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The houses proved inadequate in size or number,and the overflow workers were lodged in ordinaryhuts with well-supervised mosquito nets, thus pro-viding a control for comparison with the specialhouses. A man went round daily to catch and destroyall mosquitoes, and found in the first seven months12 in the houses, 1902 in the huts, 3017 in openclothes lockers ; so the screening of the houses waseffective. In 11 months 17 fresh infections occurredamong 77 men in the huts (2-0 per month per cent.),but only 16 among 377 men in the houses (0-38 permonth per cent.). Thus the benefit from carefulproofing is evident. In one month the gauze of onehouse was damaged, and 100 mosquitoes were foundin that house in one week, and a case of malarial fever,developed there within three weeks. Dr. Reitlerquotes with approval from J. B. Hanafin 2 that in thetropics mosquito proofing is as necessary to a house asis in the Arctic a source of heat. By itself, he says,-proofing does nothing to reduce malaria in the area,unless as here the mosquitoes are captured anddestroyed and the larvae pursued in the usual ways.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT BRISTOL.

THE ninety-ninth annual meeting of the BritishAssociation will be held at Bristol early in Septembernext, under the presidency of Prof. F. 0. Bower,F.R.S. The Association has met at Bristol on threeprevious occasions, the first in 1836 when LordNorthampton, its President, laid the first stone of theClifton Suspension Bridge, and the Geological Sectionhad first-rate opportunity for field survey in the.cuttings then being made for the Great WesternRailway. At the meeting in 1875 Sir John Hawkshawpresided, and 1898 was memorable for an addressby Sir William Crookes on the future wheat supply.Since that date Bristol has become a Universitycity and the Association will meet this time in someof the finest academic buildings in the world, thanksto the generosity of the Wills family and the designsof Sir George Oatley. The programme will openon the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 3rd, with thepresidential address in the Colston Hall on Size andForm in Plants. Addresses by sectional presidentsto be delivered during the ensuing week will include(Chemistry) Prof. G. T. Morgan, F.R.S., on a StateExperiment in Chemical Research ; (Anthropology),Dr. H. S. Harrison on Evolution in Material Culture ;(Physiology), Prof. H. S. Raper F.R.S., on theSynthetic Activities of the Cell, and (Psychology),Prof. C. W. Valentine on the Foundation of ChildPsychology. Many of the discussions will be of widerscope through the merging of two or more sections forthe purpose. For instance the sections of botanyand agriculture will discuss the Mineral Element inPlant Nutrition ; the Sections of physiology andpsychology will discuss In What Sense Can We Speakof Primary Colours ? And the three sections ofgeology, geography, and anthropology will discussthe Relation between Past Pluvial and Glacial Periods.These discussions will afford the opportunity on whichthe Association is based for conference and cooperationbetween scientific workers and others interested in all’departments of science. Evening discourses will begiven on Sept. 5th by Prof. E. V. Appleton, F.R.S.,on Wireless Echoes ; and on Sept. 9th by Dr. R. E.Slade on the Nitrogen Industry and our Food-supply.Public lectures will be arranged’ in Bristol and thelleighbouring towns. The acting general secretary ofthe Association for 1929-30 is Prof. F. J. M. Stratton,and the local honorary secretaries for the Bristolmeeting are Dr. W. Ludford Freeman, Dr. BertramH. Rogers, and Prof. A. M. Tyndall. Between now.and the Bristol meeting a loan exhibition of antiquitiesfrom Southern Rhodesia will be on view in London atthe Assyrian basement of the British Museum. These.are the result of excavations undertaken for theAssociation by Miss G. Caton-Thompson at Zimbabwe.and other Rhodesian sites last year. Admission will

2 Jour. R.A.M.C., 1928, li., 127.

be free during the hours when the museum is open.Future arrangements include a centenary celebrationin London in September of next year, and meetingsat York in 1932 and Leicester in 1933.

CYANIDE POISONING IN HOTELS.

Dr. Huntington Williams 1 records a number ofcases of acute non-fatal cyanide poisoning apparentlydue to consuming silver polish. In June, 1928, hesays, about 30 persons became acutely ill after dinnerat a hotel in Utica. No evidence of food deteriorationcould be discovered, but on examination the powderused for cleaning silverware was found to containover 20 per cent. of sodium cyanide It was ascer-tained that similar cases had occurred at many hotelswhere this compound and others containing cyanidewere used as a routine. Usually the utensils weredipped about once a week in a solution containing thepoison, and the result was that ineffective rinsingmight easily lead to poisoning of the next guest whoused them. Oddly enough, none of the servantsemployed in cleaning silver seem to have developedsymptoms. These were acute gastro-enteritis withvomiting, purging, and later, signs of shock. Inone of the cases recorded, diarrhoea was so violentand persistent that finally the patient was passingwatery mucus ; in another, blood-stained stoolswere passed. The shock was so severe that in morethan one case the illness was critical, with pallor,sweating, dyspnoea, and thready pulse ; in severalcases also there was albuminuria. The managers ofthe hotels usually received the explanation withgratitude, and stopped the use of the dangerouspreparations. Certain hotels which had receivedcomplaints of food poisoning from their guests havebeen able to record the disappearance of such com-plaints since these polishes have been abandoned.Legislation to prevent this danger has been attemptedin the State of New York, where the sanitary codehas been amended to forbid the use of any cyanidepreparation or other poison for cleaning nickel,copper, or silverware, or other articles used in thepreparation of food. The Department of Health ofNewark, New Jersey, has placed a similar ban onthe use of poisonous compounds for cleaning silver-ware, and warnings have been given through theAmerican medical press.

THE DECLINE IN VENEREAL DISEASE.

THE gradual but steady decline of syphilis inEuropean countries since the late war must beattributed largely to the intensive Governmentcampaigns against the disease. The legislativemeasures employed by various countries provideinteresting contrasts.2 2 In Germany every personinfected with venereal disease must, by law, attend adoctor, and if necessary his attendance can be enforceduntil treatment is complete. Though marriagewhile in an infective state is not at present forbidden,the patient is legally responsible for informing hisbetrothed of his condition before the marriage takesplace. The power to refuse medical care is suspendedin the case of venereal disease, and the sale of unofficialremedies is forbidden. This legislation only cameinto force in February, 1927, but previous publichealth work had reduced the incidence of syphilisconsiderably ; in 1919 the incidence of new infectionswas reported as 8-7 per 1000 inhabitants, and in 1927this number had fallen to 5-8. In the United Statesof America notification of his disease by the patientis compulsory, but variably enforced in differentStates, so that statistics cannot be ’exact. Theannual incidence of new cases is estimated at about1-5 per 1000 inhabitants, while the number of casestreated, old and new together, is roughly 4-2 per 1000.Among the negro population the incidence is higher,

1 Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., March 1st, p. 627.2 Bull. de l’Office Internat. d’Hyg. Publique.

928 T

stanamg at z-4: per iuuu, wnne me percentage or

positive Wassermann reactions stands at 20 to 24.A steady decrease in syphilis in the army coincideswith an equally steady, unexplained, rise amongmarines. The death-rate from general paralysis hasfallen, but whether this is due to more efficient earlytreatment, reduced incidence of syphilis, or the useof malario-therapy cannot yet be decided. Probablyall three have played a part. In France the incidenceof primary infections is said to have fallen from 21-1 1per 1000 in 1917 to 2 per 1000 in 1928 ; stillbirths fellfrom 48-3 per 1000 births (of living and dead children)in 1916 to 37-6 per 1000 in 1928. The venerealservice has been developed, and propaganda has beenundertaken on a large scale. In Algiers an energeticattempt is being made to combat these diseases, butit is still too early to demonstrate marked results,though the number of skin lesions among the populaceseems to be decreasing rapidly. In Great Britainthe effects of propaganda are shown by an increasingtendency for patients to continue treatment untilcure is complete. Seventy-seven laboratories in

England and Wales undertake the performance ofthe Wassermann reaction. The incidence of newcases is now assessed at less than one-fifth of theaverage annual incidence between the years 1911 and1918. Infant mortality from syphilis has fallen from2-03 per 1000 births among children under one yearin 1917, to 0-71 in 1928. In Egypt and Turkey anti-venereal campaigns are being undertaken, but hereagain it is too early to estimate their results. InYugoslavia stringent legal measures are taken againstpersons who infect others with disease during thecourse of their own treatment.

TRANSMISSION OF THE VIRUS OF DENGUE.

THOUGH a number of different mosquitoes have beenincriminated as possible dengue vectors, the onlyspecies accepted as the unquestionable carrier isAedes cegypti (Stegomyia fasciata). Certain observershave suggested the possibility that other species,including A. albopictus (S. scutellaris, Walker), mayalso transmit the disease, but the results obtainedby Koizumi, Yamaguchi, and Tonomura when theyinvestigated the role of this insect were inconclusive.It appears that in the Philippine Islands albopictusis widely distributed ; the larvae are often found in thesame breeding places as cegypti, and the relativeproportion of albopictus has been shown to increasein June and July at which time dengue fever wasprevalent in Manila. Simmons, St. John, andReynoldsl report experiments with a strain of denguefever maintained since December 1928, by passagethrough six different batches of cegypii and six humanvolunteers. The imagines of albopictus had emergedfrom larvae collected about Manila. On July 16th,1929, 100 female mosquitoes of this species weregiven an opportunity to feed on a volunteer patientwho had developed typical symptoms of dengue fever12 hours earlier. The successfully fed mosquitoeswere kept for a minimum period of 13 days beforetests were made to determine their ability to transmitdengue to man. Each volunteer was isolated in ascreened cubicle in a screened ward. The supplyof virus was obtained in the first instance by trans-ference from one volunteer to another throughselected cegypti. Finally one volunteer developeddengue from the bite of a single mosquito andupon his blood a group of 54 female albopictuswere fed. After periods of 15 and 20 daysrespectively, small groups of this batch of mosquitoeswere tested on two volunteers, both of whomdeveloped dengue fever five to seven days later. Inall, seven successful transmision experiments werecarried out, indicating that albopictus is highlysusceptible to infection with the dengue virus.From the evidence already collected regarding the iwidespread distribution of albopictus in the Far East,

1 Simmons, J. S., St. John, J. H., and Reynolds, F. H. K.:Philippine Jour. Sci., February, 1930, p. 215.

it is obvious that this mosquito must be considered asa serious factor in the dissemination of dengue fever.Not only has it been found possible to pass the

dengue virus from volunteer to volunteer with pre-cision, but also to transfer the virus from infected tonormal cegypti without passage through a vertebratehost.2 This was done in an ingenious manner by fillinga cell (an ordinary rectangular staining dish) withcitrated human blood and macerated dengue-infectedcegypti over which the fresh depilated skin of a

guinea-pig had been stretched and clamped. Theapparatus was kept at 37 °C. and inserted into a cagecontaining normal laboratory bred insects. Themosquitoes were at once attracted to the skin and in ashort time most of them became engorged with theblood mixture. Subsequently they produced typicaldengue fever in two American volunteers after anincubation period of six days. This method of infectingmosquitoes in the laboratory promises to be of distinctvalue in the study of virus diseases transmitted bymosquitoes.

____

THE CASSEL HOSPITAL.THE current report of the Cassel Hospital for

Functional Nervous Disorders at Penshurst dealswith the patients who were under care in the calendaryear 1928. Of 67 cases of anxiety state, 60 improvedwhile in hospital, and 54 were known to be well andimproved a year later. Of 25 cases of hysteria, 19improved while in hospital, and 15 of them wereknown to be well and improved a year later. Twoobsessional compulsive cases both obtained lastingbenefit. The 16 psychoneurotic patients who didnot improve or who relapsed within the year arereviewed in detail. Three who improved but relapsedwere all people of poor morale, and their temporaryimprovement could only be attributed to theirresidence in a sheltered environment. None of thepatients discharged during 1928 subsequently claimedto have been cured elsewhere. According to customthe group labelled " psychopathic personalities "was kept as small as possible ; four out of the ninepatients comprising it showed marked improvement,and the others suffered from alcoholic or drugaddiction. Of the 17 patients with schizophrenicsymptoms two recovered, and out of nine depressedpsychotics two went out well, but one has sincerelapsed, and three of those who were dischargedunimproved have since recovered. Two patientssuffering from hypochondria were dischargedunaltered. Full tables are given in the report, andthe individual cases described will be of interest to allwho have to deal with problems of this kind.

THE Rockefeller Foundation has made a grant of;C2000 a year for two years towards the work of theNational Institute of Industrial Psychology. Theinstitute, it is stated, has already received .614,500from the Foundation.

THE library of the Royal Society of Medicineis in future to remain open until 10 P.M. on Thursdaysas well as on Tuesdays and Fridays. All Fellowsnot resident or practising within one mile of theSociety’s house may now have books sent to themfrom the library, carriage paid.

Sir Alfred Watson, the Government actuary, hasissued a report on claims for benefit under theInsurance Acts received by a representative group ofapproved societies. It is shown that the proportion ofmen claiming sickness benefit rose from 14 per 100 in1921 to 23 per 100 in 1927, corresponding increasesbeing recorded among women. In the latter year430 out of every 1000 women drew sickness or

disablement benefit, or both. Sir Alfred believesthat the conditions of 1927 have not subsequentlybeen alleviated.

2 Same authors: Ibid., March, 1930, p. 381.