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1199 greater part of the year, either in actually being examined or in preparing for an examination to come. A new danger, too, arises from the fact that the six nominations will be made by one and the same jury of 12 members, and that a bare majority will suffice-i.e., that seven votes will decide if all 12 members are present and less if one of the judges should miss one sitting throughout the term during which the examinations last. The favouritism which was a marked vice under the old system will still have every opportunity of asserting itself. The method of assigning marks by the jury is also to be modified. Formerly after each test a conference of the whole jury decided on the marks to be given to each candidate; henceforth each juryman will write down privately the number of marks to be given to the candidate and will put the record into an envelope bearing the candidate’s name and signed with his own name. None of the envelopes will be opened till rafter the com- pletion of all the tests. The marks will be summed up after a new system. In place of adding them and taking the mean the figures found on opening the envelopes will be written down one after the other, commencing with the highest. This series will be cut in two and the first figure of the second half will be the number assigned to the candidate. Finally, instead of having two patients to examine, the candidates will have only one and the examination will conclude by a rehearsal (epreuve) of a consultation. The consulting physicians MEDICINES honoraires)-that is to say, those who are over 70 years of age and have therefore retired from active hospital work-will continue as hitherto to be eligible as examiners, but only in the proportion of one to every jury. It has happened on former occasions that a jury contained too many of these elderly physicians, because the younger ones, more absorbed in practice, refused to take part in the examination and so lose six weeks of their time; so the senior element, which is either unable or unwilling to form a just estimate of modern ideas, thus came to occupy a too preponderating position upon the jury. The annual examination for appointing the resident hospital medical officers was held on Oct. 16th and was marked by a regrettable incident. The candidates sent in a protest to the Director of the Assistance Publique against the presence on the jury of a well-known surgeon who, they said, was eccentric to the verge of mental aberration and of a physician disqualified for various reasons and who in addition was obviously mentally weak. This disgraceful protest was repro- duced in the political journals and it called forth two letters of contradiction on the part of the two persons who were obviously aimed at. Dr. Gougenheim, physician to the Lariboisiere Hospital, wrote saying that he was not on the jury, having refused to take any part in the examination; and as regards the surgeon, Dr. Benjamin Anger, his students wrote a strongly worded letter of protest expressing in the most public way their perfect confidence in his uprightness and scientific ability. Fulminating Tuberculosis after Childbirth. At the meeting of the Academy of Medicine held on Oct. 17th M. Doleris reported two interesting cases in which old tuberculosis took on very virulent action after childbirth. It signalised its presence by a general infection rather than by the formation of new tubercles. In both cases M. l Doléris demonstrated the presence of the tubercle bacillus in the blood by injecting some into a guinea-pig. In his i opinion childbirth has the effect of putting the bacilli on a war footing (mobilisation) and they invade the blood, bringing about a regular tuberculous septicaemia analogous f to the septicaemia which sometimes follows a surgical i operation. This septicasmia is so profound that it ( brings about the death of the patient before any definite i tubercles have time to form. ’ The Abuse of the Truss. ( At a meeting of the Society of Surgery held on Oct. 18th M. Thierry lifted up his voice against the abuse of the truss in the treatment of hernia. Trélat’s opinion that every easily reducible hernia should be treated by a truss is not correct. Hernia is a disease (in;firm.ite) and one that I should be operated upon. It is, therefore, most deplorable t to see the Assistance Publique spending 70,000 francs per r annum upon trusses which are handed over to any patient t presenting a simple order for one. No one had ever derived q any benefit from a truss. M. Lucas Championniere traversed o this last statement, saying that if in general hernia should a be treated by the performance of the radical cure it was yet a none the less true that certain kinds of hernia in certain o o classes of cases-notably, those herniae occurring in old people-should be kept up by means of a truss. Oct. 24th. ROME. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Small-pox in Upper Italy. ACQUI. one of the most frequented balneary resorts in the- Italian Kingdom, is now suffering from a severe visitation of confluent variola. The malady first declared itself in epidemic form as far back as July last and since then it has. assumed proportions nothing less than calamitous. Within the week now passing it has numbered many victims and yet, I am told, the communal sanitary authorities’ do nothing to limit its spread. Vainly do the citizens. demand the prompt and effective application of hygienic measures. No attempt even to isolate the cases has as yet been made. On the contrary, the schools, the public lava- tories, and the places of social resort are kept as open as if no such deadly visitant were in evidence! 150 families,. representing well-nigh thrice that number of individuals, have been attacked and yet the supineness of the communal> sanitary authorities remains unmoved. All the summer the- neighbouring medical school of Turin, chiefly through its. professor of pathology, Dr. Bizzozzero, has been vindi- cating the efficacy of the Jennerian prophylactic, but Acqui,. which enjoys a European reputation for its mud baths and its success in treating gouty arthritis, allows a quite preventable intruder to scare away the clientele from which its most lucrative revenue flows. This last consideration, it must be owned with regret, is more likely to arouse the- local authorities from their lethargy than the duty they owe- to the citizens whose physical and moral well-being is com- mitted to their charge. The Pestis Bubonica in .Brazil. At Santos, which, like other Brazilian seaports or inland. centres, has a large Italian population, the pestis. bubonica has appeared in force. According to information telegraphed from Rio Janeiro to Genoa, Santos itself, dirty, unhealthy, never free from yellow fever, has long been a , candidate" " for such a visitation ; indeed, the wonder is that, once having effected a foothold, the malady is not of a. more virulent character. The Brazilian Government has displayed commendable energy in grappling with the invader. No sooner did the first victims come under medical care- than the presence of the characteristic blackish spots. and buboes counselled their immediate isolation, while- no time was lost in procuring large quantities of the "siero antipestifero" (it is not said whether that of Haffkine or- of Lustig). The bacteriologists of the Government hygienic- office, after minute examination of the dejections of the: patients, confirmed the diagnosis of the physicians and accordingly from headquarters came the most stringent orders for limiting the spread of the disease. As usual, a. sanitary cordon was proposed and by some of the more )anic-stricken was insisted on ; but after due consideration ihat antiquated and discredited measure was abandoned. Of t mild (benigno) type, the disease has yet proved as deadly as. n its Asiatic " seat of origin," three deaths out of seven. :ases being the proportion. Probably, however, the low esisting power of the population and the depressing in- luences of panic explain the phenomenon. The infection. vas, it is alleged, introduced by a passenger who had just fisembarked from the -Bey de Portugal, on board which (it is. nteresting to know) there had been made during the voyage- ’ quite a hecatomb of rats." By the most recent accounts- Oct. 22nd) the population of Santos, re-assured by the nergetic provisions of the Government, was recovering its. quanimity. Pharmaceutical Misadventure: Tragic Consequences. A case has come before the Penal Tribunal of Turin, rhich illustrates the all too perfunctory manner in which he Italian chemist and druggist is prone to compound ledicines. About a year ago in the Farmacia Bertinaria in. he Subalpine Capital a number of persons purchased a- uantity of seidlitz powders. These when taken instead f producing their aperient effect set up severe gastralgia. nd gastro-enteritis, and five of the consumers died t intervals varying from 24 hours to 10 days. Seven thers who had also had recourse to the same powders.
