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910 governing such occasions. The inconsistency of the law as stated above with the criminal law prohibiting promiscuous intercourse with young girls is obvious. A girl of ] 3, but not yet 13, is nubile. She can be submitted deliberately to sexual intercourse, if married, at an age when " unlawful " carnal knowledge of her would be felony. " Unlawful " carnal knowledge of a girl between the ages of 13 and 16 is a misdemeanour, and neither in that case nor with regard to the felony can consent on the part of the child he put forward as a defence by the person charged. In other words, Parliament has held that a girl below a certain age is not competent to consent to unlawful intercourse, but has left her capable of engaging in a contract which will presumably entail her submitting to the same act, and indeed will make it her duty as a wife to do so. It may be that in practice no registrar or minister of religion would marry a boy or girl of the ages indicated without demur, and without full assurance that parents or guardians aware of their duties as such had assented, and that marriages of young persons less than 16 years of age rarely take place. It is as well, however, to realise that there is nothing at law to prevent them, or to prevent older persons from conniving at them or bringing them about. Whatever customs may obtain in oriental countries, such marriages are undoubtedly repugnant from an ethical point of view to decent-minded people in Western Europe. X RAYS IN OBSTETRIC PRACTICE. IN THE LANCET of April 29th Mr. E. W. H. Shenton called attention to the possible value of X rays in obstetric work as an aid in solving some of the prob- lems which may confront the clinician when the patient is at or near term. The possibility that this method may in the future prove useful in the diagnosis of the stage of pregnancy suggests itself, but while we hesitate to express an opinion on the scope of a diagnostic agent which is constantly improving in technique and results, it does not seem likely that the earlier stages of foetal growth will ever afford plates to the radio- grapher that will repay his trouble. Mr. Shenton, indeed, does not claim otherwise. When it is remem- bered that the first ossifications are mere pin-points in an embryo less than three-quarters of an inch in length, and that even at the beginning of the third month, when the main centres are well established, the foetus is only about an inch and a half long and that the ossific deposits are not very dense it is apparent that an embryo would in all probability be missed more often than found. Experience would no doubt increase the percentage of positive results, but it could harcllv be expected that this method could replace the usual means of diagnosis. After the third month positive results ought to be possible with proper technique, but the bunched-up position of the foetus, and its varying situation, would no doubt make the meaning of the record difficult to interpret, and probably interfere decidedly with any effort to get at its age with an approach to accuracy. Moreover, there are variations in ossification, and the extra centres are very small. However, there can be no doubt that in certain cases the radiologist may be of great help, and obstetricians may at least be enabled to diagnose twins in advance. EQUITATION AS A TREATMENT OF PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS. THE history of horse-riding as a method of treat- ment of pulmonary tuberculosis is the subject of an article by Dr. R. J. Cyriax in the April issue of the British Journal of Tuberculosis. Dr. Cyriax makes it clear that Thomas Sydenham was responsible for the introduction of the method ; riding was mentioned, as an auxiliary measure of exercise prescribed in pulmonary tuberculosis, by Celsus, but Antyllos, in the second century A.D., stated that this form of exercise was very injurious to the chest. The " Phthisiologia " of R. Morton; published in 1694 (five years after Sydenham’s death) contains no allusion to riding ; not until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Sydenham’s posthumous fame arose, did riding become a popular treatment for phthisis in England, although considerable use had by then already been made of it upon the Continent. Several of Sydenharn’s contemporaries strongly recommended the method ; among them was F. Fuller, who extended its prescription to many other chronic diseases. John Wesley was reputed to have been cured by the new remedy, but it was soon found to possess serious disadvantages ; before 1830 the reaction had set in, both in England and abroad, and the limitation of the uses of the method to mild forms of consumption suggests that disastrous effects of its indiscriminate application had been observed. The improvements noted in cases during the period when the treatment was popular were ascribed by Sydenham and his followers not to the fresh air, but to the exercise obtained on horseback, and various rocking machines and swings were from time to time elaborated for home treatment of phthisical patients. Dr. Cyriax points out that even allowing for. the great probability that many of Sydenham’s own cases were not in reality tuberculous, it is hard to understand how the indiscriminate use of equitation proved sufficiently successful to warrant emphatic support for the method. But no doubt in certain cases the patients were exposed to fresh a,ir which they would not other- wise have obtained. Laennec regarded the method as useless, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century it had entirely lost its position as one of the principal forms of treatment in pulmonary tuberculosis. THE MINERAL SPRINGS OF AUSTRIA. ON another page of this issue our Hungarian corre- spondent describes the Czecho-Slovakian watering- place Postyen, formerly the Hungarian Pistyan; it will be of interest to make some reference to the Austrian watering-places to the west of the Danube. Our Vienna correspondent writes as follows : The Austrian Ministry of Public Health has caused a State register to be compiled containing information concerning all the mineral springs of Austria, including those in the district, formerly called Burgenland, which has been handed over by Hungary to Austria under the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain. The Austrian Republic contains 90 places where thermal springs are found ; -, the springs number 160, and there are in addition 30 other localities with 50 cold-water springs having no special chemical or physical quality, but used for bathing on account of their mild radio-active proper- ties. The majority of the Austrian springs give sparkling alkaline waters, containing carbonic acid; a number of them contain sulphuretted hydrogen, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, magnesium, and iron ; their mean temperature varies between 24° C. and 39° C. One resort, Hall, contains the strongest iodine and bromide water in Europe, and several others have strong hot sulphur baths. A few months ago a powerful spring was accidentally discovered at Schallenbach in Upper Austria, by men boring for oil at a depth of 1600 feet; a jet of warm water appeared, which proved to have a large content of sulphur practically unmixed with other minerals. This spring produces 65 litres per second-more than any other in Europe. Other well-known waters are those of the typical radio-active springs of Gastein, and the salt lake at Neusiedl, which sometimes dries up to one- tenth of its size at high-water mark, and of which the large sodium content is similar to that of the lakes of Western Asia and Syria. Most of the Austrian springs can be used for drinking purposes-either thera- peutically, or as simple table-waters-in addition to their uses for bathing. Not less than 30 per cent. of the total number of waters still require exact investi- gation with regard to their chemical and physical properties. A special department of the Ministry of Health will deal with this matter in collaboration with the chemical department of the University of Vienna. Two geological fissures, one running north and south
