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supervene within a few hours of partaking of the oysters, as z,in ptomaine poisoning. In most cases the illness commenced from 24 to 48 hours afterwards, suggestive of infection by ’.,the bacillus enteritidis of Gaertner, and those who sufferedlater from typhoid fever were probably infected both by thisbacillus and the bacillus typhosus. The outbreak is curiousin several respects : firstly, since only a small portion of theoysters appears to have been capable of causing illness ; Isecondly, since the nature of the illness varied from a merefeeling of nausea and weakness to a fatal attack of typhoidfever ; and thirdly, since practically the whole of the casesoccurred amongst those who purchased the oysters from thesmack whilst at Mistley. Only one possible explanationsuggests itself to me, and that is that the river water, whichis greatly polluted here, may have been taken into the boatand infected the oysters lying at the bottom. This opinion isconfirmed by the fact vouched for by one of the patients, who ’,says that he bought the last of a lot lying at the bottom of the boat and got them a little cheaper because he took the lot. ’,It would be extraordinary, however, if this peculiar condition ’,should obtain on the two successive visits. The owner ofthe boat is certain that no water from the river was thrownover the oysters. The fishermen at Brightlingsea all givethe opinion that some of the oysters could not have beenfresh and attribute the illness to eating stale oysters. This,however, cannot explain all the facts.These cases of illness also occurred during the season when

the "native" oyster is " sick and unfit for consumption.The native oyster (08trea edulis) is hermaphrodite and

spats from May to September, whilst the Portuguese oyster(Ostrea ang1Ûata) is unisexual The Brightlingsea merchantssell the foreign oysters all the year round and say that thePortuguese variety never shows the signs of "sickness" "

observed in the native oyster during the close season, whichin this country extends from May 14th to August 4th. ThePortuguese oysters which caused the above recorded cases ’,of sickness had been laid in the St. Osyth Channel for over iia year, but apparently laying for this length of time doesnot bring the oyster within the scope of the Fisheries(Oyster, Crab, and Lobster) Act, 1877. Even the a5sump-tion that a "sick" " or "spawning" " oyster is unwholesomedoes not explain why only a certain few sold at a certaintime and in a certain place caused illness varying from merenausea to well-marked typhoid fever. At present, therefore,the cause of the unwholesomeness of the oysters remainsundiscovered.We obtained a number of oysters from the implicated beds

and submitted them to one of the patients who had sufferedfrom typhoid fever. He examined them when opened andsaid that he could see no difference between them and thosewhich he had eaten in August. From the liquid inside theshells of these oysters we isolated in one case a motilebacillus capable of growing in phenolated broth, of curdlingmilk, and producing indol, but which did not give gas bubblesin glucose gelatin, and from another oyster the typicalbacillus coli communis. The spores of the bacillus enteritidis

sporogenes could not be found in the shell liquid in eitheroyster. In the juice from the gastric gland the bacillus colicommunis could not be demonstrated in either case, but inboth the spores of the bacillus enteritidis sporogenes, or ofan organism which we could not differentiate therefrom,were easily discovered. The bacillus typhosus was notfound.In cockles taken from sewage-polluted water we have

invariably found both the bacillus coli communis andbacillus enteritidis sporogenes in the shell liquid and in thepulp of the animal. Whether the pre-ence of either or bothof these organisms in the Portuguese oysters indicates sewagepollution or not it is at present impossible to say. Thebacterial contents of the shells and organs of various shell-fish is a subject which requires investigation.For comparative purposes we obtained some native oysters

from probably the most celebrated fattening grounds in thiscountry and our examination yielded the following results :-

Oyster No. l.-(a) Liquid from the inside of the shellgave a negative result as regards the bacillus coli communisand the bacillus enteritidis sporogenes. (b) Juice from thegastric gland gave all the indications of bacillus enteritidissporogenes. A motile bacillus grew in phenolated brothwhich curdled milk and produced indol in abundance, yetdid not give gas bubbles in glucose gelatin.

Oyster No, 2.-(a) From the juice inside the shell thesame motile bacillus which was found in No. 1 (b) wasobtained but no bacillus enteritidis sporogenes. (b) In

juice from the gastric gland the same motile bacillus waspresent which was found in the liquid inside the shell.The culture gave every indication of the presence ofbacillus enteritidis sporogenes. A few of these oysterswere placed in sea water to which a bouillon growth of thebacillus typhosus had been added. On the second day theoysters were taken out and placed in fresh pure sea water.An oyster was removed -on the first, third, fifth, and seventhdays and the juice taken from the gastric gland examined.Up to the seventh day the specific bacillus could berecovered and identified, but not afterwards.Our investigations on these lines are being carried further,

but the results point to the necessity of being careful aboutdrawing conclusions as to sewage pollution of shell-fishfrom the presence of organisms belonging to the coli groupor the bacillus enteritidis sporogenes.

THE IRISH CENSUS.

THE Registrar-General of Ireland has favoured us with acopy of Part II. of the General Report of the Irish Censuswhich has recently been presented to both Houses of Parlia-ment. The present issue is in continuation of previous volumesfor the several provinces of Ireland ; it is signed by threecommissioners, Mr. Robert E. Matheson (Registrar-General),Mr. T. Bellingham Brady, and Mr. Robert J. Brew, and com-pletes the series of Irish census publications for 1901. Thevolume before us consists of 640 folio pages and contains avast amount of interesting matter concerning the populationof the country, with especial reference to the housing, agedistribution, and so-called "civil condition" of the people,as well as to their occupations, religious profession, andeducational condition. This portion of the report is repletewith detail and will afford material for profitable study tothose who are more particularly interested in the welfare andprogress of the Emerald Isle.There is, however, one section of the report which deals

with the local distribution of sickness and infirmity andwhich therefore appears to possess the chief interest forour profession ; this section is peculiar to the Irish reports,no provision for the collection of similar information exist-ing in any of the Census Acts ior Great Britain. Theimportance which the commissioners attach to this part oftheir subject may be gathered from the fact that they havedevoted to its consideration as many as 18 pages of closelyprinted letterpress and 31 full-page tables. We shall inwhat follows confine our attention to this part of thereport.

Before entering into detail we must point out to ourreaders that the facts of sickness and of infirmity which havebeen so minutely analysed in the remarks and in the tablesbefore us are derived from the reports of the enumerators

exclusively ; they represent the statements or opinions oflaymen who are for the most part members of the Royal IrishConstabulary and are in no sense authorised by medicaltestimony; nevertheless, the returns are exceedinglyinteresting and are clearly deserving of consideration. Inthe tables numbered 98 to 129 certain details are givenrespecting the sick and disabled in Ireland on the night ofMarch 31st, 1901. These tables deal with two great classesof the people-namely (a) those suffering from ordinaryforms of illness-the ’’ temporarily" " sick, and (b) those

suffering from usually incurable maladies—the "per-manently disabled. The classification of diseases employedis that which was designed for general purposes of vitalstatistics by the late Dr. Farr and which up to the close ofthe nineteenth century has been universally adhered to inIreland as well as in other divisions of the United Kingdom.On the night of the census the total number of sick and

infirm in Ireland is stated to have been nearly 70,000, givinga proportion of 1 to 65 of the population. Of this aggregateabout 36, 000 were "temporarily" sick and the remainderwere "permanently diseased. Of the former class, 15, 000were living at home, 5000 were in infirmaries or specialhospitals, and the remainder were in workhouse hospitals.Special inquiry was made as to whether sick persons at theirown homes were or were not able to follow their usual

occupations. The sick in hospitals and other institutionswere of course assumed to be unable to follow any occupa-tion and less than 200 of those sick at home were able to

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,cnaintain themselves ; but the reporters express the opinion1:.that many persons suffering from less serious complaintswere not returned at all in the sick list, so that the propor-tion of the population actually out of health is probablycinder-stated.

According to the returns, ths proportion of the Irish

population classed as "temporarily" diseased was 8’0 per1000, or 0’4 per 1000 more than at the pievious census. Inthe province of Leinster the proportion was 10 1 ; in Munster,.9’ 1; in Ulster, 6’ 5 ; and in Connaught, 5’ 9 per 1000.In the county borough of Dublin the rate was as highas 16’5 per 1000, but this is at any rate partly attributedto the hospital accommodation in that city, for of 4757..persons in Dublin who were returned as temporarily,diseased on census night as many as 1714 were in

hospital. In 1901 there was only one person returnedas suffering from small-pox on census night and ofthose suffering from measles, scarlet fever, and whooping-<;ough the numbers were only 123, 257, and 258 respectively.But what strikes us as peculiar is that in a country which hasbeen stated to be "the home of typhus only 68 cases ofthat disease were reported on census night ; it is true thatthere were in addition 302 cases returned as enteric fever and53 of simple continued fever and some of these might con-- oeivably have been actually cases of typhus fever. The reallyserious point in connexion with this diease consists in thefact that only 23 of the known 68 cases of this eminentlyinfectious pestilence were under treatment in public institu-tions. Under the conditions of poverty and overcrowdingwhich normally exist among the poor in Ireland it is obvious- that the disease may readily become widely epidemic at anytime, unless, indeed, large numbers of the population areimmune to infection by reason of their having sustained anattack of this disease earlier in life.

Intluenza seems to have been exceedingly prevalent in the<early part of 1901, not fewer than 2900 cases having beenreported. The disease seems to have been distributed almost

-equally over every province of the country. Only 33 cases of,diphtheria were returned, one-third of these having occurredin the city of Dublin ; for some unexplained reason isolationseems to be mure commonly resorted to in the case of this.disease than even in that of typhus fever, 20 out of the 33cases having occurred in hospitals. Phthisis or pulmonarytuberculosis was reported in 1967 cases on the census night.a,s compared with 2030 at the taking of the previous census.More than half of the reported cases were being attended attheir own homes ; of the remainder 282 were in hospitals and644 in workhouses. According to the returns there were 439cases of cancer in Ireland on the census night, rather morethan half of which were being attended at their own homes ;of the remainder 91 were reported in hospitals and 120 inworkhouses.From what we have stated it will appear that about three-

fourths of the 15,633 sick who were accommodated in publicinstitutions were found in workhouse hospitals ; this. how-’<ever, must not be taken to mean that the whole of these areto be classed as sick paupers, the fact being that in remotecountry districts of Ireland, where there are practically novoluntary hospitals, the sick among the poorer classes makeuse of the union hospitals in the same manner as similar- classes in England use the hospitals supported by voluntary,-<&ucirc;ontributions. In estimating the accommodation for the<sick poor in Ireland this circumstance should be borne inmind.Among the class of persons stated to be "permanently"

diseased we note that at the recent census as many as

:5470 persons were returned as "blind," but after carefulinquiry it was found that 1217 of these were only partially- deprived of sight The number of totally blind persons,therefore, was 4253, or 1 in every 1048 of the population.This shows an improvement on the returns of 1891, when theproportion of totally blind was as high as 1 in 881. Complete..absence of vision appears to have dated from birth in only184 instances, the remaining 4069 blind persons having ’,become so later in life. Ophthalmia, which was at one time ’one of the great pests of Ireland, does not now seem to be thecause of an excessive proportion of the blindness existing in that country. In the year 1871 the number of cases ofColindness attributed to ophthalmia was 1642, in 1881dt was .523, in 1891 it was 378, whilst at the recent census itwas 194, or 1 in 22,983 of the population. 8ma&iuml;1-pox is theassigned cause of 128 cases of blindness in 1901, anda few cases of this calamity are attributed in thereport to the effects of certain other infectious -complaints.

Disease of the brain is the stated cause of 221 cases

cataract of 409 cases, and various forms of injury of 536cases. But the cause of blindness in 2445 cases is stated tobe unknown ; we can scarcely be surprised at this, especiallywhen the nature and origin of the return are taken intoaccount. Most of these cases of blindness are assigned bythe people themselves either to the "will of Providence" orare stated to have come on gradually," the true cause inthese cases never having been medically ascertained. As

regards dumbness and deafness very minute classification ofthe afflicted persons has been carried out in the report ;without going into detail we note with satisfaction that theseparticular infirmities have been steadily on the decrease eversince 1871. At the recent census the number of 11 lunatics "

enumerated in Ireland was 19,834, of whom 596 were "atlarge," 16,587 were in asylums, and 2651 were in work-

houses; the number of "idiots" " was 5216. of whom 3272were at large, 763 were in asylums, and 1181 weie in work-houses. For further details concerning the sick and infirmwe must refer our readers to the census report ; we muchregret that limitations of spa,ce preclude our following thisinteresting subject further.

AN INTERESTING TRIAL CONCERNINGPOISONING BY A MIXTURE OF

COAL AND WATER GAS.

AN action for damages brought by Mr. Waters and his wife against theBrighton Gas Company was recently heard before Mr. Justice Lawranceand a special jury in the King’s Bench Division. It was an action forover E2000 damages which the plaintiffs alleged they had sufferedthrough the neglect of the gas company which, when fixing a gas stovein the plaintiffs’ bedroom, connected up some disused pipes and left anescape of gas from an unobserved and imperfectly capped old bracketpoint. The case was of peculiar interest to the medical profession inthat it involved a sharp conflict between a number of medical men andraised points of much difficulty for the consideration of the court. Toput the matter shortly the plain’ iffs’ case was this. A leak of four anda half cubic feet of gas containing 30 per cent. of water gas, andtherefore 13 per cent. of carbon monoxide, was left in a bedroom ofaverage size-20CO cubic feet-for some 16 hours. The smell was notnoticed when the plaintiff and his wife went to bed at 11 P M., althoughthe leakage had been taking place for several hours. The explanation ofthis somewhat peculiar feature in the case was that, as the painton the new stove gave off an unpleasant smell, the windows anddoor of the bedroom were kept open until a few minutes beforethe plaintiffs retired to bed. The stove was then extinguished, thewindows and rloor were closed, and the plaintiffs went to sleep. At6.20 A.M. (on Dec. 24th of last year) the female plaintiff awoke; shefound the room full of gas and had a splitting headache. On turningon the electric light she found her husband lying, apparently uncon-scious, on the bed by her side; she shook him and spoke to him, buthe seemed to slip or to fall from the bed on to the floor, where he re-covered consciousness. Mr. Waters now rose and managed to get to thewashstand where he stood retching for some time; the windows anddoors were opened and after a time he got into bed again. At 8 A.M. hearose, dressed, and went downstairs with the assistance of his wife, andalthough unable to eat any breakfast he managed, about 9 A.M., to goout and to walk unassisted to the gas company’s office-a distance ofsome 500 yards. He lodged an angry complaint there and then walkedback home; on arriving back he did not send for a medical man,expecting soon to be all right again. He continued occasionally retch-ing for the next four days, and on the 28th, owing to the fact that hecoughed up some bright blood, a medical man, Mr. G. Morgan ofBrighton, was summoned. Mr. Morgan found the plaintiff ill, witha temperature of 101.8&deg; F., a pulse of 100, and cough, expectoration, andhaemoptysis. There were some dulness in the mid-scapular regionbehind on the right side and harsh breathing, with evident con-

gestion at this spot. Mr. Morgan described the blood as being" cherry-red," attributing this peculiarity to the cherry-red carboxy-hsemnglobin which is formed in the blood when carbon monoxide isinhaled. The plaintiff wrote to the gas company claiming compen-sation and there for the time the matter ended.By Jan. 8th the patient was well enough to go to London, all

haemoptysis had ceased, and, with the exception of a cough and someweakness, he was practically recovered. In March, however, Mr.Morgan, on re-examining the right lung, found dulness and harshbreath sounds in the upper part behind and he informed the plantiff thathis lung was permanently damaged. An examination was then madeby the company’s medical officer who found ansemia but no definitemischief in the lung. Mr. C. M. Perry of Tunbridge Wells then made anexamination and found consolidation at the right apex. Dr. I. BurneyYeo was called in in consultation and found harsh breath soundsin the upper third behind ; he expressed the opinion that it was quitepossible that there were some remains of the original toxic irritation.An action for permanent injury to the lung was commenced in

the King’s Bench Division and the plaintiff went to Canada andAmerica for the benefit of a sea voyage and change of air. In July theexaminations recommenced and showed the same confusing contra-dictions. Mr. Morgan found things in statu QMO, whilst Mr. Perryagreed and Dr. Burney Yeo found harsh breathing and some loss ofresilience in the upper third of the right lung. Sir Hugh R. Beevor wa.now called in by the defendant company to examine the plaintiff andto make a report. As a result of a careful investigation Sir Hugh Beevorfound that the lungs were both sound. There were, he admitted, some