropical colonies from persons in the United Kingdom must be addressed to the Private Secre- tary, Colonial Office, Downing-street, S.W., during the month of April in each year, and notices to that effect will be p03Ged up elrly in the year in the leading hospitals and medical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. Out of the total number so applying, a list of candidates will be made who will be eligible to fill any vacancies which may occur during the year, but no promise whatever can be held out that candi- dates will eventually receive an appointment. In the course of the last year, 1887-88, there were in all fifteen vacan- cies to which appointments were made from this country. They occurred in the following collonies: British Guiana, British Honduras, Falklands, Gambia, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Straits Settlements. MEDICAL TRIAL. TIDY v. BRENTFORD BOARD OF GUARDIANS. JUDGMENT was given in this action at the Brentford County Court on the 13th inst. The plaintiff is the district medical officer for the Brentford Union, and sued the defendants for £4, the regulation fees for attendance on five confinements, and Xl Is. for supplying a special truss. The judge decided that in the absence of orders from the guardians for the guidance of the medical officer he was justified in continuing his attendances, if necessary or proper, and also upon the confinements, and that the sanc- tion of the board of guardians to such allowances ought to be presumed under all the circumstances of this case. With regard to the truss, there was, his Honour remarked, no evidence before him of any special agreement between the plaintiff and the defendants as to the supply of " medical appliances," and, in the absence of such agreement, a truss, being "a medical appliance," is included in the term "medi- cine," in respect of the supply of which the plaintiff receives a fixed salary. If he entered judgment, then it would be for £3 10s. only in respect of the attendances ; but he could not help doubting whether all the material facts of the case had been placed before him, and also whether, having reference to the numerous and complicated articles con- tained in the Poor-law Orders, he had taken a correct view of those which were in evidence. If either party gave a week’s notice, he would give the case a further hearing, but otherwise he entered judgment for the plaintiff for X3 10s., and certified for costs on the scale above £20, as he con- sidered the question litigated to be both "of importance to a class of persons" and also "of public interest," Public Health and Poor Law. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH. Forfar.—In this burgh and parish there were in August last the beginnings of an outbreak of enteric fever, which gave indications of leading to a considerable spread. Water being suspected as the cause, a sample was sent for analysi8. but nothing deleterious could be discovered. Probably no harm was in this case done by any such trust as may have been placed in the value of chemical analysis for the pur- poses to which it was put, but, in face of the overwhelming evidence which the medical officer of the Local Government Board adduced in his annual report of 1881 as to the im- potence of chemistry to discover evidence of enteric fever stools purposely added to potable water, it may be hoped that, when chemical analysis is resorted to in such cases,. the object and the limited value of the analysis are made clear to the public. The milk, being next examined, cam& very distinctly under suspicion, and precautionary measures, being adopted to prevent further contamination at the dairy, the outbreak came to an end. The occasion is taken by Dr. W. F. Murray to point to the need of compulsory notification, so that such occurrences may be early ascer- tained, and probably checked in their beginnings. The annual death-rate for the burgh during 1887 is given as, 15’4 per 1000 persons living. Wem Rural District.-Some definite improvement in sanitary progress seems to be annually recorded from this district, and this year a further step has been taken towards securing a wholesome water supply in the village of Shaw- bury ; progress has also been made in dealing efficiently with the manure and refuse of the district. Cases of over- crowding are dealt with, the common lodging-houses, bake- houses, and offensive trades are kept under supervision, and systematic inspection of the district is maintained. The death-rate during last year was only 13 per 1000, this being, according to a table prepared by Dr. Giles, the lowest but one recorded for ten years. Bilston Urban Authority.-The story of small-pox and isolation in this district is not very creditable to its sanitary administration. Hospitals for infectious diseases are noto- riouslyof use only in so far as they are maintained in readiness. for the immediate isolation of first attacks. But in Bilston the Hospital is evidently kept shut up, and unprepared for its most important work; for on the appearance of small- pox further cases had apparently to be waited for beforeth6 medical officer of health felt he could urge the re-opening of a closed establishment, and before this could be carried out still further cases had appeared. The first case was heard of on November 2nd, and on December 13Gh a first case was admitted. We hope the sanitary authority do not keep their fire station and engines in the same state of un- preparedness. The cottage hospital was used for typhus, all cases needing isolation being removed as soon as dis- . covered; and it may be that the existing faulty arrange- ments recorded as to small-pox are really due to a transition stage between a temporary use of cottages and the construc- tion of a proper hospital. Measles caused forty-two deaths, and the question of school closure arose ; but after considering all the local circumstances, Dr. T. Ridley Bailey evidently feared the possibility of a greater mingling with affected children if that step were adopted than was taking place through school agency, and he declined to advise the step. Sborr,ly afterwards the disease abated. Owing mainly to measles, the zymotic death-rate rose to 3’39 per 1000 living, the general death-rate being no less than 25’3 per 1000. Walthamstow Urban District. In this district the general death-rate for 1887 was 15 6 per 1000, but that from zymotic diseases reached 4’15 per 1000. The excess of this latter rate was largely due to no less than fifty-two deaths from diphtheria, and Mr. Shad well, though he devoted much time to an investigation of its origin and of its persistency in the district, regrets that the results obtained were not so satisfactory as he could have wished. School attendance certainly favoured the spread of the disease, and the state of at least one school as to aerial impurity must probably have still further aided in the diffusion. Ordinary nuisances, and also blocked and improper sewers, were in places dis-
