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YELLOW FEVER AND SMALL-POX IN THE NAVY.
418
Reviews
and
Notices of
Books.
depend ? According to Dr. Atkinson, the influence is simply that of atmospheric pressure. Reduction of atmospheric pres. sure, he urges, quickens the respiration and circulation, favours elimination, and so induces waste; hence the appetite and vigour of the healthy mountaineer. Increased pressure, on the other hand, conserves the material of the body and checks waste. Following this argument, he opposes altogether the transference of consumptive wasting patients to elevated and so-called bracing localities, and insists that antagonistic action is what is wanted to stay the rapid confluence of symptoms in that fatal malady, and not pure air. The theory is bold, and perhaps not unworthy of consideration; it has many facts, however, opposed to it, and has not yet sufficient data in its favour to warrant our unqualified acceptance of it.
Stomach: the varieties of Dyspepsia-their 7’?-ca/;’’n. By S. 0. HABERSHox, 1I.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.; Physician to Guy’s Hospital; Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics at Guy’s, &c. London : Robert Hardwicke. DR. HABERsHox is sufficiently well-known as a pathological observer andwriter on diseases of the abdomen to make It any detailed notice of his present work unnecessary. treats exclusively of diseases of the stomach and the various forms of dyspepsia. Dyspeptic diseases are, something like skin diseases, very difficult of description and of differentiation. When we meet with a troublesome case of dyspepsia in practice and go to the books for light on it, it is apt to Historical Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School. By John STRUTHERS, M.D. Edin., Fellow of the Royal College be very difficult of identification with any of the merely literary of Surgeons of Edinburgh ; Professor of Anatomy in the forms of the disease. But Dr. Habershon has succeeded in University of Aberdeen ; late Lecturer on Anatomy, Edingiving a very useful description of most varieties of the burgh. Maclachlan and Stewart. malady, and in practically distinguishing them one from ’, DR. STRUTHEES has expanded into a thin octavo the lecture another. He does not trouble the reader with details from his which he originally delivered before the Royal College of Surpathological materials, but his book is one that could have geons of Edinburgh on the history of the Anatomical School been written only by a physician who has seen a large amount in that city. Interesting in a professional aspect, it is highly of disease in the living, and carefully checked his conclusions so in an antiquarian one, as enabling the young student to ’ by making good use of large opportunities for post-mortem realise the difficulties under which the study of anatomy has observation. The book opens with a chapter on Digestion at in former years been prosecuted, and also to estimate aright Different Periods of Life. Then follows one on the General his to those teachers and men of science to whom obligations Sympathy of the Stomach. The third, fourth, and fifth he owes the facilitated conditions under which he now pursues chapters treat generally of Symptomatology and Treatment of his studies. The brief biographical sketches of the great EdinDiseases of the Stomach ; and the successive chapters- down burgh anatomists, from Alexander Monro the first to Dr. to the last, the eighteenth-discuss the particular forms of Robert Knox, are rendered by Dr. Struthers not only instruc. Dyspepsia and diseases. We think the classification of dys- tive but entertaining ; while the valuable notes he has accupepsia as good as any we have yet seen-atonic dyspepsia, mulated in his volume show him to have the true academical dyspepsia from congestion, inflammatory dyspepsia, hepatic mind, which, though fully and wisely in sympathy with the dyspepsia, rheumatic and gouty dyspepsia, renal dyspepsia, present, is also gratefully and reverentially appreciative of Degeneration of the stomach- the past. sympathetic dyspepsia, &c. lardaceous atrophy, fatty wasting, disease, fibroid degeneration, ulcer, cancer, &c. YELLOW FEVER AND SMALL-POX IN There is an occasional literary carelessness in the text which THE NAVY. would scarely be worth notice if it did not sometimes slightly affect the clearness with which the author’s meaning is conDR. MACKAY’s report on the Health of the Navy, which we veyed. But the work as a whole is a very excellent one. It is all the better for being small. It should be read through noticed last week, gives the particulars of severe outbreaks of once, and thereafter will be found a useful book admitting of yellow fever on board vessels belonging to the West African ready reference in cases of stomach ailment or disease. It is squadron during the latter part of 1865, and of an epidemic well based on sound and suggestive physiology, and on extensive of small-pox on board the Octavia, attached to the Cape of pathological observation, and in the therapeutical department Good Hope and East Indian squadron. Fever prevailed very extensively at Sierra Leone during the is simple, practical, and discriminating. Michaelmas quarter of 1865, and is said to have occasioned a mortality among the European population of about 27 per cent. H.M. receiving-ship Isis, moored about 200 yards from the Change of Air, Change of Scene, and Disease. By J. C. ATKINSON, M.D. Fcap. Svo. Trubner and Co. landing-place at Free Town, with a mixed complement of THE public are apt to confound the therapeutics of change of Europeans and Kroomen on board, also suffered much at the airwith those of change of scene, and even amongst medical men same time from fever, chiefly of the remittent type, which was there is often confusion of tongues when these two important fatal only to the ship’s steward, who died on the 28th Sepelements of cure are under consideration. There is, nevertheless, tember with concluding symptoms of yellow fever. Thenceforward almost every new arrival on board the his was as wide a therapeutical difference between these two elements of cure as there is a chemical difference between carbon and stricken with fever, which in most cases proved fatal, until in oxygen in carbonic acid, and hydrogen and oxygen in water. January positiveinstructions were issued that no fresh arrivals We notice therefore with satisfaction an attempt by Dr. Atkin- from England or supernumeraries of any kind were to be re. ceived on board, and all communication between the Isis and son to show the value of the two very distinct remedial measures, change of air and change of scene. In a well-written other vessels of the squadron was interdicted. treatise, scientific yet plain, the author shows that change of Unfortunately too much mischief had been done ad interiot, scene anywhere may be and usually is of service for that ailthe fever poison having been transferred directly from the Isis ment of body which comes from overwork of mind, and which to the ships Bristol and RCLttlesnake. one of our moderns calls "the disease atra cura /’ but that The Bristol arrived on the station, and anchored at Cape change of air has no general application in the treatment of Sierra Leone on or about Christmas-day, 1865. It having disease, and that, ignorantly and injudiciously prescribed, it been considered probable that the continuance of fever on is as often pernicious as useful. Upon what, then, does theboard the Isis was due to that vessel’s proximity to the shore, decided influence of change of air, whether for good or for evil, was determined to move her to another part of the harbour;
of the )iHo;.’i.s’ cwd
On Diseases
it
419 December 28th, 4 officers and 112 men from the Bristol move the Isis to what was hoped might prove a The Bristol crew were employed on more healthy anchorage. board the Isis for twodays, every precaution being taken, as the work was very heavy, to protect them from the heat of the sun by sending them to and fro early in the morning and late at night, and during the day their work was carried on under the roofing of the hulk. On the 30th December the Bristol left Sierra Leone for l4Tonroia, and on that day an officer was placed on the sick-list with what proved to be yellow fever. He had landed on the 26th, remained on shore the whole day exposed to the sun, bathed in the heat of the day, and having missed his passage off to the ship in the evening, went on board the Isis for the night. The attack in this case was severe, but he ultimately recovered. By the 2nd of January the disease had become epidemic, all the cases being clearly traceable to the Isis, as the men affected belonged, with one exception, to the working party sent on board that ship. The exception was a man who went on shore with a party of petty officers on the 29th, and on returning went on board the Isis for a short time, leaving his companions in the boat: this man was the only one of the party who contracted the fever. On the 3rd of January, 32 persons having been attacked, of whom one had died, the ship’s course was and
on
were
sent to
c11anp"erl for Ascension where she arriv8rl
on
the 13th. 1W rina
the passage the healthy were separated from the sick, and, doubtless owing to the judicious measures adopted, and to the free ventilation on board, the disease did not extend to any of the ship’s company who had not been exposed to infeetion in the Isis. On the arrival of the Bristol at Ascension, 21 of the worst cases were landed, and placed in quarantine in two hospitals. Strict quarantine was maintained between the ship and the shore, and in all probability it was owing to the stringency of these measures that the disease did not extend to the garrison. Altogether there were 39 attacks and 22 deaths among this ship’s company from yellow fever in little more than a fortnight; and the epidemic was not only remarkable for the great mortality it occasioned, but also from the fact in or that no one was attacked who had not been visited the Isis. The crew of the Bristol had suffered heavily from venereal disease while fitting out at Sheerness, so that many of them were, no doubt, in a condition of more than ordinary receptivity of morbific influences. The Rattlesnake arrived at Sierra Leone on Nov. 22nd, and held free communication with the Isis until, on the 27th, a boy, who had been in the habit of going backwards and forwards between the two ships, was attacked with yellow fever, and died on the fourth day. The infection being thus communicated to the Rattlesnake, cases of fever, varying in severity, became fre-
employed
quent
on
board ; altogether
22 cases occurred, resulting
in
ieath to five persons, one of them being the assistant-surgeon who had recently joined the ship, and had attended upon the sick with the utmost assiduity until he was struck down. Being a flag-ship, the commodore brought the h’attles7acke home, and on entering the colder latitudes the fever entirely disappeared. The facts of this outbreak leave no doubt whatever that the disease was, as in the Bristol, brought on board from the 7-s’M. The disease was introduced into the Arc7eer by a seaman who had been left on shore at Loando, where it had been prevailing for some time. The man was brought on board suffering from fever on the 5th of October, and died on the 8th in his hammock, which had been placed in the steerage near the gunroom. During the course of the epidemic there were on board 96 cases of fever (of which 56 were returned as yellow fever) and 19 deaths. Of these deaths 5 were officers, 4 of whom were members of the gun-room near which the infected hammock was hung, and the marines who died were taken ill while on duty as sentries in the steerage. "The disease, in fact, once introduced into the ship, progressed steadily, propagated bv infection from the steerage as from a centre,"and only subsided on the vessel proceeding to cold latitudes. These outbreaks prove to demonstration the absolute danger
holding communication with localities or ships in which this deaclly malady prevails. Nothing but speedy removal of the stricken vessels to latitudes unfavourable to malarial development had any effect in subduing the virulence of the disease. The notion that by shifting anchorage to a more healthy part of the harbour the fever on board the Isis might be abated, shows the state of uncertainty which exists about the communicability of yellow fever. Dr. Mackay’s comment thereon is, "that there can be little question that the existof
ence of the fever poison in that vessel depended neither on the locality nor on the water used in the ship, to which some reference was made by the medical officers, but to a specific poison previously emanating from the bodies of yellow fever patients on board." In the case of the Arclaer, which proceeded from Loando to Ascension, an attempt was made, after the healthy crew and convalescents had been removed on shore, to purify the vessel, the sick on board being removed to the bows, where they had
the full benefit of the fresh breeze. But cases continued to occur among the working party sent to cleanse the ship, and at length it was felt that the only plan was to embark all, and make direct for England. Dr. Mackay believes that the clearing out of holds and other measures "supposed to be of a sanitary nature" are at such times of more than questionable utility, the men being harassed with work while their minds are depressed with the knowledge that a fatal epidemic is amongst them; and he asserts that any such clearing out could haveno influence in checking the disease, "which only ceases by perfect separation of the healthy from the infected, or by taking the vessel into a cold latitude." But it seems very important to be determined whether, supposing a vessel cannot get away to these cool latitudes, there is no way, by disinfection, fumigation, and thorough cleansing, to exorcise the demon of pestilence. Under any circumstances, the physical character of the West Coast of Africa, and the peculiar nature of the duties of the squadron employed there, are so unhealthy, that we should rejoice if the suggestion of Mr. Childers for a reduction of the force on that station could, without detriment to the national interests, be carried into effect. Sir John Elphinstone, in a letter to The Times, says that no vessel ought to remain on the station for more than twelve months at a time ; and that the system now adopted of stationing a small ill-ventilated ship there for three years is perfectly unjustifiable. Small-pox broke out in the Octavic[ at sea, about 400 miles from Bombay, on the 19th of March, and by the 22nd, when the vessel arrived at Bombay, 102 confirmed or suspected cases were under treatment. All the cases were landed, and placed in commodious buildings on a small barren island, and by the 27th no fewer than 165 cases had been landed, 6 of them terminating fatally. After a prescribed period of quarantine the convalescents were re-embarked on the 8th of May, and the epidemic was considered at an end. The disease was introduced on board the Octavia by a Krooman who had been under treatment for measles in the General Hospital at Bombay, where he had been placed in a ward next to one in which there were two cases of small-pox. This man was discharged from the to the Octavia cured, and apparently in good health, on the 1st of March. On the 5th he was attacked with sympassumed the confluent proved fatal on the 14th. Three days afterwards a petty was attacked, and the disease then spread rapidly. Previous to this enidemic. measles had annea,red among the Octavia’s company; and whilst she was ntting out at home, her sick-rate was very high from venereal disease, catarrh, and rheumatism. These periodical outbreaks in the navy of a disease so essentially preventable as small-pox-in 1863 the crews of several ships on the home station were attacked-indicate the absence of strict enforcement, or sufficient care in the practice, of vaccination.
hospital
toms of small-pox, which
form, and
officer
THE CHOLERA PRIZE
OF
£4000.—No less than 110
works were sent this year to the Academy of Sciences of Paris for competition. The report, as usual, is extremely interesting, and gives a good idea of the manner in which the cholera has been studied. The full prize has not been awarded ; but rewards have been granted to Messrs. Legros and Goujon, for their experimental researches ; to M. Thiersch, for his experiments on 104 mice with choleraic dejections ; to M. Baudrimont, for his atmospheric researches bearing upon cholera; to M. Worms, for his essay on prophylactic measures; and to Dr. Lindsay, of Edinburgh, for his experiments on the transmission of cholera by the clothes.
Reviews
and
Notices of
Books.
depend ? According to Dr. Atkinson, the influence is simply that of atmospheric pressure. Reduction of atmospheric pres. sure, he urges, quickens the respiration and circulation, favours elimination, and so induces waste; hence the appetite and vigour of the healthy mountaineer. Increased pressure, on the other hand, conserves the material of the body and checks waste. Following this argument, he opposes altogether the transference of consumptive wasting patients to elevated and so-called bracing localities, and insists that antagonistic action is what is wanted to stay the rapid confluence of symptoms in that fatal malady, and not pure air. The theory is bold, and perhaps not unworthy of consideration; it has many facts, however, opposed to it, and has not yet sufficient data in its favour to warrant our unqualified acceptance of it.
Stomach: the varieties of Dyspepsia-their 7’?-ca/;’’n. By S. 0. HABERSHox, 1I.D. Lond., F.R.C.P.; Physician to Guy’s Hospital; Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics at Guy’s, &c. London : Robert Hardwicke. DR. HABERsHox is sufficiently well-known as a pathological observer andwriter on diseases of the abdomen to make It any detailed notice of his present work unnecessary. treats exclusively of diseases of the stomach and the various forms of dyspepsia. Dyspeptic diseases are, something like skin diseases, very difficult of description and of differentiation. When we meet with a troublesome case of dyspepsia in practice and go to the books for light on it, it is apt to Historical Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School. By John STRUTHERS, M.D. Edin., Fellow of the Royal College be very difficult of identification with any of the merely literary of Surgeons of Edinburgh ; Professor of Anatomy in the forms of the disease. But Dr. Habershon has succeeded in University of Aberdeen ; late Lecturer on Anatomy, Edingiving a very useful description of most varieties of the burgh. Maclachlan and Stewart. malady, and in practically distinguishing them one from ’, DR. STRUTHEES has expanded into a thin octavo the lecture another. He does not trouble the reader with details from his which he originally delivered before the Royal College of Surpathological materials, but his book is one that could have geons of Edinburgh on the history of the Anatomical School been written only by a physician who has seen a large amount in that city. Interesting in a professional aspect, it is highly of disease in the living, and carefully checked his conclusions so in an antiquarian one, as enabling the young student to ’ by making good use of large opportunities for post-mortem realise the difficulties under which the study of anatomy has observation. The book opens with a chapter on Digestion at in former years been prosecuted, and also to estimate aright Different Periods of Life. Then follows one on the General his to those teachers and men of science to whom obligations Sympathy of the Stomach. The third, fourth, and fifth he owes the facilitated conditions under which he now pursues chapters treat generally of Symptomatology and Treatment of his studies. The brief biographical sketches of the great EdinDiseases of the Stomach ; and the successive chapters- down burgh anatomists, from Alexander Monro the first to Dr. to the last, the eighteenth-discuss the particular forms of Robert Knox, are rendered by Dr. Struthers not only instruc. Dyspepsia and diseases. We think the classification of dys- tive but entertaining ; while the valuable notes he has accupepsia as good as any we have yet seen-atonic dyspepsia, mulated in his volume show him to have the true academical dyspepsia from congestion, inflammatory dyspepsia, hepatic mind, which, though fully and wisely in sympathy with the dyspepsia, rheumatic and gouty dyspepsia, renal dyspepsia, present, is also gratefully and reverentially appreciative of Degeneration of the stomach- the past. sympathetic dyspepsia, &c. lardaceous atrophy, fatty wasting, disease, fibroid degeneration, ulcer, cancer, &c. YELLOW FEVER AND SMALL-POX IN There is an occasional literary carelessness in the text which THE NAVY. would scarely be worth notice if it did not sometimes slightly affect the clearness with which the author’s meaning is conDR. MACKAY’s report on the Health of the Navy, which we veyed. But the work as a whole is a very excellent one. It is all the better for being small. It should be read through noticed last week, gives the particulars of severe outbreaks of once, and thereafter will be found a useful book admitting of yellow fever on board vessels belonging to the West African ready reference in cases of stomach ailment or disease. It is squadron during the latter part of 1865, and of an epidemic well based on sound and suggestive physiology, and on extensive of small-pox on board the Octavia, attached to the Cape of pathological observation, and in the therapeutical department Good Hope and East Indian squadron. Fever prevailed very extensively at Sierra Leone during the is simple, practical, and discriminating. Michaelmas quarter of 1865, and is said to have occasioned a mortality among the European population of about 27 per cent. H.M. receiving-ship Isis, moored about 200 yards from the Change of Air, Change of Scene, and Disease. By J. C. ATKINSON, M.D. Fcap. Svo. Trubner and Co. landing-place at Free Town, with a mixed complement of THE public are apt to confound the therapeutics of change of Europeans and Kroomen on board, also suffered much at the airwith those of change of scene, and even amongst medical men same time from fever, chiefly of the remittent type, which was there is often confusion of tongues when these two important fatal only to the ship’s steward, who died on the 28th Sepelements of cure are under consideration. There is, nevertheless, tember with concluding symptoms of yellow fever. Thenceforward almost every new arrival on board the his was as wide a therapeutical difference between these two elements of cure as there is a chemical difference between carbon and stricken with fever, which in most cases proved fatal, until in oxygen in carbonic acid, and hydrogen and oxygen in water. January positiveinstructions were issued that no fresh arrivals We notice therefore with satisfaction an attempt by Dr. Atkin- from England or supernumeraries of any kind were to be re. ceived on board, and all communication between the Isis and son to show the value of the two very distinct remedial measures, change of air and change of scene. In a well-written other vessels of the squadron was interdicted. treatise, scientific yet plain, the author shows that change of Unfortunately too much mischief had been done ad interiot, scene anywhere may be and usually is of service for that ailthe fever poison having been transferred directly from the Isis ment of body which comes from overwork of mind, and which to the ships Bristol and RCLttlesnake. one of our moderns calls "the disease atra cura /’ but that The Bristol arrived on the station, and anchored at Cape change of air has no general application in the treatment of Sierra Leone on or about Christmas-day, 1865. It having disease, and that, ignorantly and injudiciously prescribed, it been considered probable that the continuance of fever on is as often pernicious as useful. Upon what, then, does theboard the Isis was due to that vessel’s proximity to the shore, decided influence of change of air, whether for good or for evil, was determined to move her to another part of the harbour;
of the )iHo;.’i.s’ cwd
On Diseases
it
419 December 28th, 4 officers and 112 men from the Bristol move the Isis to what was hoped might prove a The Bristol crew were employed on more healthy anchorage. board the Isis for twodays, every precaution being taken, as the work was very heavy, to protect them from the heat of the sun by sending them to and fro early in the morning and late at night, and during the day their work was carried on under the roofing of the hulk. On the 30th December the Bristol left Sierra Leone for l4Tonroia, and on that day an officer was placed on the sick-list with what proved to be yellow fever. He had landed on the 26th, remained on shore the whole day exposed to the sun, bathed in the heat of the day, and having missed his passage off to the ship in the evening, went on board the Isis for the night. The attack in this case was severe, but he ultimately recovered. By the 2nd of January the disease had become epidemic, all the cases being clearly traceable to the Isis, as the men affected belonged, with one exception, to the working party sent on board that ship. The exception was a man who went on shore with a party of petty officers on the 29th, and on returning went on board the Isis for a short time, leaving his companions in the boat: this man was the only one of the party who contracted the fever. On the 3rd of January, 32 persons having been attacked, of whom one had died, the ship’s course was and
on
were
sent to
c11anp"erl for Ascension where she arriv8rl
on
the 13th. 1W rina
the passage the healthy were separated from the sick, and, doubtless owing to the judicious measures adopted, and to the free ventilation on board, the disease did not extend to any of the ship’s company who had not been exposed to infeetion in the Isis. On the arrival of the Bristol at Ascension, 21 of the worst cases were landed, and placed in quarantine in two hospitals. Strict quarantine was maintained between the ship and the shore, and in all probability it was owing to the stringency of these measures that the disease did not extend to the garrison. Altogether there were 39 attacks and 22 deaths among this ship’s company from yellow fever in little more than a fortnight; and the epidemic was not only remarkable for the great mortality it occasioned, but also from the fact in or that no one was attacked who had not been visited the Isis. The crew of the Bristol had suffered heavily from venereal disease while fitting out at Sheerness, so that many of them were, no doubt, in a condition of more than ordinary receptivity of morbific influences. The Rattlesnake arrived at Sierra Leone on Nov. 22nd, and held free communication with the Isis until, on the 27th, a boy, who had been in the habit of going backwards and forwards between the two ships, was attacked with yellow fever, and died on the fourth day. The infection being thus communicated to the Rattlesnake, cases of fever, varying in severity, became fre-
employed
quent
on
board ; altogether
22 cases occurred, resulting
in
ieath to five persons, one of them being the assistant-surgeon who had recently joined the ship, and had attended upon the sick with the utmost assiduity until he was struck down. Being a flag-ship, the commodore brought the h’attles7acke home, and on entering the colder latitudes the fever entirely disappeared. The facts of this outbreak leave no doubt whatever that the disease was, as in the Bristol, brought on board from the 7-s’M. The disease was introduced into the Arc7eer by a seaman who had been left on shore at Loando, where it had been prevailing for some time. The man was brought on board suffering from fever on the 5th of October, and died on the 8th in his hammock, which had been placed in the steerage near the gunroom. During the course of the epidemic there were on board 96 cases of fever (of which 56 were returned as yellow fever) and 19 deaths. Of these deaths 5 were officers, 4 of whom were members of the gun-room near which the infected hammock was hung, and the marines who died were taken ill while on duty as sentries in the steerage. "The disease, in fact, once introduced into the ship, progressed steadily, propagated bv infection from the steerage as from a centre,"and only subsided on the vessel proceeding to cold latitudes. These outbreaks prove to demonstration the absolute danger
holding communication with localities or ships in which this deaclly malady prevails. Nothing but speedy removal of the stricken vessels to latitudes unfavourable to malarial development had any effect in subduing the virulence of the disease. The notion that by shifting anchorage to a more healthy part of the harbour the fever on board the Isis might be abated, shows the state of uncertainty which exists about the communicability of yellow fever. Dr. Mackay’s comment thereon is, "that there can be little question that the existof
ence of the fever poison in that vessel depended neither on the locality nor on the water used in the ship, to which some reference was made by the medical officers, but to a specific poison previously emanating from the bodies of yellow fever patients on board." In the case of the Arclaer, which proceeded from Loando to Ascension, an attempt was made, after the healthy crew and convalescents had been removed on shore, to purify the vessel, the sick on board being removed to the bows, where they had
the full benefit of the fresh breeze. But cases continued to occur among the working party sent to cleanse the ship, and at length it was felt that the only plan was to embark all, and make direct for England. Dr. Mackay believes that the clearing out of holds and other measures "supposed to be of a sanitary nature" are at such times of more than questionable utility, the men being harassed with work while their minds are depressed with the knowledge that a fatal epidemic is amongst them; and he asserts that any such clearing out could haveno influence in checking the disease, "which only ceases by perfect separation of the healthy from the infected, or by taking the vessel into a cold latitude." But it seems very important to be determined whether, supposing a vessel cannot get away to these cool latitudes, there is no way, by disinfection, fumigation, and thorough cleansing, to exorcise the demon of pestilence. Under any circumstances, the physical character of the West Coast of Africa, and the peculiar nature of the duties of the squadron employed there, are so unhealthy, that we should rejoice if the suggestion of Mr. Childers for a reduction of the force on that station could, without detriment to the national interests, be carried into effect. Sir John Elphinstone, in a letter to The Times, says that no vessel ought to remain on the station for more than twelve months at a time ; and that the system now adopted of stationing a small ill-ventilated ship there for three years is perfectly unjustifiable. Small-pox broke out in the Octavic[ at sea, about 400 miles from Bombay, on the 19th of March, and by the 22nd, when the vessel arrived at Bombay, 102 confirmed or suspected cases were under treatment. All the cases were landed, and placed in commodious buildings on a small barren island, and by the 27th no fewer than 165 cases had been landed, 6 of them terminating fatally. After a prescribed period of quarantine the convalescents were re-embarked on the 8th of May, and the epidemic was considered at an end. The disease was introduced on board the Octavia by a Krooman who had been under treatment for measles in the General Hospital at Bombay, where he had been placed in a ward next to one in which there were two cases of small-pox. This man was discharged from the to the Octavia cured, and apparently in good health, on the 1st of March. On the 5th he was attacked with sympassumed the confluent proved fatal on the 14th. Three days afterwards a petty was attacked, and the disease then spread rapidly. Previous to this enidemic. measles had annea,red among the Octavia’s company; and whilst she was ntting out at home, her sick-rate was very high from venereal disease, catarrh, and rheumatism. These periodical outbreaks in the navy of a disease so essentially preventable as small-pox-in 1863 the crews of several ships on the home station were attacked-indicate the absence of strict enforcement, or sufficient care in the practice, of vaccination.
hospital
toms of small-pox, which
form, and
officer
THE CHOLERA PRIZE
OF
£4000.—No less than 110
works were sent this year to the Academy of Sciences of Paris for competition. The report, as usual, is extremely interesting, and gives a good idea of the manner in which the cholera has been studied. The full prize has not been awarded ; but rewards have been granted to Messrs. Legros and Goujon, for their experimental researches ; to M. Thiersch, for his experiments on 104 mice with choleraic dejections ; to M. Baudrimont, for his atmospheric researches bearing upon cholera; to M. Worms, for his essay on prophylactic measures; and to Dr. Lindsay, of Edinburgh, for his experiments on the transmission of cholera by the clothes.