854 CANADA.--NEW YORK.

the charge of an attendant. In the reading-room all the

important medical journals are kept on file and the roomsare open to members from 2 to 6 P.M. and from 8 to 11 P.M.The society recently discussed the proposition to havemedical inspection of schools for the city of Montreal. Nodefinite arrangement was recommended as the whole matteris to come up again at another meeting shortly. The statedmeetings of the society are held on the first and third Fridaysof the month from October to June inclusive. The officers forthe present year are as follows : President, Dr. George E.Armstrong ; Vice-President, Dr. H. S. Birkett; treasurer,Dr. J. M. Jack ; secretary, Dr. Alfred T. Bazin ; trustees,Dr. G. A. Brown, Dr. F. J. Shepherd, and Dr. JamesPerrige.

17te Undergraduates’ Medical S’ociety of McGill.This society was organised in 1879 through the influence

of Dr. William Osler and Dr. Frank Buller, and shortlyafterwards it undertook to support a reading-room. That it ’’

commenced on a very small scale is apparent seeing that allthe literature provided at that time was one daily newspaperand the Illustrcrted London News In 1886 the faculty took thereading-room under its wing and since that time each medicalstudent is charged$1 for its maintenance along with hisother dues. In the new medical buildings recently constructedthe society is provided with a very handsome reading-roomwhere all the leading daily and weekly papers of theDominion of Canada and a few of the United States are onfile. In addition there are supplied all the leading medicaland scientific journals. Very recently a beautiful tablet hasbeen erected in this reading-room to the memories ofHarold L. Borden, B.A., of Canning, Nova Scotia, andA. Patrick O’Reilly of Hamilton, Ontario, both of whom losttheir lives in active service in South Africa in 1900. Bothwere medical students, sons of two prominent medical menof the Dominion.

A Nem Hospital in Nex; Brunsrvick.The Chipman Memorial Hospital was opened on the after-

noon of Feb. 4th at St. Stephen’s, N.B., by the Hon. L. J.Tweedie, Premier of the Province. This hospital, which issituated on the banks of the St. Croix River, a short distancebelow the town. comprising building, grounds, and modernequipment, has beenpresented to the town by Lady Tilley,wife of the late Sir Leonard Tilley, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, and other heirs of the ChipmanEstate. It has accommodation for 20 patients, and on theday of its dedication the men of St. Stephen’s presented tcit$1000.

_______________

NEW YORK.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

A Bill to Establish a National Board of Public Health inthe United States.

A BILL has been introduced into the House of Repre-sentatives of the United States to establish a National Boardof Public Health. It is proposed that such board shallconsist of a commissioner and of a representative from eachState and territorial board of health, the surgeons-general ofthe army and navy, the supervising surgeon-general of theMarine Hospital Service, or such other medical officer fromeither service as may be designated by the chief thereof.The duties of the commission will be to supervise all mattersaffecting public health and especially the laws relative toquarantine. Much of the work which the proposed boardwould undertake is now efficiently performed by the UnitedStates Marine Hospital Service, and for this reason it is

thought by many that the creation of a national commissionis unnecessary.

Registration of -Deat7is and Mortality S‘tatistics of theUn ited States.

The lack of uniformity in the several States of the Unionin the methods employed in registering deaths and collectingvital statistics has long been an obstacle in the way of

gathering accurate statistics of mortality in the UnitedStates. In this country registration heretofore has been donebetter or worse, or has been wholly reglected, according tothe will of separate and independent States, and alwayswithout regard to the practice of neighbouring States or tothe broader utility of registration for certain purposes of

the Federal Government. The United States Census Office,together with a committee of the American Public HealthAssociation, has concluded to take up the matter andto endeavour to introduce the needful changes into thesystem. The committee of the American Public HealthAssociation has published a circular in which it is statedthat it is very desirable that Congress, the United StatesCensus Office, the medical departments of the Government,the legislatures of all the States, their boards of healthand registration bureaus, municipal boards of health, and allsanitary, medical, statistical and economic associationsshould unite in efforts to extend in this country the practiceof accurate registration of deaths and the publication andutilisation of the valuable data resulting therefrom. Thecommittee has drawn up what it deems to be the essentialrequirements of a law for the registration of deaths and thecollection of mortality statistics.

Amended T aceinection Act for New York State

The existing regulations in regard to vaccination in forcein New York State will be rendered far more stringent ifthe Vaccination Bill in its amended form now before theState Legislature becomes law. The Bill in question pro-vides for the compulsory vaccination of school-children,making it incumbent upon superintendents and principals ofschools to refuse permission to enter schools to any childrenwho have not been vaccinated or revaccinated within acertain period. Another clause of the Bill provides that

every person in a house in which small-pox has broken outshall be vaccinated, and in case of refusal it allows a localboard of health to quarantine for 14 days the recalcitrantindividuals. The heads of colleges, hospitals, public institu-tions, fire and police departments, factories, business-houses,&c., are made responsible for the vaccination and re-

vaccination within a certain period of those under them,neglect to comply with these regulations being visited withheavy penalties. The people of New York State, and, indeed,of the United States generally, are in the main conscious ofthe great benefits conferred by vaccination and seem

determined to insist upon the operation being performedefficiently and often enough to check the spread and to

modify the virulence of small-pox.The Nen. York State Charities Bill.

Much dissatisfaction has been aroused throughout NewYork State by the action of the governor in introducing aBill whereby the patronage and control of the 14 Statecharitable and correctional institutions will be taken fromthe State Board of Charities and lodged with the Executiveat Albany. The State Board of Charities has managedthese institutions for many years and with satisfactoryresults, and the resolve of the governor to dispense withits services has given rise to protests not only from themedical journals, but from the lay journals also. The presshas condemned the governor’s action with remarkable

, unanimity and on March 3rd the State Board ofCharities gave the governor to understand that themembers of the board could not conscientiously accept

, the essential provisions oE his Bill ; they pointed out.

, that they were opposed to stripping the local boards of

1 managers of their present powers, but would favour any Bill

p aimed to extend and to safeguard the present system. As a

result of the ground taken by the State board, the governorand the special committee of legislators which drafted the

proposed Charities Bill could not agree with the members of’

the State board on a measure which the board would stands

for. The chief objection brought against the Bill is that itwill place the charitable and correctional institutions ofthe State, including lunatic asylums, directly in the hands ofpoliticians who it is feared may use the patronage attachedIs

to them for political purposes and not for the good of theninmates.

Crusade against Vice in BuffaloThe ministers of religion and the police authorities of Buffalo

have come to an agreement whereby disorderly houses are.n to be restricted within certain limits, and all thoroughfaresg are to be kept free from the vicious element. This departuref on the part of Buffalo, however, is not a new or untried oned in the United States. For nearly 20 years in Minneapolis,e Minn., there has been in force a like arrangement. All theo saloons have been, and they are now, in an area confined to

six blocks in width from the Mississippi River on each side,and houses of prostitution in a narrower limit. This district.

f is regularly patrolled by the police; keepers of houses

855NEW YORK.-AUSTRALIA.

of ill-fame are regularly fined, and it is asserted byinhabitants of the far western city that the adoptionof the system has been attended with complete success

and that no city of the Union can show a cleanerstreet record than can Minneapolis. The proper govern-ment of American cities is a most serious question andone that is arousing the attention of philanthropists andsanitarians from a moral and physical standpoint. Thecontrol of prostitution is an especially difficult feature withwhich to deal successfully, and in no city are the obstacles inthe way of solving the problem more obvious than in NewYork. A committee of 15 was appointed to investigate thematter and to suggest remedies and it has lately published avolume dealing exhaustively with the subject. The workingof the arrangement come to at Buffalo will therefore bewatched with interest throughout the United States, and ifsuccessful there other large cities may be induced to enterinto a like arrangement. _

Beport on Mosquitoes in Baltimore.In the February-March number of the Bulletin of the IJohns Hopkins Hospital is a report by Mr. Leonard K. Hirsh

berg and Mr. Gustavus C. Dohme on the result of their

investigations of the distribution of the anopheles claviger inthe vicinity of Baltimore. They place no faith in the use ofoil as an exterminator of the larvae of the mosquitoes and-declare that it is hopeless to expect to eradicate malaria bysuch means. In concluding their observations these inves-tigators say : " Of special importance is the careful screeningof doors by wire gauze or mosquito netting as suggested byCelli. Where this cannot be done fitting the beds withnetting will offer security, inasmuch as most anopheles biteat night. " They recommend that cases of malarial infectionshall be reported to the City Board of Health just as arethe contagious diseases, thus enabling precautions againstthe spread of malaria to be carried out under the propersupervision.

Mosquitoes and Dengue.Dr. Harris Graham, professor of, pathology at the

American College, Beyrouth, Syria, contributed to theMedical Becord of Feb. 8th an article on the Mode of Propa-gation and Pathology of Dengue. Dr. Graham points outthat since the epidemic of 1889 a strong opinion has pre-vailed among those who have given the matter careful

study that dengue is a purely contagious disease, but thatup to the present no logical explanation has been offered-of the soundness of this theory. He therefore at the

beginning of the epidemic which has prevailed in andaround Beyrouth since July, 1901, commenced a series of

- experiments in order to determine, if possible, whetherthe culex which exists in perfect swarms in the city- could carry the dengue from person to person. The careful

experiments carried out by Dr. Graham convinced himthat the mosquito was the means of carrying the disease andhe was therefore forced to the conclusion that the causemust be sought in the blood. The blood of patients,whose- constitutional symptoms were marked and in whom the- course was typical were systematically examined and theparasite was, in Dr. Graham’s opinion, definitely isolated.It is described as resembling in many ways the plasmodiummalariae, but its cycle of production or formation in thehuman blood is so much longer than that of the malarialparasite that the changes in its life-phase come more slowly;and are more difficult to follow. Dr. Graham concludes his

paper by saying : "It may not be absolutely proved that thishasmatozoon is the cause of the dengue, but its constant

presence in the red blood corpuscle during the fever, itsresemblance to the parasite of the Texas cattle fever, itslikeness in manner of growth and mode of propagation (bythe mosquito) to the malarial parasite, all point in the samedirection and lead us to believe by analogy, if by no otherway, that in this parasite we have the cause of dengue."

"

March 10th. ____________________

AUSTRALIA.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)Australasian scince Association.

THE meeting of the Australasian Association for the Ad-vancement of Science was held at Hobart in the first week inJanuary. The President, Professor F. W. Hutton, F.R.S.,Director of the Christchurch (N.Z.) Museum, chose as thesubject of his address Evolution and its Teaching." He ex-plained the theory of the evolution of the constellations from

the cosmic dust and said it was possible that the creation ofthe cosmic dust itself occurred less than 200,000,000 yearsago. He then traced the evolution of life on the earth from

protoplasm. The first germ of ethical evolution was in

parental affection, and morality appeared to have arisenfrom sympathy ; and the long and constant use of formalmoralitv made it instinctive and gave rise to conscience.It could not be thought that this process was confinedto the earth and long after the sun was cold anddark other stellar systems would probably continue thedevelopment of life and mind. The conclusions of scienceshowed that mind pervaded all matter, and in the composi-tion, size, and position of the earth there was overwhelmingevidence of design. Physical evolution, biological evolution,and psychological evolution were still going on. So far asthe earth was concerned physical evolution had reached itsoptimum, so had biological evolution in man. Psychologicalevolution was still going on and the development of humanmind was still .in its infancy. This psychological evolutionwas not making for happiness, and ethical evolution seemedleading up to something not displayed on earth and whichthey could only conceive as a further development whenmind was freed from matter.-The President of the HygieneSection was Sir T., N. Fitz-Gerald, C.B., F.R.C.S. Irel.,whose address was entitled "The Nature of Disease. ", Ofthe extensive causes of disease heredity, he said, stoodforemost but did not occupy the important position nowthat it did formerly. Nervous affections, from insanity to.migraine, were transmissible. Deformities and disfigure-ments due to defective development were handed on, thoughuncertainly. Deformities were rather the result of whathorse-breeders called a I I nick. Two perfectly healthy peoplefree from any deformity married and their entire family mightdisplay evidences of imperfect development, as cleft palate,auricular appendages, &c. Their offspring in turn might begethealthy, normal children. It was doubtful if intermarriagehad much to do with the appearance of deformities.Heredity formed a small factor in the causation of tubercu-losis and .assurance companies loaded lives on this accountin a most reckless and senseless manner. As to cancer, also,the tendency is to doubt its hereditary character and to

assign apparent inheritance to coincidence or to infection.It had yet to be brought home to the public that lunaticasylums, hospitals, and benevolent asylums were chargedwith the consequences of syphilis, which still stalked

rampant through the land, while if controlled by the

regulation of the class by which it was spread tabesand general paralysis might be almost wiped out.Another scourge of society and cause of disease was alco-holism. Habitual drunkards should be regarded as pests,liable to be removed and to be confined in the same manneras fever patients. Among the poorer classes the habit ofdrinking was largely acquired from the monotony of theirlives, and more good would be done by, affording betterresources in the way of amusements than by restrictivelegislation.-Mr. T. A. Coghlan, Government statisticianof New South Wales, contributed an interesting paperon Child Measurements, giving the results of his in-

vestigations of a number of children attending the Sydneyschools. He found that the children of the non-labouringclass were physically more robust than those of the labouringclass-that hindrances to growth showed themselves at anearly age, and that many of the conditions that made forevil were remediable. The results of measurements of heightcorresponded with observations elsewhere. As to weight theSydney boys were slightly heavier than English boys up tonine years-thence to 12 years they were slightly lighter. By12t years the Australian boy regained his superiority in

weight and at 13 years he was about three pounds heavier,and the advantage was maintained during adolescence. The

prevailing colour of the skin and hair was blonde and theeyes were most frequently blue. The chest expansion wassmall compared to that of European children.-At the firstmeeting of the association the following resolution was

passed :-That the sanitary legislation of every State should contain provision

for the notification of phthisis as an infectious disease and for theprevention of its spread by the taking of proper precautions, especiallythrough the sputum of consumptives ; that there should be providedin every State at least one sanatorium where tuberculosis patientscould be treated on terms within the means of all.

2he Queensland Branch of the British Medical Associationand the Brisbane Associated Friendly Societies’ Mediecal

Institute.At the January meeting of the Queensland Branch of the