AUSTRALIA.

1763 Mr class and consequently employed on a large scale. Theparts connected with the sewerage have escaped. results of this treatment obtained throughout the wholeKendall, medical officer to the Sydney Water and Seweragecountry are not ready yet for publication, but will be Board, attributes the outbreak in part to the fact that im the districts where it is most rife the houses are built on. shortly. made soil contaminated by leakage from cesspits and panThe Housing of the Working Classes. This question, which has been much neglected in the closets ; in addition the rainfall has decreased, only to nine inches as compared with sixteen inches, Hungarian metropolis, was recently made the subject of amounting for the and consideration Dr. J. Farkas. He quarter of last year, and the averagecorresponding careful study by showed the inefficacy of the spare measures which had been range of temperature has been much higher. The suburbs the Illawarra line, which are very low-lying, witib adopted by the State Government and the town council of along no drainage, are most affected. In Melbourne sewerage in the results with those alleged comparing Budapest work in is and attribute the prevalencein Great and the United progress, many obtained Britain, France, Belgium, States. His paper gives a full account of the methods of typhoid fever to the stirring up of the contaminated’ which ought to be employed with a view of improving the soil by the excavations for the drains. Public attention has. state of affairs and is well worthy of perusal by those coia- been forcibly directed to the cold bath treatment of typhoid’ fever by a correspondence on the subject in the Melbourne cerned. June 9th. daily press, a correspondence deprecated by many as affording a means of cheap advertisement to such practitioners. as chose to make use of it and as also likely to do moreAUSTRALIA. harm than good from a public pcint of view. The physicians of the Melbourne Hospital in particular have been blamed (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) for not using the Brand method more largely, and their results have been contrasted with those obtained in the Adelaide Medical School and Hospital. have in MATTERS reached a climax the affairs of the Brisbane Hospital where it is used in every case. It has Adelaide Medical School and Hospital and the result is been pointed out, in reply, that the comparison is unfair, the that the students are betaking themselves to Sydney and Melbourne Hospital receiving a large number of patients in Melbourne for the clinical instruction which they despair of the last stages of the disease, when death is almost inevitable any treatment and the Brand method is inappiicable. getting in their own city. First of all the South Australian under Government withdrew the annual grant to the school and It has also been stated that the improvement in the mortality at Brisbane Hospital since the introduction of the bath now the honorary staff at the hospital has resigned in a body so that no clinical teaching is possible. The work at the treatment cannot fairly be said to be due entirely to the use’ that method, as the mortality in private cases not so hospital is carried on by the resident staff with some of treated has also improved, and the type of the disease has assistance from a few practitioners who are in the Government service. Patients naturally refuse to go into the been much milder since 1887, when assisted immigration. ceased, the acclimatised population apparently suffering hospital and such as are able are leaving. It was hoped that much less severely than did the newly arrived immigrants. some arrangement would be possible and matters might be smoothed over, so that the members of the honorary Annual Meeting of the New South Wales Branch of the staff could withdraw their resignation, but the GovernBritish Medical Association. ment has remained obdurate and is endeavouring to The annual meeting of the New South Wales Branch o meet the difficulty as far as the hospital is concerned by the British Medical Association was held on March 27th, and advertising for a resident surgeon at £400 per annum, who is the following were elected as office-bearers for the ensuing to be capable of undertaking all the surgical and gynæcoPresident: Dr. Sydney Jones. Vice-President: Mr. logical work, and a resident medical officer at 9300. No one year. Clubbe. Councillors : Dr. Thring, Dr. Knaggs, Dr. Jenkins, in South Australia will apply, the whole profession supDr. Dr. Crago, Dr. Worrall, Dr. Coutie, porting the staff, but the Government hopes that in some Dr. Scot-Skirving, Dr. Fiaschi, Dr. Chisholm, Mr. Newmarch Quaife, other country, where the facts are not w well known, and Dr. Mullins. The retiring President, Dr. E. J. Jenkins,. some practitioners may be found so destitute of esprit read an address, in which, after feelingly alluding to the de corps as to take these appointments. All right- death of Dr. of the branch,. Huxtable, the late thinking members of the profession in the colonies now he referred to the relation of thesecretary to friendly profession regard the differences between the Government and the and medical aid societies, and congratulated the professtaff-originating in a small question of nursing discipline, sion in New South Wales on the successful stand it had taken. as already described-as a fight of might against right, and The to register midwives was strongly condemned, trust that whatever may be thought as to the expediency of and proposal the proposal of Dr. Sydney Jones to establish farm. the somewhat Quixotic action of the members of the staff in in the country for cases of phthisis was warmly the first instance they will now receive the support of the hospitals The need for an Inebriates Act was noted and approved. profession universally in their self-sacrificing struggle also of some means of preventing the indecent advertisement against the ignorant and insulting tyranny of the Govern- of abortionists with which the newspapers abound. ment. Women as Resident Medical Officers at the Melbourne Scurvy in Infants. From an interesting paper read before the Medical Society According to the rules of the Melbourne Hospital the of Victoria by Dr. A. J. Wood it would appear that scurvy i& resident medical officers are appointed annually from the not at all an uncommon affection of Australian children, students of the hospital, according to their place in the class though not always recognised as such. He records seveno lists of the Melbourne University. A few years ago a woman cases in his own practice and in most the food was either condensed milk or concentrated or sterilised milk. In one was among the first in the class lists and applied for the, position but was ruled ineligible as she was not a full studentcase fresh milk was given, but in a very diluted form. The of the hospital, having done some of her clinical work at the prolonged heating ot condensed, concentrated, and sterilised Alfred Hospital. This year two ladies, Miss Gamble and Missmilk destroys its anti-scorbutic properties. All the cases Greig, are eligible according to the rule, and, notwithstanding, quickly recovered when given fresh foods, fresh milk, and) much opposition, have just been appointed to the positions. meat juices. The honorary staff, strange to say, was not consulted in the matter. The new medical officers will certainly find plenty of difficulties, as many of the honorary staff, the matron and most of the nurses, and the students are opposed to them. Miss Greig has been placed in charge of the casualty room, and had a lively experience the first night she CHARLES PAGET BLAKE, M.D. EDIN., F’.R.C.P. LOND. was on duty, treating cases of alcoholism and assault, &c., and many doubt whether she will be able to stand the strain WE regret to announce the death of Dr. Paget Blake, R.No? of the position under the circumstances. which occurred at his residence, Alverstoke Vale, St. MaryPrevalence of Typhoid Fever : the Cold Bath Treatment. church, on June 12th. The deceased was born at Alverstoke, Typhoid fever continues to be very prevalent both in Hampshire, in 1819, and was the son of Admiral G. C. Blake; Sydney and Melbourne. In the former metropolis the cases naval gentleman usher to the late Prince Consort. He was have chiefly occurred in the thickly’ populated but low- educated at Bishop’s Waltham School and Edinburgh lying districts which are not yet sewered, while those University, where he graduated M.D. in 1840. In the same _______________

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Obituary.