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INFANTILE MORTALITY IN EGYPT.
1040
given thousands of times daily. Perfection in armsthetics has yet to be found, but it may fairly be claimed for nitrous oxide that it has stood the test of time well and may still claim for its title " the safest of ansesthetics." It must be understood that nitrous oxide anaesthesia is not asphyxia ; the one condition is associated with increased vigour of the heart’s action, the other rapidly leads to paralytic distension of the bloodvessels owing to impeded circulation through the lungs. so
THE
PLAGUE
ON BOARD TRANSPORT.
A
INFANTILE MORTALITY IN EGYPT. A CORRESPONDENT, who has been examining the weekly statistical returns issued by the Egyptian Sanitary Department, has tabulated a summary of the facts relative to the deaths of children during each quarter of the year 1896; and the results, which are shown below, may be correctly described as appalling.
BRITISH
THE Dil7vara, hired transport, bringing troops from India, arrived at Southampton on April 6th. This is the vessel on which a case of fatal plague occurred on March 18th. On reaching Suez the persons who had been in immediate contact with the deceased child were landed at Moses’ Wells, disinfection was carried out, and the vessel was allowed to pass through the Suez Canal in quarantine-that is to say, with guards on board to prevent communication with the land on either side. Before the arrival of the ship at Southampton Dr. Bulstrode, of the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, went down to Southampton to confer with Mr. Harris, the port medical officer of health, and to arrange with the naval and military authorities as to the landing of some 1200 men, women, and children on board, and he remained there to All necessary watch the disembarkation of the troops, &c. arrangements were completed before the arrival of the vessel, and, in accordance with English practice, no persons The were detained, since all were healthy on arrival. arrangements at Southampton, which are largely due to Mr. Harris’s admirable initiative, sufficed for all purposes ; and since no fresh cases had occurred on board nothing but medical inspection and certain measures of disinfection were necessary. This case proves anew how easy it is, with proper sanitary administration and healthy conditions on board, to deal with and to prevent recurrences of plague,i and it also justifies the action laid down by the Local Government Board in dealing with this disease, which was The unavoidable inclusion of the cholera deaths in the formerly subject to quarantine at our ports. This is the third vessel reaching an English port in which there has beenportion of the table referring to the provincial towns has plague derived from Bombay, and in no case has there been the effect of making the infantile death-rate appear to be more favourable than was actually the case, for judging any extension of the disease. by Cairo and Alexandria the number of young children carried off by the epidemic must have been comparatively A CLINICAL meeting of the Neurological Society of London small ; but even as they stand the figures represent a terrible will be held at the rcoms of the Medical Society, 11, Chandos- preponderance of premature mortality, no fewer than sixty street, W., on April 22nd, at 8.30 P.M. Members wishing out of every hundred burials having been of children under to show cases are invited to communicate with one of five years of age. Compared with the births this slaughter the hon. secretaries, Dr. F. W. Mott and Dr. J. S. Risien of the innocents comes out in, if possible, a worse light, as Russell, as soon as possible, and are requested to send to will be seen by the subjoined table. 4, Qacen Anne-street, W., very short abstracts dealing with Deat7is per 1000 Births. the salient features of the cases.
Hospital Reform Association will present its memorial against hospital abuse to the Royal College of Physicians of London in a few days’ time, so that members of the profession are invited to sign it without delay. At the meeting of the Council of the Association held on April 1st it was decided to prepare a memorial on hospital reform for preTHE
sentation to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.
UNDER the auspices of the American Surgical Association and the Alumni Association of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia the statue of the late Professor Samuel D. Gross, M.D., will be unveiled near the Army Medical
Museum, Washington, D.C.,
on
Wednesday, May 8th, 1897.
In the former table one of the most noteworthy features is the progressive increase in the mortality up to the end of the third quarter. It is not until the Nile rises and washes away the impurities that the death-rate begins to
diminish.
given thousands of times daily. Perfection in armsthetics has yet to be found, but it may fairly be claimed for nitrous oxide that it has stood the test of time well and may still claim for its title " the safest of ansesthetics." It must be understood that nitrous oxide anaesthesia is not asphyxia ; the one condition is associated with increased vigour of the heart’s action, the other rapidly leads to paralytic distension of the bloodvessels owing to impeded circulation through the lungs. so
THE
PLAGUE
ON BOARD TRANSPORT.
A
INFANTILE MORTALITY IN EGYPT. A CORRESPONDENT, who has been examining the weekly statistical returns issued by the Egyptian Sanitary Department, has tabulated a summary of the facts relative to the deaths of children during each quarter of the year 1896; and the results, which are shown below, may be correctly described as appalling.
BRITISH
THE Dil7vara, hired transport, bringing troops from India, arrived at Southampton on April 6th. This is the vessel on which a case of fatal plague occurred on March 18th. On reaching Suez the persons who had been in immediate contact with the deceased child were landed at Moses’ Wells, disinfection was carried out, and the vessel was allowed to pass through the Suez Canal in quarantine-that is to say, with guards on board to prevent communication with the land on either side. Before the arrival of the ship at Southampton Dr. Bulstrode, of the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, went down to Southampton to confer with Mr. Harris, the port medical officer of health, and to arrange with the naval and military authorities as to the landing of some 1200 men, women, and children on board, and he remained there to All necessary watch the disembarkation of the troops, &c. arrangements were completed before the arrival of the vessel, and, in accordance with English practice, no persons The were detained, since all were healthy on arrival. arrangements at Southampton, which are largely due to Mr. Harris’s admirable initiative, sufficed for all purposes ; and since no fresh cases had occurred on board nothing but medical inspection and certain measures of disinfection were necessary. This case proves anew how easy it is, with proper sanitary administration and healthy conditions on board, to deal with and to prevent recurrences of plague,i and it also justifies the action laid down by the Local Government Board in dealing with this disease, which was The unavoidable inclusion of the cholera deaths in the formerly subject to quarantine at our ports. This is the third vessel reaching an English port in which there has beenportion of the table referring to the provincial towns has plague derived from Bombay, and in no case has there been the effect of making the infantile death-rate appear to be more favourable than was actually the case, for judging any extension of the disease. by Cairo and Alexandria the number of young children carried off by the epidemic must have been comparatively A CLINICAL meeting of the Neurological Society of London small ; but even as they stand the figures represent a terrible will be held at the rcoms of the Medical Society, 11, Chandos- preponderance of premature mortality, no fewer than sixty street, W., on April 22nd, at 8.30 P.M. Members wishing out of every hundred burials having been of children under to show cases are invited to communicate with one of five years of age. Compared with the births this slaughter the hon. secretaries, Dr. F. W. Mott and Dr. J. S. Risien of the innocents comes out in, if possible, a worse light, as Russell, as soon as possible, and are requested to send to will be seen by the subjoined table. 4, Qacen Anne-street, W., very short abstracts dealing with Deat7is per 1000 Births. the salient features of the cases.
Hospital Reform Association will present its memorial against hospital abuse to the Royal College of Physicians of London in a few days’ time, so that members of the profession are invited to sign it without delay. At the meeting of the Council of the Association held on April 1st it was decided to prepare a memorial on hospital reform for preTHE
sentation to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.
UNDER the auspices of the American Surgical Association and the Alumni Association of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia the statue of the late Professor Samuel D. Gross, M.D., will be unveiled near the Army Medical
Museum, Washington, D.C.,
on
Wednesday, May 8th, 1897.
In the former table one of the most noteworthy features is the progressive increase in the mortality up to the end of the third quarter. It is not until the Nile rises and washes away the impurities that the death-rate begins to
diminish.