HOSPITAL MONDAY!

378 month of this incarceration, where the atmospheric depres- for consumption, in so far as filtration will do this. And he sion was such as to correspond with that of the Great St. explains that a filter efficient for this purpose can be made Bernard or of Santa-Fe de Bogota (height about 3000 metres), by means of a ilower-pot, partly filled with sand and partly with the rabbit emerged, not very lively indeed, but to some small magnetic oxide of iron or polarite, which may be purchased for degree fatter. On the blood being examined, it was found about ld. per pound. Where the water is very bad he advises that it absorbed 21 cc. per cent. of oxygen-that is to boiling and then filtration ; in other cases headvocatesmere as much as that absorbed by the blood of the Peruvian filtration ; and he records that, as the result of his experiments sheep; while the blood of rabbits kept under normal con- with such means of filtration, purification was effected which ditions in the plain absorbs only 17 cc. It is therefore the amounted to something like 90 per cent. For such purposes atmospheric depression which increases the respiratory capa- as Mr. Carter Bell indicates we concur withj him that subcity of the blood in animals. Regnard’s confirmation of his stantial improvement would be effected, and we are prac. predecessors’ results serves to explain the efficacy of tically content with the scheme which advocates boiling and certain climatic resorts in Switzerland, particularly in then filtration, provided it be distinctly understood that theanaemic and chlorotic patients and in sufferers from neur- measure is adopted as a temporary one. The removal of astheni:1. It is the atmospheric depression which, in con- 90 per cent. of matters which are undesirable unfortunately junction with good hygienic conditions, acts on those invalids leaves a noticeable percentage behind, and unless we could and promotes in their blood the formation of new san- feel assured that the 10 per cent. in question contains nothing guineous globules fit for the assimilation of oxygen. The like the specific material of disease, the practice cannot more abundant nutrition and the augmentation of the appetite possibly be recommended as in any way taking the place of observable in- a sojourn in the mountains are not the cause, the provision of a water-supply which shall not run the risk but a consequence, of the improvement which such sojourn of containing dangerous material. When risky contamination brings. Indeed, even admitting that the haematogenous is involved, filtration is not a remedy ; it is a mere palliati’ve action of elevated sites may owe something to other which serves to diminish not to remove risk. Hence arises the causes, as Viault contends, it is difficult to resist the objection to relying for the purposes of health on domestic induction of Regnard that climatic establishments are in filtration. Water which calls for such filtration by reason of general to be preferred to mineral water resorts-certainly to its being subject to risk of pollution is a water that needs to those whose reputation is chiefly built on fashion, on enter- be replaced by a wholesome supply, and the sanitary autainments, or on the ensemble of adventitious attractions, from thorities of places where such water exists should be pressed which health pure and simple has little or nothing to gain. to adopt the proper remedy. a

say,

VENTRO-FIXATION OF THE UTERUS.

HOSPITAL MONDAY!

IT looks as if every day in the week, on one ground or has now published reports of twenty-five cases in which he has performed the operationanother, would soon become sacred to hospitals. Mr. Edward known as "ventro- fixation of the uterus. " None of the cases White, in the City Press, gravely proposes that a "Hospital proved fatal.. In seventeen permanent anteflexion was Monday Fund " be established with a Metropolitan Hospita] obtained ; in fourteen there was, besides the retroflexion, a Aid League without interfering with either Hospital Sunday diseased condition of the uterine appendages necessitating or Hospital Saturday. It is really difficult to believe that their removal. Of the cases that were not so complicated such a proposal can be meant seriously. It is time to say all except one were successful. Dr. Spaeth rarely fastens that this belief in " days " has been carried far enough and the stump of the broad ligament into the abdominal wound, that what is wanted is a deeper conviction of obligation on usually stitching the fundus uteri directly to the parietal the part of both rich and poor to our hospitals. If Alr. White peritoneum. In the later cases he adopted Schede’s method- will persuade-and few men are more likely to do so—both that is to say, silver sutures were drawn through the rich and poor to crowd the churches and chapels and other whole thickness of the abdominal walls at intervals of meeting-places of the various religious bodies on Hospital about an inch and a half, but they were not at first tied. In Sunday he will do more to help the hospitals than by thethe intervals finer silver sutures were inserted the multiplication of hospital days.

DR. SPABTH of

Hamburg

through

sheaths of the recti, the peritoneum and the fundus uteri, and tightened, twisted and cut short, the whole of course being beneath the skin; the thicker sutures were then tightened and twisted and the lips of the wound brought together with superficial catgut sutures. The subcutaneous silver sutures remained, but never gave any trouble. Dr. Schede and Dr. Spaeth are both of opinion that this method is the best for preventing any hernia, and that when it has been employed abdominal binders are unnecessary. Dr. Spaeth does not perform or recommend ventro-fixation in cases of retroflexion unless there is either disease of the appendages or chronic

INTRA-OCULAR AFFECTIONS AS

SEQUELÆ

OF

NASAL DISEASES.

DR. ZIEM of Dantzig publishes in the Münchener Medicinisc7w T17ockenschrift an interesting case in which intraocular symptoms had supervened on nasal disease. A man sixty eight years old was suffering from a tumour which obstructed the nose on both sides, especially the left. An irregular excrescence was felt in the left half of the nose, and the left half of the naso-pharyngeal cavity was almost filled by a similar tumour of irregular shape. The left eyelid was. tumid and hanging down as if paralysed. The eyeball properitonitis. truded downwards and was only very slightly movable. POLLUTED WATERS IN CHESHIRE. The conjunctiva was injected, the pupil dilated and fixed, THE county analyst for Cheshire, Mr. J. Carter Bell,and partial amaurosis was present in the right eye with reports very strongly on some of the water-supplies which arevenous hyperaemia of the retina and considerable shortin use in the county of Cheshire. He says that of twenty- Iening of the focus. The patient, who suffered severe nine samples which he has analysed, only ten could bepains in the left eye, begged for its removal, but regarded as good from the chemical point of view, whilstno operation could have been of any benefit. Injections twelve were bad and seven exceeded in impurity the efliuentsinto the nose helped to remove a large quantity of from the Salford sewage. Having next referred to the causa- badly smelling pus and gave the patient great relief, and tion of disease in connexion with the use of such waters, he continued treatment also restored the focus almost to its deplores the fact that some elementary technical education is normal length. In about ten weeks the patient died from not given to cottagers as to the best way of fitting their water the progress of the malignant tumour. The success of the -