FOOD SURVEILLANCE IN ITALY.

43 The supernatant fluid is slightly milky, and gives an alkaline reaction. It grows more readily on the surface of gelatine, and causes slow liquefaction in forty-eight hours ; at the bottom of the funnel there is a white, flocculent deposit. Grown on the surface of agar there forms in twenty-four hours, at 37° C., a moist, opalescent, translucent growth which extends rapidly until it covers the whole surface with a delicate uniform layer which gradually becomes thickened, though it still retains a certain amount of transparency. On potato the culture is abundant and spreads rapidly over the surface as a thick, moist, and slightly viscid film, first of a clear yellow colour and then of a yellowish brown. The cultures have a somewhat ammoniacal odour, almost like putrefying urine; they remain active for severalmonths when exposed to the air, but when protected from air and light they remain active for mbre than three years. This microbe does not appear to form spores ; it is destroyed in fifteen minutes at a temperature of 60° C. in a moist medium, but after drying it resists the temperature of 100’C. for about five minutes.

of the colouring matter in question, the baker was, sentenced to five days’ imprisonment and twenty lire (16s.) fine. Against this sentence he appealed ; but the Court not only sustained the judgment already given, butp finding that the adulteration had been practised in fnit knowledge of its hurtfulness to the consumer, and with the clear object of enhancing the selling price of the article,

condemned the

appellant

as

an

"adulteratore doloso"

(fraudulent adulterator), and gave him five months’ im prisonment, with a finle of seventy-three lire (i:2 188. 4d ). Italy does well to protect the consumer by such stringent regulations, and if she continues to practise the same surveillance over other matters equally affecting the health of the community she will have no reason to complain of the. abstention of foreign visitors from her "sun traps"or winter cities. ___

A GASTROLITH IN MAN.

DR. KooYKER has reported in the Zcítschrift für. Klinisclze MetCtK. another case of gastric calculus-a con. dition which, though common enough in animals, is so rare: A CASE OF COLOBOMA OF THE OPTIC NERVE in man that so far only seven cases have been reported. Dr. Kooyker’s case was that of a man fifty-two years old,, WITH SIMULTANEOUS MELANOMA OF in whose lifetime it had been impossible to make a positive THE CILIARY PROCESS. some neoplasm of the stomach was susDR. TALKO publishes in the Przeglad Lekarski the case diagnosis, though The patient died from exhaustion. At the postpected. of a boy of five years old who, from his birth, had been mortem examination a concretion was found in the stomach,, suffering from considerable impairment of sight. He almost entirely filling its cavity, which weighed 885 grammes’ discovered in both eyes a coloboma without a vestige and was eighteen centimetres in length. The microscopic of the hyaloid, and a melanoma of the ciliary process as examination resulted in finding starch, vegetable cells,. well, the first case of the kind he had seen in his ophthalmic and vascular tufts, while hair and otherchlorophyll, practice of thirty years. No such case has, as far as he animal elements were entirely absent. knows, ever been mentioned in medical literature. Dr. Talko is not certain if the embryonic deformity of the "THE LANCET" RELIEF FUND. ciliary processes is merely a complication of the coloUrON another page will be found the third annual report boma, or whether it may be found independently of other deformities of the eyeball. The case, as the first of its of the Almoners of this Fund, from which it will be seen that relief has been afforded in twenty-two cases, eight kind, certainly deserves to be recorded. being cases in which money was advanced by way of loan and fourteen cases in which gifts of money were made. In FOOD SURVEILLANCE IN ITALY. number the total is precisely equal to that of the pre-AMID so much (writes a holiday contributor) that ceding year, the distribution of the benefits having calls for redess in the sanitary state of Italy, it is gratifying also been an almost exact reproduction of that which to record the energy and success with which her food and was reported in 1891, when the loans were seven and the drink-supply is safeguarded. Shortly after the Public gifts fifteen in number. In amount the grants have, Health Act came into force one could hardly open a news- this ear been slightly larger than last year, the loans. paper without alighting on paragraphs announcing the having aggregated to the same total sum- £ 117-and the. seizure of adulterated breadstuffs, or tainted meats, or gifts to 11 more than in 1890. The correspondence, of " doctored " wines, or bogus mineral waters. Some of the which some extracts are given in the report, shows that the great industries, like the sausage manufacture at facility with which in a proper case a grant can be made Bologna, were severely compromised by the exposure from this fund renders it in a case of emergency, such as it of the semi-putrid horseflesh used in it ; the cheese is intended to meet, a most valuable resource to th& producers of Lombardy were also shown to deal victims of sudden and unforeseen misfortune. Indeed, in largely in counterfeits; and the confectioners, with their many of the cases ’which come under the notice of brightly coloured dainties, and the " liquoristi" (or fancy- the Almoners it is not merely true that bis dat qui c!<0h drink vendors), with their seductive beverages, were often dat-this aphorism does much less than justice to the convicted of employing deleterious and even dangerous sub. facts, for in such circumstances as we have now in stances to enhance the attractiveness of their wares. The view to delay is to withhold, and he only gives at penalties inflicted on these offenders, however, were so ex- all who gives at once. It is a great satisfaction to the emplary that few now venture to enrich themselves at donors and Almoners of the Fund to know that so far the expense of the public and in contravention of the law ; it has proved fully equal to the particular class of and the notoriety given to them in the press brought such necessities which it is intended to meet, and no single suitable. custom to the 11 fair and square" dealers as to make many case has been refused relief for want of funds. The new, if tardy, converts to the principle that honesty is the balance in hand has steadily grown from year to year9, best policy. Such cases, indeed, as the following become and from f:125 19s. 6d., at which it stood in the beginning; rarer and rarer, while the occasional publicity given to them of last year, it had accumulated by the 31st Decemberserves to keep up the deterrent force of the act. A fancy last to E170 14s. Although, therefore, it has been necesbaker in Turin was convicted of using a noxious dye to giveI sary to refuse some applications, every such refusal has* an attractive colour to the "tortellini" (pastry with, been grounded on the demerits of the application, and sweetstuff inside), for which Turin is famous. In spiteI no case coming within the rule has yet been brought to of his plea that he did not know the deleterious natures the notice of the Almoners without obtaining relief. We-