2
1213 THE NEW GENERAL HOSPITAL AT MONACO.-MANCHESTER. ’than in a pleasure resort that authorities on hospitals may b found. Nevertheless, the hospital of Monaco has been buil by M. Delefortrie, architectural inspector-general of th Principality. The Prince, however, first appointed a commis- sion to visit and to report on some of the principal hospital in Europe, and it was with the knowledge thus acquired tha under the personal direction of the Prince the plans wer, finally prepared and adopted. The results correspond witl the great care that has been bestowed on the work. Fev buildings are so little open to criticism and it is doubtfu whether a municipality would have ventured to spend s( freely the money of its electors. In this case, however, al the financial difficulties have been solved by the munificenc( of the Prince. It is not yet known how much the hospita has, and will, cost, though the amount is roughly estimatec at some £50,000 to £60,000. There has been no subscrip tion nor is the budget of the Principality in any wa3 affected by this expenditure. The Prince, who possesse, large landed estates in France and elsewhere, has been able to give the entire sum out of his private purse. The product of the tax imposed on the company which owns the Casinc remains untouched and can still be devoted in its entirety to the cost of administering the Principality and to the relief of many of the rates and taxes which in other localities have to be raised from the inhabitants to meet the cost of municipal .government. But if the Prince has thus been endowed with both the means and the generosity to construct this splendid hospital it will easily be understood that he is not able to endow it with a sufficient income to meet indefinitely the cost of management. There are certainly the resources which the old hospital possesses. But these are in- sufficient, even with the addition of the profits that may be derived from the paying patients. The Prince, therefore, is now anxiously endeavouring to devise some means of securing the permanent income needed. Already ,the French colony at Monaco has manifested a desire to help and has provided the money necessary to defray the cost of maintaining two beds at the hospital for one year. The subscriptions raised from the French residents and visitors for this purpose may be renewed from year to year and thus less scruple will be felt on their part in availing themselves of this charity should any French subjects need hospital treatment. It is to be hoped that the British visitors and residents will not delay in following this -example. Though there are no poor among the British subjects at Monaco, nevertheless many cases may arise when treatment in a modern and model hospital would provide a better chance of recovery than sucb attendance as can be obtained in an hotel or lodging-house. Then, as regards operations, the operating-room of the hospital affords facilities and a security against septic poisoning that could not be found in an hotel. The knowledge that this resource ’is now available will be welcome to all visitors who frequent the Principality and their appreciation of this advantage should be manifested in a practical and substantial manner. Paying patients can be attended at the hospital by their own medical attendants, whatever may be their nationality, and therefore all that is needed for the treatment of the most serious medical or surgical cases is now available and is offered gratuitously to the poor and on moderate terms to those who can afford to pay. The ruling Prince in devoting a portion of his private income to this humanitarian purpose will have earned the special gratitude of many sufferers and the admiration uf all sections of the community. The dele- .gates attending the International Conference of Medical Press Associations were present at the inauguration of the hospital, listened attentively to the full explanations given by Dr. L. Colignon, consulting physician to his -Highness, and joined heartily in expressing their admiration and in offering congratulations to the Prince on the great work which he had so successfully accomplished. Monaco, April 19th. MANCHESTER. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) The -Dangers of Electric Lighting. ON April 17th there was a lively illustration in Manchester of some of the possibilities connected with electric lighting. " Short-circuiting " somewhere in the Market-street area is said to have been the cause. Three fires at least broke out and the fire brigade was unusually busy. Many business establishments were left without electric light and with their lamps broken. Some men working in a man-hole in Market- street narrowly escaped suffocation. One of the cables went wrong and " the copper wires comprising it coming into contact the short circuit was established, there was a fusion, and the trouble was begun." The coating of the wires being highly inflammable the mains and man-holes were quickly filled with suffocating smoke. The outbreaks of fire were happily quickly subdued, and no very serious damage was done. What with these underground liabilities, and the network of telegraph, telephone, and trolley wires hanging over head like the sword of Damocles, the triumphs of modern electrical science seem well calculated to supply us with sensational incidents. Sanitary Guardianship of the Port. At the last meeting of the Manchester Port Sanitary Authority Dr. A. M. N. Pringle, medical officer, reported that lbl vessels were inspected during the previous month, 121 being British. Defective or insanitary conditions were found in 35 British and in six of the 30 foreign vessels, which tells against us. It was decided, subject to the consent of the Local Government Board, to purchase a steam launch at a cost of L1000 for the removal to shore of infectious cases and also, in accordance with a suggestion of the medical officer, that the authority should be empowered to deal with cases of small-pox as they are now authorised to do with cholera, yellow fever, and plague. Soot-fall in Manchester. An experiment was described at a recent meeting of the city section of the Society of Chemical Industry by Mr. W. Irwin which was made with the view of ascertaining the quantity of soot which falls in Manchester. He took a sample of the snow which had fallen in February in a garden at Cheetham Hill and which had lain for 10 days on the ground. The snow was melted and the dry residue was extracted, weighed, and analysed, when it was found to contain soot equivalent to 10’7 pounds per acre, or three tons to the square mile. He said that the sample repre- sented a condition which prevailed for at least 100 square miles in a circle round the town hall, "so that 300 tons of soot had been precipitated from the chimneys of Manchester during the 10 days." The sample contained 48’6 per cent. of carbon, 69 per cent. of heavy oil and grease, and 44 5 per cent. of ash. Mr. Irwin asked if I I spreading 30 tons of soot a day, with two tons of accompanying grease to give it adhesiveness, over the buildings of Man- chester " was to be continued. He hoped to see the day when large consumers of coal would be in a position to I I gassify " their fuel. This picture of the impurity of the Manchester air seems dark enough, but it was not the blackest, for Dr. Knecht of the Technological School submitted results of an analysis of the snow made by him from a sample taken in Whitworth-street, which is nearer the centre of the city than is Cheetham Hill, on the ninth day after the ’all, which showed three times the quantity of soot found in Mr. Irwin’s sample. The mere money value of the fuel wasted nust be enormous ; the injury to the physical well-being )f the population, to their social and personal comfort and iappiness, and the damage to clothing and to all fabrics vhich are light in texture and colour must be almost beyond computation, yet there are people who oppose, and, indeed, bitterly resent, any efforts for the reduction of the smoke iuisance. Chemical Manufacturers and the Corporation. At a meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry held on Lpril llth the clauses of the Manchester Corporation Bill ere discussed so far as they related to the discharge of ffluents from works into the city sewers. The primary bject of the clauses was the protection of those who worked n the sewers, but one of the speakers feared that "the hemical manufacturers were going to be greatly harassed," nd he said that it could not be expected that the effluent "om chemical works should be pure water. It may be membered that a serious explosion took place some time go from a workman lighting a match in a sewer in which isulphide of carbon had found its way from some chemical orks. Perhaps none of the King’s subjects are so sensitive to the curtailment of their liberty to create nuisances as are ie chemical manufacturers, and none use their liberty more eely, so that it is encouraging to find that Dr. Dreyfus, who deputy chairman of the Rivers Committee, speaking as a temical manufacturer, said that he had not the remotest ar that any firm would be unduly pressed by the Bill. " It
