THE RIVERS POLLUTION COMMISSION.

786 the new-born child, artificial respiration, retroversion and jetconexion of the gravid uterus, prolapsus and hypertrophic elongation of the uterus in pregnancy and labour; 4he complication of pregnancy and labour with tumours, extra-uterine gestation, condylomata, and retro-uterine 11aematocele; the chief deformities of the skeleton, causing dystocia, describing the rachitic, osteomalacic, spondyHisthetic, kyphotic, and obliquely ovate pelves ; and rupture f the uterus, vagina, and perineum. Twenty new wood ieagravings also are added in illustration of these subjects. Such a work as Dr. Barnes’s was greatly needed. It is - calculated to elevate the practice of the obstetric art in this country, and to be of great service to the pracDr. Barnes never forgets the authority of titioner. nature, and aims at basing all obstetric proceedings on an imitation of natural processes. It is impossible to read his ieetufes without attaining to a deeper knowledge of the physiology of labour, and at the same time acquiring a ittster view of the value of the various resources of practical midwifery. Dr. Barnes speaks on the strength of a very large personal experience, and of a minute knowledge
Tarasp,

WHITBY,

English Chaplain

at

Tarasp. Third Edition,

with Map. London: T. Bosworth. 1871. WE commend this little work to the notice of those practitioners who are casting about for a suitable con-

tinental health-resort, during the coming season, for those of their patients who are suffering from organic diseases of the more important internal organs, rheumatism, and such-like complaints. A year or two since Tarasp, now one of the most rapidly rising spas in Europe, was scarcely known in this country; and it was not till the neighbouring place of St. Moritz in the Upper Engadine became so much in vogue that the English public and physicians became acquainted with the important springs in the Lower Engadine, in the vicinity of Schuls, long noted The book contains all necessary inon the Continent. formation as to routes, hotels, and other matters of interest, with an excellent map of the surrounding districts. Instead of dealing with the medical part of the subject, as too many clergymen might be sorely tempted to do, Mr. Whitby has wisely contented himself with reproducing in full the views of able medical men as to the nature of the waters and their therapeutic virtues.

THE RIVERS POLLUTION COMMISSION. THE third report of the Commission, lately issued, deals chiefly with such pollution of rivers and streams as arises from the woollen manufacture, and processes connected therewith. In regard to this specific pollution, the problem to be solved differs from that which is involved in mere excremental pollution, trade interests of large magnitude being concerned with the former. And had it been proved that the successful prosecution of an important branch of industry like the woollen manufacture was inseparable from an unrestricted right on the part of the towns in which it is established to cast into the adjacent rivers all and sundry the refuse of the manufacture, not even a Royal Commission. could have hoped to restore those rivers to purity. But happily the Rivers Commission is able to come to the conclusion that °‘ the agricultural remedy is probably as efficient against nuisances of this kind as it is in the case of town sewage." As regards solid refuse (cinders, ashes, spent dye-woods, &c.), which in large measure chokes up the channels of rivers and streams in manufacturing districts, the obvious remedy is the absolute prohibition, under heavy penalties, of such an abuse of river advantages. The remedy for sewage pollution has long since been settled in the minds of the Commission, and they but reiterate in this report arguments they have urged before in favour of irrigation. And now, it seems, the same remedy is applicable to the pollutions resulting from manufactures-namely, that caused by waste liquors from scouring and dye-vats, and from wool, yarn, and piece-washing. All these liquors possess an agricultural value, the stronger of them having a much greater fertilising power than ordinary London sewage. It is, in fact, the opinion of the Commission that the best and most profitable mode of cleansing the foul liquid of woollen factories will be their application to land, and that their utility for this purpose would be greatly increased if they were previously mixed with several times their volume of town sewage. Practically, then, all manufacturing towns which have solved their sewage problem by the adoption of the irrigation system, may at once solve the manufacturing liquid refuse problem by simply turning that refuse into the sewers, whence it passes on to the soil, which it helps to render increasingly productive. For places where there are natural or pecuniary difficulties in the way of the irrigation system being adopted, the Commission give an alternative method for disposing of both sewage and manufacturing refuse namely, by intermittent filtration through porous earth. of a town of 10,000 people would require at The least 100 acres for the cleansing and profitable utilisation of the sewage by irrigation, whereas the Commission say it would need but three acres of a porous medium six

drainage

that

787 HYPODERMIC INJECTIONS OF SUBLIMATE IN SYPHILIS. filter, to oxidise, and of such a town, "proDr. Hagens has published an important- article on this vided the mass of earth through which it percolated were subject in the Ungar. Med. Presse, No. 38, 1870. The author frequently and effectually aerated, and the foul liquid were thinks that the injections have met with undeserved praise so added that every part of this aerated filter had its equal and blame. To settle the matter, he applied the method. share and equal interval of aeration." It ought to be extensively, both in private and hospital practice, for about stated that thia conclusion is based rather upon laboratory fifteen months. Full and very interesting details are given, experiments than upon its practical working out on any the author finally laying down the following propositions : adequate scale; and the Commission, while they express 1. The opponents of this method have unjustly taxed it themselves satisfied as to the °‘satisfactory and permanent with inefficiency and harmfulness. 2. These injections are efficacy" of this remedy, are evidently not without mis- superior to all other kinds of mercurial treatment, on acgivings lest such an apparatus, on the scale needed for a count of their rapid results, the small and regulated dose,-large town, would prove " a formidable nuisance," the required, the non-interference with the digestive organs, corresponding advantage being that " the water running and the possibility of allowing the patient to go out (with from it would be sweet and clean." The wisdom of purify- some restrictions as to diet). Relapses after the hypodermic ing the water at the cost of polluting the atmosphere is to method are not more severe than with other modes of using our minds open to question. mercury, nor are they so numerous. 3. This method is reto notice one other feature of this We have latively powerless as regards some symptoms, especiallyreport, and that is the recommendation of the Commission affections of the mucous membrane of the oral and nasal that all rivers and streams in England should be placed cavities, and psoriasis palmaris. Nay, the injections may under the superintendence of a central authority or board, give rise to these scaly eruptions when relapses take place, with whom the general conservancy and prevention of and a combination of this method with ethers is then adpollutions and the surveillance over all matters of water- i visable. 4. The hypodermic treatment should, therefore, supply should rest. Now something of this sort seems to not be regarded as the only mode of using ruercury and us most necessary if we are ever to have systematic riverapplicable in all cases, nor can the result be always fully pollution put a stop to. It can only be from the fact that guaranteed. But the method may be recommended for at present it is "nobody’s business" to keep river conserva- more extensive application than it has hitherto enjoyed. tors and water-side local authorities up to their duties, that, without the other means of introducing mercury. excluding notwithstanding the Thames Navigation Act of 1866 made into the system. it illegal henceforward to pass town sewage into the Thames, SAPONIFIED COD-LIVER OIL. a Select Committee of the House of Commons has just Dr. Van den Corput, of the St. John’s Hospital, Brussels,,sanctioned a Bill promoted by the Richmond vestry, giving has advocated for some time a combination of hydrate of that town the privilege for three years to come to discharge with cod-liver oil in tuberculosis. He directs the preits sewage into the Thames. If Parliament allows this lime of boluses wrapped in gum and sugar in the folBill to pass we may expect other towns on the Thames to manner :-Pure cod-liver oil, thirty drachms; make lowing follow suit, and thus the water-supply of the metropolis a soap with hydrate of lime of the consistence of pills, and will suffer a great, it may be a fatal, deterioration in flavour with essential oil of bitter or oil of aniseed, quality. What is the use of Royal Commissions and fifteen minims. Let the boluses almonds, weigh from four to five Acts of Parliament if it be permitted to an insignificant protect them with a mixture of one part of local authority to set them all aside according to its con- grains, and powdered iris root and three parts of powdered sugar. The venience ?P boluses may also be wrapped in ethereal tincture of tol". The patient may take from six to eight per diem, two at a time, immediately after meals. To this calcareous soap a salt of morphine, or extract of aconite, or extract of henbane may be added, as well as any other substance which the medical man may think indicated in a particular case.

feet deep, worked as therefore purify, the

an

intermittent

drainage-water

space only

paration

___

Foreign Cleanings.

ULCERS OF THE CERVIX UTERI.

DESTRUCTION OF THE ANTERIOR LOBE OF THE

BRAIN;, M. DESPRÉS, surgeon to the Paris hospital for women NO PARALYSIS. affected with venereal diseases, has published a book on A man, aged thirty-two, was struck, from a height of 25 the above subject. The work has been succinctly analysed yards, by a heavy pail, which shattered the skull and in the Montpellier Med., April and May, 1871, and the re- drove out brain-substance. The loss of splinters and cereviewer quotes from the work the following passage, which bral matter for the next few days was very considerable. is worth attention :-" The diseases of women have often The mind remained clear, and the limbs could be freely moved. No notable occurred until the sixteenth day proved a rich mine to certain authors, and the extensive after the accident, change when the patient died of exhaustionpractice derived from their writings has mostly been The right anterior lobe was almost entirely gone, and the founded on the use of some new agent, hence the many middle lobe, on the same side, was found compressed by a remedies which have been proposed. On the other hand, flattened and hardened clot. M. Letenneur, the patient’s we find unbiased men giving an account in their works of surgeon, does not say whether the man had any difficulty in.. the therapeutical means which have been extolled, register- articulating. This is an omission much to be regretteding failures and occasional success. I am anxious to LOCAL ANÆSTHESIA. state my belief that the latter depends mostly on coinciDr. Spessa states, in the Bulletin des Sc. Med. (Italy) that dences, and that the cures might have been obtained by he has succeeded in preventing pain, during the slitting of other means. It should be remembered that most special- a fistulous tract, by injecting a solution of morphine into ists in the diseases of women use but one mode of cure ; the tract before the use of the knife. The same author such as the red-hot iron, lunar caustic, and more or less had occasion to touch the vulvar vegetations of a girl with. concentrated solutions of the latter; all, however, curing butter of the pain was very acute, but disappeared antimony: ulcers of the cervix in about the same lapse of time." M. on the part being brushed over with a solution of morphia. Després ignores all internal remedies, and relies on topical A boy of from hip-joint disease, required fifteen, applications. He considers, however, that complete con- an issue over and suffering behind the great trochanter. An injectinence, cleanliness, an occasional cauterisation by any tion of morphine was first made over the region, and agent, are very efficacious, especially when patients are Vienna applied, which latter remained about eight treated early, and subjected to constant control. The minutes.paste The paste did not give any pain. Dr. Spessa author adds that he has found the plug very useful, and states that he would be glad to hear that a fair trial has gives the following description of it:-Take a small piece been given to this mode of using morphia. of coarse gauze, in which a pledget of cotton wool is placed VACCINATION EXPERIMENTS ON CATS AND DOGS. after it has been filled with about 15 grains of powd-red Drs. Horand and Peuch publish, in the Lyon Médical alum. Fold the gauze over the wool, and tie the ends of the former with a thread five or six inches long, which is (March 19th, 1871), a series of experiments in this dire&allowed to hang out of the vagina to facilitate the removal tion ; and they find that both cats and dog are insusceptible of the development of vaccine lymph. of the plug. The latter should remain twenty-four hours.