HOSPITAL ABUSE AT BRIGHTON.

745 55 per week during the holiday period. Thus, inand other evidence strong enough to leave no doubt that the 1894 the three weeks after the holidays showed a con-alcoholic passion has become ungovernable and has tinued fall in the amount of the disease and a substantialrendered its victim morally or economically a source I fall in its fatality as compared with the time of aLCtualof danger to himself or others. The term of detention the facts to much will be two years, and this term is liable to reduction or Still from closure. point good resulting the release of children from the aggregation inevitable inrenewal as occasion requires. The Bill may be taken as school. In London there were 55 deaths last week, as fairly representing medical opinion on this subject. Mo(liagainst 24, 40, and 38 in the three weeks before ; all but fications in detail may, perhaps, be found advisable as time one being in children and persons under the age of twenty goes on, but the measure cannot but be approved on its As the first practical attempt to deal years. There were 5 deaths each in Mile End Old general outlines. and each in the drink and 4 with Greenwich, Town, Poplar, Hackney candidly craving, and to treat it as what in The admissions to hos- very many cases it is-a masterful and engrained vice which and Lambeth sanitary areas. pital were 105 as compared with previous weekly figures has really absorbed all traces of a resisting will-it deof 81, 86, and 78, and the mortality was about 22 per cent. serves, and we hope it will receive, a fair trial. We entirely of the attacks. There remained in hospital at the close of fail to see how injustice can be complained of under such an the week 663 patients, a number only slightly varying on Act as this, where every precaution is taken to render the successive Saturdays for several weeks past. In the metro- preliminary investigation as searching as possible, where no politan’outer ring 14 deaths were attributed to diphtheria, personal privilege is lost by detention, and where the patient’s and ’among these 8 were those of persons belonging to the own interest will be served in a degree at least equal to that West Ham registration district. of his relatives and friends.

as

high

as

DEATH IN BANK-NOTES.

INTRA-CRANIAL OPERATIONS ON THE FIFTH

NERVE. ACCORDING to L’hzdeetdccnce Belge the cashier of a bank Viennese met with his death a short time ago under IN a recent number of the Ne1lrologisclws Centralblatt. an circumstances as remarkable as they are happily rare.abstract is given of an important paper on this subject by F. ] which appeared in the fiftieth volume of Langenbeck’s Having to count a large number of used bank-notes, all Krause more or less soiled and difficult to separate from each other, .LÍ1’chiv,. of eigh’t cases operated upon by him only one died, he incautiously, and in spite of a friendly warning regardinga man aged seventy-two, whose death occurred, six days the risk he was thereby encountering, endeavoured to facili- after { the operation, from heart failure due to atheroma of the tate his work by moistening his fingers and thumb with his (coronary arteries. The others all did well, and in no case in saliva. The same evening he felt a tingling pain in his lips, which , there was total removal of the ganglion has any recurbut did not pay much attention to the symptom, thinking it rence ] of pain as yet taken place. In the only case in which would pass away. The next morning, however, as his mouthKrause restricted himself to an operation on the second and tongue were hot and swollen, he began to feel alarmed,division of the nerve there was recurrence of pain, and then .and without loss of time consulted a medical man, who is the 1 ganglion was removed and the pain disappeared and resaid to have forthwith incised the tumour. What the effects,mained absent. A comparison of the cases operated on by immediate and remote, of this procedure were we are notRose’s method and those operated on by the method of Krause told, the remainder of the history being briefly summed upand Frank Nartley shows a mortality of 18 per cent. in thu in the following terms : INotwithstanding the operationformer and 9’8 in the latter. Curious functional disturbance’s the patient died three days subsequently from the effects ofare described as following the operation. Sometimes there is the poison which he had absorbed." There are some pointsdifficulty in opening the mouth, apparently determined by conin this case, as set forth by our lay contemporary, which traction taking place in the muscles of mastication. In spite of require elucidation. It is to be hoped, therefore, that an the complete anoesthesia of the cornea and conjunctiva, only account from a qualified source will be forthcoming. in one case was there observed by Krause a slight corneal I

ulcer, which quickly healed. AN

INEBRIATES BILL.

The masseter, temporal, and muscles were weakened on the affected side, hut pterygoid little inconvenience resulted. The peculiar and varying sensory impairment in the different regions is also described, and finally the indications for this very radical operation are

profession in Austria is to be congratulated recently attained by views which have long been maintained by its members in common with their clearly set out. brethren in other parts of the world. The position of the drunkard in social life has hitherto been regarded in some HOSPITAL ABUSE AT BRIGHTON. quarters as an anomaly not so nearly related to the state of A RECENT number of a local paper contains a letter on lunacy as to justify its treatment on similar lines. There has always existed a feeling that the craving for drink with the abuse of hospitals at Brighton which is well worth the its consequences ought to be treated as a mere bad habit, a attention of the inhabitants of that favoured place. The ’temporary and recoverable error, not really a form of letter is by Dr. Francis J. A. Waring and is admirable alike mental disorder. At last there are signs of a return in the spirit in which it is written and the facts which it to sounder reasoning. As announced by our Vienna corrè- adduces. Dr. Waring, while making it abundantly clear spondent in our columns last week a Bill now about to be that the medical profession is unanimous in wishing all submitted to the Austrian Reichsrath proposes to treat deserving cases to have every attention and consideration the persistent drunkard as mentally incapable. As such at hospitals, expresses his conviction that a vast number -he shall be restrained from injuring either himself or of persons who can well afford to pay are treated at others dependent upon him. This restraint may take the the various medical charities-to wit, the Sussex County form either of voluntary or compulsory detention in specially Hospital, the Hospital for ChilOren, Hospital for Women, appointed retreats. In cases where the confinement is com- Throat and Ear Hospital, Eye Hospital, Brighton and pulsory, provision is made for a regular trial in which Hove Dispensary, and the two Hornccopathic Dispensaries. witnesses, both lay and medical, will be heard. The justifica- Out of a population of 150,000 no less than 38,113 patients tion for detention will consist in such facts as repeated are treated at these charitable institutions. Of 3704 births previous convictions of drunkenness, proof of danger to life, in Brighton and Hove in 1894 no less than 1240 women, or THE medical

on a success

-

THE DIGESTIBILITY OF GASEOUS BEVERAGES.

746

one-third of the whole, have been attended

by

one

on any given subject, should never be allowed it under any circumstances, say the would-be change adulterants in default of a more logical argument; but they likewise dwell upon the interests of a great national industry already overhandicapped by competition, and wind up a somewhat unblushing petition with the naive contention that, after all, the butter in question is destined for consumption abroad. Commenting on the matter in L’Uni,oa Mérlicale, M. Jules Rocharcl makes the following sensible observations : This agitation will cease of its own accord. It is to the interest of our commerce that its products should be above suspicion ; in order that they may preserve their good reputation the first essential is that they should be of an irreproachable purity. Borax and boracic acid, like the salicylate of soda, are far oftener employed for the purpose of masking defects in the sub. stances to which they are added than they are for the con. servation of sound and wholesome provisions."

charity

a

Dr. Waring says that it is a common thing for men earning from 25., to 40s. a week to say that they have been taking their children to a hospital. Such facts are a discredit to Brighton and to the administration of its charities. They tend distinctly to injure the medical charities by hardening the hearts of those who have the means and the disposition to help them, and they tend to degrade those who are relieved by treating them as if they were paupers. Dr. Waring’s letter should be seriously pondered by the subscribers and the committee of every medical charity in

Brighton. THE

-

DIGESTIBILITY

MM. CARRION

OF

GASEOUS

decision

to

alone.

BEVERAGES.

CAUTRU are the authors of an interesting paper on the Digestion of Gaseous Beverages which was read at one of the Bordeaux Congresses. According to these observers sparkling cider champagne and seltzer water are all endowed with the property of prolonging the digestive process, while at the same time they add greatly to its intenseness. Cider, moreover, is essentially diuretic, and it also exercises a favourable influence on nutrition. It would seem, therefore, that this old-fashioned beverage may with advantage be recommended for use at meals to sufferers from that form of dyspepsia in which the stomach evacuates its contents too quickly, to the detriment of the thereby overworked intestines. In addition to the good qualities already mentioned, well-made cider is reputed to be an efficient corrective of the uric acid diathesis. In Normandy, where the juice of the apple constitutes the staple drink of the lower classes, gout is said to be unknown save amongst the wealthy who indulge in wine. Gravel and stone in the bladder are likewise very rare, and MM. Carrion and Cautru are satisfied that the immunity from both these forms of disease should be placed to the credit of cider. AND

EXPLOSIVE LAMPS. FATAL accidents

arising from the use of lamps are happily if we take into account the nearly universal employment of this form of artificial light. Neither is it to be expected that we can, by means of any safeguard known to us, entirely abolish the possibility of their occurEven in regard to this matter no substitute can be rence. found for personal discretion and no code of rules can possibly be framed to meet and obviate the effects of every chance emergency. It has been abundantly proved, however, that precaution may be carried much further than it now is. Such an event as the spontaneous explosion of a lighted lamp while apparently in working order ought certainly to be, if it is not, preventable. The cause in such a case must be due either to a fault of management or of construction. It is already well known that the usual source of explosion is found in the mixed gas of oil vapour and ordinary air which fills the THE ADULTERATION OF BUTTER IN FRANCE. upper part of a partially exhausted lamp chamber. The THE Central Committee of Hygiene in Paris is to be con- development of this mixture is, therefore, to be prevented as gratulated on its action with regard to the preparation of far as possible, and this object can only be attained by butter for exportation, a matter of considerable importance regularly and completely filling the reservoir with fresh oil. from the point of view of the British consumer. About Not less important is the relative adaptation of the wick and the year 1876, on the strength of a report drawn its holder. Cheap lamps are apt to be defective in regard to up by M. Boullay, in which it was maintained that this requirement, and they are, in fact, constructed on In other cases the reservoir the admixture of borax and its associates with butter an explosive principle. was permissible inasmuch as the addition had never been is easily breakable, or, again, the pedestal may be shown to produce bad consequences, the practice received unsteady, but it is needless now to go into further official sanction and has ever since been habitually resorted details. We would, however, insist very strongly upon to in the trade. In 1883, however, a re-examination of the the necessity and the duty of obliging manufacsubject was instituted by competent observers, who came to turers to supply only such articles as conform to a set the conclusion that the continual ingestion of borax was standard of security. This duty is well within the power of liable to bring about deterioration of the blood corpuscles, the Legislature, and it lays no additional burden of cost on and some years later M. Pouchet was able to confirm this the producer, only that of taking due pains in a work which dictum from his own investigations. Satisfied with the is not in itself difficult. Be the form and finish what they proof thus afforded, the committee revised its former decision may, certain qualities ought to be legally required in the and issued a recommendation to the effect that the construction of every lamp. These, already referred to, may employment of£ borate of soda and boracic acid for again be briefly summarised. They include a broad and firm the preservation of butter should be made illegal, as in base, a pedestal of only moderate height, a reservoir of the case of wine. This advice was accepted by Government solid material, and a wick and holder accurately adapted to after deliberation, and in due course a law appeared forbid- each other. We would have no lamp sanctioned by authority ding the use of borax for the conservation of all provisions, which did not conform to these necessary structural conwhether destined for home consumption or for export. The ditions. first application of the amended ordinance took place recently, , THE DIFFUSION OF SMALL-POX. when a Normandy butter merchant was tried and condemned to for neglecting conform his practice to its prescriptions. SMALL-rox in the metropolis last week showed precisely As may be supposed, this new departure has had a most the same features as in several preceding weeks-namely, disturbing effect amongst the exporters of French butter, some three dozen cases, mostly in the eastern and southern who are loud in their remonstrances against what they groups of sanitary districts. Two deaths from this disease endeavour to stigmatise as inconsistency on the part of the were registered-one each in Lambeth ’ and St. George Committee of Hygiene. A public body, having once come to Hanover-square sanitary areas, one of these cases being an not very

I

common