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270 affecting the question of the right of governors of lunatic asylums to send harmless lunatics to workhouses to be maintained by the poor-rate, instead of in asylums at the Imperial charge. The action was instituted by the Omagh guardians against the governors of the Omagh District Lunatic Asylum for the maintenance of harmless lunatics, and an injunction was sought restraining the asylum governors from sending any more to the workhouse. The judge directed the jury to find for the asylum authorities on the ground that any asylum patient without means of support is a pauper, and liable to become chargeable on the union on being discharged. A verdict was returned for the defendants. Lunatic Accomodation: North Dublin Workhouse. The inspectors of asylums consider that the acoommoda- tion provided in this workhouse for the insane inmates must be considered as inadequate to meet the requirements of these demented and helpless beings. Since the possi- bility of building on the workhouse premises a suitable extension of the present lunatic wards seems out of the question, they suggest that the guardians should provide the required accommodation at Cabra; or, if not willing to adopt this course, that they should consider the means of obtaining such legislative changes as would relieve them from their responsibility by enabling them to hand over the care of their insane to some other body. The guardians, it is believed, will adopt the latter arrangement-that is, any well-devised scheme by which pauper lunatics will be cared for under suitable conditions and supervision at a reasonable capitation grant. Mr. J. E. Kenny, M.P., wrote resigning his appointment of visiting surgeon, and stating that he believed that a great necessity existed for increasing the medical staff by the addition of a visiting and a resident surgeon. Alleged Prevalence of Typhoid Fever in Cork. It having been publicly stated that there was an epidemic of typhoid fever in Cork, the Public Health Committee requested Mr. Donovan, medical superintendent officer of health, to inform them as to the truth of the report. It is satisfactory to learn that the number of cases of typhoid fever in the city by no means represents an epidemic; and, further, Mr. Donovan is of opinion that the character of the fever at present is of an exceedingly light type. Irish Prisons. The annual report of the General Prisons Board, Ireland, was last week presented to Parliament, but has not yet 1been issued to the public by the Government printers. It appears from the report that the health of the prisoners has been wonderfully good, the death-rate having been at the exceedingly low rate of 1-15 per 1000, while the general death-rate for Ireland was 17’6. This is the lowest point of prison mortality ever recorded, and, as the board states, is " exceptional." Of the late outbreak of typhoid fever at Tullamore Gaol, although not occurring during the year of the report, it may be mentioned that it followed an outbreak of the epidemic in the town, and that, of eleven inmates attacked, one died. Among the prisoners transferred to Clonmel, three took the disease, but all did well. The decline in the number of children under sixteen years of age committed to prison is noteworthy; the decrease since 1882-3 has been from 1085 to 568 convictions in the year; but, alas, tem- perance has not made much headway, for of 40,782 persons committed during the year, 19,075, or almost one- lhalf, were cases of drunkenness. July 28th. PARIS. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.) The New Medical Bill. THIS measure, having been summarily passed by the Chamber, is, as your readers are aware, now under consider- ation by a committee appointed by the Senate, the said committee being presided over by Professor Cornil. The chief point involved is the expediency of the suppression of the officiat de santé, it having been represented that such a step would be fatal to the sanitary well-being of a consider- able section of the provincial population. The most im- portant contribution to our knowledge of the subject was furnished on the 8th inst. by Professor Brouardel, the Dean of the Paris Faculty, in his evidence before the com- mittee. This competent authority communicated some in- teresting details concerning the social status, age, &c. of candidates for the second grade diploma, which he described as being on its "last legs. He divides the candidates into three categories-viz. (1), the sons of foremen and small tradesmen, who, with a defective preliminary educational training, commence their medical curriculum between eighteen and twenty-five years of age; (2) men who have failed in other callings; and (3) chemists who find it advan- tageous to combine the two avocations. The variable and often advanced ages of the doomed officiers when they begin their careers are thus easily explicable. In the year 1888-89, of twenty-two who were granted the Paris diploma of officier de santé, five only were under thirty years of age, seven were under forty, seven again were between forty and fifty, one was fifty-three, and two were sixty and sixty-one respectively. The annual number of officiers receiving diplomas has pro- gressively diminished, the average in recent years having fallen to 100, as against 620 M.D.’s. Of these, one-third prosecute their studies at Faculties, the rest emerging from preparatory medical schools. According to M. Brouardel, these schools are wrong in considering their future welfare compromised by the disappearance of the officiat, seeing that many of them deliver annually diplomas to one only, or at most, four or five of these practitioners. The new military law will, moreover, have the effect of further curtailing the number of candidates by preventing the commencement of medical studies before twenty-five years of age. Out of the 2871 cantons of France 183 can boast no kind of prac- titioner whatever, 1336 possess M.D.’s exclusively, 183 only officiers de santé and 1186 both M. D.’s and offficiers. According to M. Brouardel, the danger of leaving country districts totally unprovided for can best be met by the clubbing together of neighbouring parishes for the payment of doctors of medicine. Apropos of the new law, a banquet was given at Marquery’s restaurant to Dr. Chevandier, the Deputy, who, with the collaboration of his colleagues on the Parliamentary Committee, was instrumental in getting the measure passed through the Chamber on the 19th and 21st March, 1891. During the discussion of the walnuts and the wine, Professor Cornil, on behalf of a number of professors and medical societies, presented Dr. Chevandier with a bronze statue of Diana, modelled by Falguiere, as a token of gratitude for his unremitting efforts in the cause of medical education. A Sarcastic Legacy. The Lyon Médical reports that a very wealthy lady who died recently at the advanced age of eighty-three, made the following provision in her will: Je lègue au Docteur X- en reconnaissance de ses soins éclairé3 et devoues auxquels j’ai dû de vivre si âgée tout ce qui se trouvera dans mon bonheur du jour." When the article of furniture thus fantastically denominated was searched its only contents were found to be the untouched mixtures, boxes of pills, and other medicaments (still enveloped in paper as they had been sent by the chemist) which had been prescribed for the defunct by her medical attendant during the past ten years. This cynical old dame must have studied Moliere to some purpose, and she would have been a persona gratissima with Count Tolstoi had that pessimistic enemy of doctors known her. Let us hope at least that her disappointed doctor’s bills had been regularly paid. Sunstroke in the Army. Several fatal cases of heat-stroke are reported to have occurred this summer in the ranks of the Italian and German armies. In France stringent orders have been issued by the civilian and most competent Minister of War (M. de Freycinet) to commanding officers to avoid exposing their men to unnecessary risks of such a catastrophe, and the results of this measure have been most satisfactory. In the military government of Paris, where the governor, General Saussier, has, from June 26th onward, suppressed all drills, marches, &c., from 9 A, M. to 3 P. M., not a single instance of insolation has been recorded this year. It is surprising that such an accident did not occur during the grand review at Longchamps on July 14th (the fête nationale), the heat being excessive on that occasion.
