THE POLYCLINIC IN ROME.

THE POLYCLINIC IN ROME.

188 hospital. Thus small-pox, which is the only infectious the decomposing power of the cell for carbonic acid. This disease against which a communit...

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188

hospital. Thus small-pox, which is the only infectious the decomposing power of the cell for carbonic acid. This disease against which a community can protect themselves condition of " inanition," as it is called by Pringsheim, dis. otherwise than by isolation, is likely once again to act as appears when oxygen is readmitted, but not if the cell has a leading stimulus in the provision of isolation hospitals, been asphyxiated" by too long deprivation of oxygen. He and also, we fear, of such hospitals as may in the end avers that no evidence of the presence of free oxygen in the to do more harm than good. vegetal tissues has ever been adduced, and he believes that the breaking up of carbonic acid results in the making up of a compound body from which oxygen is evolved as it is THE POLYCLINIC IN ROME. discharged from the cell by osmosis. laid 19th the of the AT Rome on the inst. Italy King foundation stone of the new medical buildings outside the THE SHEFFIELD SMALL-POX EPIDEMIC. Porta Pia. ’’ 11 Policlinico," as they are called, will occupy STEPS have been set on foot in Sheffield which, it is a site of 160,000 metres, and will include every appointment and appliance for the most efficacious treatment of trusted, may ensure trustworthy information as to the rela. patients and instruction of pupils. The discourse on the tion which vaccination at various periods of life has borne occasion pronounced by the President of the Roman to liability to small-pox during the serious epidemic which Academy of Medicine, Dr. Guido Baccelli, evoked the has now for so long a time prevailed in that borough. At a heartiest plaudits from the numerous auditory, which, meeting of the guardians of the Sheffield Union it was a few besides the King, Queen, and the Crown Prince, comprised days ago decided to appoint a number of officers to make a Signor Crispi (the Prime Minister)’and other representa- house-to-house visitation, with a view to obtaining a census tives of the Government, with the chief dignitaries of the of the people as to vaccination and revaccination. At the same time especial facilities are being afforded, both in the University, the Commune, and the City. Sheffield and the Eceleshall Unions, for the performance of these operations; and this the more because Dr. Barry has informed the authorities that by vaccination alone can the THE WOMEN’S JUBILEE OFFERING. at this stage be materially checked. THERE are few nursing institutions for the poor more epidemic worthy of private and public help than the North London NARCOLEPSY. Nursing Association. It was a branch, indeed, of a similar central institution, but it is now quite independent, and is LEGRAND writes on j Narcolepsy in the current number of doing an amount of work greater than that of the parent the France Médicale. Narcolepsia consists in sudden attacks Society. Such is the statement, at any rate, of Mr. Isaac of deep sleep lasting some minutes ; not days like trance, Butler, the treasurer, and Mr. Butler’s statements are trust- or seconds like petit mal. Moreover, the condition is one worthy. There is a staff of ten nurses, who are housed in the apparently of simple sleep, from which the patient may Holloway-road. During the past year they have nursed be roused. Encephalic congestion resulting from 1363 patients and paid 20,000 visits. Mr. Butler is naturally easily cardiac deficiency, gastric troubles or hepatic derangements, anxious for the definition of the Jubilee scheme of Her and such diseases as diabetes, and rheumatism, are some Majesty for benefiting those who nurse the poor, and not of its associations. gout, Hysteria may dispose to it, but in some unreasonably hopes that his own institution may not be cases narcolepsy appears to be a true and isolated neurosis. overlooked. Mr. Butler’s anxiety is shared by many others. We sincerely trust that the development of the scheme will MARGATE. be encouraging to those already engaged in promoting such work. THE steps necessary for providing Margate with a system of drainage are progressing, and we learn that on Thursday CAUTERISATION IN MALIGNANT PUSTULE. of last week the Drainage Committee of the Town Council Dit. MARTIN Ayuso considers that for the destruction of recommended that Air. Baldwin Latham should be employed a virus such as that existing in malignant pustule the to advise generally as to the drainage of the town, and to actual cautery is far inferior to chemical caustics, as these submit a plan with estimate of the cost. It will therefore penetrate more deeply. The plan he adopts is first to draw probably not be long before the work is begun; we sincerely a line with ink on the surface marking out the boundary of hope that the Town Council will not be deterred by the the oedema; then to make two or three crucial incisions, and expense which must be incurred from carrying their present in these to place pledgets of lint soaked in nitric acid. intentions into effect. Vlargate will be one of the most Pressure is then made over the whole by means of the foot popular watering-places in the kingdom when its drainage of a wine-glass, or in some other convenient manner, for ten and water supply are above suspicion. "

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fifteen minutes,

to express the acid and cause it to The lint is then removed and a dry dressing applied. If at the end of six or eight hours the cedema has extended beyond the marked boundary, a more extensive and more energetic application of the caustic is

or

so as

act on the tissues.

required.

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CHLOROPHYLL. PuiNGSHEiM asserts that the green colouring matter of plants is not the agent which breaks up carbonic acid and eliminates oxygen, chlorophyll being but a screen to protect the living protoplasm from the powerful action of the sun. In certain conditions, he maintains, the cells can give off oxygen in the dark, and even colourless cells can do this. He has studied the movements of the protoplasm in green cells placed in various gaseous media without oxygen.

Even a short exposure in

an

oxygenless atmosphere destroys

AN EPIDEMIC OF INFANTILE PALSY. No

be assigned why infantile palsy should not in epidemics. We know next to nothing occasionally of its real causation at any time, and its pathology is by no means a settled subject. M. Cordier has observed an epidemic of this malady of thirteen cases occurring in a period of two months (June and July, 1885), in a population of 1500 souls. The age varied from one to thirty month?, and nearly all the children were in perfect health. Four of them died on the third day of the disease. Fever, convulsions, profuse sweating, and paralysis of variable extent, observed on the second or third day, were the chief symptoms. The amelioration and regression of the paralysis and subsequent localisation with deformities leave no essential doubt of the nature of the malady. Naturally, the reason can

occur