SMALL-POX AT THE WEST-END.

SMALL-POX AT THE WEST-END.

95 I his tenure of the same office Dr. Mouat originated France these hostages appear to become victims as soon as the idea of Indian universities, a...

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95

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his tenure of the same office Dr. Mouat originated France these hostages appear to become victims as soon as the idea of Indian universities, and the scheme that he had they are delivered; they pay the debt of nature before they projected as early as 1846 eventually became the basis of have well incurred it. Meanwhile the prospects of peaco the flourishing University of Calcutta. His labours in in- are as remote as ever, and a heavier visitation seems in troducing various improvements into the gaols of India and store for France than the destroying angel inflicted upon in improving their disciplinary system are well known. We Egypt. are glad to notice that it is intended to connect Dr. Mouat’s name with an annual prize medal which the Hindu comSMALL-POX AT THE WEST-END. munity desire to institute, with the leave of the Syndicate THE fact of there being at present in St. George’s Hosof the University of Calcutta; and we can only join his pital eighteen cases of small-pox affords additional evidence various Indian friends and well-wishers in hoping that of how surely the epidemic is spreading through a certain many years of health and happiness are in store for him stratum of London society, and though the fact need cause now that he has returned home. no panic among the more favoured classes, it should warn them to fortify themselves against infection by observance DR. ACLAND ON HOSPITALS AND HYGIENE. of all ordinary precautions. Up to the 7th inst. there were only two examples of this disease in the hospital, and ON Friday, the 6th inst., by request of the workmen emevery care was taken to isolate them from the other patients; ployed on the new fever ward of the Radcliffe Infirmary, at but, after that date, fresh cases suddenly broke out in the Oxford, Dr. Acland delivered a lecture on Hospitals and various wards, chiefly among patients who had been under their Management, with reference to the public health. All treatment for some time, and to whom, as far as can be who know Dr. Acland, or who have read his H Memoir on the infection was conveyed by their friends. Two judged, the Cholera at Oxford in 1854," his "Report on Fever in wards, situated at the top of the building, each of which Great Horwood," and his lecture on the " Oxford Museum," is capable of accommodating fourteen patients, have been will be at no loss to imagine the pleasure with which his set apart for their reception; and a number of regulations, audience listened to his exposition of the primary essentials which comprise every possible means of isolation and disinof life and health, personal and public; of the inutility of fection, have been put in forc by the Hospital Committee. strong drugs while people neglect to secure the require- The entire staff of nurses were revaccinated some weeks ments of healthy life; and of the mode of estimating the ago, and the friends of patients are allowed to visit the efficiency of hospitals. He dwelt with much impressiveness wards only on emergency, and by special order. on the advantages enjoyed, yet unappreciated, by hospitals for the training of nurses, not only in tending the FEES TO MEDICAL WITNESSES. sick, but in cooking for them, and, indeed, for the healthy A CASE of some importance, as regards the principle public generally. He concluded by congratulating his has recently occurred at Wolverhampton. It hearers on the contemplated establishment of a cottage involved, a seems that person was charged with maliciously woundhospital in Oxford, and on the benefits that would flow and that the magistrates dismissed the case. another, from it. To all who value lucid discourse on subjects of ing had been taken to the hospital, and Mr. Snow, will Complainant be satisfactory to know pressing sanitary importance, it the house-surgeon, was called to speak to the nature of that Dr. Acland’s lecture will be made publici juris. the injuries received. On the dismissal of the case, the magistrates told Mr. Snow that they had no power to grant INFANT MORTALITY AT PARIS. him any fee for his attendance. Mr. Snow appealed to the WRITING on the 2nd of April last year on the frightful Home Secretary, who referred the matter to the Examiners mortality of nurslings in France, we said :—"Decreasing of Criminal Law Accounts; and these gentlemen wrote as her population is, she may well look forward with alarm that it seemed to them that Mr. Snow was entitled to his to the future, and should in the meantime think of(recti- fee, subject to the discretion of the justices presiding. Mr. fying’ her sanitary rather than her politicalfrontiers.,’ if Bruce, in communicating this opinion, remarked that he she is to maintain her historical position among the nations himself thought the fee should be paid to Mr. Snow. The of Europe." clerk to the magistrates said that the fee, if granted, would Our warning has received a far speedier and sterner have to be paid out of the local funds, and would not be justification than we could have anticipated ; and now that repaid (as there was no committal) out of the consolidated her very high infantile death-rate is enormously enhanced fund. Ultimately the Bench decided to grant a certificate by the privations of war, her domestic forecast is almost as stating that they thought the fee should be paid; and this gloomy as that which Horace presented to the Romans after certificate will bring the question before the next Court of the murder of C2esarQuarter Sessions for decision. We think Mr. Snow is Audiet pugnas, vitio parentum, entitled to the thanks of the profession for having pushed ltara juvelltus ! his claim. It is simply monstrous that the fee of a medical Out of every thousand children under a year old, 288, acwitness, in a criminal case, should be dependent upon a cording to Dr. Berthillon, perish in the Marne, 295 in the committal; especially as his evidence may be that which Oise, 307 in Seine et Marne, 313 in Yonne, 318 in Seine prevents the committal, and saves the county the cost of a Inferieure, 319 in Eure, and in the department Eure et useless imprisonment and trial. The case is well worth Loire (dedicated 11 aux petits Parisiens ") 370 ! Is not this remembering as a precedent. an appalling returnP Dr. Berthillon speaks of it as a

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of mourning round Paris," and grimly reproduces metaphor in his map. But even with this death-rate familiar to them, the Parisians announce that it is far ex-

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ceeded in the city itself during these months of investment. " Paris papers of December 28th, found on Mont Avron, describe the mortality of infants in the city as fearful." Bacon, in a well-known passage, says of the father of a family that he has (( given. hostages to fortune." But in

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THE AMERICAN

COMPASS PLANT.

THE current number of the Popular Science Review refers a paper read by Mr. Thomas Hill before the American Association, at the last meeting, in which he states that as he was travelling from Omaha to Chicago, on a very dark day, he noticed, at three different points of the prairies,

to

young

plants of Silphium

cMNMm and estimated from