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Mr. Batlin and Mr. Bigham. A capital musical programme a

was provided, and the dinner was one of the most successful in recent years. The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society r

last year instituted a dinner which promises to be an annual r

function, and the other societies might well occasionally Iimitate the example thus set them by their elders. 1

THE PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS IN NEW YORK.

THE Health Department of New York has taken the step itof declaring pulmonary tuberculosis to be an " infectiousand communicable disease dangerous to the public health." S’

It has also ordained that notification of each case of the disease coming under the notice of medical practitioners in v:the city shall be made within a week of its first coming to 1the knowledge of the practitioners, and that public andprivate institutions and dispensaries shall also notify all

cases heard of ; but how far the duty is to be one forwhich remuneration is to be given is not stated. The h

provision of hospital accommodation for the poor suffering Cfrom the disease is enjoined by the medical members 0

of the department, these poor sufferers being regarded as 0active sources of danger to the community. All institu- a

tions taking in cases of the malady are to be systematically vand officially inspected, and the people generally are to be 1)educated to regard the malady in the grave light in which it (

is medically held, and to take in consequence adequate means Cfor its repression. A close supervision over individuals t

suffering from the disease in crowded localities and work- i

shops is to be maintained. The medical members of the c

department regard it as quite feasible, even in face of the 1

present estimate of 20;000 tuberculous citizens in New York, Eto restrict tuberculosis within the narrowest bounds, and (

eventually perhaps almost to exterminate it. Future com- (

paiative records from New York will prove to be of interest xin this connexion. To our way of thinking the whole schemeis Utopian.

THE PHYSIQUE OF THE ARMY.

WE are very glad to see that the question of the physique c

and stamina of the officers and men of our Army is attracting r:

attention. It is a subject of great and growing importance r

to which we have from time to time referred in the columns t

of THE LANCET for some years past. We are living in an age t

when the strain on physical and moral qualities, of which scompetitive examinations take little or no account, is often c

very considerable. Manliness, vigorous health, physical i

activity, and complete integrity of the sense organs in them- r

selves count for a great deal in the officers of our Army, Band they are usually accompanied by coolness of judgment, a dogged indifference to danger, and powers of endurance- i

the very qualities on which officers and men have had very frequently to rely of late in India and Africa. A com-

p::titive examination, we have always held, should be com- petitive all round, and the possessor of these physical aqualities or of any physical superiority should, in the interest of the State and the Army, reap some advantage from them. They enable an officer to endure fatigue, help himto resist disease, and inspire trust and confidence in themen he has to lead, and these are the very qualities that eminently fit a man for the military service. It is notorious,of course, that great mental and physical activity areof,ten combined in men of relatively small stature ;but these, if strong, healthy, and well proportioned, neednot-and, indeed, could not, considering the numbers theyrepresent-be excluded from competing for the militaryservices. As it is at present, hosever, we are excluding anumber of most desirable candidates because they maturementally very slowly and are not bookworms or havenot those studious habits which are very distasteful at the {

ages at which candidates are taken for the Army and Navy.The Board of Visitors to Woolwich and Sandhurst in their last

reports very wisely, in our opinion, express a hope that themilitary authorities will seriously consider whether it be notpossible to introduce into the examinations into and out ofboth the Royal Military Academy and the Royal MilitaryCollege a test for the physical capacity of the candidates.Although most people are agreed on the principle, it is whenwe come to apply it to practice that difficulties arise. Andit is in this respect that we may call attention to a com-munication in the Times of the 8th inst. for some practicalsuggestions as to how the regulations for admission intothese institutions might with advantage be amended with theview of securing this end.

THE NEW CHAIRMAN OF THE LONDON COUNTYCOUNCIL.

I WE congratulate Dr. W. J. Collins on attaining to thehonourable position of Chairman of the London CountyCouncil, the most important municipal post, after thatof Lord Mayor of London, in the world. The work

of the London County Council in relation to medicaland hygienic matters has been above reproach, so thatwe record with particular pleasure the election of a

medical man to preside over its deliberations for a time.Of Dr. Collins’s great abilities no one who has come intocontact with him can have any doubt, while we believe thathe will also display judicial impartiality and official dignityin the discharge of his new and onerous duties. With our

congratulations to Dr Collins on his election we shouldlike to couple a word of thanks to his predecessor. Sir

Arthur Arnold was an excellent chairman from every pointof view, and carries with him into the comparative privacyof ordinary membership of the Council the well-earned

respect of the citizens of London.

THE VAGARIES OF VISION.

ON Friday evening, March 5th, Mr. Shelford Bidwelldelivered before the Royal Institution a lecture on somecuriosities of vision, and performed a number of experi-ments to illustrate the phenomena known as persistence andrecurrence of vision. Perhaps the most interesting part ofthe lecture was that in which the lecturer attempted tothrow some light upon a curious little optical toy whichwas brought before the public about a year ago, consistingof a number of discs of cardboard having black lines drawnupon them in such a manner that when the discs wererotated the black lines would appear as continuous bands,which bands appeared to the eye to be coloured, the tintvarying according to the rate of rotation. The lecturer

- referred to some simple experiments which he had made in. which black lines were made to appear as red. If a piece of. brown paper is taken, a hole cut in it about half an inch. square, and a pin fastened across the opening midway betweenl and parallel with two sides with some stamp paper, and thej whole moved backwards and forwards before a lamp, the pinL will appear to have a border of red. Again, in the case ofL a printed book if placed before the eyes and alternately

screened and exposed, either with the hand or a piece ofb cardboard, the black lines will appear for about a second, to be of a red colour, the experiments showing that when-

ever a bright image falls upon the retina after short

; period of darkness the image appears with a colouredi border which, under ordinary conditions, is of a red colour.y The optical toy referred to is constructed on the principle ofy alternate periods of light and darkness, and whatever may bea the cause of the red colour appearing in Mr. Shelford Bidwell’se experiments it is probable that it bears some near relation toe the varying bands of colour on the rotating discs. It is not

e everyone who will be able to see these effects upon a first

754

experiment, because the sensitiveness of the eye to colour issometimes very feeble, but in almost all cases sensitivenesscan be strengthened by practice. In the study of opticaleffects, tco. the fact cannot too often be emphasised that wemust know exactly what to look for and also the right spotto which the attention should be directed. We believe thatan instrument called the " Chromoscope" which has beendesigned to show the effects referred to, can be purchasedfrom Messrs. George Philip and Son of Fleet-street.

THE TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OFMEDICINE.

THE committee in charge of the organisation of theSection of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomydesire to receive as quickly as possible the titles of any com-munications which our readers may be intending to send tothe International Congress at Moscow, as well as briefabstracts of the principal conclusions to be drawn from thepapers. The following questions have been suggested bythe committee for discussion, and views upon them will besubmitted by the scientific authorities whose names are

severally appended: The Botanic Specificity of PathogenicMicrobes (Professor Hueppe of Prague), the Pathology ofThrombosis (Professor Cornil and Dr. Marie of Paris), theOrigins of Different Forms of Diabetes (Professor Lepine ofLyons and Professor -IL Iinkowsky of Strasburg), the Pathologyof Myxoedema (Professor Brissaud of Paris, Professor Ewaldof Berlin, and M. Gley of Paris), the Róle of Antitoxins in theProduction of Artificial Immunity (Professor Behring of Berlinand Professor Bouchard of Paris), the Pathology of Inflamma-tion and the Parts Played by Bloodvessels and Parenchyma(Professor Stricker of Vienna and Professor Klemensiewicz ofGratz). All correspondence with regard to the section shouldbe addressed to M. G. Dourdoufi, Pretschistinsky boulevard,Jerusalmskoe Podvorie, Moscow.

- I

THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION FOR HABITUALDRUNKARDS.

IT is sincerely to be hoped that the Government will be able to carry out during the current session their intentionof amending the laws relating to the treatment of habitual ( ’ drunkards. Among members of the medical professionthere is little, if any, important difference of opinion upon j ithis subject. The necessity for some system of restraint and tutelage is generally admitted, and if no particular method has up to the present time been actually employed this is rassuredly not from the want of eithir will or occasion. In the meantime certain recognised plans of treatment are (becoming discredited. The lunatic asylum and the dipso- maniac are frequently found to be mutually unsuit- able, and this incompatibility is absolutely certain 1where’ the habit of drunkenness does not amount to lunacy in the strict sense. Nor is the common prison the proper place of seclusion for such persons. This part (of the subject was recently discussed at a meeting ofthe Society for the Study of Inebriety, when Mr. J. J.

Pitcairn, assistant surgeon to the Holloway and Newgate a

prisons, expressed himself strongly against the system of s

prison detention, and showed that in many cases the prison s

ward is for the drunkard virtually a form of hospital, while, r

on the other hand, the terms of incarceration assigned by law a

to such inmates are too short to ensure any practically curative effect. The same writer, nevertheless, gives utterance to a widespread impression that the prolonged detention a

of confirmed inebriates in specially adapted institutions would go far to remedy this diseased propensity. Side by Iside with this arrangement must go, of course, an arrange- cment for the transfer to other hands, for so long as may benecessary, of their domestic and business interests. The first

; part of this plan is certainly desirable if it can be carried

; out, and there is little doubt that private enterprise, guided,1 of course, by legal regulation, would prove equal to the task.) Whether it is incumbent upon Governments themselves to

t make provision for the charitable maintenance of such in-; stitutions is another matter, and it is open to questionl whether such an obligation should be enforced. Herr

, Schlangenhausen regards the establishment of asylums.for drunkards in Great Britain and Ireland as onlya question of time; 1 but the ratepayer would pro-

. bably remind him, if consulted, that it is also a.,

question of money and a subject for discussion. Even this

part of the ideal scheme may by degrees be brought within, the circle of possible attainments, but its execution must,, largely depend for some time to come on the energy of. private enterprise. The other part, which has to do with

the transfer of responsibilities which can no longer be regu-: larly exercised by the drunkard, entails no public burdens.

Our views upon this subject were briefly stated in THE.. LANCET of Dec. 5th, 1896. The system of trusteeship there

suggested conforms in its general purpose, though not neces-i sarily in all details, to that of Caratel, which was fully

explained in connexion with our reference to Herr Schlangen-, hausen’s opinions. We believe that the true solution of the

problem will be found when this principle of trusteeship is,

embodied in a simple and effective mode of legal procedure.

CEREBRAL SURGERY.

IN a recent paper by Professor Hitzig, an abstract ofwhich appears in the Neurogisches Centralblatt, an account

, is given of four cases of tumour of the brain in reference,

especially to the non-success of operation. The first case was. that of a man, aged thirty-four years, who had received a blow

from a hammer eight years before he came under observation.

He had weakness and convulsive movements in the right armand, later, weakness of the right leg and headache, but no-sickness or optic neuritis. He was thought to have a corticaltumour, but none was found at the operation, although therewas evidence of increased intra-cranial pressure. Three-

weeks later there were papillitis and sickness and convulsivemovements of both legs. He rapidly passed into an uncon-scious condition and died. A large sarcoma was foundapparently commencing in the centrum ovale, thence spread--ing into the cortex and also the corpus callosum. The-

second case was that of a woman, twenty-three years of age,who had vomiting, giddiness, gradual failure of vision in the-right eye and also in the left. There was internal strabismusfirst on the left and later on the right side. There were

optic neuritis and slight spastic paralysis of the leftextremities and weakness of the right side of the face. Itwas supposed that there was a tumour in the cerebel1um..but an operation did not confirm this. The patient after-wards died, and at the necropsy a large cystic glioma wasfound in the right frontal lobe which had flattened out theoptic nerves, the third, the sixth, and the fifth nerves,and had compressed the right half of the pons. The third casewas that of another woman, thirty-four years of age, who hadattacks affecting the right arm beginning in the fingers andslightly affacting the head and the leg without loss of con-sciousness. There was rather laboured speech and slightright-sided weakness in the arm. Operation failed to revealany tumour, and three years later her condition remained

unchanged. The fourth case was that of a man who three

years before had had an injury to the right side of the head,and who suffered from giddiness and increasingly severeheadache, with subsequent right-sided paresis. This became

permanent, and there were also right-side Jacksonian attackscommencing in the foot. There was tenderness on the left.

1 Vide THE LANCET, Dec. 19th, 1896.