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SAD DEATH OF A SURGEON AT PECKHAM.
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night for signalmen, but it is both unfair and foolish of the relieving officer at this point became so anomalous single out the directors of a particular railway and that they called for a strong and unfavourable expression of hold them up to opprobrium as "the persons really- opinion on the part of the coroner, with whom we fully responsible" for a lamentable mishap merely because, in concur. Jtis entirely wrong that it should be possible for a common with many other railway authorities, they have member of the community who has committed no overt act sanctioned the employment of their signalmen for longer to be removed from his home as a lunatic by a minor lay periods of time. We trust that a more discriininating temper i official before any medical examination as to his mental conwill prevail in the public discussion of the lessons of the dition has been made. A case of this sort does incalculable Thirsk accident, for it would be regrettable indeed if, from harm to the working of the Lunacy Acts, and accentuates whatever the cause, the discussion were to degenerate into a the uneasiness of the public mind on the subject. No time bandying of random accusations and indignant rebuttals to ought to be lost in looking after a person whose mental conwhich heedless charges made in such circumstances inevitably dition renders him a source of danger to himself or to others; tend. but the responsibility of action ought to be thrown as speedily as possible upon the shoulders of the medical authorities. hours’
to
____
THE IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD AND CHOLERA PROSPECTS.
CIRCULARS have been issued by the Local Government Board of Ireland, entitled "Prectiitions against Cholera," in which all sanitary authorities are urged to utilise the present winter and spring in removing from their midst those conditions which are known to be identified with the diffusion of cholera. Vigilance as to water-supplies, sewers and drains and the like receives a prominent place in the circulars. The housing of the poorer classes is next dealt with, and then come a series of precautions which it is necessary to adopt in the case of persons already suffering from cholera, and also with a view to its prevention among the population generally. Appended to the document dealing with the latter subjects is a memorandum drawn up by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, containing a few practical hints for the healthy and some simple remedies for the sick. A second memorandum traces the course of cholera and refers to its prospects during 1893 ; it also deals with the demands that have been made as to the imposition of quarantine restrictions. The experience of England is referred to in this connexion, and the Irish public are finally told that it would be useless to place reliance upon any system of quarantine, or even to trust wholly to medical inspection of vessels entering ports. Under these circumstances the Board again urge both the sanitary authorities and the public to make their preparations in advance, so that they may not find themselves at an unexpected moment face to face with cholera spreading through insanitary conditions, and this without any ready means of defence against it. The circulars are signed by the secretariat of the Board, but it is evident that the excellent and well-timed advice which they embody emanates, in the main, from Sir F. MacCabe, the medical adviser to the Board.
SAD DEATH OF A SURGEON AT PECKHAM. ON the 15th inst. Mr. G. P. Wyatt, coroner for the southern division of London, held an inquiry at the George and Dragon, Peckham, respecting the death of James Andrew
Murray, aged thirty-two years, a surgeon, lately residing at 49, St. Mary’s-road, Peckham, who had been found dead under circumstances of a very painful nature. Mrs. Albina Murray of Cork, Ireland, identified the body as being that of her son, who
was a
widower.
The circumstances of this sad
THE PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES. IT is stated that steps are being taken to apply to Parliament in the coming session for an Act which shall make illegal the discharge of any sewage, purified or unpurified, into the Thames between Egham and the intakes of the London water companies. There is little doubt that sewagecontaminated water is frequently drawn from the river by the water companies, but the method of filtration, simple though it be, would appear to free it to a large extent from
its objectionable organic impurities. But does mere sand filtration effect the removal of organisms ? If, for example, the dejecta of a cholera patient were thrown into the river just above an intake, it is hardly conceivable that the ordinary process of filtration would render such contaminated water perfectly safe to drink. Evidence is very much wanted to clear up this point. Meanwhile the advisability of taking the course it is proposed to take will hardly be disputed, and, further, it is only reasonable to expect that the water companies should bear indirectly part of the cost of the outlay necessarily involved. --
LEICESTER ISOLATION ARRANGEMENTS. THE question of the provision of a new hospital for infectious diseases at Leicester is at a standstill, and we cannot but think that the refusal of the Town Council to come to any decisive conclusion is in part due to the fact that the chairman of the Sanitary Committee practically ignored, if he did not oppose, the protest of the Leicester Medical Society, who formally objected to the aggregation of small-pox cases on the site proposed, a site on which it is intended to receive other infectious fevers. Already smallpox has spread to other wards ; indeed, Mr. Bremner’s account to the Council of the diseases contracted by different patients in the existing hospital is such as to make us wonder how the place can be regarded as an I I isolation" hospital at all. One and that is that the present hospital and its thing is certain, " 6 quarantine arrangements are utterly inadequate, and have failed in their professed purpose. It was admitted at the council meeting to be an ugly makeshift, a disgrace to the town, and to afford no proper means for the so-called quarantine system. This is what we always contended. But it is no reason why Leicester should remain idle. We admit that the question of site is all important, and this especially if small-pox is considered ; and there is perhaps one advantage in the postponement of the question for the moment, for the delay will prevent any new attempt to deal with small-pox in the immediate future in such a way as to prevent the provision of such accommodation for the infectious fevers generally as a town like Leicester ought to possess. The existing site is already becoming sur-
melancholy as they well could be. From the evidence it is to be gathered that Mr. Murray’s mind was to some extent unhinged owing to pecuniary and domestic troubles and excessive drinking ; and that, in the opinion of those who knew him, he was a source of danger to himself at least, if not to others. It was not surprising therefore that steps were taken by someone to have his mental condition professionally inquired into. The cumbrous process of the law as to the certification of insanity in individuals was made rounded by houses, building operations are likely to increase evident at this stage, in so far as there had to be a sworn in its neighbourhood; and if it be a fact, as alleged by some affidavit and information laid before the magistrate, who there- members of the Council, that other and better sites are availupon ordered a medical examination. The position and action able, such alternative sites ought to be fairly considered case are as
night for signalmen, but it is both unfair and foolish of the relieving officer at this point became so anomalous single out the directors of a particular railway and that they called for a strong and unfavourable expression of hold them up to opprobrium as "the persons really- opinion on the part of the coroner, with whom we fully responsible" for a lamentable mishap merely because, in concur. Jtis entirely wrong that it should be possible for a common with many other railway authorities, they have member of the community who has committed no overt act sanctioned the employment of their signalmen for longer to be removed from his home as a lunatic by a minor lay periods of time. We trust that a more discriininating temper i official before any medical examination as to his mental conwill prevail in the public discussion of the lessons of the dition has been made. A case of this sort does incalculable Thirsk accident, for it would be regrettable indeed if, from harm to the working of the Lunacy Acts, and accentuates whatever the cause, the discussion were to degenerate into a the uneasiness of the public mind on the subject. No time bandying of random accusations and indignant rebuttals to ought to be lost in looking after a person whose mental conwhich heedless charges made in such circumstances inevitably dition renders him a source of danger to himself or to others; tend. but the responsibility of action ought to be thrown as speedily as possible upon the shoulders of the medical authorities. hours’
to
____
THE IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD AND CHOLERA PROSPECTS.
CIRCULARS have been issued by the Local Government Board of Ireland, entitled "Prectiitions against Cholera," in which all sanitary authorities are urged to utilise the present winter and spring in removing from their midst those conditions which are known to be identified with the diffusion of cholera. Vigilance as to water-supplies, sewers and drains and the like receives a prominent place in the circulars. The housing of the poorer classes is next dealt with, and then come a series of precautions which it is necessary to adopt in the case of persons already suffering from cholera, and also with a view to its prevention among the population generally. Appended to the document dealing with the latter subjects is a memorandum drawn up by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, containing a few practical hints for the healthy and some simple remedies for the sick. A second memorandum traces the course of cholera and refers to its prospects during 1893 ; it also deals with the demands that have been made as to the imposition of quarantine restrictions. The experience of England is referred to in this connexion, and the Irish public are finally told that it would be useless to place reliance upon any system of quarantine, or even to trust wholly to medical inspection of vessels entering ports. Under these circumstances the Board again urge both the sanitary authorities and the public to make their preparations in advance, so that they may not find themselves at an unexpected moment face to face with cholera spreading through insanitary conditions, and this without any ready means of defence against it. The circulars are signed by the secretariat of the Board, but it is evident that the excellent and well-timed advice which they embody emanates, in the main, from Sir F. MacCabe, the medical adviser to the Board.
SAD DEATH OF A SURGEON AT PECKHAM. ON the 15th inst. Mr. G. P. Wyatt, coroner for the southern division of London, held an inquiry at the George and Dragon, Peckham, respecting the death of James Andrew
Murray, aged thirty-two years, a surgeon, lately residing at 49, St. Mary’s-road, Peckham, who had been found dead under circumstances of a very painful nature. Mrs. Albina Murray of Cork, Ireland, identified the body as being that of her son, who
was a
widower.
The circumstances of this sad
THE PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES. IT is stated that steps are being taken to apply to Parliament in the coming session for an Act which shall make illegal the discharge of any sewage, purified or unpurified, into the Thames between Egham and the intakes of the London water companies. There is little doubt that sewagecontaminated water is frequently drawn from the river by the water companies, but the method of filtration, simple though it be, would appear to free it to a large extent from
its objectionable organic impurities. But does mere sand filtration effect the removal of organisms ? If, for example, the dejecta of a cholera patient were thrown into the river just above an intake, it is hardly conceivable that the ordinary process of filtration would render such contaminated water perfectly safe to drink. Evidence is very much wanted to clear up this point. Meanwhile the advisability of taking the course it is proposed to take will hardly be disputed, and, further, it is only reasonable to expect that the water companies should bear indirectly part of the cost of the outlay necessarily involved. --
LEICESTER ISOLATION ARRANGEMENTS. THE question of the provision of a new hospital for infectious diseases at Leicester is at a standstill, and we cannot but think that the refusal of the Town Council to come to any decisive conclusion is in part due to the fact that the chairman of the Sanitary Committee practically ignored, if he did not oppose, the protest of the Leicester Medical Society, who formally objected to the aggregation of small-pox cases on the site proposed, a site on which it is intended to receive other infectious fevers. Already smallpox has spread to other wards ; indeed, Mr. Bremner’s account to the Council of the diseases contracted by different patients in the existing hospital is such as to make us wonder how the place can be regarded as an I I isolation" hospital at all. One and that is that the present hospital and its thing is certain, " 6 quarantine arrangements are utterly inadequate, and have failed in their professed purpose. It was admitted at the council meeting to be an ugly makeshift, a disgrace to the town, and to afford no proper means for the so-called quarantine system. This is what we always contended. But it is no reason why Leicester should remain idle. We admit that the question of site is all important, and this especially if small-pox is considered ; and there is perhaps one advantage in the postponement of the question for the moment, for the delay will prevent any new attempt to deal with small-pox in the immediate future in such a way as to prevent the provision of such accommodation for the infectious fevers generally as a town like Leicester ought to possess. The existing site is already becoming sur-
melancholy as they well could be. From the evidence it is to be gathered that Mr. Murray’s mind was to some extent unhinged owing to pecuniary and domestic troubles and excessive drinking ; and that, in the opinion of those who knew him, he was a source of danger to himself at least, if not to others. It was not surprising therefore that steps were taken by someone to have his mental condition professionally inquired into. The cumbrous process of the law as to the certification of insanity in individuals was made rounded by houses, building operations are likely to increase evident at this stage, in so far as there had to be a sworn in its neighbourhood; and if it be a fact, as alleged by some affidavit and information laid before the magistrate, who there- members of the Council, that other and better sites are availupon ordered a medical examination. The position and action able, such alternative sites ought to be fairly considered case are as