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THE REGULATION OF SLIPPERY STREETS.
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- night the drug was again burnt in the bedroom, and this with in the nerves of the middle ear. In the mucous memsecond dose entirely cured both the cough and the expectora- brane of the middle ear there is "partial modification of - tion, which latter had been rather profuse. The father was the epithelium, and an extensive infiltration of the mucosa, then attacked, and in three days cured himself by the same with polymorphous migratory cells and retrograde metatreatment. He subsequently tried it with several of his morphosis, and, finally, a necrosis of the bloodvessels and patients with marked success, and with the concurrence of a bone. There is seldom any suppuration, as the disease is friend, who was medical officer to a convent school where the essentially mycotic in its nature." It is interesting to note epidemic was raging, he tried it on thirty affected children. that Professor Moos considers that the scarlatinal changes After the naphthalin had been burnt two successive nights are essentially different from those met with in diphtheriain their dormitory, they were all cured. Two of the nnns, in so far, at any rate, as regards the etiological causes; and however, found the fumes very irritating, and on these he agrees with Kolisko that the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus is Mies being examined it was discovered that they were not met with in cases of scarlatinal diphtheria, but that both suffering-quite unknown to themselves-from in- genuine pharyngeal diphtheria and laryngeal croup are the cipient phthisis. From this and some further observations same, from the fact that the Klebs-LoelTl9r bacillus was Dr. Chavernac has come to the conclusion that naphthalin found in most of the cases examined. Dr. Moos appears to is contra-indicated in phthisical persons, and that it may think, however, that, as regards the middle ear, the bacteria eometimes serve to reveal the existence of totally unsus- which set up the inflammation are different from those which ,pected tubercle. It may be remarked that the so-called grow in the throat, as in all cases the organism found was albocarbon used frequently for enhancing the lighting power more like the streptococcus of erysipelas or that of scarlaof gas is somewhat crude naphthalin. The method em- tina ; this accords with Roux and Yersin’s observations. ployed by Dr. Chavernac is to place about three-quarters of It soon an ounce in a metal dish surrounded by hot coals. PUBLIC HEALTH GOVERNMENT IN LONDON. melts, and before long fills the room with white fumes, NEWS of the typhoid fever epidemic in the southwhich he considers by no means unpleasant. The old of London has been intermittently before the east custom of taking children to gasworks for whooping-cough for some weeks past, and now we learn that public ?aas generally been thought to depend on the curative effect after the occurrence of 202 cases in Deptford alone of gas tar; but from the above it would appear that the four weeks, samples of water from the mains naphthalin which crystallises out in the retorts and pipes is during of the Kent Company and from those of the Southwark and perhaps really to be more credited with efficacy than the tar. Vauxhall Company have been submitted to analysis for the THE REGULATION OF SLIPPERY STREETS.
EVERYONE acquaintedwith the construction of modern city !roadways will appreciate the utility of a recent order issued by the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. According to this regulation police constables will be required to notice the condition of thoroughfares within their sphere of duty, and to report to the local authority any that are dangerous to traffic from want of sand or gravel. The precaution is one of such evident value that little need be said in order to Teeommend it. Experience in use has taught us that asphalte, wood, and a variety of composite substances will in some ’respects compare favourably with the time-honoured pavingstone as means of road-making. For smoothness, quiet, even durability, there is much to be said in their favour. Their one great and common drawback is their treacherous uncertainty during and after wet weather, a quality which is much enhanced of course by the addition of tenacious mire well trodden and rolled by countless feet and by constant wheel traffic. The order referred to comes as a simple and effectual remedy for this ever-present danger. To the foot-passenger no less than to the swiftly driven cab-horse or the cycle-rider the state of the road is everything as regards security of life and limb. It is therefore the more satisfactory to note that local authorities on their part-if, at all events, we may take for example the Maryiebone vestry-not only do not resent, but seem desirous oi utilising, the aid of this freely-offered service of inspection.
MIDDLE-EAR DISEASE IN DIPHTHERIA. 1M ait article on the " Histological and Bacterial Investigation of Middle-ear Disease in the various Types of
Diphtheria," published
in the Archives of Otology, vol. xx., No. 1,1891, Professor Moos gives the results of the examimations of the middle ear in six cases of primary, septic, and - scarlatinal diphtheria. He described the macroscopic and microscopic changes that take place in the tympanic mucosa, °in the hard and soft parts of the labyrinth, and in the intrinsic muscles of the ear; in the latter he finds peculiar hyaline and granular degeneration, which he thinks is causect by the action of bacteria. Similar changes are met
Greenwich District Board of Works. Those who know what value to set on a chemical analysis of water collected weeks after the cause producing the disease had set in, will not feel much comforted by this display of activity, and this even though the outbreak seems now to have in the main exhausted itself. But what should interest Londoners is the extraordinary apathy about all metropolitan matters affecting health. Had some paltry village in the provinces been thus affected, the Local Government Board would have been set in motion and inspection of the district would have been made. Thefactofthe epidemic having occurred in London seems to make it nobody’s business to interfere. Londoners have a right to ask which is the supervising body for metropolitan health purposes. Is it the Local Government And if it is either Board or is it the County Council? one or the other, why does not some active intervention ensue on such occasions ? __
EFFECTS
OF VENTILATION ON MICROORGANISMS.
RECENT investigations have thrown considerable light upon the possible infection from dust and air. The experiments of Dr. Cornet are too well known to need repetition here, but some experiments made by Dr. Richard Sternl are worthy of notice. This observer has made experiments on the effects of ventilation on micro-organisms. He conducted them in a room in which he could have perfectly quiet air or a more or less complete ventilation. The openings in the walls of the room were so arranged that he could admit the air from without either at the upper part near the ceiling and convey it off near the floor on the opposite side of the room (winter ventilation), or the air could be admitted near the floor and conducted out of the opposite side of the room near the ceiling (summer ventilation). The rapidity of the ventilation was also under complete control. The air of the room was artificially loaded with micro- organisms. Pure cultures were mixed with the dust collected from schoolrooms and factories. This refuse was then dried, pulverised, and distributed about the room as much as possible. The 1 Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal, Sept. 24th,
1891.
- night the drug was again burnt in the bedroom, and this with in the nerves of the middle ear. In the mucous memsecond dose entirely cured both the cough and the expectora- brane of the middle ear there is "partial modification of - tion, which latter had been rather profuse. The father was the epithelium, and an extensive infiltration of the mucosa, then attacked, and in three days cured himself by the same with polymorphous migratory cells and retrograde metatreatment. He subsequently tried it with several of his morphosis, and, finally, a necrosis of the bloodvessels and patients with marked success, and with the concurrence of a bone. There is seldom any suppuration, as the disease is friend, who was medical officer to a convent school where the essentially mycotic in its nature." It is interesting to note epidemic was raging, he tried it on thirty affected children. that Professor Moos considers that the scarlatinal changes After the naphthalin had been burnt two successive nights are essentially different from those met with in diphtheriain their dormitory, they were all cured. Two of the nnns, in so far, at any rate, as regards the etiological causes; and however, found the fumes very irritating, and on these he agrees with Kolisko that the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus is Mies being examined it was discovered that they were not met with in cases of scarlatinal diphtheria, but that both suffering-quite unknown to themselves-from in- genuine pharyngeal diphtheria and laryngeal croup are the cipient phthisis. From this and some further observations same, from the fact that the Klebs-LoelTl9r bacillus was Dr. Chavernac has come to the conclusion that naphthalin found in most of the cases examined. Dr. Moos appears to is contra-indicated in phthisical persons, and that it may think, however, that, as regards the middle ear, the bacteria eometimes serve to reveal the existence of totally unsus- which set up the inflammation are different from those which ,pected tubercle. It may be remarked that the so-called grow in the throat, as in all cases the organism found was albocarbon used frequently for enhancing the lighting power more like the streptococcus of erysipelas or that of scarlaof gas is somewhat crude naphthalin. The method em- tina ; this accords with Roux and Yersin’s observations. ployed by Dr. Chavernac is to place about three-quarters of It soon an ounce in a metal dish surrounded by hot coals. PUBLIC HEALTH GOVERNMENT IN LONDON. melts, and before long fills the room with white fumes, NEWS of the typhoid fever epidemic in the southwhich he considers by no means unpleasant. The old of London has been intermittently before the east custom of taking children to gasworks for whooping-cough for some weeks past, and now we learn that public ?aas generally been thought to depend on the curative effect after the occurrence of 202 cases in Deptford alone of gas tar; but from the above it would appear that the four weeks, samples of water from the mains naphthalin which crystallises out in the retorts and pipes is during of the Kent Company and from those of the Southwark and perhaps really to be more credited with efficacy than the tar. Vauxhall Company have been submitted to analysis for the THE REGULATION OF SLIPPERY STREETS.
EVERYONE acquaintedwith the construction of modern city !roadways will appreciate the utility of a recent order issued by the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. According to this regulation police constables will be required to notice the condition of thoroughfares within their sphere of duty, and to report to the local authority any that are dangerous to traffic from want of sand or gravel. The precaution is one of such evident value that little need be said in order to Teeommend it. Experience in use has taught us that asphalte, wood, and a variety of composite substances will in some ’respects compare favourably with the time-honoured pavingstone as means of road-making. For smoothness, quiet, even durability, there is much to be said in their favour. Their one great and common drawback is their treacherous uncertainty during and after wet weather, a quality which is much enhanced of course by the addition of tenacious mire well trodden and rolled by countless feet and by constant wheel traffic. The order referred to comes as a simple and effectual remedy for this ever-present danger. To the foot-passenger no less than to the swiftly driven cab-horse or the cycle-rider the state of the road is everything as regards security of life and limb. It is therefore the more satisfactory to note that local authorities on their part-if, at all events, we may take for example the Maryiebone vestry-not only do not resent, but seem desirous oi utilising, the aid of this freely-offered service of inspection.
MIDDLE-EAR DISEASE IN DIPHTHERIA. 1M ait article on the " Histological and Bacterial Investigation of Middle-ear Disease in the various Types of
Diphtheria," published
in the Archives of Otology, vol. xx., No. 1,1891, Professor Moos gives the results of the examimations of the middle ear in six cases of primary, septic, and - scarlatinal diphtheria. He described the macroscopic and microscopic changes that take place in the tympanic mucosa, °in the hard and soft parts of the labyrinth, and in the intrinsic muscles of the ear; in the latter he finds peculiar hyaline and granular degeneration, which he thinks is causect by the action of bacteria. Similar changes are met
Greenwich District Board of Works. Those who know what value to set on a chemical analysis of water collected weeks after the cause producing the disease had set in, will not feel much comforted by this display of activity, and this even though the outbreak seems now to have in the main exhausted itself. But what should interest Londoners is the extraordinary apathy about all metropolitan matters affecting health. Had some paltry village in the provinces been thus affected, the Local Government Board would have been set in motion and inspection of the district would have been made. Thefactofthe epidemic having occurred in London seems to make it nobody’s business to interfere. Londoners have a right to ask which is the supervising body for metropolitan health purposes. Is it the Local Government And if it is either Board or is it the County Council? one or the other, why does not some active intervention ensue on such occasions ? __
EFFECTS
OF VENTILATION ON MICROORGANISMS.
RECENT investigations have thrown considerable light upon the possible infection from dust and air. The experiments of Dr. Cornet are too well known to need repetition here, but some experiments made by Dr. Richard Sternl are worthy of notice. This observer has made experiments on the effects of ventilation on micro-organisms. He conducted them in a room in which he could have perfectly quiet air or a more or less complete ventilation. The openings in the walls of the room were so arranged that he could admit the air from without either at the upper part near the ceiling and convey it off near the floor on the opposite side of the room (winter ventilation), or the air could be admitted near the floor and conducted out of the opposite side of the room near the ceiling (summer ventilation). The rapidity of the ventilation was also under complete control. The air of the room was artificially loaded with micro- organisms. Pure cultures were mixed with the dust collected from schoolrooms and factories. This refuse was then dried, pulverised, and distributed about the room as much as possible. The 1 Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal, Sept. 24th,
1891.