AUSTRALIAN HEALTH BULLETINS.

823 difficult to combat. Whether acquired characters are read that the committee has given close attention to the inherited or not is a matter of opinion concerning which smoke question and has served notices upon 36 persons authorities are at variance, and this is not surprising, as requiring them to abate the nuisance from their chimneys, with the result that appliances have been introduced which we can all of us think immediately of some phenomena have helped greatly to do so, which affords another proof which appear flatly to contradict the possibility of such that a foul atmosphere is not a necessary concomitant of inheritance and of other phenomena which seem to support industrial prosperity. Another feature of the report is the it. ROMANES has well observed that beauty of ideal con- account of the war upon vermin. We read :The committee feels that there is cause for great gratification in the struction is no guarantee of scientific truth" ; hence it is all fact that, whilst in the other cities in the commonwealth cases of bubonic the more necessary to examine closely the fundamental prin- plague have occurred, no authentic case has arisen, in Melbourne. This is no doubt due in large measure to the efforts put forward by the city ciples of each of the essentially conflicting propositions. and other municipal councils, as well asby the Board of Public Health, for the destruction of rats. At the instance of the council a number of WEJBMANN’S theory of continuity of germ-plasm is threatened the metropolitan municipalities agreed to contribute, on the basis of towards a common fund providing payment for rats brought at the very foundation, for he postulates that when the ovum assessment, to central depots in ’their several districts. During the eight yearsfewer than 504,872 rats were received and paid for out of divides the daughter cells are not identical and that the 1900-1907-no this fund at a cost of;C544413s. 7d., of which the city council contributed difference between soma and germ cells begins at this point, E2721 4s. ld. The bonus of 2d. per head is still being paid by the municipalities acting unitedly, and during the year 1907 rats to the number of 76,099 were received. The municipalities now acting with and many naturalists dispute this fundamental premiss. the city are Fitzroy, Collingwood, South Melbourne, St. Kilda, and It is the present vogue to minimise or to deny the import- Port Melbourne. If this crusade be kept up by all the municipalities. and strict precautions taken by the port authorities to prevent the ance of natural selection, and it has been said, perhaps with landing of rats from ships coming from infected ports there is good reason to hope the immunity from plague will continue. justice, that DARWIN attached too large a measure of The Western Australian Health Bulletin is to be published importance to the Lamarckian factors in the process of monthly and will contain various official notifications of organic evolution, even though he was aware of the danger appointments and notices regarding by-laws and regulations of doing so. Professor RAY LANKESTER has pointed out that and amendments thereto, and from time to time paragnaphs LAMARCK’S famous two laws of nature are mutually con- will give information of what is being done and proposed tradictory, and Lamarckism, as formulated originally, may be to be done in the sanitary world generally, while articles of .

interest on matters of public health and sanitary adminisThere will also be included a. environment is not settled by this occurrence. How far has tration will be contributed. in of the work done the résumé laboratory of the Central the theory of natural selection been destroyed by the critics, The publication before us (which includes Nos. 1 Board. and in what degree does Mr. DARWIN’S address serve to to 3, January to March, 1908) contains, inter ccluc, a raise it up again? The answer depends upon the sensible by-law to regulate the unloading, inspecting, acceptance which we are prepared to concede to the handling, and carriage of imported meat, the vital and mnemic theory of ontogeny. Mr. DARWIN considers the infectious disease statistics for the district, and an interestThe report mnemic theory to be strong where Weismannism is weakest ing note on diphtheria in school children. states that an approximate average of 10 per cent. of in that it gives a coherent theory of the rhythm of developthe children examined were found to be " carrier cases " of ment, and the claim must be allowed. In spite of all the diphtheria, a disease of which 304 cases were notified during opposition that the hypothesis of natural selection has the three months in question. encountered since its promulgation, especially in these recent

dead, but the relation of dependence

between

organism

and

THE MEDICAL REGISTER. times, it still remains as the theory which most completely WE wisu Lu uraw auuenlion to Lne importance 01 notiiyexplains many admitted facts, and thus Mr. DARWIN has that" the of inherent for his ing changes of address to the Registrar of the General strength justification prediction Medical Council for insertion in the Medical Register. the doctrine will insure its final victory."

Annotations. " No

quid nimis."

AUSTRALIAN HEALTH BULLETINS. WE have received this week two new sanitary bulletins. One is the report of the Melbourne Health Committee for’ 1907, with supplementary reports by the city officer of health, the city analyst, the director of the bacteriological laboratory of Melbourne University, and the veterinary surgeon to the city council. The other contains the first three monthly issues of the Department of State Medicine and Public Health of Western Australia. We welcome these tokens of an increased public interest among Australians in health affairs. The Melbourne report contains matter for gratification, notably the decrease in the city’s infantile mortality to 80 per 1000 births, which, though still a sad reflection upon modern methods of infant rearing, is the lowest rate on record for the city and one much lower than that of many other cities. The saving of infant life is credited to an improved milk-supply. We are glad to

Omission to do this sometimes leads to a temporary removal of the name, with its consequent inconvenience ; and apart from this the Register is the official list of the medical profession, and all should assist to keep it accurate. The Register is now singularly free from error, but it can only be kept so by the cooperation of the medical profession, who are urged to send all alterations of residence at once in a legible hand to the Registrar at 299, Oxford-street, London, W., and such communications should be signed with the full name. THE METEOROLOGY OF THE SUMMER. THE three months of summer-June,

July,

and

August-

the chief meteorological features of which are represented in the following table, were more remarkable for the consistent coolness of their days and their generous amount of sunshine than for their tropical tendency. As a genera, rule the temperature of the afternoons was below the average, while very few of the nights were cold for the time of year. Shade readings of 800 or above were extremely scarce, even during the most brilliant sunshine, and as the average night was mild the mean range of temperature was. considerably less than is sometimes the case. On the extreme south-west and west coasts the mean diurnal range of temperature was; no more than 70 to 9°, at several spots