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AT the meeting of the Paris Academy of Medicine onthe 4th inst., it fell to M. Beclard to deliver the éloge uponthe late M. Nélaton. The speech is characterised by LaFrance Médicale as a very fine one, and one which, togetherwith that of M. Guyon upon the same subject, deliveredtwo years ago at the Société de Chirurgie, will worthilycommemorate the memory of the famous surgeon. La FranceMédicale commences the publication of M. Beclard’s addressin the feuilleton of its number for the Sth inst. At the same

meeting the prizes of the Academy for the years 1876 and1877 were awarded.

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SIXTY of the students who have during the past session com-pleted their studies in the Academy of Medicine and Surgery,St. Petersburg, have volunteered for, and are about to proceedon, service with the army of the Danube. Moreover, thegreater number of the professors of the Academy, as well asof the professors of medicine and of surgery in the Russianprovincial universities, have expressed their intention of

proceeding to Turkey for their vacation, and while studyingthe prevalent maladies there, giving assistance in the ambu-lances and hospitals established south of the Balkans.

DR. MuRTAGH, consulting sanitary officer at Drogheda,has drawn the attention of the corporation to the proprietyof establishing a public abattoir in that town, as by thepresent system he believes that it is impossible to estimatethe amount of illness, typhoid fever, diarrhoea, &c., which is

engendered by the slaughter-houses, and the number ofdeaths caused thereby. ___

THE last overland mail brings intelligence indicating therapid increase of small-pox in the Punjaub, no less than 1060deaths having occurred in one week. The districts of

Gurgaon, Karnae, Lahore, and Montgomery were most severelyaffected. Two or three cases of cholera are reported ashaving occurred on board H.M.S. Teazer in Bombayharbour.

THE GOLDEN-SQUARE HOSPITAL.

THE following is a copy of the Report of the Committeeof Inquiry held last July, under the presidency of the Dukeof Grafton :-To His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K. G.

SIR,—In accordance with your Royal Highness’s desire,Lord Bute formed a Committee of Inquiry into the manage-ment of the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat, in Golden-square, consisting of the Duke of Grafton, Lord Clarendon,Lord Dunmore, and Sir William Gull. Lord Bute was pre-vented from attending on account of illness. The Com-mittee met on Saturday, the 14th instant, at half-past ten,at Lord Dunmore’s residence. Several members of theCommittee of the Hospital, including the Medical Superin-tendent, were present to defend the charges. At the outseta protest was handed in from these gentlemen, a copy ofwhich we have the honour to enclose.The course of the inquiry was confirmatory of the following

charges, and left on our minds the unanimous convictionthat the management of the hospital and the care of thepatients had been defective :-" The taking away the hospital porter to take charge of

his (Dr. Mackenzie’s) house." The dismissal of the porter at the shortest notice with-

out reference to the Committee.The instructions given to the matron not to telegraph tc

the surgeon in cases of emergency, but to send a mes-senger for his (Dr. Mackenzie’s) clinical assistant.

" That Dr. Mackenzie instructed the matron to summona clinical assistant by messenger in cases of emergency,and forbade her summoning the surgeon by telegraph.

‘‘ That in the case of Fanny Brooks, the clinical assistanisent for was a gentleman not on the staff of th{hospital.

"That to trust such a dangerous operation (as tracheotomy’to such inexperienced hands, when the surgeon coulc

have been summoned by telegraph, showed a want ofregard for the interests of the hospital, if not an ab-solute disregard of human life."

After a session of four hours and a half an adjournmentwas granted by the chairman (the Duke of Grafton) for halfan hour. At the end of an hour and a half the membersof the committee of the hospital returned, and handed inthe accompanying letter, which states that the committeedeclined a continuance of the inquiry, owing to the pro-fessional animus shown by Sir William Gull. This objec-tion, we desire to say, is gratuitous. The course of theinquiry had made it painfully evident that there was nodefence to be made, and that the alternative was to evadethe inquiry which had been commenced.

We have the honour to be, Sir,Your Royal Highness’s obedient servants,

GRAFTON, DUNMORE,CLARENDON, WILLIAM W. GULL.

86, Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, July 16th, 1877.

Protest of the Committee of the Hospital forDiseases of the Throat.

1. That the noblemen forming the Court of Inquiry areall personal friends of Col. Feilding, the complainant.2. That not only is this Court of Inquiry a self-constituted Court, but the judges are really (with the singleexception of Sir William Gull) the nominees of the com-plainant.

3. That the gentleman most seriously implicated (Dr.Semon) is at this moment in Switzerland, and thereforeunable to defend himself.

4. That any inquiry into matters affecting the institution: should be held within the precincts of the hospital.

Lastly. That the hour named-viz., half-past ten in themorning-is known to be the most inconvenient to themedical witnesses.

On behalf of the Committee of Management,(Signed) E. J. LUCK, Chairman.

; Saturday, July 14th, 1877.

The printed circular from which we quote continues :With regard to this protest it may be remarked-"1. That so far from all the members of the Committee of

Inquiry being personal friends of Colonel Feilding, two outof the four were actually unknown to him, and that as thesubjects of complaint were submitted by three other gentle-men besides Colonel Feilding, it was incorrect to speak ofhim as the complainant.’

, " 2. That the court was constituted by the President,

Lord Bute, who nominated the Chairman and Lord Claren-don, Lord Dunmore and Sir William Gull having beennominated by the Prince of Wales.

" 3. That no charge had been made against Dr. Semon,, whose name had never even been mentioned."

PARISIAN NOTES.

(From our Roving Correspondent.)

THE International Congress of Hygiene, which will beopened on the 1st August at the Palais of the Trocadero,

promises to be one of the greatest events in the annals ofsanitary reform. This Congress has taken months to or-

ganise; and, to ensure practical results, the proceedings willbe conducted according to an original and modified method.The meetings will be held twice a day. The first, from 9 A.M.

’ till midday, will be devoted to the examination of questions.

left to the initiative of individuals. Foreign visitors willthen have a good opportunity of bringing forward any specialsubject with which they may be familiar. The second sit-

’

ting will be held from 2 to 5 P.M., and will be reserved forthe discussion of the six questions proposed by the organis-

ing committee. The questions may be grouped under the, following general headings :-1. Infant mortality. 2. The

pollution of watercourses, utilisation of sewage, &c. 3. Food° and its adulteration. 4. The dwellings of the poor. 5. In-

jurious trades and industries. 6. Infectious diseases. As a

rule, in congresses of this description, the papers that openl the different subjects are read at the beginning of the

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meeting. None of the attendants know precisely whawill be said, or in what light the various subjects will btreated, they consequently arrive fully armed and prepare’to answer objections which, as often as not, are never madeor to expose facts that are already amply explained in th,opening speech. Repetitions are, therefore, of frequenoccurrence, while many points do not receive attentionIn the present instance, and to avoid such mishaps, it habeen determined to print and distribute the opening papers! afull month before the meeting of the Congress, so that thdiscussion may begin at once, and everyone will have thopportunity of thoroughly preparing himself. Already DrBouley’s exhaustive report on the practical means of detecting unwholesome meat is in the printer’s hands. This interesting paper will, among other peculiarities, give e th(price of meat since 1812 up to the present day, together witlstatistics on the quantity of bad meat that has been seizedOn this the third question much may be learnt from thEFrench members of the Congress, as the authoritiefin Paris have shown great ability in the war wageagainst adulteration and the sale of unwholesome food.Though often behind their neighbours in their legisla.tion against things injurious to public health, theFrench, nevertheless, excel in this phase of the question.Strange to say, the country which has the most knowledgeand experience in matters relating to hygiene has been thecoldest in its response to the invitations of the French sani-tary reformers. About five hundred adhesions to the

Congress have already come to hand, and out of this numberthere are barely twenty from England. Dr. Winter Blythand Dr. Lory Marsh are prominent among the few English-men who have responded to the call, but it is in Belgiumand in Holland that the wide-spread importance of theCongress has been thoroughly appreciated. Its discussions,it was at once understood, would interest the architect, theengineer, and especially the legislator and the administrator.Thus I noted, among those who had promised to attend, thenames of the Burgomaster of Laeken; Mr. J. S. Jager, thedirector of the waterworks of Amsterdam; Mr. MartinHymans, municipal councillor of Rotterdam; R. Bockh,director of the Statistical Bureau of Berlin; M. de Jessen,Burgomaster of the town of Horsens, in Jutland, andChamberlain to his Majesty the King of Denmark. TheCouncillor representative of Turkey and of Chili at Brusselswill attend. Russia sends many doctors, and notably Dr.J. Berthenson, physician to the Court of St. Petersburg.Italy will be well represented; Spain also; while evenGerman doctors, administrators, and professors will be ingreater force than the English unless some effort is at oncemade to rectify this state of affairs. In this I cannot helpthinking there must have been some mistake committed. Ifthe importance of the Congress were better understood I amconvinced that there would be hundreds of Englishmendesirous of attending. That sanitary legislation should beara somewhat international character but few can dispute, andthis cannot be attained unless the same principles are recog-nised by all people. Surely a Congress held at the Exhibi-tion, under the patronage of the French Government,attended by some of the most distinguished and competentdoctors, chemists, statisticians, hygienists, architects,engineers, legislators, and administrators of all civilisedcountries of the world, is likely to spread the knowledgewhich should become universal. In conclusion, let me addthat the French Government has ordered the shorthandwriters who take down the speeches in the FrenchAssembly to attend the Congress, so that a verbatim reportof its transactions will be published. It will not be to ourcredit if on such an occasion England is but feebly repre-sented. In many questions we have set a good example,and if we wish to obtain the credit we deserve, and do thegood we have the power of achieving, we should not hide ourlight under a bushel.A movement has been started in favour of appointing in

each arrondissement or municipal district of Paris a medicalofficer and an assistant, whose duty it will be to draw upstatistics with regard to childbirth, to watch the accouche-ments practised by midwives who attend to the poor and arein the employ of the Bureaux de Bienfaisance, and to inter-vene in any case presenting special difficulties. At presenteach arrondissement is subdivided into what might be calledobstetrical districts, with one midwife for each, nominatedby the Poor-law administration. The extreme poor andpauper classes have to resort to these women, but when anycase presenting special difficulties occurs the midwife calls

t in to assist her the doctor attached to the Bureau de Bien-faisance of the arrondissement. It, however, often happens

I that this medical officer has only a general knowledge of, accouchements, and less experience, possibly, than the mid-

wife herself. Hence the complaints recently uttered by thedoctors in charge of the lying-in hospitals, who maintain

. that many women have died because they were not treated> by specialists. It is now proposed that, apart from the

medical officer, an accoucheur should be appointed to eacharrondissement, who should be informed each time an

inhabitant had applied for the gratuitous aid of the localState-appointed midwife. The latter, knowing that she wasunder the orders of a thoroughly competent medical officer,would be more careful in the execution of her duty, and

! society at large would benefit by the reduction of infantmortality, and the collection of more accurate statistics andgeneral information regarding the growth of the population.

Paris, June 11th, 1878.

Correspondence."Audi alteram partem."

SULPHATE OF MANGANESE.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—Any addition to our useful drugs is naturally ofinterest to our working profession, and the more so when weknow exactly what we are using and can be tolerably certain

. of a constant result in its use for definite purposes. Wehave lately had additions to our Pharmacopoeia of consider-able value, such as podophyllin, a substitute for mercury,but as it is not always to be depended upon, I shall beobliged if you will allow me to call the attention of practicalmen to the use of sulphate of manganese. I have been in thehabit of using it for more than thirty years, both in hospitaland private practice, with uniform results, to be dependedupon at least as much as any medicine at our command. Ifirst used it at the old Dreadnought hospital-ship, and pub-lished a short account of it in some of the journals of thatperiod (1840), giving some cases that illustrated its invariableaction upon the liver and its secretion. I was first led toadopt it from having constantly numbers of liver-diseasecases brought to the hospital from the tropics, where calomelhad been used to the extreme limit of large and frequentdoses such as modern practice has quite abandoned. Podo-phyllin was then unknown, and all other bile stimulants wereeither too slow and too weak in their action to be of anyuse, orattended with some other properties which made them evendangerous. About that time Pereira’s work on " MateriaMedica " was published, and I was struck by his account ofthe effect of sulphate of manganese ; it was short and hadreference to the poisonous effects of manganese uponanimals. Two drachms proved fatal to rabbits, and onexamination after death, the stomach and intestines werefound filled with pure bile, all other contents having beenexpelled by purging and vomiting. No lesion was discovered,no congestion of any viscus, but the intestines were allstained with bile. I tried the effect of small doses uponmyself, beginning with one grain, and increased up to halfa drachm before producing any sickness. Perhaps thegradual use of it enabled me to take a larger dose than ifthat quantity had been commenced with. I then gave it tosuch patients as there was reason to believe had no abscess.or dysentery ; but where there was enlargement, with eitherdark bilious evacuations or bileless and pale, no effect wasobserved for half an hour, and then they suffered fromnausea, followed by purging; or vomiting, or both together.The nausea was considerable, but soon passed away,leaving the patients in better spirits, with improvedappetite. The dusky yellow or sallow skin becamenatural in colour; the disappearance of jaundice was

very remarkable. I never observed any bad effect from itsuse-excepting the temporary nausea, closely resemblingsea-sickness, and reminding me of the sickness resultingfrom abscess of the brain-beyond that induced by our or-dinary emetics, and the relief counterbalances all the dis-tress, which is but transient, neither the heart’s action northe pulse being altered. After the second or third dose itoccurs not, and I found that the addition of small doses of