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121 from any other building. It is used for the preparation, filtration, and precipitation of such things as tetanus toxin, &c., and for the examination of small animals. In addition to these, at a considerable distance from the main laboratories, there are a small department and stable for carrying on work in connexion with other infectious diseases in addition to those previously referred to and permitting the range of work undertaken to be considerably widened in the future. The animal houses are ordinary garden greenhouses which have been adapted and prove excellent for the purpose, as they are easily kept at an even temperature. The largest is used as an experimental animal house for the housing of animals employed in the testing of the sera, toxins, &c. The roof is covered with vines which have been retained as affording a shelter from the sun in summer. The two smaller houses are used for breeding purposes. The three houses are heated by a system of hot-water pipes. The principal stables form two blocks of buildings about 200 yards from the laboratories. They are all brick and of the most modern type. There are two yards, the first of which is covered by a high glass roof, and opening from this yard is the operating-room where the horses are injected and bled. The stabling consists entirely of loose boxes which are all of a large size, so that the animals have ample room to move about freely, and are very well ventilated. In the vicinity of the operating-room is a small isolated room with slate benches where the blood flasks are allowed to stand and where the serum is decanted. There are also a cottage for the head groom and quarters for the unmarried grooms, harness-room, coach-house, fodder-room, &c. In one of the meadows at a distance from the stables is a loose box which is used as an isolation box. All new horses under- going a period of quarantine before being admitted into the stables are kept under observation here. There are several other loose boxes in the various meadows, as well as an isolated cowshed, goat-house, pigeon-house, rabbit-runs, &c. The department is less than a :mile from the nearest tele- graph office and is on the National Telephone Company’s system. The various blocks are connected by inter-com- municating private telephones. It will be seen from this description that a very valuable addition has been made not only to the scientific establishments of the kingdom, but also to practical medicine. MEDICINE AND THE LAW. The Consequences of Injuries to Workmen. A LETTER in another column calls attention to a matter which deserves the attention of working men and also of their employers. Our correspondent witnessed an accident after which the fellow workmen of a labourer struck by a falling plank proceeded to bathe his injuries with the water supplied to them for their work, and he suggests that it would have been better to have summoned a medical man or to have taken the man to the nearest hospital at once. As the accident took place in a central part of London this would have been easy and as bricklayers are persons unlikely to have clean hands or any clean appliances at their command it certainly would have been wiser to have obtained professional aid without delay. This would be desirable both on account of the risk of septic conditions being set up by the rough-and-ready methods described and also because the man’s injuries might be more serious than his comrades would suppose and might render immediate attention desirable. The extent to which the remoter consequences of injury may affect not only the man but those who employ him may be judged from a case decided in the Court of Appeal in June, 1902,1 under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1897. The widow of a workman had claimed compensation and the evidence showed that the deceased, while employed at a factory, had been carrying some heavy pipes when one fell and inflicted a wound on his toe. The accident happened on Sept. 2nd ; he attended a hospital as an out-patient until the 17th, when erysipelas set in and on the 27th he died. Medical evidence was given and it was not disputed that as erysipelas did not supervene until 15 days after the accident the wound had probably been re- opened and become septic, possibly through the deceased walking to and from the hospital, and that the death was 1 Dunham v. Clare, 1902. 2 K.B., 292. due to this by no means necessary consequence of a slight injury. The county court judge held that death in these circumstances was not the result of the accident so as to make the employers liable to compensate the widow for the loss of her husband. It was, however, contended in the Court of Appeal on behalf of the widow that the county court judge had applied the wrong test in holding that the death must be the natural or probable consequence of the injury. The Court acceded to this view, pointing out that the Act speaks of death which results from the injury," or in the words of the Master of the Rolls, ’’ That the applicant for compensation has to show an accident causing injury and death or incapacity resulting from the injury." He added that there was nothing inconsistent in saying that death resulted from the injury and yet that it was neither the natural nor the probable consequence of it. Lord Justice Cozens Hardy said, "The question is, From what, in fact, has death resulted ? ’[ The answer to that question does not depend upon what was at first thought to be reasonable and probable." It will be seen from these quotations that if in such a case as that described by our correspondent the injury caused by the accident is considerably increased by the careless conduct of the workman it has still to be paid for in full by the employer or his insurance company. These have no power to insist upon his taking proper precautions or upon his carrying out any treatment that may be recom- mended to him. The position in which the persons liable to compensate are thus placed is not altogether consistent with justice. A labouring man is not likely to realise the full danger of his conduct or to court death, but at the same time he has no temptation to get well quickly when con- tinued incapacity for work means leisure enjoyed at the expense of others. No account, however, is taken either of his ignorance or of his indifference by the law, for both the Acts of Parliament dealing with workmen’s compensation and the decisions of the High Court interpreting them appear to shrink from according formal recognition to surgical science and from inforcing upon the workman any treat- ment that he may not select of his own free will. The Isolation of Cases of Glanders. Reference was made in THE LANCET of July 4th, p. 49, to the case in which the authorities of the London Hos- pital sought the advice of the magistrate presiding at the Thames police-court with a view to the removal of a patient suffering from glanders. It was stated at the police-court that the guardians of the Whitechapel Infir- mary would not take him in and that the magistrate had no power to compel the Metropolitan Asylums Board to take charge of him, because glanders is not a disease named as a dangerous infectious disease in the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and has not been added to the list by the local authority. The Public Health Acts and the Acts for the prevention of the spread of infectious disease adopt the course of specify- ing certain diseases which are to be dealt with under the statutory powers given and enable local sanitary authorities to include others should they wish to do so. This can be done without much delay in urgent cases, as, for example, where there is an epidemic of small-pox and it is thought desirable that cases of supposed chicken-pox should be notified, but if it is thought that rare but dangerous diseases such as glanders should be included it would be more convenient to provide for them before patients actually suffering from them are discovered. The man at the London Hospital was presumably admitted before the nature of his disease was ascertained. Had he been rejected it would not have been obligatory upon the staff of the hospital to inform anyone of the case and the man could not have been punished for exposing others to the risk of infection however recklessly he might have done so. THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON. AN extraordinary Comitia was held on July 2nd, Sir WILLIAM SELBY CHURCH, Bart., K.C.B., the President, being in the chair. Communications were received from- 1. The Secretary of State for War, asking the advice of the College as to the practical safety and prophylactic value of inoculation with Professor A. E. Wright’s anti-typhoid fluid.
