- Email: [email protected]
THE MOTOR-CAR BILL.
496 the Stomach and their
Tindall, and Cox,
Surgical Treatment," p. 189 (Bailliere,
1901).
I am, Sirs, yours Park-crescent, W., August 8th, 1903.
I
faithrully, faithfully, A. W. MAYO ROBSON.
THE TRINIDAD EPIDEMIC.
from those very diseases which are directly or attributable to improper feeding—"the deathrates from ansemia, from rickets, and from diarrhoea show an increase "-and this in spite of the facts that we have now a relatively more abundant and varied supply of foods than any previous generation, that we have in general greatly improved hygienic and sanitary conditions, and that there is a diminished birth-rate, so that parents can give more individual care and attention to their children. Upon what physiological principles are " bread well Have children soaked"in milk and the like advocated ? Is it not preferable neither teeth nor salivary glands ? to let them soak their bread in saliva in the mouth ? Is there any reason for advocating food which neither stimulates the movements of the jaws, nor of the stomach, nor of the intestines, but only tends to lodge, to ferment, to derange the normal secretions, and to give rise to a continuous supply of objectionable products of decomposition ? Surely the time has come for a crusade against the soft, "refined"food of the present day. It is within the power of the medical profession to reduce rather than to increase the suffering and mortality from this cause.,I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, J. SIM WALLACE. Wimpole-street, W.,August 9th, 1903.
increasing indirectly
To the Editors of THE LANCET. SIRS,—With reference to the controversy regarding the true nature of the epidemic prevailing in certain parts of the West Indies and alleged in many of the islands to be chicken-pox, I inoculated a monkey with variolous matter taken from a case of so-called varicella at the Colonial Hospital. Four insertions were made by a series of cross scratches as in ordinary vaccination, two being with matter from vesicles six days old and two from vesicles of the seventh day. Four days later there was a distinct raised papule surrounded by a zone of inflammation at the site of each insertion. About the sixth day (the day on which the photograph was taken) vesiculation, though not very perfect, was apparent and scabbing commenced. As it is well agreed that chicken-pox is not an inoculable disease it is to be hoped that in view of the success of this simple experiment the last has been heard, among medical men, at any rate, of the term "varicella " in connexion with the present outbreak of small-pox in the West Indies. THE MOTOR-CAR BILL. I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, To the Editors of THE LAN C E T. GEORGE H. MASSON, M.D., B. Sc., M.R.C.P. Edin. Port of Spain, Trinidad B.W.I., July 31st, 1903. SIRS,-It is with sincere sorrow that one reads’your the monkey ** Dr. Masson incloses a photograph annotation on the above Bill in THE LANCET of August 8th, showing the vesicles very clearly.-ED. L. Since the days "when Cooper’s nevvy cut for p. 415. stone" THE LANCET has always been in the forefront THE ADMINISTRATION OF SOMNOFORM. of liberal progress, so that it gave one quite an unpleasant shock to read the old-fashioned ideas expressed To the Editors of THE LANCET. in the annotation. I have driven a motor-car for five years SIRS,—In THE LANCET of August lst, p. 323, appeared in my work and for my pleasure, and can claim to be one a description of yet another excellent apparatus for the of the first medical motor drivers in this country, but there administration of somnoform. I have found the following are now very many practitioners using the new vehicle with plan so simple and to work so well that it appears to advantage to themselves and to their patients. May I thereme that no special apparatus is required. I take the fore be allowed to point out one or two matters in which ordinary Clover’s bag, such as every practitioner who is in your remarks are open to question ? the habit of giving anaesthetics must possess, and fit it You say, "Our present highways were laid out for horse directly on to an ordinary rubber face piece. The latter is traffic ...... and if a motor-car goes faster than 15 or 18 miles’ lined with wool, leaving, however, the opening into the bag per hour the road is being used " for unsuitable purposes. quite free. On this wool the somnoform is syringed and Now this speed is practically slow for a car or even more so administered in the usual way. The wool lining keeps per- for a motor bicycle (which scores of medical men are using fectly in place without any spring such as is required for daily), and yet it is clear to every unprejudiced person that a. lint ; moreover, it absorbs the somnoform well and is readily car or cycle at this speed is more safe on a high-road than removed and replaced. About from three-quarters to two- a four-in-hand and is infinitely more under control, for one thirds of the dose marked on the bottle is ample, as a rule, chief reason that there is only one brain concerned in driving for an anaesthesia of three minutes. a car. But is the progress of locomotion to stand still because I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, the roads are old-fashioned ? Surely the obvious thing is W. BERNARD SECRETAN, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng. to improve the roads, as, indeed, followed the use of bicycles. Leeds,August loth, 1903. Motor-cars are per se no more dangerous to traffic than any other form of vehicle, and a motor-car driver is a good deal more careful than a coachman or butcher-boy driving OBSERVATIONS ON MASTICATION. horses ; in the motor the driver is usually driving his own car To the Editors of THE LANCET. which has cost him from .E200 to .E150a and he is not parSIRS,-For some few years I have been looking forward to ticularly anxious to smash it and himself up by recklessr the time when physicians would seriously consider the much- driving, knowing also that he gets no sympathy if he does, neglected subject of mastication. It was therefore with great whereas the horse driver can be drunk or incapable and if an pleasure that I read Dr. H. Campbell’s recent communica- accident happens "the horse took fright and got beyond tions. He has certainly presented arguments which strongly control and no blame attached to anyone." " Your annotation says that the cars "cut up the roads." support his contentions, while at the same time he has made a very grave indictment on current ideas of correct feeding. What road is ever so soft as to be cut up by pneumatic or The subject is at the present moment being forced upon us even solid rubber tyres ? Why even a private gravel drive is in other ways, for the cry has been raised that the national untouched by a motor-car, while a rough hollow is always physique is degenerating. This has arisen from the condi- in the centre where the horses’ feet cut up the ground. tion of the men who have presented themselves for enlist- Again, is there no dust on the road till a car comes ? ment in the army. Among other things we find that a large Does no dust arise when a four-in-hand drives along ? If and increasing percentage have been rejected on account of the dust is intolerable it shows that the road is badly made the shockingly defective state of their teeth. Unfortunately and kept and the obvious conclusion is that the roads want the evil does not end here, for in such cases the mouth modernising to cope with newer methods of locomotion than becomes a receiving and distributing centre for disease, tiie one-hoss shay." As to smell, I find horses quite as instead of acting with the stomach as it should, as a offensive as motors ; if they are not, why do people insist veritable death-trap for almost every pathogenic micro- on the stables being as far as possible from a house The organism which enters it. If the Royal Commission which psychology of the present opposition to motor-cars is preis likely to inquire into the degeneracy of the national cisely the same as that made against the making of railways physique would only direct attention to the physical pro- and, as I well remember, against cyclists when I used to perties of the food and carefully consider the ultimate cycle in the "seventies" and early "eighties." Opposieffects of the pap-feeding of children they would confer an tion has been the lot of every machine of new principle introduced-the spinning-wheels, power-looms, saw-grinding incalculable benefit on suffering humanity. Many have probably observed that the mortality has been machinery, railway trains, steamers, bicycles, and now
of
I
497 And then
wonder why our mechanical other nations. It is to be hoped that the Government will fail in passing the Bill. The numbering, registering, and examining of cardrivers with a maximum of 20 miles an hour are ridiculous while the publican and butcher-boy can race on main roads and dash round corners without let or hindrance. From a surgical point of view it would be interesting to know the percentage of accidents due to horses and to motor-cars in this country. We must hope that before long THE LANCET will go forward again as representing Progress rather than going back to the palseo-conservative frame of mind. I am, Sirs, yours faithfully,
inotor-cars.
we
NOTES FROM INDIA. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)
superiority is being lost to
MEDICAL MOTORIST. August llth, 1903. P. S.-1’rom a sanitary point of view there is no comparison between the mechanical and animal forms of traction.-M.M.
Hospital Sh4p for Invalids from India.-The Bigh Infantile Mortality in Bengal and Bombay.-A Boheme for the Nursing of Europeans.-The Plague Epidemie.’1 fee Cocaine-eating Fashwn. IT is proposed to fit up one of the transports next trooping season partly as a hospital ship to convey invalids to England. The ship will be fitted with 100 beds for serious cases and will make three trips, thus taking home a total of 300 during the season. Invalids who are able to take care of themselves will go by ordinary transport as usual. The
A
facts that
over
2000
men are
invalided every year, that
over
constantly siok, and that over 750 deaths occur among the British troops should be borne in mind by those **The comparison between the amount of danger and who cavil at the additional troops to be placed in South dust caused by the four-in-hand and the motor-car or Africa for India’s benefit. The available men are at present too many for the numerous emergencies which might cycle breaks down. Everyone can see a four-in-hand none at any time arise, especially when it is considered how many and can or avoid while there are 500 more it, approaching places in India there are to garrison and that there is an motor vehicles on the road against one four-in-hand. We obvious limit to depletion. have no objection to motor-cars being used on the highThe high infantile mortality in Bombay and Bengal seems roads so long as they are driven with some regard to the to have attracted the attention of their respective sanitary as they both refer to it in their reports. In 49 palmo-conservativemethods of locomotion which still commissioners, Bombay city this "massacre of innocents" is accompanied obtain.-ED. L. with a large mortality among women of child-bearing age. There is also a high rate of still-births. The infant mortality in the city of Ahmedabad is also brought to notice. In THE TERMINALS OF THE ARC LAMP. Bengal a sudden increase seems to have begun in 1899. In Calcutta the infant mortality is appalling and in no less To the Editors of THE LANCET. than 62 per cent. of the town areas the deaths exceeded the SIRS,—I have lately been making some experiments with births. The whole province shows the increase of deaththe object of improving the arc lamp in use in the electrical rate but no explanation is given to account for it. With regard to the provision of nurses for Europeans in department of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. My senior colleague in the department, Dr. H. L. Jones, suggested to me India, to which I recently referred, it is reported that a that the metal indium might possibly be useful as terminals scheme of a comprehensive nature under the auspices of for the arc. The spectrum of this metal, in addition to a Lady Curzon is being worked out at Simla. It is expected brilliant bright line in the blue, shows a magnificent bright that the scheme will have Government support and that an urple line near the end of the visible spectrum. As indium organisation may be created for the supply of nurses in each proved to be too soft a metal for the terminals of the lamp I province. The plague reports of the week are not so assuring. The thought that it might be possible to combine it with the iron electrodes. With this end in view I had the iron terminals mortality has risen in the Bombay Presidency and the total bored with a hole in the centre running in the long axis of deaths have increased from 1563 to 2087. Outside Bombay the iron from the apex to nearly the base. The holes were only about 500 deaths were reported. In the Punjab the then filled with the metal indium which is soft enough to weekly mortality has fallen to 118 and for the United be drawn out into a wire. The arc produced between such Provinces not a single death was returned. The Punjab has terminals is of a gorgeous purple colour, but, unfortunately, suffered severely. From Oct. 1st last up to July 348,302 owing to the comparatively low temperature at which indium cases, with 213,716 deaths, were registered, as against 316,236 volatilises, the holes in the iron electrodes were soon empty, cases and 217,940 deaths in the corresponding period of last after the lamp had been running for about 15 minutes. In year. Assuming these figures to be accurate the case addition to this I found that indium was much too expensive, mortality works out at 61 per cent. This percentage is low for hospital use at any rate. Two small patches of lupus and suggests that the ultimate results of the living cases were treated with the indium-iron arc appeared to react very not accurately known. The curious magisterial decision in Bombay concerning quickly, certainly much quicker than with iron only. I next tried, at the suggestion of Mr. J. H. Gardiner, cocaine which I reported to you some time ago has, fortuF.O.S. (assistant in Sir William Crookes’s laboratory), an nately, on appeal, been reversed and cocaine is now held to alloy of zinc and aluminium, this combination giving off be an intoxicating drug. Of late the use of it has become The arc light so common that every " pan " seller mixes it with his areca rays of much shorter wave-length than iron. of this alloy is of a rich purple colour and shows many bright paste. After all, the matter was a legal quibble upon the The chief clause under discussion lines in the visible violet. The alloy, however, has the dis- definition of terms. advantage of burning up rather quickly. The reaction pro- runs : "Intoxicating drugs include ganja, bhang, charas, duced on patches of lupus with the aluminium-zinc arc is and every preparation and admixture of the same and every certainly greater than with iron in the same time. I intoxicating drink or substance prepared from hemp, grain, have lately been concentrating the light on the part or other materials not included in the term liauor, but does under treatment with a quartz-calcite lens of short focus, not include opium." This decision is a very important one, kindly lent to me by Mr. J. W. Gifford of Chard and as it will lead to the drug being placed under the Abkari described by him at the last meeting of the British Asso- department and the present large unfettered sale will be reThis quartz-calcite combination brings all the stricted to those who possess a licence. The great and wideciation. ultra-violet radiation practically to the same focus. I think spread evil of cocaine-eating in India is not realised either that the lens will be found very useful in treatment. It is by the public at home or officials in India and the sooner possible that in the future the Hewitt mercury vapour lamp these restrictions are extended the better. July 24th. may be of great value as there is absolutely no red in its spectrum. Unfortunately at the present time these lamps are only made in glass, most of the ultra-violet radiation MANCHESTER. thus being unavailable for therapeutical purposes. If the lamp could be made in quartz or in glass with a quartz end (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) and indium could be introduced into the lamp I think that it might be found very useful in the treatment of lupus. I Criminal 2VegZect .), have ventured to send this letter in the hope that it may be SOME little time since three houses in a street in Ancoats useful to other workers with the lamp. collapsed and two little girls in bed at the time were I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, killed. An inquest, which was twice adjourned, was conHUGH WALSHAM. on July 30th. August 8th, 1903. According to the evidence of Mr. 4000
are
_________________
cluded
"
Tindall, and Cox,
Surgical Treatment," p. 189 (Bailliere,
1901).
I am, Sirs, yours Park-crescent, W., August 8th, 1903.
I
faithrully, faithfully, A. W. MAYO ROBSON.
THE TRINIDAD EPIDEMIC.
from those very diseases which are directly or attributable to improper feeding—"the deathrates from ansemia, from rickets, and from diarrhoea show an increase "-and this in spite of the facts that we have now a relatively more abundant and varied supply of foods than any previous generation, that we have in general greatly improved hygienic and sanitary conditions, and that there is a diminished birth-rate, so that parents can give more individual care and attention to their children. Upon what physiological principles are " bread well Have children soaked"in milk and the like advocated ? Is it not preferable neither teeth nor salivary glands ? to let them soak their bread in saliva in the mouth ? Is there any reason for advocating food which neither stimulates the movements of the jaws, nor of the stomach, nor of the intestines, but only tends to lodge, to ferment, to derange the normal secretions, and to give rise to a continuous supply of objectionable products of decomposition ? Surely the time has come for a crusade against the soft, "refined"food of the present day. It is within the power of the medical profession to reduce rather than to increase the suffering and mortality from this cause.,I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, J. SIM WALLACE. Wimpole-street, W.,August 9th, 1903.
increasing indirectly
To the Editors of THE LANCET. SIRS,—With reference to the controversy regarding the true nature of the epidemic prevailing in certain parts of the West Indies and alleged in many of the islands to be chicken-pox, I inoculated a monkey with variolous matter taken from a case of so-called varicella at the Colonial Hospital. Four insertions were made by a series of cross scratches as in ordinary vaccination, two being with matter from vesicles six days old and two from vesicles of the seventh day. Four days later there was a distinct raised papule surrounded by a zone of inflammation at the site of each insertion. About the sixth day (the day on which the photograph was taken) vesiculation, though not very perfect, was apparent and scabbing commenced. As it is well agreed that chicken-pox is not an inoculable disease it is to be hoped that in view of the success of this simple experiment the last has been heard, among medical men, at any rate, of the term "varicella " in connexion with the present outbreak of small-pox in the West Indies. THE MOTOR-CAR BILL. I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, To the Editors of THE LAN C E T. GEORGE H. MASSON, M.D., B. Sc., M.R.C.P. Edin. Port of Spain, Trinidad B.W.I., July 31st, 1903. SIRS,-It is with sincere sorrow that one reads’your the monkey ** Dr. Masson incloses a photograph annotation on the above Bill in THE LANCET of August 8th, showing the vesicles very clearly.-ED. L. Since the days "when Cooper’s nevvy cut for p. 415. stone" THE LANCET has always been in the forefront THE ADMINISTRATION OF SOMNOFORM. of liberal progress, so that it gave one quite an unpleasant shock to read the old-fashioned ideas expressed To the Editors of THE LANCET. in the annotation. I have driven a motor-car for five years SIRS,—In THE LANCET of August lst, p. 323, appeared in my work and for my pleasure, and can claim to be one a description of yet another excellent apparatus for the of the first medical motor drivers in this country, but there administration of somnoform. I have found the following are now very many practitioners using the new vehicle with plan so simple and to work so well that it appears to advantage to themselves and to their patients. May I thereme that no special apparatus is required. I take the fore be allowed to point out one or two matters in which ordinary Clover’s bag, such as every practitioner who is in your remarks are open to question ? the habit of giving anaesthetics must possess, and fit it You say, "Our present highways were laid out for horse directly on to an ordinary rubber face piece. The latter is traffic ...... and if a motor-car goes faster than 15 or 18 miles’ lined with wool, leaving, however, the opening into the bag per hour the road is being used " for unsuitable purposes. quite free. On this wool the somnoform is syringed and Now this speed is practically slow for a car or even more so administered in the usual way. The wool lining keeps per- for a motor bicycle (which scores of medical men are using fectly in place without any spring such as is required for daily), and yet it is clear to every unprejudiced person that a. lint ; moreover, it absorbs the somnoform well and is readily car or cycle at this speed is more safe on a high-road than removed and replaced. About from three-quarters to two- a four-in-hand and is infinitely more under control, for one thirds of the dose marked on the bottle is ample, as a rule, chief reason that there is only one brain concerned in driving for an anaesthesia of three minutes. a car. But is the progress of locomotion to stand still because I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, the roads are old-fashioned ? Surely the obvious thing is W. BERNARD SECRETAN, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng. to improve the roads, as, indeed, followed the use of bicycles. Leeds,August loth, 1903. Motor-cars are per se no more dangerous to traffic than any other form of vehicle, and a motor-car driver is a good deal more careful than a coachman or butcher-boy driving OBSERVATIONS ON MASTICATION. horses ; in the motor the driver is usually driving his own car To the Editors of THE LANCET. which has cost him from .E200 to .E150a and he is not parSIRS,-For some few years I have been looking forward to ticularly anxious to smash it and himself up by recklessr the time when physicians would seriously consider the much- driving, knowing also that he gets no sympathy if he does, neglected subject of mastication. It was therefore with great whereas the horse driver can be drunk or incapable and if an pleasure that I read Dr. H. Campbell’s recent communica- accident happens "the horse took fright and got beyond tions. He has certainly presented arguments which strongly control and no blame attached to anyone." " Your annotation says that the cars "cut up the roads." support his contentions, while at the same time he has made a very grave indictment on current ideas of correct feeding. What road is ever so soft as to be cut up by pneumatic or The subject is at the present moment being forced upon us even solid rubber tyres ? Why even a private gravel drive is in other ways, for the cry has been raised that the national untouched by a motor-car, while a rough hollow is always physique is degenerating. This has arisen from the condi- in the centre where the horses’ feet cut up the ground. tion of the men who have presented themselves for enlist- Again, is there no dust on the road till a car comes ? ment in the army. Among other things we find that a large Does no dust arise when a four-in-hand drives along ? If and increasing percentage have been rejected on account of the dust is intolerable it shows that the road is badly made the shockingly defective state of their teeth. Unfortunately and kept and the obvious conclusion is that the roads want the evil does not end here, for in such cases the mouth modernising to cope with newer methods of locomotion than becomes a receiving and distributing centre for disease, tiie one-hoss shay." As to smell, I find horses quite as instead of acting with the stomach as it should, as a offensive as motors ; if they are not, why do people insist veritable death-trap for almost every pathogenic micro- on the stables being as far as possible from a house The organism which enters it. If the Royal Commission which psychology of the present opposition to motor-cars is preis likely to inquire into the degeneracy of the national cisely the same as that made against the making of railways physique would only direct attention to the physical pro- and, as I well remember, against cyclists when I used to perties of the food and carefully consider the ultimate cycle in the "seventies" and early "eighties." Opposieffects of the pap-feeding of children they would confer an tion has been the lot of every machine of new principle introduced-the spinning-wheels, power-looms, saw-grinding incalculable benefit on suffering humanity. Many have probably observed that the mortality has been machinery, railway trains, steamers, bicycles, and now
of
I
497 And then
wonder why our mechanical other nations. It is to be hoped that the Government will fail in passing the Bill. The numbering, registering, and examining of cardrivers with a maximum of 20 miles an hour are ridiculous while the publican and butcher-boy can race on main roads and dash round corners without let or hindrance. From a surgical point of view it would be interesting to know the percentage of accidents due to horses and to motor-cars in this country. We must hope that before long THE LANCET will go forward again as representing Progress rather than going back to the palseo-conservative frame of mind. I am, Sirs, yours faithfully,
inotor-cars.
we
NOTES FROM INDIA. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)
superiority is being lost to
MEDICAL MOTORIST. August llth, 1903. P. S.-1’rom a sanitary point of view there is no comparison between the mechanical and animal forms of traction.-M.M.
Hospital Sh4p for Invalids from India.-The Bigh Infantile Mortality in Bengal and Bombay.-A Boheme for the Nursing of Europeans.-The Plague Epidemie.’1 fee Cocaine-eating Fashwn. IT is proposed to fit up one of the transports next trooping season partly as a hospital ship to convey invalids to England. The ship will be fitted with 100 beds for serious cases and will make three trips, thus taking home a total of 300 during the season. Invalids who are able to take care of themselves will go by ordinary transport as usual. The
A
facts that
over
2000
men are
invalided every year, that
over
constantly siok, and that over 750 deaths occur among the British troops should be borne in mind by those **The comparison between the amount of danger and who cavil at the additional troops to be placed in South dust caused by the four-in-hand and the motor-car or Africa for India’s benefit. The available men are at present too many for the numerous emergencies which might cycle breaks down. Everyone can see a four-in-hand none at any time arise, especially when it is considered how many and can or avoid while there are 500 more it, approaching places in India there are to garrison and that there is an motor vehicles on the road against one four-in-hand. We obvious limit to depletion. have no objection to motor-cars being used on the highThe high infantile mortality in Bombay and Bengal seems roads so long as they are driven with some regard to the to have attracted the attention of their respective sanitary as they both refer to it in their reports. In 49 palmo-conservativemethods of locomotion which still commissioners, Bombay city this "massacre of innocents" is accompanied obtain.-ED. L. with a large mortality among women of child-bearing age. There is also a high rate of still-births. The infant mortality in the city of Ahmedabad is also brought to notice. In THE TERMINALS OF THE ARC LAMP. Bengal a sudden increase seems to have begun in 1899. In Calcutta the infant mortality is appalling and in no less To the Editors of THE LANCET. than 62 per cent. of the town areas the deaths exceeded the SIRS,—I have lately been making some experiments with births. The whole province shows the increase of deaththe object of improving the arc lamp in use in the electrical rate but no explanation is given to account for it. With regard to the provision of nurses for Europeans in department of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. My senior colleague in the department, Dr. H. L. Jones, suggested to me India, to which I recently referred, it is reported that a that the metal indium might possibly be useful as terminals scheme of a comprehensive nature under the auspices of for the arc. The spectrum of this metal, in addition to a Lady Curzon is being worked out at Simla. It is expected brilliant bright line in the blue, shows a magnificent bright that the scheme will have Government support and that an urple line near the end of the visible spectrum. As indium organisation may be created for the supply of nurses in each proved to be too soft a metal for the terminals of the lamp I province. The plague reports of the week are not so assuring. The thought that it might be possible to combine it with the iron electrodes. With this end in view I had the iron terminals mortality has risen in the Bombay Presidency and the total bored with a hole in the centre running in the long axis of deaths have increased from 1563 to 2087. Outside Bombay the iron from the apex to nearly the base. The holes were only about 500 deaths were reported. In the Punjab the then filled with the metal indium which is soft enough to weekly mortality has fallen to 118 and for the United be drawn out into a wire. The arc produced between such Provinces not a single death was returned. The Punjab has terminals is of a gorgeous purple colour, but, unfortunately, suffered severely. From Oct. 1st last up to July 348,302 owing to the comparatively low temperature at which indium cases, with 213,716 deaths, were registered, as against 316,236 volatilises, the holes in the iron electrodes were soon empty, cases and 217,940 deaths in the corresponding period of last after the lamp had been running for about 15 minutes. In year. Assuming these figures to be accurate the case addition to this I found that indium was much too expensive, mortality works out at 61 per cent. This percentage is low for hospital use at any rate. Two small patches of lupus and suggests that the ultimate results of the living cases were treated with the indium-iron arc appeared to react very not accurately known. The curious magisterial decision in Bombay concerning quickly, certainly much quicker than with iron only. I next tried, at the suggestion of Mr. J. H. Gardiner, cocaine which I reported to you some time ago has, fortuF.O.S. (assistant in Sir William Crookes’s laboratory), an nately, on appeal, been reversed and cocaine is now held to alloy of zinc and aluminium, this combination giving off be an intoxicating drug. Of late the use of it has become The arc light so common that every " pan " seller mixes it with his areca rays of much shorter wave-length than iron. of this alloy is of a rich purple colour and shows many bright paste. After all, the matter was a legal quibble upon the The chief clause under discussion lines in the visible violet. The alloy, however, has the dis- definition of terms. advantage of burning up rather quickly. The reaction pro- runs : "Intoxicating drugs include ganja, bhang, charas, duced on patches of lupus with the aluminium-zinc arc is and every preparation and admixture of the same and every certainly greater than with iron in the same time. I intoxicating drink or substance prepared from hemp, grain, have lately been concentrating the light on the part or other materials not included in the term liauor, but does under treatment with a quartz-calcite lens of short focus, not include opium." This decision is a very important one, kindly lent to me by Mr. J. W. Gifford of Chard and as it will lead to the drug being placed under the Abkari described by him at the last meeting of the British Asso- department and the present large unfettered sale will be reThis quartz-calcite combination brings all the stricted to those who possess a licence. The great and wideciation. ultra-violet radiation practically to the same focus. I think spread evil of cocaine-eating in India is not realised either that the lens will be found very useful in treatment. It is by the public at home or officials in India and the sooner possible that in the future the Hewitt mercury vapour lamp these restrictions are extended the better. July 24th. may be of great value as there is absolutely no red in its spectrum. Unfortunately at the present time these lamps are only made in glass, most of the ultra-violet radiation MANCHESTER. thus being unavailable for therapeutical purposes. If the lamp could be made in quartz or in glass with a quartz end (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) and indium could be introduced into the lamp I think that it might be found very useful in the treatment of lupus. I Criminal 2VegZect .), have ventured to send this letter in the hope that it may be SOME little time since three houses in a street in Ancoats useful to other workers with the lamp. collapsed and two little girls in bed at the time were I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, killed. An inquest, which was twice adjourned, was conHUGH WALSHAM. on July 30th. August 8th, 1903. According to the evidence of Mr. 4000
are
_________________
cluded
"