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LAW R E P O R T S . to obtain a signature to the order, I cal!ed upon four justices of the peace in St. Pancras, and found they were not avaibble. I proceeded t,, Hendon with P~ofessor Penberthy, and after calling upon five magistrates, and driving a great number of miles, I at last obtained a signature to the order, and obtained admission to Mr. Y.'s yard. Professor Penberthy examined the animals. I ascertained from Mr. Y., that A., a milkman employed by him on the farm, on Tuesday morning, xTth October, at 6.30 a.m., went away ill, a , d t h a t it had been since a,cer~ained that be had scarlet fever. A lad B. fell ill on Sunday, the 22nd October, with q u i n s y ; he was not a cowman, but he had occasionally milked and worked on the farm.
On Sunday, the 5th November, I called on several London magistrates, and finally obtained a signature to the order to enter Mr. L.'s dairy, at H~gbgate, and took with me Professor Penberthy. He then had twelve cows, four of which had come in since the 3oth October. The produce of these cows he delivered as "Nursery Milk," and the surplus was mixed with the other sup~ly. H e again stated (and I had no evidence to the contrary), that ambngst those customers who were exclusively supplied with "Nursery Milk," no scarlet fever had occurred. In reference to the distribution of Milk in Highgate, I learnt that Mr. Z. had three sources of supply ; ( I ) from his own cows, (Q from Finsbury Park, (3) from Hendon. L His own cows supplied him with "Nursery Milk," and the surplus was added to the ordinary milk. Six customers and their families were supplied with nursery milk exc/usiz, dy, no ordinary milk being delivered to them. No case of scarlet fever occurred in the families Of these customers. 2 The milk from Finsbury Park was distributed in the afternoon on two rounds only ; on the third round none of this milk was delivered, so that the third round never received any of this milk. In the two rounds to which the milk was delivered there are ~9 ~ customers, and there were eight cases of scarlet fever amongst these customers, or 4"2 per cent. 3. The milk from Hendon was delivered in all three " r o u n d s " in the morning, that is, to all the customers served with ordinary milk, but in the afternoon was oniy delivered on one xound, called the "street round," the other two rounds being supplied with the Finsbury Park milk. In this particular round, called the "street r o u n d " there were exactly too customers, and there were 20 cases of scarlet fever a m o n g s t these customers, that is, zo per cent. So that out of a total of 28 cases amongst Z.'s customers, 2o or 7i"4 per cent. of the cases occurred in this round, to which the ordinary milk from Hendon was delivered, and from Which the Finsbury Park milk was altogether excluded.
i95
Mr. Z. had a certificate from the veterinary surgeon of the London County Council, to the effect thaf all his cows were in perfect heath. The above analysis showed, firstly, that the "Nurser), Mitk" from Z.'s own cows was not the cause of the spread of the disease, because no case occurred amongst those customers exclusively receiving it; secondly, that the Finsbury Park milk was :not the cause of the spread of the disease, because in the round from which it was altogether excluded, the disease was spread nevertheless ; in fact flve-seventks of the cases occurred in this round, therefore taking these facts in con. junction with the events at Hendon, I was of opinion that the milk delivered from Y.'s farm at Hendon was spreading infectious disease in Highgate. Pursuant to the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, x89I , notices were duly served on the dairyman (Z.) and on the farmer (Y.) to appear before your committee to show cause why orders should not be made by the sanitary authority requiring them not to supply any milk from ~he dairy and farm referred to within the district of St. Pancras, until the withdrawal of such orders by the sanitary authority. On the consideration of the subject, Professor Penberthy and Mr. Villar, the veterinary inspector of the district, were present with your committee. The dairyman and farmer attended, and failing to show why orders should not be made against them, but, on the contrary, consenting to such orders. your committee made prohibition orders against Z. and Y. in accordance with Section 7i of the Act referred to.
LAW R E P O R T S . PtLBROW 73. VESTRY OF ST. LEONARD, SHOREDITCH.
Sewer or Drain--Premises within the same eurLilage--LiabiIity of Vestry or Owner--Afelro~dis Zoeal 3lanagement Act, I855. This was an appeal from the decision of a Divisional Court (Mathew and Charles J.J.) holding that the drain .receiving the drainage from two blocks of buildings occupied in forty-siX sets of apartments, and separated by a causeway twenty feet wide, Was a " drain" and not a " sewer" within the meaning of the Metropolis Local Management Act, i855. The hearing before' the Divisional Court is reported in PUBLIC I-IEALTH, VO1. 7, P. II2, where the material facts of the case are fully set forth. The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal on the 2ist instant, when the Court
196
LAW R E P O R T S .
(Lord Esher, M.R., Lopes and Rigby, L.J.J.) dismissed the appeal (Lord Justice Rigby dissenting ) In delivering judgment, the Master of the Rolls said that the question Was, whether a certain thing, which had been constructed and used in a particular way, was a " d r a i n " or a "sewer" within the meamng of section 25o of the Metropolis Local Management Act, 1855 The Divisional Court had held that it was a drain, because it was built for the purpose of draining a curtilage. In his opinion the interpretation of the section did not in any way depend on considerations of conveyancing law. He thought that what they ought to consider was, the object with which the structure was built, and the manner in which it was used. The case was, that a definite small piece of ground had been built upon for the purpose of being used as one set of premises. Two blocks of buildings were erected, and between them a causeway was made, and it was clear that that causeway was intended t0 be a yard for the whole set of premises. The smallness of the space was certainly one of the matters to be taken into consideration. The whole was enclosed within boundary walls, and he thought that all within those boundary walls was substantially--having regard to the intentions of the builder--one bmlding. In these premises, forty or fifty families were to reside, each having its own separate apartments ; the staircases and everything else, except the separate apartments, were to be used in common by all. H e thought that as a matter of building, and as a matter of use, the two blocks and the yard formed one set of premises, and that the boundary walls formed a curtiiage, and that therefore the yard was a yar d within the curtilage. In this yard the builder laid a drain to collect the sewage from the two blocks, and carry it into what was undoubtedly a sewer. What he so laid in the yard was certainly what, in ordinary language, anybody would call a drain. T h e y were asked to hold that the Act of Parliament. had turned that which was in fact a drain into a sewer. H e could see no reason for so doing, and he agreed with the judgment of the Divisional Court. They had been pressed with the case of "Vestry of SL Mortify's-in-the-Fields v. Bird," (reported i~ Pubhc Z-lealt~, vol. ?, #. i i i ) i n which it was held that the Lowther Arcade was n o t a curtilage. In his opinion that case was quite diffei'ent from this. Lord Justice Lopes concurred in the above judgment. Lord Justice Rigby differed. He thought that the word "curtilage" was never applied to anything which was common to more than one messuage. The idea of something belonging to a dwelling-house seemed to run t h r o u g h a l l the definitions which had been given of the word. In his opinion there was no aufllority for treating
"curtilage" as equivalent to ring fence or bonndory. The element of smallness was no doubt one matter to be considered, b u t it was by no means the most important thing. He thought that in considering the mea,~ing of "curtilage " the main distinction to be drawn was that between a pt~ratity of messuages and a single messuage. Here there were at least two messuages--viz, the two blocks of buildings. If one of the blocks were conveyed separately , no doubt an easement might be created with regard to the use of the causeway; but the causeway could not be Considered any part of the curtilage of that block. He therefore thought that on the construction of section 250 of the Metropolis Local Management Act these were not preinises within the same curtilage. It appeared to him that the present case was governed by the Lowther Arcade case, the legal incidents of the two cases being the same. The case is reported in the Times newspaper of the 22nd January, 1895. SMART V. WATTS.
AduZteratian of Food--Margarine~Admission o] Manager--Compliance with formalities of Act a condition 2#recedenl 1o 20rosecution--~arffarine Act, 1887 . In this case the question was raised as to whether the admission by a manager in a shop, to an inspector acting under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, that the article sold was margarine, does away with the necessity of having the article analyzed, and of the compliance by the purchaser of the other formalities prescribed by the Margarine Act, 1887, with respect to the purchase o,~ samples. By section 12 of the Margarine Act, 1887, all proceedings under the Act are, save as expressly varied thereby, to be the same as prescribed by sections i2 to 28, inclusive, of the Sate of Food and Drugs Act, 1875. In the present case the inspector purchased, in a shop, margarine which was exposed for sale without any label thereon as required by, and otherwise not in conformity with, theprovisions of the Margarine Act, i887. A t the time of sale the manager of the shop expressly admitted that the article sold Was margarine, and not butter. The inspector, treating this admission as sufficient, did not proceed to notify his intention to have the article analysed, nor did he divide it into three parts as required by sections 2o and 2i of the ~ale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, nor did he procure any certificate of an analyst. On the hearing of a summons taken out by the inspector against the vendor for an offence under the Act, the objection was taken that the notification, division, and analysis required b y sections 20 and 21 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, were conditions
ANNOTATIONS.
precedent to the prosecution, which must therefore fail for the,want of them. T h e justices convicted the defendant, but stated a case upon the questions of law involved. The case was argued before a Divisional Court (Wills and Wright, J.J.) on the 18th December last, and it was contended for the complainant that the admission of the manager justified t h e conviction, and that it wou!d be a hardship on the defendaflt, who did not dispute the fact of the sale of margarine, that he should, if convicted, have to pay the costs of an unnecessary analysis. The Court allowed the appeal, and in giving judgment Mr. Justice Wills stated that he was sorry, under the circumstances, that the conviction must be set aside. That section i2 "of the Margarine Act, i887, expressly incorporated the provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, and rendered necessary the formalities prescribed by that Act. Those provisions had not been followed here, and the conviction therefore could not stand, though it might be regrettable that needless expense might have to be incurred. The case is reported in ** Times Law Reports, p. =62; 98 Law Journal, p. I83; Weekly Notes (~894), p. 44I; 39 Solicitors'Journal, p. I35. T H E VESTRY OF ST. MARTINS-IN-THE-FIELDS v. BIRD.
Sewer or Drain--Premises within ttte same curti/age --LiakiIi~ of ~stry or Owner--Metropolis Local klanagement Act, i855. In this ease the Court of Appeal (Lord Esher, M.R., and Lopes and Rigby, L.J.J.) have affirmed the decision of the Queen's Bench Division (reported in PUBLIC HEALTH, VO1. 7, P. IxI), holding that the drain used as a common drain/or the houses in Lowther Arcade and running down the passage between such houses was not a "drain" for the drainage of one building only, or premises within the same curtilage, within section 25o of the Metropolis Local Management Act, x855, but was a "sewer," for the repmr of which the local authority, and not the owner, was liable; The case is reported in 98 Law Times, p. I8o ; 39 Solicitors' Journal, p. I3L
'97
ANNOTATIONS. EXPOSURE OF A SCARLET FEVER PATIENT.
A recent report by Dr. Wellington Lake gives some striking particu ars of wilful carelessness on the part of "educated" persons, who, it may be hoped, will have their education completed ere long in a court of summary jurisdiction. A nurse was sent from a nursing institution in London to nurse the children Of a brewer, at High Wycombe, who were suffering from scarlet fever. On the fourth day after her arrival, the doctor in attendance found that the nurse herself had acquired scarlet fever. Within an hour she was travelling in a railway carriage; with two other passengers, to Paddington, thence by hansom to Waterloo, where she remained some twenty minutes in the ladies' waiting-room, and finally to Woking in a third. class carriage, with a lady and her son. From Woking Station she was conveyed to her destination in a cab, which was subsequently traced by the inspector, and disinfected. It appears that the removal of t h e nurse was arranged on the responsibility of the brewer and the doctor at High Wyeombe, although the rash was well out, and the patient's temperature i o r ' 8 deg. INFANT FEEDING. M. Duclaux in a communication to the Ann. de f Inst. _Pasteur on this subject, states that breastmilk has the advantage of corresponding in composition and physical properties to the needs of the infant's stomach, and of being free from noxious bacteria. Those which contaminate themilk in a dairy are lactic ferments, dangerous probably because of the acidity which they produce, perhaps, also, because they provoke rapid coagulation of the milk in large clots. The bacteria in the mouth of a healthy infant consist chiefly of fine filaments which remain coloured by Gram's method and belong to the group of a~robic tyrothrix, and are powerful producers of rennet, Cow's milk can be preserved free from bacteria by suitable pre. cautions. To render it fitted for infantile digestion, the best method appears to be that of G~rtner, of Vienna. The milk is mixed with an equal quantity of water and put into a centrifugal separator with equal chambers. The milk in the central chamber will receive all the fat and half the caseine and lactose, and nearly resemble human milk in composition. TIIE PROPORTION OF SMALL-POX A M O N G CHILDREN.
MICRo-ORGANISbIS OF SEWAGE,---The report by Mr. Parry Laws and Dr. Andrewes to the London County Council on the Micro-Organisms of Sewage has just been issued. It will be discussed in full in the next number of PUBLIC HEALTH.
YOUNG
Dr. Barwise has recently drawn attention to the large proportion of children dying under five years of age, amaunEn¢ to 40 per cent. of all the deaths from small-pox in an outbreak in Derbyshire. H e adds : " I n t h e eighteenth century, before the days of inoculation and vaccination, 90 per cent.
On Sunday, the 5th November, I called on several London magistrates, and finally obtained a signature to the order to enter Mr. L.'s dairy, at H~gbgate, and took with me Professor Penberthy. He then had twelve cows, four of which had come in since the 3oth October. The produce of these cows he delivered as "Nursery Milk," and the surplus was mixed with the other sup~ly. H e again stated (and I had no evidence to the contrary), that ambngst those customers who were exclusively supplied with "Nursery Milk," no scarlet fever had occurred. In reference to the distribution of Milk in Highgate, I learnt that Mr. Z. had three sources of supply ; ( I ) from his own cows, (Q from Finsbury Park, (3) from Hendon. L His own cows supplied him with "Nursery Milk," and the surplus was added to the ordinary milk. Six customers and their families were supplied with nursery milk exc/usiz, dy, no ordinary milk being delivered to them. No case of scarlet fever occurred in the families Of these customers. 2 The milk from Finsbury Park was distributed in the afternoon on two rounds only ; on the third round none of this milk was delivered, so that the third round never received any of this milk. In the two rounds to which the milk was delivered there are ~9 ~ customers, and there were eight cases of scarlet fever amongst these customers, or 4"2 per cent. 3. The milk from Hendon was delivered in all three " r o u n d s " in the morning, that is, to all the customers served with ordinary milk, but in the afternoon was oniy delivered on one xound, called the "street round," the other two rounds being supplied with the Finsbury Park milk. In this particular round, called the "street r o u n d " there were exactly too customers, and there were 20 cases of scarlet fever a m o n g s t these customers, that is, zo per cent. So that out of a total of 28 cases amongst Z.'s customers, 2o or 7i"4 per cent. of the cases occurred in this round, to which the ordinary milk from Hendon was delivered, and from Which the Finsbury Park milk was altogether excluded.
i95
Mr. Z. had a certificate from the veterinary surgeon of the London County Council, to the effect thaf all his cows were in perfect heath. The above analysis showed, firstly, that the "Nurser), Mitk" from Z.'s own cows was not the cause of the spread of the disease, because no case occurred amongst those customers exclusively receiving it; secondly, that the Finsbury Park milk was :not the cause of the spread of the disease, because in the round from which it was altogether excluded, the disease was spread nevertheless ; in fact flve-seventks of the cases occurred in this round, therefore taking these facts in con. junction with the events at Hendon, I was of opinion that the milk delivered from Y.'s farm at Hendon was spreading infectious disease in Highgate. Pursuant to the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, x89I , notices were duly served on the dairyman (Z.) and on the farmer (Y.) to appear before your committee to show cause why orders should not be made by the sanitary authority requiring them not to supply any milk from ~he dairy and farm referred to within the district of St. Pancras, until the withdrawal of such orders by the sanitary authority. On the consideration of the subject, Professor Penberthy and Mr. Villar, the veterinary inspector of the district, were present with your committee. The dairyman and farmer attended, and failing to show why orders should not be made against them, but, on the contrary, consenting to such orders. your committee made prohibition orders against Z. and Y. in accordance with Section 7i of the Act referred to.
LAW R E P O R T S . PtLBROW 73. VESTRY OF ST. LEONARD, SHOREDITCH.
Sewer or Drain--Premises within the same eurLilage--LiabiIity of Vestry or Owner--Afelro~dis Zoeal 3lanagement Act, I855. This was an appeal from the decision of a Divisional Court (Mathew and Charles J.J.) holding that the drain .receiving the drainage from two blocks of buildings occupied in forty-siX sets of apartments, and separated by a causeway twenty feet wide, Was a " drain" and not a " sewer" within the meaning of the Metropolis Local Management Act, i855. The hearing before' the Divisional Court is reported in PUBLIC I-IEALTH, VO1. 7, P. II2, where the material facts of the case are fully set forth. The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal on the 2ist instant, when the Court
196
LAW R E P O R T S .
(Lord Esher, M.R., Lopes and Rigby, L.J.J.) dismissed the appeal (Lord Justice Rigby dissenting ) In delivering judgment, the Master of the Rolls said that the question Was, whether a certain thing, which had been constructed and used in a particular way, was a " d r a i n " or a "sewer" within the meamng of section 25o of the Metropolis Local Management Act, 1855 The Divisional Court had held that it was a drain, because it was built for the purpose of draining a curtilage. In his opinion the interpretation of the section did not in any way depend on considerations of conveyancing law. He thought that what they ought to consider was, the object with which the structure was built, and the manner in which it was used. The case was, that a definite small piece of ground had been built upon for the purpose of being used as one set of premises. Two blocks of buildings were erected, and between them a causeway was made, and it was clear that that causeway was intended t0 be a yard for the whole set of premises. The smallness of the space was certainly one of the matters to be taken into consideration. The whole was enclosed within boundary walls, and he thought that all within those boundary walls was substantially--having regard to the intentions of the builder--one bmlding. In these premises, forty or fifty families were to reside, each having its own separate apartments ; the staircases and everything else, except the separate apartments, were to be used in common by all. H e thought that as a matter of building, and as a matter of use, the two blocks and the yard formed one set of premises, and that the boundary walls formed a curtiiage, and that therefore the yard was a yar d within the curtilage. In this yard the builder laid a drain to collect the sewage from the two blocks, and carry it into what was undoubtedly a sewer. What he so laid in the yard was certainly what, in ordinary language, anybody would call a drain. T h e y were asked to hold that the Act of Parliament. had turned that which was in fact a drain into a sewer. H e could see no reason for so doing, and he agreed with the judgment of the Divisional Court. They had been pressed with the case of "Vestry of SL Mortify's-in-the-Fields v. Bird," (reported i~ Pubhc Z-lealt~, vol. ?, #. i i i ) i n which it was held that the Lowther Arcade was n o t a curtilage. In his opinion that case was quite diffei'ent from this. Lord Justice Lopes concurred in the above judgment. Lord Justice Rigby differed. He thought that the word "curtilage" was never applied to anything which was common to more than one messuage. The idea of something belonging to a dwelling-house seemed to run t h r o u g h a l l the definitions which had been given of the word. In his opinion there was no aufllority for treating
"curtilage" as equivalent to ring fence or bonndory. The element of smallness was no doubt one matter to be considered, b u t it was by no means the most important thing. He thought that in considering the mea,~ing of "curtilage " the main distinction to be drawn was that between a pt~ratity of messuages and a single messuage. Here there were at least two messuages--viz, the two blocks of buildings. If one of the blocks were conveyed separately , no doubt an easement might be created with regard to the use of the causeway; but the causeway could not be Considered any part of the curtilage of that block. He therefore thought that on the construction of section 250 of the Metropolis Local Management Act these were not preinises within the same curtilage. It appeared to him that the present case was governed by the Lowther Arcade case, the legal incidents of the two cases being the same. The case is reported in the Times newspaper of the 22nd January, 1895. SMART V. WATTS.
AduZteratian of Food--Margarine~Admission o] Manager--Compliance with formalities of Act a condition 2#recedenl 1o 20rosecution--~arffarine Act, 1887 . In this case the question was raised as to whether the admission by a manager in a shop, to an inspector acting under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, that the article sold was margarine, does away with the necessity of having the article analyzed, and of the compliance by the purchaser of the other formalities prescribed by the Margarine Act, 1887, with respect to the purchase o,~ samples. By section 12 of the Margarine Act, 1887, all proceedings under the Act are, save as expressly varied thereby, to be the same as prescribed by sections i2 to 28, inclusive, of the Sate of Food and Drugs Act, 1875. In the present case the inspector purchased, in a shop, margarine which was exposed for sale without any label thereon as required by, and otherwise not in conformity with, theprovisions of the Margarine Act, i887. A t the time of sale the manager of the shop expressly admitted that the article sold Was margarine, and not butter. The inspector, treating this admission as sufficient, did not proceed to notify his intention to have the article analysed, nor did he divide it into three parts as required by sections 2o and 2i of the ~ale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, nor did he procure any certificate of an analyst. On the hearing of a summons taken out by the inspector against the vendor for an offence under the Act, the objection was taken that the notification, division, and analysis required b y sections 20 and 21 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, were conditions
ANNOTATIONS.
precedent to the prosecution, which must therefore fail for the,want of them. T h e justices convicted the defendant, but stated a case upon the questions of law involved. The case was argued before a Divisional Court (Wills and Wright, J.J.) on the 18th December last, and it was contended for the complainant that the admission of the manager justified t h e conviction, and that it wou!d be a hardship on the defendaflt, who did not dispute the fact of the sale of margarine, that he should, if convicted, have to pay the costs of an unnecessary analysis. The Court allowed the appeal, and in giving judgment Mr. Justice Wills stated that he was sorry, under the circumstances, that the conviction must be set aside. That section i2 "of the Margarine Act, i887, expressly incorporated the provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, I875, and rendered necessary the formalities prescribed by that Act. Those provisions had not been followed here, and the conviction therefore could not stand, though it might be regrettable that needless expense might have to be incurred. The case is reported in ** Times Law Reports, p. =62; 98 Law Journal, p. I83; Weekly Notes (~894), p. 44I; 39 Solicitors'Journal, p. I35. T H E VESTRY OF ST. MARTINS-IN-THE-FIELDS v. BIRD.
Sewer or Drain--Premises within ttte same curti/age --LiakiIi~ of ~stry or Owner--Metropolis Local klanagement Act, i855. In this ease the Court of Appeal (Lord Esher, M.R., and Lopes and Rigby, L.J.J.) have affirmed the decision of the Queen's Bench Division (reported in PUBLIC HEALTH, VO1. 7, P. IxI), holding that the drain used as a common drain/or the houses in Lowther Arcade and running down the passage between such houses was not a "drain" for the drainage of one building only, or premises within the same curtilage, within section 25o of the Metropolis Local Management Act, x855, but was a "sewer," for the repmr of which the local authority, and not the owner, was liable; The case is reported in 98 Law Times, p. I8o ; 39 Solicitors' Journal, p. I3L
'97
ANNOTATIONS. EXPOSURE OF A SCARLET FEVER PATIENT.
A recent report by Dr. Wellington Lake gives some striking particu ars of wilful carelessness on the part of "educated" persons, who, it may be hoped, will have their education completed ere long in a court of summary jurisdiction. A nurse was sent from a nursing institution in London to nurse the children Of a brewer, at High Wycombe, who were suffering from scarlet fever. On the fourth day after her arrival, the doctor in attendance found that the nurse herself had acquired scarlet fever. Within an hour she was travelling in a railway carriage; with two other passengers, to Paddington, thence by hansom to Waterloo, where she remained some twenty minutes in the ladies' waiting-room, and finally to Woking in a third. class carriage, with a lady and her son. From Woking Station she was conveyed to her destination in a cab, which was subsequently traced by the inspector, and disinfected. It appears that the removal of t h e nurse was arranged on the responsibility of the brewer and the doctor at High Wyeombe, although the rash was well out, and the patient's temperature i o r ' 8 deg. INFANT FEEDING. M. Duclaux in a communication to the Ann. de f Inst. _Pasteur on this subject, states that breastmilk has the advantage of corresponding in composition and physical properties to the needs of the infant's stomach, and of being free from noxious bacteria. Those which contaminate themilk in a dairy are lactic ferments, dangerous probably because of the acidity which they produce, perhaps, also, because they provoke rapid coagulation of the milk in large clots. The bacteria in the mouth of a healthy infant consist chiefly of fine filaments which remain coloured by Gram's method and belong to the group of a~robic tyrothrix, and are powerful producers of rennet, Cow's milk can be preserved free from bacteria by suitable pre. cautions. To render it fitted for infantile digestion, the best method appears to be that of G~rtner, of Vienna. The milk is mixed with an equal quantity of water and put into a centrifugal separator with equal chambers. The milk in the central chamber will receive all the fat and half the caseine and lactose, and nearly resemble human milk in composition. TIIE PROPORTION OF SMALL-POX A M O N G CHILDREN.
MICRo-ORGANISbIS OF SEWAGE,---The report by Mr. Parry Laws and Dr. Andrewes to the London County Council on the Micro-Organisms of Sewage has just been issued. It will be discussed in full in the next number of PUBLIC HEALTH.
YOUNG
Dr. Barwise has recently drawn attention to the large proportion of children dying under five years of age, amaunEn¢ to 40 per cent. of all the deaths from small-pox in an outbreak in Derbyshire. H e adds : " I n t h e eighteenth century, before the days of inoculation and vaccination, 90 per cent.