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452 was lowered below a pressure of 14 to 15 per cent. of an atmosphere that signs of bodily distress for want of oxygen arose. Supposed Presence of Organic Poisons. The facts already mentioned with regard to the atmo- sphere in which certain brewery workers, caisson workers, and divers followed their occupation proved that concentra- tions of carbon dioxide such as occurred in the most crowded and worst ventilated rooms were not directly injurious to health. Forced to admit this, the hygienist has fallen back on the hypothesis that organic chemical poisons were exhaled in the breath, and that the percentage of carbon dioxide was a valuable guide to the concentration of these. It was necessary, said the hygienist, to keep the carbon dioxide below 0.1 part per 1000, so that the organic poisons might not collect to a harmful extent. The supposed existence of organic chemical poison in the expired air was based upon experiments made by Brown-Sequard and d’Arsonval, who injected into guinea-pigs and rabbits either the condensation water obtained from the breath or water which they had used several times over to wash out the trachea of dogs. The water was injected subcutaneously and in large amounts, and produced in their hands signs of illness, collapse, and death. A few confirmatory results have been obtained by some experimenters who used such absurd methods of investigation as to collect condensation water by breathing through a cooled flask and to inject 1 or 2 cubic centimetres of this fluid into a mouse weighing about 13 grammes, a proceeding equivalent to injecting 5 litres of water into a man weighing 65 kilogrammes. Who would not be made ill by the injection of about 9 pints of cold water beneath his skin ? The experiments of Brown-S6quard and d’Arsonval have been repeated by many others, and with negative results by those whose methods of work demand most respect-Dastre and Loye, Van Hofmann, Wellenhof, Lehmann and Jessen, Haldane and Smith, and Weir Mitchell and Borgey. Brown-Sequard and d’Arsonval in their experiments either (1) gave intravenous or subcutaneous injections of condensa- tion water from the breath or washings from the trachea, or (2) they kept animals in cages communicating in series, a current of air being drawn throughout the entire length of the series. Dr. Hill and Dr. Flack suggested that the deaths of injected animals were due either to the excessive amount of the fluid injected or to the inclusion in it of droplets of saliva which produced the well-known phenomena of the anaphylactic shock. Anaphylaxis signified the condition in which an animal became sensitised by the subcutaneous injection of a protein derived from an animal of a different species, and an animal thus sensitised might be poisoned by a subsequent injection of the same protein. When the animals in the last of the series of cages died, the fatal effect was probably due to suffocation from the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air having been allowed to rise to 10 or 12 per cent. Dr. Hill and Dr. Flack, after studying the literature of the subject and making various experiments, have come to the conclusion that there was not at present any trustworthy evidence of the presence of organic chemical poisons in exhaled air. Effects of Electric Fans. They enclosed eight students in a small chamber holding about three cubic metres of air and kept them therein until the carbon dioxide had reached 3 or 4 per cent. and the oxygen had fallen to 17 or 16 per cent. The wet-bulb thermometer rose meanwhile to about 85° F. and the dry- bulb thermometer to one or two degrees higher. The dis- comfort was very great, but this was relieved to an astonishing extent when electric fans placed in the roof were set in motion, whirling the air in the chamber, and so cooling the bodies of the students. In a crowded room the air confined between the bodies and clothes of the people was almost warmed up to body temperature and saturated with moisture, so that cooling of the body by radiation, convection, or evaporation became nearly impossible. This led to sweating, wetness and flushing of the skin, and a rise of skin tempera- ture. The blood was sent to the skin and stagnated there instead of passing through the brain and viscera. Hence arose the feelings of discomfort and fatigue, but the fans whirled away the layer of stationary wet air round the students’ bodies, replacing it by the somewhat cooler and drier air in the rest of the chamber, and so relieved the heat stagnation from which they suffered. Prophylaxis of Catarrhal Infections. Catarrhal infections of bacterial origin were spread by the expulsion of droplets of saliva during the acts of speaking, coughing, or sneezing, and could not be prevented by ventila- tion. The true prophylactic against such infections was the avoidance of whatever might diminish the natural immunising power of the animal organism. Exposure to overheated dry air dried up not only the skin but the membranes of the nose and throat, and so lessened immunity. Exposure to over- heated moist air brought the blood into the skin, lessened the circulation through the viscera, and decreased the evapora- tion from the respiratory tract ; the system also suffered from the absence of the stimulating effect of cold on the cutaneous nerves. Hence arose diminished health and strength together with increased susceptibility to catarrh. Those who habitu- ally exposed themselves to cold rarely took cold. Confine- ment in overheated stagnant air, which too often pervaded places of business and amusement, was one of the chief causes of the depressed physical and mental vigour of town dwellers. Properties of Ozone. Dr. Hill here showed an automatic ventilating fan to be inserted in the window of an"apartment ; at temperatures below 600 F. it remained closed but above 600 it remained open. He also showed some ozone-generating apparatus of the Ozonair Company. Each co-mplete element of this apparatus consisted of a thin sheet of micanite covered on each side by a square of gauze made of an aluminium alloy and having 40 meshes to the inch. Ozone was produced by the silent discharge of a high-tension electric current from one sheet of gauze to the other across the micanite. Mammals exposed to different concentrations of ozone in a closed chamber were killed by prolonged breathing of an atmosphere containing about 20 parts of ozone per 1,000,000 parts of air, the cause of death being an acute irritative inflammation of the respira- tory tract. The ozone in such concentrations made the eyes water and caused coughing. When ozone was employed in ventilation it was arranged so as to produce none of these symptoms of irritation. Ozone could be used in high con- centrations for sterilising water, this being one of its most valuable applications. It also destroyed all disagreeable smells. Ozone itself had a peculiar odour, which could be perceived by the nose in concentrations of far less than 1 part in 1,000,000, and for continuous breathing it should be present in concentrations not greater than that which was scarcely perceptible by the nose. Its powerful deodorising properties made it useful in places where offensive trades were carried on, and in improving the atmosphere of tube railways. MEDICINE AND THE LAW. Thirty 1èars of Unqualified Practice. BEFORE the stipendiary magistrate at Leeds, William Henry Gisburne Bowell, 72 years of age, was recently charged upon five summonses with offences under Section 40 of the Medical Act of 1858, and having been convicted upon one was fined £10, including costs, the other four charges not being proceeded with. Section 40, it will be remembered, is directed against persons who falsely and wilfully pretend to be qualified medical practitioners, the taking or using of titles implying medical qualifications being a manner of committing the offence specially mentioned in the section in the form of an alternative. The career of the defendant has been somewhat remarkable, for he has apparently been generally regarded among his lay neighbours for many years as a qualified medical practitioner, although, presumably, such medical men as were aware of his existence knew that his name was not on the Medical Register. In the case which was gone into before the magistrate the defendant’s lack of qualification and his readi- ness to give certificates in his assumed character of medical practitioner were brought to light by the naval authorities at Sheerness in a manner unfortunate for the patient implicated in the transaction. A young seaman in the Royal Navy had gone to Leeds on furlough, and on the
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