A PANCREATIC CYST.

766

application of the clause to compounds into which a cleansings will suffice to exclude so capricious a disease as poisonous ingredient enters, but only to be neutralised by cholera. Referring to Great Britain, he says that arguanother ingredient, or in so small a quantity that the com- ments against quarantine which are valid enough here do pound is rendered harmless. This was certainly not the not apply to the States. The only large bodies arriving by Lord Mayor’s intention, and, if this would be the effect of ship into England are those who, after a long voyage, reach such an alteration as he suggests, the mistake which he our shores in troopships, where they are under efficient sanimade arose merely from his overlooking the fact, sufficiently tary and medical supervision ; and he remarks that we have obvious nevertheless, that a poisonous compound is a nothing at all comparable to the vast hordes of immigrants poison, its composite character notwithstanding. The who are constantly reaching the ports of the States. The clause which was in question is, we think, singularly well poverty, squalor, and uncleanliness of such steerage pasdrawn, and will not, we trust, be made the subject of rash sengers, with the prevailing crowd-poison," amongst a set of people which includes the moral, social, and mental or ill-considered amendments. wrecks of other countries, are features that need, he thinks, to be met by exceptional measures. DISABILITIES OF IRISH DIPLOMATES. 11

ON the 25th ult., Mr. James Stewart, F.R.C.P. Ed." L.R.C.S.I., of Clifton, Gloucestershire, addressed a meeting of the Ulster Medical Society on the " Disabilities of Irish and Scotch Diplomates for the Honorary Staff Appointments in English Public Hospitals." In the course of his address he pointed out that at the present time no less than sixty. eight large public hospitals and county infirmaries in England had adopted the exclusive rule, which ordained that "no person be eligible to the office of physician or assistant physician unless he exhibited to the committee of election satisfactory proof of being a Fellow or Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London or a Graduate of a University of Great Britain or Ireland, and be in practice solely as a physician." The operation of this rule would exclude many distinguished men, such as the present Medical Director-General of the Royal Navy, from being elected on the honorary staff of one of these English hospitals. There seemed to be an undoubted grievance in this. In London alone there were 486 practitioners who had been taught in Irish medical schools, or who held Irish diplomas; while in the provinces the number of Irish diplomates was upwards of 10LO. Seeing that they had failed to get the General Medical Council to assist them in this matter, he thought that the question should be brought before the governors of each of the hospitals in which the monopoly existed, and further advised his hearers to support the Irish Medical Schools’ and Graduates’ Association, which was an organisation usefully employed in educating public opinion in the way he had indicated. -

VIEWS AS TO

QUARANTINE

IN THE STATE

OF ILLINOIS. ACCORDING to the Tenth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Illinois it would appear that Dr. J. H. Rauch, the well-known secretary to the Board, holds very strong views as to the expediency of the adoption by the United States of a system of quarantine restriction in the case of cholera. He recalls the circumstances of the steamAlesia and BritanniCt, by means of which cholera ships reached the shores of the States in 1887, and he explains the measures adopted at the quarantine station Staten Island. And, discussing these in connexion with the enormous immigration from European countries, he points out how great is the interest of his own State in coast quarantine; and he gives his opinion that the United States can only secure themselves by resisting the first beginnings of cholera, a process which means its absolute exclusion. Maritime quarantine should, he contends, be administered not by individual States, but by the National Government, and he would have the President invested with power to issue a proclamation, when needed, for the prohibition of all immigration from districts where cholera is known to prevail. Apart from such action, hedoes not believe that, under the circumstances of the States, any amount of sanitation, disinfection, and

VENTILATION OF LAW COURTS. FROM Chelmsford comes a report that Mr. Justice Denman had occasion a few days ago to complain of a very unpleasant smell as of sewer air in court, and that, upon calling on the court-keeper for an explanation, he was informed that the bad odour came from the prisoners’ department. The judge remarked, as we ourselves have on several occasions in these pages, that it was disgraceful that prisoners should be detained in custody under such condi. tions as were thus brought to his notice. He seems to have considered it an aggravation of the mischief that possibly innocent men might be enduring the inconvenience and risk of confinement amid such filthy surroundings. That may be so, but for our part we are content to demand proper sanitation in the name of common humanity, whether for guilty men or for innocent. The torture of a pest house would be an exceedingly bad form of punishment, even if it were tolerated by law. We had hoped that little by little the accommodation provided for prisoners at the assizes await. ing trial was being bettered and brought up to date, and our readers will be aware that we have constantly recurred to the topic, and urged upon the authorities the importance of more speed in the matter of these improvements. We are glad to understand that the matter has now been made the subject of judicial comment, and brought in this authoritative way under the notice of the Home Secretary. It should be borne in mind by that Minister and his advisers that Chelmsford does not stand alone in this respect, and that the reform to which Mr. Justice Denman’s experience points needs to be carried out on a national scale.

CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND CERTIFYING SURGEONS TO FACTORIES. THE Associated Chambers of Commerce at their annual

meeting passed a resolution alleging that the visits of certifying surgeons to factories and workshops were unnecessary because certificates of birth and education were forthcoming from other quarters. We cannot see the force of this objection. Suchdata in no way supersede the visits of medical men in their capacity of certifying surgeons, and to abolish such offices would be a retrograde step. A PANCREATIC CYST. DR. FILIPOFF reports in the Khiraorgieheski Vestnik a of pancreatic cyst occurring in Professor Grube’s clinic in Kharkoff. The patient was a woman of sixty-five years of age, who had observed the existence of a tumour in the epigastrium for about three years. It was only, however, during the last five months that it had occasioned her much inconvenience. During this time it had increased considerably in size, and had given rise to dull aching, with occasional attacks of violent pain, dyspnoea, and vomiting. She had also become very thin. When admitted the tumour was found to be as large as a man’s head, and freely case

767 movable. It could be plainly separated from the liver, out here to medical men who were not present to answer stomach, and spleen, and was diagnosed as either a pan- for themselves. Surely medical members are expected to creatic cyst, or a retention tumour formed in the omentum. give, in the leisurely immunity of Parliament, judicial moderation to discussions affecting the professional character and the very humanity of members of the profession.

On an incision being made, a dark-brown fluid of alkaline reaction poured out. It was found that the cyst originated from the head and part of the body of the pancreas. Part of the external cyst wall was cut away, and the remainder stitched to the abdominal parietes. The patient left the hospital cured in eighteen days.

TREATMENT OF PHTHISIS IN CUBA.

AT the recent Cuban Medical Congress Dr. Saladrigas read a paper on Phthisis, in which he stated that twelve patients in the Hospital of Our Lady were treated by A PRESCRIBER’S LAPSUS PENNÆ. Dr. Bergeon’s plan of rtctal injections of sulphuretted A MEDICAL MAN has just been fined by a Berlin court for hydrogen, with the result that eight of them were very Of these eighu, two were known to A lady having much improved. a serious slip of the pen in a prescription. consulted him for night sweats, lie prescribed atropine pills, have maintained their health, three had returned to the each one containing 0’06 gramme (about a grain), instead hospital after having been comparatively well for seven of 0’006 gramme (about the tenth of a grain). The pre- months, and the remaining three were still under treatscription was taken to a "druggist," not to an apotheker or ment. These gaseous injections should not be resorted to pharmacist, and the assistant who dispensed it did not where there is much hemoptysis, or where there is vascular detect the evident slip of the pen ; the consequence was that disease or communication between the pleura and the lung. the lady took one of the pills and suffered severely from its In six cases of phthisis Dr. Saladrigas has employed tannin, from the results obtained, together with the fact that toxic action, for which she was treated by the prescriber and has appeared to him to hinder the karyokinetic tannin for a couple of days. The husband summoned both the medical attendant and the druggist, the result being that changes in cells affected by the tubercle bacillus, he is led to believe that tannin is a really useful remedy in phthisis. the former was fined E25 and the latter £ 10. I

THE LIVERPOOL PUBLIC ABATTOIR.

INFLUENZA IN CENTRAL AMERICA.

THE members of the medical profession of Liverpool have A CORRESPONDENT at the Military College, Guatemala, forwarded to the City Council a memorial signed by no writes that the influenza appeared in that city about the fewer than 337 medical men, condemning the presence of the end of January, first in the Artillery Barracks, and then in public slaughter-house and the noxious trades connected other barracks and large schools, but not in the Military with it in the heart of the city and in the midst of a dense College until a month later-first, the orderlies and servants population, and praying that the City Council would conThe firm the refusal of the Finance Committee to were affected, then the soldiers, cadets, and officers. grant a. attacks are described as commencing mostly with intense renewal of the lease to the Abattoir Company. It is frontal headache, the pain then passing to the back of the curious to note that this abattoir has been consistently head and lumbar region. Salicylate of soda and tincture of condemned by all the medical oflicers of health which aconite were mainly employed, and also quinine, but in Liverpool has ever had, and the signatures appended to the small doses and frequent intervals. Very little antipyrin memorial should afford ample evidence to Dr. Stopford was given. Most of the patients were able to resume their Taylor, the present medical officer, of the support of his duties in three or four days, but in many a troublesome, medical brethren, and render it easy for the Council to dry, irritating cough persisted. The absence of coryza is prohibit the perpetuation of an institution which is directly noted as being remarkable. The outbreak occurred very opposed to all just sanitary principles. suddenly and spread very rapidly, and, our correspondent adds, the place is situated ninety miles from the Pacific and STUDENTS AT THE PARIS FACULTY. 300 miles from the Atlantic seaboard. THE total number of students enrolled at the Faculty of Paris (La Fmllce Méd., No. 13), during this winter Medicine, SIR WALTER FOSTER AND THE MEDICAL session was 3793-viz., first year, 1067; second year, 481; OFFICERS OF IRISH PRISONS. third year, G16; fourth year, 317 ; fifth year, 1312. This WE have no intention of taking any side in the sharp number includes 121 female students, of whom 14 are of political controversies of the day, thankful as we are that French nationality, and the rest thus assigned: American 1, our function is to deal with questions which generate no high English 9, Austrian 1, Greek 1, Russian 93, Servian 1, temperatures. We see nothing to disapprove in serious ques- Turk 1 ; whilst of the male students 3151 are French and tions being put touching the treatment of prisoners, either in 622 foreign, so that about one-sixth of the Faculty is. England or Ireland, where there seems reasonable ground formed by foreigners. No doubt this number would have for thinking that they have been in any way neglected. been larger still had it not been that the Ecole d’Anatomie But we venture to question the fairness of a medical man has been compelled to refuse many applications from dealing out censure in a few lines, however smart, on his foreigners owing to the paucity of anatomical subjects. medical brethren. Sir Walter Foster is reported in the Liuerpool <7oM?*Mr as follows :-" Sir Walter Foster then INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS. put a question as to twodeaths which had occurred in Irish prisons from heart disease. If the nature of THE following is the programme for the section of Larynthe case was not known, the prison medical officers were gology and Rhinology at the forthcoming Congress in guilty of negligence ; if it was known, the treatment was Berlin. Dr. B. Fraenkel of Berlin will open the proceedings barbarous. He inquired on which horn of the dilemma the with an address upon Laryngology since the last InternaChief Secretary chose to impale himself."Sir Walter Foster tional Congress, 1887. Discussions upon the following submay be imperfectly reported. But we submit that it would jects :-I. Diagnosis and Treatment of Laryngeal Cancer, require a great deal of knowledge of the prisons, of the to be opened by Mr. H. T. Butlin (London) and Dr. J. prisoners, and of the conduct of the medical officers to Gottstein (Breslau). 2. Deviations and Ridges of the Septum justify such short, sententious condemnation as is dealt Narium, by Dr. J. Moure (Bordeaux) and Dr. A. Hartmann