THE BRITISH SCHOOL IN ROME.

1153 coloured with vegetable colouring, such as the Excavator-in-Chief of the Forum Romanum ; the Contessa chlorophyll of spinach, known as spinach-green, which is Lovatelli-Caetani, the accomplished archaeologist reprenow made in large quantities for many commercial purposes. senting the Royal Academy of the Lincei; and a numerous So far this account of modern sweets is satisfactory, but a attendance of graduates from the Universities of Oxford, somewhat unexpected and most objectionable method of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews. Lord sweets

are

sweets has just been brought to our notice. to glitter by means of splinters of made Sweets has the appearance of sparkling sweet that the so glass, in our laboratory at the time of We have crystal sugar. even high-class confectionery, of some specimens writing said to be of French make, which all contain a liberal sprinkling of glass splinters. When the sweet is dissolved in warm water the splinters tumble to the bottom of the fluid into a miniature heap of broken glass. The splinters present both sharp points and sharp edges ,which are eminently calculated to cause an injury to the walls of the digestive canal. It is difficult to imagine a more powerful mechanical irritant than jags of glass which might easily cause laceration and haemorrhage, not to mention other disturbances such as are set up by foreign bodies less jagged than glais in the alimentary canal. The sweets to which we have referred were sent to us by a correspondent with a request for analysis, and he relates that these sweets were partaken of by two little children who shortly afterwards suffered,from severe abdominal pain, in the one case in the region of the appendix. The pain persisted for several days. The effect of sharp glassy particles lodging in the appendix could, of course, be easily disastrous. Our analysis enables us to say most positively that these glittering particles are glass. They are quite unchanged in boiling water or in boiling acids and melt into beads at a red heat. On analysis we obtained silioo, lime, soda, and a little lead, which are the constituents of common glass. From their appearance on the sweets the flakes might easily be taken for gelatin or mica. The glass is probably prepared by crushing glass bubbles. It is said that the practice of employing glass in this way for decorating confectionery is extensively resorted to, especially by French makers. The sale of such sweets should render the seller liable to heavy penalties or, better, to incarceration, for broken glass may act exactly as an irritant poison and is most injurious to health. We trust that the Local Government Board will give attention to this matter in order that the local authorities throughout the country may by means of the machinery of the Food and Drugs Act institute practical inquiries and stop the sale of such dangerous It is probable that the practice is adopted in articles. order to compensate for the absence of any crystalline appearance in glucose which is now so much used as a substitute for cane sugar in confectionery. In such a case the practice is not only monstrous because it is likely to lead to serious injury to health, but because it is a fraud also. Sanded sugar was bad enough, but to put glass splinters in sweets is diabolical.

manipulating are

___

THE BRITISH SCHOOL IN "AN Italian

ROME.

Contributor," under date, Rome, April 12th, "Medicine with her sister faculties of law and divinity was duly represented in the brilliant gathering assembled yesterday in the Palazzo Odescalchi to launch the British school and, metaphorically speaking, to break a flask ofbottled sunshine’ over its bows. Lord Currie, His Majesty’s Ambassador at the Court of the Quirinal, presided and the company included the Archbishop of York, the heads of the German, French, Austrian, and American archaeological schools respectively, Mr. H. F. Pelham, President of Trinity College, Oxford, and Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford; the Cavaliere Lanciani, Professor of Roman Topography at the Sapienza; the Commendatore Boni,

writes:

Currie briefly indicated the origin and aim of the school, and paid a well-merited and loudly applauded tribute of praise to Professor Pelham, the chief promoter of the school and chairman of the Executive Committee. Professor Pelham followed with a happy reference to the importance, the interest, and the fascination of the studies now for the first time accessible to the British student in a duly constituted and equipped British school, and after him came Professor Eugen Petersen, first secretary of the Roman Branch of the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, and the Abb6 Duchesne of the École Franchise, to extend the right hand of fellowship to their young rival. The speeches, all of them happy in tone and cordial in expression, had their appropriate sequel in the conversazione which followed as the company dispersed through the rooms or lingered over the well-provided bultet. Particularly gratifying to the medical contingent was the library with its assortment of books appealing specially to the student of the healing art in its historical aspects-Hippocrates being represented in the great editions of Littré and Ermerins and Celsus, in those of Milligan, Des Etangs and De Renzi, supplemented by Matthioli’s fine commentary on Dioscorides and by De Renzi’s Collectio Salernitana in five handsome octavos. Medical archaeology, indeed, stimulated and aided by the British schools at Athens and in Rome, may now look forward to rich accessions to its treasure-trove, the methodical arrangement of which at either school and its adequate description by the local expert cannot but add interest and attraction to many aPhysician’s Holiday.’ The names of men of light and leading in the profession—Arbutbnot, Mead, Heberden, and Gregory, and the more recent ones of J. Y. Simpson, Francis Adams, B. W. Richardson, and Henry Acland-recur to the mind as those of ardent students of the medical past who would have envied their latter-day successors the opportunities and facilities open to them, and whose spirits may well be imagined to look down approvingly on the new adjunct to their favourite studies so auspiciously inaugurated in the British school in Rome." -

DOWLING

v.

DODS.

IN another column will be found an appeal signed by various well-known members of our profession, asking medical men to assist Mr. Louis Ferdinand Dods to pay the heavy costs to which he was put in defending himself in the action for libel brought against him by Miss Agnes Dowling. It may be remembered that in the original action a jury required Mr. Dods to pay J:?100 damages to Miss Dowling, but on appeal judgment was set aside and a new judgment was given for Mr. Dods with costs, the later result being obviously in accordance with the justice of the case. These costs Mr. Dods has been unable to recover from Miss Dowling, and he finds himself liable for a sum of over .6400. We have already laid before our readers details of the casebut we may shortly recapitulate them here. Mr. Dods, having the behaviour of Miss Dowling brought to his attention, wrote a letter to the relieving officer of the Paddington district to the effect that to the best of his knowledge and belief Miss Dowling was of unsound mind. The relieving officer revealed the contents of the letter and Miss Dowling brought At the trial Mr. Dods. an action for libel against Mr. Dods’s letter was held to be privileged, but the jury found evidence of malice and of want of reasonable care on his part. They also found that he had not spoken correctly 1

THE LANCET, June 23rd (p. 1812)

and Nov. 10th

(p. 1362), 1900.