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MUNICIPAL MILK-SUPPLY.
1595
meningeal symptoms, such as vomiting and Kernig’s exemplified in this case. The cerebro-spinal sign, severe
as
fluid had the usual characters found in tuberculous meningitis-an albuminous and fibrinous liquid containing an abundance of lymphocytes. As to the non-success in finding the bacillus tuberculosis in the fluid, many writers have encountered a considerable number of failures. Thus Pfaudler could find the bacillus only in 33 per cent. of cases in the early stage of tuberculous meningitis and in 75 per All these cases were cent. in the last days of the illness. it is not that the bacillus could fatal, therefore astonishing in a be found case of not recovery.
THE COLONIAL NURSING ASSOCIATION.
press a soft handkerchief over the inner corners of both eyes He considers that owing to near the tops of the tear ducts. the great power of absorption of the mucous membrane of the nose the entrance of one-hundredth of a grain of an alkaloid into the circulatory system in this way would be equal to the entrance of one fiftieth of a grain by the stomach. Mr. Wilbert describes a form of eye dropper as used in Germany which partially overcomes this difficulty. It consists of a small vial having a perforated stopper through which is introduced a corrugated or twisted glass rod which forms the dropper. The advantages of this device are that the glass rod does not hold more than two or at the most three drops at a time, that the drops form and disengage slowly, and are in addition but slightly affected by any unavoidable tremor. This discussion is useful and emphasises the need that exists for uniformity of construction in vessels employed for delivering eye drops. As aqueous solutions are almost invariably employed it should not be difficult to obtain vessels of a given size and standardised to deliver drops of disti led water slowly of such a volume that 60 drops should measure one fluid drachm.
THIS association was established for providing trained hospital and private nurses for the British colonies and dependencies and other British communities abroad nine years ago and the report for the year ending April, 1905, shows that there has been a steady and increasing demand for nurses. Since April, 1904, more than 50 new candidates have Of the been added to the roll of the association. 121 nurses employed during the year 94 have been MUNICIPAL MILK-SUPPLY. in Government service and 27 have acted as private Last year 109 nurses were employed, 81 by the nurses. IN an annotation in THE LANCET of April lst, The special Government and 28 by private persons. p. 873, we very briefly referred to the methods adopted demand for nurses possessing a midwifery training has by the municipality of the city of Rochester, U.S.A., caused the committee of the association to impress upon in regard to the supply of milk. The plan there adopted. nurses contemplating service abroad the importance of was mentioned by Dr. G. F. Cleary in a paper which possessing the certificate of the Central Midwives Board and he read at a meeting of the Royal Sanitary Institute on many of the candidates have been registered under the March 25th as an example not merely of the success of new Act. The work of the association is hampered by a hygienic principle but of practical operation also. Under want of funds ; its aims-to establish trained nurses in all the supervision of Dr. G. W. Goler every precaution is taken British communities beyond the sea-cannot be persevered at the Rochester depot to sterilise not the milk but everywith unless the public subscribe more liberally than they with which it comes into contact. thing have done hitherto. The address of the association is the A central station at which the milk is prepared is organised each season on a farm outside the city, where a trained nurse and assistants Imperial Institute, S.W. have full control of the cows, utensils, bottles, &c., ancl- where all of the milk work is carried on in a portable milk laboratory. Everything THE DESIRABILITY OF A STANDARD EYE coming in contact with the milk is thoroughly sterilised in steam sterilisers. The milk itself is not subject to any pasteurising or DROPPER. sterilising process. Sterilising and pasteurising are only an open THE wide variation in size of the droppers used in oph- invitation to the milkman to be careless in the production and handling of milk At the milk station on the farm the milk is taken thalmic work is the subject of contributions in the American from clean, well fed, tested cattle into sterile cans, which are carried to barn in sterile cheese-cloth bags. Just tefore milking the. cows’ Jonrnal of Pharmacy for March, p. 125, by Dr. P. N. K. the udders are washed. A sterilised cheese-cloth fly cover is placed the cow, the first portion of the milk being rejected. So soon as Schwenk, Dr. Wendell Reber, and Mr. M. J. Wilbert. Since over the cans are filled they are immediately covered by a layer of cheesethe majority of eye drops contain alkaloids or their salts cloth held in position by a rubber band. The cans of milk thus covered it is important that a correct dosage should be obtained. are immediately taken from the barn into the laboratory, about 200 away, where the milk is properly diluted, sweetened, and turned The administration of too large a quantity of these potent yards off into sterile nursing bottles of various sizes of the Siebert type. The medicaments may produce undesirable results. The excess bottles are corked with sterile rubber corks, placed in racks, covered with cracked ice, and immediately transferred to the city for use. Of finds its way with the tears through the canaliculi into the the cleanliness of milk prepared in this way, 43 daily samples were found to average not more than 14,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre, nose and. thence into the highly absorbent mucous membranes while the city milk for the same period approximated 235,000 bacteria of the upper air passages, where it is absorbed into the per cubic centimetre. circulatory system. It is usually considered by ophthalmic We now learn that the cost of distributing the milk and, surgeons that one minim is the unit of measure and that one what is far better and more important, of spreading abroad drop is its equivalent. The strengths of solutions are some knowledge of the care and feeding of infants has regulated accordingly, but owing to the wide variations in averaged less than f.180 per annum. It is a pity therefore the eye droppers that are employed corresponding variations that any hesitation to carry out the supply of milk on strictly are found in the size of drops as delivered into the eye. hygienic principles is shown, for, as a matter of fact, the Dr. Schwenk suggests the employment of a straight dropper cost, whether maintained by public or private enterprise, with a tip 2’0 to 3’5 millimetres in diameter ; a tube of this need not be great and in any case the results are size should deliver 60 drops of an aqueous solution to the calculated to afford a very ample compensation in the drachm, allowing an inclination of the dropper of 45° to prevention of infant mortality. the horizon. The size of a drop bears a direct ratio to the surface from which it. is delivered, so that ANTIDOTES TO NICOTINE. in a curved dropper the solution follows the curve IN a note recently brought before the Acad6mie des to the point of rest and produces a larger drop than if Sciences 1 M. C. Zalackas compares the action of strychnine, delivered from a point. The same is true of beaded and the cruciferous plant Nasturtium officinale as eserine, droppers. Dr. Reber points out that the standard dropper to antidotes nicotine. He finds from experiments on rabbits delivers drops of different size with different liquids varying in is no antagonism between strychnine that there particular with the specific gravity and other physical characters of the and eserine the antagonism is more marked. nicotine. With liquids employed. To avoid an excess of a solution finding its way into the circulatory system he cautions patients to 1 Comptes Rendus, March, 1905, p. 471. -
,
-
meningeal symptoms, such as vomiting and Kernig’s exemplified in this case. The cerebro-spinal sign, severe
as
fluid had the usual characters found in tuberculous meningitis-an albuminous and fibrinous liquid containing an abundance of lymphocytes. As to the non-success in finding the bacillus tuberculosis in the fluid, many writers have encountered a considerable number of failures. Thus Pfaudler could find the bacillus only in 33 per cent. of cases in the early stage of tuberculous meningitis and in 75 per All these cases were cent. in the last days of the illness. it is not that the bacillus could fatal, therefore astonishing in a be found case of not recovery.
THE COLONIAL NURSING ASSOCIATION.
press a soft handkerchief over the inner corners of both eyes He considers that owing to near the tops of the tear ducts. the great power of absorption of the mucous membrane of the nose the entrance of one-hundredth of a grain of an alkaloid into the circulatory system in this way would be equal to the entrance of one fiftieth of a grain by the stomach. Mr. Wilbert describes a form of eye dropper as used in Germany which partially overcomes this difficulty. It consists of a small vial having a perforated stopper through which is introduced a corrugated or twisted glass rod which forms the dropper. The advantages of this device are that the glass rod does not hold more than two or at the most three drops at a time, that the drops form and disengage slowly, and are in addition but slightly affected by any unavoidable tremor. This discussion is useful and emphasises the need that exists for uniformity of construction in vessels employed for delivering eye drops. As aqueous solutions are almost invariably employed it should not be difficult to obtain vessels of a given size and standardised to deliver drops of disti led water slowly of such a volume that 60 drops should measure one fluid drachm.
THIS association was established for providing trained hospital and private nurses for the British colonies and dependencies and other British communities abroad nine years ago and the report for the year ending April, 1905, shows that there has been a steady and increasing demand for nurses. Since April, 1904, more than 50 new candidates have Of the been added to the roll of the association. 121 nurses employed during the year 94 have been MUNICIPAL MILK-SUPPLY. in Government service and 27 have acted as private Last year 109 nurses were employed, 81 by the nurses. IN an annotation in THE LANCET of April lst, The special Government and 28 by private persons. p. 873, we very briefly referred to the methods adopted demand for nurses possessing a midwifery training has by the municipality of the city of Rochester, U.S.A., caused the committee of the association to impress upon in regard to the supply of milk. The plan there adopted. nurses contemplating service abroad the importance of was mentioned by Dr. G. F. Cleary in a paper which possessing the certificate of the Central Midwives Board and he read at a meeting of the Royal Sanitary Institute on many of the candidates have been registered under the March 25th as an example not merely of the success of new Act. The work of the association is hampered by a hygienic principle but of practical operation also. Under want of funds ; its aims-to establish trained nurses in all the supervision of Dr. G. W. Goler every precaution is taken British communities beyond the sea-cannot be persevered at the Rochester depot to sterilise not the milk but everywith unless the public subscribe more liberally than they with which it comes into contact. thing have done hitherto. The address of the association is the A central station at which the milk is prepared is organised each season on a farm outside the city, where a trained nurse and assistants Imperial Institute, S.W. have full control of the cows, utensils, bottles, &c., ancl- where all of the milk work is carried on in a portable milk laboratory. Everything THE DESIRABILITY OF A STANDARD EYE coming in contact with the milk is thoroughly sterilised in steam sterilisers. The milk itself is not subject to any pasteurising or DROPPER. sterilising process. Sterilising and pasteurising are only an open THE wide variation in size of the droppers used in oph- invitation to the milkman to be careless in the production and handling of milk At the milk station on the farm the milk is taken thalmic work is the subject of contributions in the American from clean, well fed, tested cattle into sterile cans, which are carried to barn in sterile cheese-cloth bags. Just tefore milking the. cows’ Jonrnal of Pharmacy for March, p. 125, by Dr. P. N. K. the udders are washed. A sterilised cheese-cloth fly cover is placed the cow, the first portion of the milk being rejected. So soon as Schwenk, Dr. Wendell Reber, and Mr. M. J. Wilbert. Since over the cans are filled they are immediately covered by a layer of cheesethe majority of eye drops contain alkaloids or their salts cloth held in position by a rubber band. The cans of milk thus covered it is important that a correct dosage should be obtained. are immediately taken from the barn into the laboratory, about 200 away, where the milk is properly diluted, sweetened, and turned The administration of too large a quantity of these potent yards off into sterile nursing bottles of various sizes of the Siebert type. The medicaments may produce undesirable results. The excess bottles are corked with sterile rubber corks, placed in racks, covered with cracked ice, and immediately transferred to the city for use. Of finds its way with the tears through the canaliculi into the the cleanliness of milk prepared in this way, 43 daily samples were found to average not more than 14,000 bacteria per cubic centimetre, nose and. thence into the highly absorbent mucous membranes while the city milk for the same period approximated 235,000 bacteria of the upper air passages, where it is absorbed into the per cubic centimetre. circulatory system. It is usually considered by ophthalmic We now learn that the cost of distributing the milk and, surgeons that one minim is the unit of measure and that one what is far better and more important, of spreading abroad drop is its equivalent. The strengths of solutions are some knowledge of the care and feeding of infants has regulated accordingly, but owing to the wide variations in averaged less than f.180 per annum. It is a pity therefore the eye droppers that are employed corresponding variations that any hesitation to carry out the supply of milk on strictly are found in the size of drops as delivered into the eye. hygienic principles is shown, for, as a matter of fact, the Dr. Schwenk suggests the employment of a straight dropper cost, whether maintained by public or private enterprise, with a tip 2’0 to 3’5 millimetres in diameter ; a tube of this need not be great and in any case the results are size should deliver 60 drops of an aqueous solution to the calculated to afford a very ample compensation in the drachm, allowing an inclination of the dropper of 45° to prevention of infant mortality. the horizon. The size of a drop bears a direct ratio to the surface from which it. is delivered, so that ANTIDOTES TO NICOTINE. in a curved dropper the solution follows the curve IN a note recently brought before the Acad6mie des to the point of rest and produces a larger drop than if Sciences 1 M. C. Zalackas compares the action of strychnine, delivered from a point. The same is true of beaded and the cruciferous plant Nasturtium officinale as eserine, droppers. Dr. Reber points out that the standard dropper to antidotes nicotine. He finds from experiments on rabbits delivers drops of different size with different liquids varying in is no antagonism between strychnine that there particular with the specific gravity and other physical characters of the and eserine the antagonism is more marked. nicotine. With liquids employed. To avoid an excess of a solution finding its way into the circulatory system he cautions patients to 1 Comptes Rendus, March, 1905, p. 471. -
,
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