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CARRIAGE LIGHTING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.
788 for two or three years suffered from severe attacks of tic with typical attacks of epilepsy. But on the whole he was apparently inclined to think that such occurrences were coincidences, and that the two conditions showed striking differences in the absence of heredity and of mental obscuration in cases of facial neuralgia, and the want of synchronism in the onset of the diseases. But as M. Féré points out, a number of the slighter signs of epilepsy are often present before the typical attacks come on, and in many cases no proof of heredity can be furnished. Further, too much importance, he thinks, may be attached to the absence of mental obscuration, for even in epilepsy such a condition can sometimes only be shown to be present by time measurement, and as pain lengthens the time of reaction a similar condition may be suspected to be present in severe neuralgia. But M. Fer6 brings forward a fact even more suggestive of a close connexion between the two conditions-viz., the occurrence of epilepsy and epileptiform neuralgia in the same patient, and the disappearance of both conditions under treatment by bromide of potassium. The case is one which had been under his own observation, and, in reference to this particular point, is very interesting.
residents to its erection, and the Local Government Board was obliged to institute a careful local inquiry before granting its assent. Some delay must therefore have been unavoidable, for which that Board can hardly be held responsible. The large proportions of the present prevalence can hardly be credited with the appellation of a serious epidemic ; for the excess over the autumnal incidence of other years is more apparent than real, and due most probably to (1) notification and (2) a greater willingness of better class people to avail themselves of the hospitals (with this feature we have dealt fully in a leading article). In any case, the Managers have an urgent duty before them in grappling with this problem of fever hospital accommodation in London ; and we trust that no time will be lost in gradually providing an adequate number of beds for its growing population, taking as a basis the recognised official datum of 1 bed per 1000 inhabitants.
CARRIAGE LIGHTING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.
-
A BACTERIOLOGIST FOR NEW YORK. THE Board of Health of the City of New York has, the New York Medical Tournal states, taken a step that is worthy not only of commendation, but also of imitation by other municipal boards of health. Heretofore the disinfecting corps has consisted of sixteen laymen. This division has been reorganised and is now denominated the division of pathology, bacteriology and disinfection. The chief of the division is to be an expert bacteriologist, and he will have ten physicians under his direction as disinfectors, each of whom has a certain district to supervise. The salary of the bacteriologist in chief is 3000 dols. (£600) per annum, and Professor Herman Biggs, who has been in charge of the Carnegie Laboratory for many years, has been appointed
Qhief of the division.
!
--
FEVER IN LONDON. ’’
hospitals
THE pressure on the beds in the Asylums Board still continues, and we hear of patients sitting on the doorstep at Norfolk House until the ambulance can fetch them away. The scarlet fever accommodation is reported to be exhausted to all intents and purposes, for only some five beds are vacant, and those only for convalescents at Winchmore Hill. In the meantime, the new hospital at Tottenham is being piessed on to completion and it is expected to be ready in about a week’s time. This will give the Managers some four or five hundred more beds and will, it is hoped, enable them to tide over the difficulty. There will be some temptation to overcrowd this new hospital, but we trust that the interests of the patients themselves will be considered in this connexion and so undesirable a proceeding avoided. At the meeting of the Asylums Board on Sept. 17th the chairman made an attack upon the Local Government Board, blaming the superior authority for the delay that had occurred in the erection of this proposed hospital and for the general delay in meeting the pressure which existed. Pending any reply from the Local Government Board, it should, however, be remembered that that body is not an initiating or executive authority, but simply a supervising or controlling arm of the State. It is the Managers who have these functions assigned to them, and it is for them to mature in times, when no pressure threatens, those measures of hospital isolation and equipment that may appear necessary in the future. Then it should be recollected that the higher board has other duties to the public besides that of granting assent to the Asylums Board for their doings. In the case of the proposed Tottenham Hospital there was considerable local opposition amongst the
by the Underground Railways are for obvious peculiarly dependent upon the efficient management of carriage lighting arrangements. The time spent by them on their subterranean journeys is considerable. To those who are daily engaged in business in the City the period of tunnel transit each morning and evening would be wearisome indeed but for the page of news ; and this again would be a tantalising luxury without sufficient light for its perusal. It is therefore particularly to be regretted that this muchneeded convenience is not always adequate to its intended pur. pose. By way of justification we are told that in order to provide the gas pressure required for better illumination a much larger outlay than is now allowed would be called for. It is also pointed out that occasionally small electric lights may be obtained for the trifling sum of a penny. Here certainly is To our mind, a grain of comfort, and a cheap one enough. however, the question cannot be thus easily disposed of. Sufficient light is a primary necessity, and should therefore be provided at the cost of the railway companies. We might suggest several alternative methods for securing this result. A possible augmentation of gas pressure has already been mentioned. An increase in the number of gas jets-at present two to each first-class compartment-would fulfil the same purpose, though it would also, of course, involve a greater expenditure of gas. Something might likewise be done by increasing the power and ensuring the cleanness and brilliancy of reflectors. Whatever the method employed, however, the responsibility for adequate illumination, we repeat, should certainly devolve upon the company. Light is not to be doled out at an extra charge through an automatic penny slot. TRAVELLERS
reasons
THE DIAGNOSIS OF HÆMORRHAGIC SMALL-POX.
I
OUR correspondent in the Northern Counties stated in THE LANCET of Sept. 17th, that Dr. Armstrong had informed his local authority that a case of small-pox sent from North Shields to the infirmary at Newcastle had not been diagnosed as such at North Shields, and that it was a case which nineteen doctors out of twenty might not have recognised as small-pox. We think Dr. Armstrong has been rather harshly criticised, and we do not wonder that the local authority has unanimously refused to admit the correctness of Dr. Whamond’s charge that he had magnified his own powers of diagnosis as against those of 95 per cent. of medical men. Dr. Armstrong is a busy medical officer of health, and for some weeks past has doubtless been subjected to a strain of official duties in connexion with cholera which is itself an excuse for not having chosen words beyond all ambiguity of meaning. But even as his words showed, "it was a case which nineteen doctors in twenty might not have recognised as small-pox."They would seem to imply no censorious reflection on any
residents to its erection, and the Local Government Board was obliged to institute a careful local inquiry before granting its assent. Some delay must therefore have been unavoidable, for which that Board can hardly be held responsible. The large proportions of the present prevalence can hardly be credited with the appellation of a serious epidemic ; for the excess over the autumnal incidence of other years is more apparent than real, and due most probably to (1) notification and (2) a greater willingness of better class people to avail themselves of the hospitals (with this feature we have dealt fully in a leading article). In any case, the Managers have an urgent duty before them in grappling with this problem of fever hospital accommodation in London ; and we trust that no time will be lost in gradually providing an adequate number of beds for its growing population, taking as a basis the recognised official datum of 1 bed per 1000 inhabitants.
CARRIAGE LIGHTING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS.
-
A BACTERIOLOGIST FOR NEW YORK. THE Board of Health of the City of New York has, the New York Medical Tournal states, taken a step that is worthy not only of commendation, but also of imitation by other municipal boards of health. Heretofore the disinfecting corps has consisted of sixteen laymen. This division has been reorganised and is now denominated the division of pathology, bacteriology and disinfection. The chief of the division is to be an expert bacteriologist, and he will have ten physicians under his direction as disinfectors, each of whom has a certain district to supervise. The salary of the bacteriologist in chief is 3000 dols. (£600) per annum, and Professor Herman Biggs, who has been in charge of the Carnegie Laboratory for many years, has been appointed
Qhief of the division.
!
--
FEVER IN LONDON. ’’
hospitals
THE pressure on the beds in the Asylums Board still continues, and we hear of patients sitting on the doorstep at Norfolk House until the ambulance can fetch them away. The scarlet fever accommodation is reported to be exhausted to all intents and purposes, for only some five beds are vacant, and those only for convalescents at Winchmore Hill. In the meantime, the new hospital at Tottenham is being piessed on to completion and it is expected to be ready in about a week’s time. This will give the Managers some four or five hundred more beds and will, it is hoped, enable them to tide over the difficulty. There will be some temptation to overcrowd this new hospital, but we trust that the interests of the patients themselves will be considered in this connexion and so undesirable a proceeding avoided. At the meeting of the Asylums Board on Sept. 17th the chairman made an attack upon the Local Government Board, blaming the superior authority for the delay that had occurred in the erection of this proposed hospital and for the general delay in meeting the pressure which existed. Pending any reply from the Local Government Board, it should, however, be remembered that that body is not an initiating or executive authority, but simply a supervising or controlling arm of the State. It is the Managers who have these functions assigned to them, and it is for them to mature in times, when no pressure threatens, those measures of hospital isolation and equipment that may appear necessary in the future. Then it should be recollected that the higher board has other duties to the public besides that of granting assent to the Asylums Board for their doings. In the case of the proposed Tottenham Hospital there was considerable local opposition amongst the
by the Underground Railways are for obvious peculiarly dependent upon the efficient management of carriage lighting arrangements. The time spent by them on their subterranean journeys is considerable. To those who are daily engaged in business in the City the period of tunnel transit each morning and evening would be wearisome indeed but for the page of news ; and this again would be a tantalising luxury without sufficient light for its perusal. It is therefore particularly to be regretted that this muchneeded convenience is not always adequate to its intended pur. pose. By way of justification we are told that in order to provide the gas pressure required for better illumination a much larger outlay than is now allowed would be called for. It is also pointed out that occasionally small electric lights may be obtained for the trifling sum of a penny. Here certainly is To our mind, a grain of comfort, and a cheap one enough. however, the question cannot be thus easily disposed of. Sufficient light is a primary necessity, and should therefore be provided at the cost of the railway companies. We might suggest several alternative methods for securing this result. A possible augmentation of gas pressure has already been mentioned. An increase in the number of gas jets-at present two to each first-class compartment-would fulfil the same purpose, though it would also, of course, involve a greater expenditure of gas. Something might likewise be done by increasing the power and ensuring the cleanness and brilliancy of reflectors. Whatever the method employed, however, the responsibility for adequate illumination, we repeat, should certainly devolve upon the company. Light is not to be doled out at an extra charge through an automatic penny slot. TRAVELLERS
reasons
THE DIAGNOSIS OF HÆMORRHAGIC SMALL-POX.
I
OUR correspondent in the Northern Counties stated in THE LANCET of Sept. 17th, that Dr. Armstrong had informed his local authority that a case of small-pox sent from North Shields to the infirmary at Newcastle had not been diagnosed as such at North Shields, and that it was a case which nineteen doctors out of twenty might not have recognised as small-pox. We think Dr. Armstrong has been rather harshly criticised, and we do not wonder that the local authority has unanimously refused to admit the correctness of Dr. Whamond’s charge that he had magnified his own powers of diagnosis as against those of 95 per cent. of medical men. Dr. Armstrong is a busy medical officer of health, and for some weeks past has doubtless been subjected to a strain of official duties in connexion with cholera which is itself an excuse for not having chosen words beyond all ambiguity of meaning. But even as his words showed, "it was a case which nineteen doctors in twenty might not have recognised as small-pox."They would seem to imply no censorious reflection on any