PARIS AND THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

1243

denying also any connexion between and the medical profession. I am,

County Hospital, Guildford,

quack

advertisements

yours faithfully, H. Oct. 15th, 1910.

relays

Sir,

J. FARDON.

of motor

drays

as

well

as

a

boat service.

Some

depots of the Societe Laitiere Rothschild refuse to sell to everyone, as they were obliged to At the had only enough for families with children. hospitals Cochin and Lariboisiere no inconvenience was felt, but the supply for the maternity hospital Baudelocque of

the

was not enough for its needs. There was considerable uneasiness on Wednesday at the different establishments of the Assistance Publique. At the Salpetriere the daily distribution of 300 litres of milk was reduced to 150 litres. Many of these places, such as Berck, Angicourt, SaintParis during the Strike : The General hood-sicpply.-The Firmin-Vineuil and Aulnay-les-Bondy, are provisioned from Milk-supply.—The Pq4blic Danger. Paris, and the Assistance Publique was obliged to send THE great five days’ strike is now practically over as far 6000 kilos of victuals to the sanatorium of Angicourt by cart as Paris is concerned, but it will be some days before the and supplies of coal to Brevannes by motor-dray. On the total extent of the damage caused can be estimated. other hand, the directors were obliged to keep in Paris two Already the actual loss to commerce is calculated at 50 per convoys of sick children ready to be sent off to the sanacent. of the ordinary daily income, and it is expected that it toriums of Berck and Romorantin, while it was equally will take at least a week before a normal rate of business to despatch with their foster-mothers the little impossible can be carried on. ones who were to be established in homes in the departments The General Ziood-81tpply. of the Nord, Pas de Calais, and La Somme. Dr. Variot, the physician-in-chief of the " H6pital des Owing to the prompt measures taken by the Government as well as by private firms, the threatened danger of a Enfants Assistes," in a letter written to the Eclair on the shortage in the food-supply was averted from the first. 14th expressed his alarm at the non-arrival of the specially Three-quarters of the provisions needed daily by the prepared (sur-chauffé) milk which is sent from Normandy 2,270,000 people in the city comes by rail, but in the last 20 and sold at reduced prices for the benefit of the suffering years the river service has increased enormously, as much as poor. At the charitable organisation of the "Goutte de Lait 600,000 tons of foodstuff being landed yearly on the Paris de Bellevillethey were obliged to send away 200 poor quays. The authorities had not waited for the strikers before women who had come for the daily distribution of this milk, establishing a plan of mobilisation of the Seine shipping. This, and the authorities are to be warmly congratulated on the with the cooperation of carts bringing in the {country pro- prompt measures taken which caused this distressing state of duce and of orders forbidding the re-expedition to the things to last so short a time. By Saturday morning the provinces of cattle already in the stockyards at La Villette, milk was once more arriving in the ordinary quantities, put out of the question all cause for alarm on the score of though the customers in the Fifth and Sixth Arrondissements famine. had to wait for their supply till 9 o’clock, as the supply had The Prefecture of the Police requested M. Guichard, the been sent vid the Gare d’Austerlitz instead of the Gare de Market Commissioner, to draw up a map of France indicating Vaugirard. the points from which the chief supplies were obtained. This The Public Danger. map enabled the authorities to direct their energies at once In view of the different attempts which were made to on the most important sources of supplies, and by Thursday endanger the public safety, it is nothing less than marvellous night, Oct. 13th, within 48 hours of the commencement that the escapes have been so many and the casualties so of the strike, a system of specially guarded food trains, as well few. Law and order have had to reckon, among the strikers, as a boat service by river and canals, was in full working order. with a group of irresponsible persons openly glorying in The strikers tried to incite to revolt the carters who bring the their schemes for endangering the lives of their fellows, and provisions from the stations to the market, but this attempt no amount of foresight can entirely cope with the power for met with complete failure, some of the men being engaged harm of the man who fears no consequences. Wherever for their military service (which seems to have a calming measures were possible they were quickly taken, preventive effect), and the others being accompanied on their wagons and it is largely due to the vigilance of M. Briand and by an armed soldier. M. Lepine that France has not had to deplore more than one Prices in consequence of these able measures for the most hideous catastrophe. During the strike the many acts of part remained normal, the only exceptions being butter, eggs, sabotage, usually discovered only just in time to avert a potatoes, and fish. The rise in eggs may be accounted for terrible accident, have been duly noted in the press. It is, by the fact that the consignments usually coming in from perhaps, not so well known that similar attempts were being the foreign markets are a little late this year. The rise in made for some months before the strike was declared. potatoes is attributed to the bad harvest, which has just Naturally the railway companies do not care to publish induced the Government to allow the importation of American abroad the details, but from time to time some indiscreet potatoes, which have hitherto been excluded from the French journalist elicits such facts as the signal cutting at the station markets on account of their fear of the potato blight. The of Maison Alfort or the attempted train wrecking at fish market was the only one seriously affected by the strike. near Chaumont, when the lights were put out and Jonchery, On the 12th only 92,000 kilos from the Dutch, Belgian, and a beam was laid across the track. It is also a fact well known French ports arrived at Les Halles instead of the usual in railway circles that in the suburbs surrounding Paris the amount of 200,000 kilos, and this caused a rise in price of of the wires which control the signals, or the points, cutting 20 per cent. The non-arrival was not entirely due to the or the telegraph is a matter of frequent, some say daily, lack of train service, for more than one car load arrived on occurrence. Thursday at the Gare du Nord, but as no one was admitted The Government has taken extraordinary precautions from to the platforms for fear of sabotage, the fish was allowed the beginning. Several battalions of soldiers were quickly to rot in the station. number The bakers, who perforce marched into Paris to guard the railway stations, where the 2200, declared that they had sufficient flour in stock to police might be seen loitering about the doors in groups of furnish their customers with bread for at least 11 days, and from 10 to 15. Military engineers were employed in the the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables was assured, to some electric works, and detachments of soldiers were railway extent at least, by the market carts which come in from the distributed along the tracks at regular intervals to guard country every day. the train wreckers. The two big demonstrations of against The Milk-supply. the strikers which took place in Paris were so well guarded The chief fear was in regard to the milk in view of the that the list of casualties was small, and even the numerous dependence on it of the children and the sick. There was a cases where the workers have been assailed by the strikers considerable shortage on Wednesday and Thursday. Of the have not had any serious consequences. On the whole, Pari,,iai3s have shown a wonderful amount of 870,000 litres of milk that come into Paris daily, about 200,000 litres are delivered at the Gare du Nord, and on sangfroid—from M. Lepine, strolling into the office of Wednesday morning the dealers had to face a shortage of L’Humanité and gracefully introducing M. Hamard with his 90,000 litres. About 10.000 litres were brought into the warrant to arrest the assembled editors, down to the little city by a temporary cart service, and the Societe Maggi midinette philosophically truding the five miles to her atelier. made heroic efforts to supply its customers by means of Save the timid souls who thronged the big grocery shops and

PARIS AND THE RAILWAY STRIKE. (FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

1244 their large orders of last January, everyone seemed recognise that M. Briand has had a firm grasp of the situation from the very beginning. There is not a little irony in the fact that it is the poorer

repeated to

classes who have been the chief sufferers from the strike. The total losses of the Gravelines fishermen amount to £2000, while the small dealers in Paris suffered considerably from the non-arrival of their wares. The cost of living in the city being prohibitive to many workpeople, a large number live in the suburbs and come in every day by train or tramway. The failure of the electric power made the latter unavailable on many lines, and though a service of vans was soon established many people preferred to walk long distances rather than subtract from their modest daily wage the franc demanded for the drive. At the time of writing more fiendish attempts at bomb-throwing are reported. The bombs aimed at the rich have done no damage beyond wrecking a few windows. The only victim is a poor street cleaner, peaceably doing his duty, whose eyes have been badly burnt of a package which had evidently been by the thrown into the gutter by someone who thought himself

explosion

pursued. The history

of last week’s strike offers many unnoticed details of duty unobtrusively performed. These never get such big headlines as the achievements of the strikers. But pessimists would do well to remember such instances as the linesmen who stuck to their posts and industriously helped the military engineers to repair the acts of destruction, and the driver who stayed 20 hours on his engine in order to pick up and take on to Paris three extra car-loads of provisions which he found abandoned en route and which he succeeded in bringing into the city with only 25 minutes’ delay. The soldiers contributed not a little to the good humour of the crowds filling the stations by the willing fashion they acted as amateur porters, while if the public are thankful the strike is over the police are no less content. In reply to an inquiry as to whether the trains were running on Saturday night the tall policeman answered, "Mais oui, mais oui, ca marche bien. Il n’y a que nous qui ne marche pas, parce que nous n’en pouvons plus." Oct. 17th. _________________

NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TUBERCULOSIS. (FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) THIS year the International Conference on Tuberculosis held its ninth series of sessions at Brussels between Oct. 5th and 8th, under the patronage of His Majesty King Albert of

Belgium. Permanent Commissions.

The first day, devoted to the meetings of the council, it bulked but little in the puhlic eye, was of importance in so far that a series of permanent commissions were then organised, some of them dealing with entirely new subjects, others continuing subjects already under consideration. The President, M. BOURGEOIS, suggested that these commissions should be made permanent and that they should be asked to report at the Conference to be held at Rome next year. Six of these commissions are to collect evidence on questions of a more or less scientific character, and six are to deal with social questions. In the first group are included such questions as predisposition ; channels of infection ; milk; methods of treatment, scientific and vaccinal ; international methods of notation ; and the curative action of the solar rays. In the second group we have the part played by women in the crusade against tuberculosis ; child-life and school hygiene ; prophylaxis and the part played by the dispensary ; the cure of tuberculosis ; the public measures to be taken against tuberculosis ; and the statistics of tuberculosis. On these commissions are represented. as far as possible, the different nationalities taking part in the work of the C ongress. In the evening a reception was given by the Governor of Brabant, M. Beco, who was acting as the President of the Committee of Organisation. f ormal Opening of the Conference. On Thursday morning, the 6th, the formal opening of the Conference was under the presidency of M. BERRYER, Minister of the Interior, who compared the Tuberculosis

though

Congress to the great Peace Congress at The Hague. Both, he said, were inspired by the same profound thought, and both wished to obtain the same results; in fact, one merged into the other, and the warring of man against man was being gradually replaced, thanks to a more humane sentiment, by a movement in which all men were combining in common action against the universal ills of vice, misery, disease, and death-a sentiment that was echoed most eloquently by M. BOURGEOIS. Discussion on the Influence of Predisposition and Heredity. Professor LANDOUZY, introducing the first subject for disclaimed cussion, the Influence of Predisposition and that these were almost as important from the practical point of view as was the bacillus of Koch itself. He maintained that the bacillus tuberculosis in the parent might act in two ways, either by direct passage from the parent to the offspring or by some toxic action on the ovum or upon the foetus. He pointed out that these two sets of conditions were necessarily perfectly distinct, but maintained that the latter was of far more importance than the former and that it accounted for the peculiar tuberculous diathesis so frequently met with in patients the subjects of tuberculosis. He maintained that they were degenerates who often came into the world before their time, were under weight, short in stature, with thin, delicate bones, flattened chests, a skin delicate and soft, small extremities, pale and sickly face, veins very transparent, hair prematurely de-

Heredity,

veloped, long eyelashes, glands easily enlarged, and aspect weakly. Such features he had found specially amongst his patients and, curiously enough, these patients, with their silky, golden, or red hair, their pale, transparent skin, finely spotted with freckles, reminded him of those beauties depicted by the painters of the Venetian School, for which reason he spoke of them as of the Venetian type, or vir rufus. Such patients, he thought, were specially subject to tuberculosis. M. ARLOING (Lyons), following Professor Landouzy, agreed that tuberculosis itself was seldom communicated directly from mother to child, but that a certain functional debility might be transmitted, this leaving the child open to the invasion of various causes of disease and death. In this transmission the mother played a much more important part than did the father. He thought, however, that it would be a very difficult matter indeed to demonstrate experimentally any predisposition, native or hereditary, to tuberculosis, though he believed that the offspring of the tuberculous subjects were more susceptible than those born of normal persons. This, however, was a matter that required further consideration. Dr. AUFRECHT, speaking of the natural portals of entry, maintained that the most important of these were undoubtedly the following: the mucous membranes of the throat, especially that of the tonsils, the intestinal mucous membrane, and the epidermis. He held that the lymphatic glands played a great part in sifting out and destroying the bacilli and that as these glands became lowered in vitality they might be broken down and become scrofulous. He seemed to lay special stress on the glands and the part they played in the tuberculous process. Professor CALMRTTE, in speaking of the special predisposition of children of tuberculous parents, said that this receptivity was not specific as regards tuberculosis but applied generally to various infections and intoxications. The predisposed of the clinicians he maintained were almost invariably the subjects of infection ; they were, he thought, already more or less gravely affected, especially as regards the lymphatic glands and in almost all cases reacted positively to the various tuberculin tests. Again, he found that if in place of tuberculin he injected mallein into such patients he obtained a definite loss of weight, this showing that there was a general as well as a specific predisposition. The stigmata of tuberculosis appearing at certain ages were, he thought, the result of earlier infections. Indeed, he found that of children coming up to be vaccinated 90 per cent. of those from the town of Lille were already infected with the bacillus of tuberculosis, even in cases where no definite lesions were developed, whilst in one lunatic asylum he found no fewer than 87 68 per cent. of the patients giving the skin reaction, so that if they were not already tuberculous they were certainly the carriers of the germs of the disease. M C. GUÉRIN agreed that amongst animals those with non-pigmented coats appeared to be more susceptible or had