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THE SPAS OF SPAIN.
THE CLOSURE OF WELLS LIABLE TO POLLUTION.
736
Wycombe councillors have but recently taken ad- is nearly 2500 at Caldas-de-Oviedo and at Montemayor vantage of the facilities offered by the Infectious I, (Caceres) ; some other spas, as Archena, attract considerably Diseases’Notification Act; but certainly suspicion attaches ’, more. The greater proportion of the springs can be classed itself to all authorities who are unwilling to make them- in either the common salt, simple thermal, or sulphurous selves cognisant of the dangers in their midst, and groups. perhaps enteric fever may be found to be more or less THE SPECIAL CANADIAN SUPPLEMENT TO endemic in High Wycombe. The town council is said to THE LANCET. be at last bestirring itself in the matter of stopping the leaks in the sewers ; but the amount voted for the purpose SOME copies of the Special Canadian Supplement to THE is not regarded by all as adequate, and it has yet to be LANCET produced, printed, and published in Montreal on proved that the sewage can be so treated as to afford any Sept. 3rd on the occasion of the meeting of the British guarantee that pathogenic organisms arriving on the farm Medical Association in Canada have reached us by the last may not retain their virulence until they reach the sub- mail. Such a publication is, we venture to think, a new soil water of Wycombe Marsh. The town councillors are departure in medical journalism. The supplement appears as naturally angry at their affairs being discussed in public, but a journal of forty eight pages and contains the addresses of it is their obvious duty at once to set their house in order ; Dr. Roddick, Dr. Osler, and Mr. Mitchell Banks, a leading
the
------
and it appears from the reports which we have read that a pure water-supply for the whole of High Wycombe and for Wycombe Marsh is not the least pressing question for the urban and rural district councillors to grapple with.
UNIVERSAL HYPERTRICHOSIS AND PREMATURE MENSTRUATION IN A CHILD. appears in the number of the -Revite des S‘ciences A girl, Midicales. July who six was not for abnormal at showed birth, years, aged the past two years a remarkable development of hair. The body, especially in the lower limbs, was covered with hairs more abundantly than in a very hairy man. The pubic hairs were more developed -than in many adult females. There were whiskers on the face. The hair of the ’head was normal. Menstruation began at the age of three ; it lasted six or seven days, and was profuse. In the following eighteen months it reappeared eight or nine times at almost regular intervals, and then ceased. The intel’ ’ligence was advanced in a corresponding degree. The child’s parents and elder brothers and sisters had normal development of hair, but two brothers, aged sixteen and twelve years, and next in age, had precocious beards. We may Direct attention to one point. The case shows something more than precocious sexual development in the case of the hair. There is also production of male characteristics. Now, curiously, in the adult female this event is also associated with abnormal conditions of the genital organs.
THE following
case,
published by Lesser,
THE SPAS OF SPAIN. SpAlx possesses many mineral springs, but very few of them are at all well known in other countries. Amongst the few exceptions may be reckoned some aperient waters, the sulphurous springs of Panticosa in the Pyrenees near the French frontier, and also the alkaline waters of Vidago, termed the Spanish Vichy." From the official statistics published by the Spanish Governmentit appears that the , total number of establishments is 169, and that they are scattered over forty-three different provinces. The total . number of springs is 443, and those of Alhama (Zaragoz a), Alhama Nuevo (Granada), and Fitero Nuevo (Navarra) yield the most copious supply of water. Amongst the , hottest springs are those of Caldas de Montbuy in Barcelona (122° to 158° F.) and Archena in Murcia (131° F.). The spa of Panticosa in Huesca has the loftiest position, being about 5600 English feet above sea-level and nearly rivalling St. Moritz in altitude. Amongst strong sulphated waters the Spanish sources of Rubinat, Carabana, and Villacabras are tolerably well-known in other parts of Europe, . especially in France; the aperient water of La Margarita, Loeches (Province of Madrid) is widely known in Spain, and is sold in bottles everywhere. The annual number of visitors ,
1
La Gaceta de
Madrid, May 8th, 1897.
article, and editorial notes and comments upon the proceedings of the meeting, together with a (necessarily
brief) report of the proceedings
in the different sections.
THE CLOSURE OF WELLS LIABLE TO POLLUTION. THE interpretation which the law usually places upon the provisions of Section 70 of the Pablic Health Act is far from satisfactory to the medical officers of health, who, in spite of a well being in a most dangerous environment, may be
unable to effect its closure unless the water from it can be demonstrated by analysis to be polluted. That liability to pollution is a far more important point than the result of chemical or bacteriological examination is admitted by every epidemiologist, but, as a matter of practice, a given case must, as a rule, stand or fall according to the finding of the chemist at any given time. The decisions of the law have, however, a way of being modified in a remarkable manner, and when a legal position is obviously opposed to what may be called the common sense view the law tends to place an interpretation upon words and sentences in keeping with the spirit of the moment. This point was illustrated in an interesting fashion by a decision arrived at recently at the St. Albans divisional sessions, when the St. Albans rural district council sought closure orders against twenty-three owners of wells in the Bowling-alley, Harpenden. The contention of the council was that the whole of the area in which the wells in question were situated was pervaded by the enteric fever bacillus owing to the fact that the subsoil was permeated with infected excreta ; furthermore, it was shown by chemical analysis that the water from the wells presented different degrees of organic pollution, although the wells were all supplied from the same source. It was urged, too, that the variations in the analyses wet weather showed the wells to be and during dry liable to intermittent pollution. For the defence it was argued that no chemical analyses had been produced, and that it must be proved before the Court that a well was actually polluted, and not that it was liable to pollution. The Bench, however, after much deliberation, decided to issue orders for closure, as they considered that the wells might prove dangerous in the event of a fresh outbreak of enteric fever taking place. Whatever may be the merits of this decision from a strictly legal standpoint, no epidemiologist is likely to quarrel with it. A locality where the excrement is placed in one pervious hole, and the drinking water taken from another but a short distance away, cannot be other than a dangerous one, and if the law does not enable wells which are thus situated to be closed the sooner an alteration is effected the better. Dr. Frank Dobbin, the deputy medical officer of health of St. Albans, is to be congratulated upon the in which he supplied the evidence in this case, and
manner
736
Wycombe councillors have but recently taken ad- is nearly 2500 at Caldas-de-Oviedo and at Montemayor vantage of the facilities offered by the Infectious I, (Caceres) ; some other spas, as Archena, attract considerably Diseases’Notification Act; but certainly suspicion attaches ’, more. The greater proportion of the springs can be classed itself to all authorities who are unwilling to make them- in either the common salt, simple thermal, or sulphurous selves cognisant of the dangers in their midst, and groups. perhaps enteric fever may be found to be more or less THE SPECIAL CANADIAN SUPPLEMENT TO endemic in High Wycombe. The town council is said to THE LANCET. be at last bestirring itself in the matter of stopping the leaks in the sewers ; but the amount voted for the purpose SOME copies of the Special Canadian Supplement to THE is not regarded by all as adequate, and it has yet to be LANCET produced, printed, and published in Montreal on proved that the sewage can be so treated as to afford any Sept. 3rd on the occasion of the meeting of the British guarantee that pathogenic organisms arriving on the farm Medical Association in Canada have reached us by the last may not retain their virulence until they reach the sub- mail. Such a publication is, we venture to think, a new soil water of Wycombe Marsh. The town councillors are departure in medical journalism. The supplement appears as naturally angry at their affairs being discussed in public, but a journal of forty eight pages and contains the addresses of it is their obvious duty at once to set their house in order ; Dr. Roddick, Dr. Osler, and Mr. Mitchell Banks, a leading
the
------
and it appears from the reports which we have read that a pure water-supply for the whole of High Wycombe and for Wycombe Marsh is not the least pressing question for the urban and rural district councillors to grapple with.
UNIVERSAL HYPERTRICHOSIS AND PREMATURE MENSTRUATION IN A CHILD. appears in the number of the -Revite des S‘ciences A girl, Midicales. July who six was not for abnormal at showed birth, years, aged the past two years a remarkable development of hair. The body, especially in the lower limbs, was covered with hairs more abundantly than in a very hairy man. The pubic hairs were more developed -than in many adult females. There were whiskers on the face. The hair of the ’head was normal. Menstruation began at the age of three ; it lasted six or seven days, and was profuse. In the following eighteen months it reappeared eight or nine times at almost regular intervals, and then ceased. The intel’ ’ligence was advanced in a corresponding degree. The child’s parents and elder brothers and sisters had normal development of hair, but two brothers, aged sixteen and twelve years, and next in age, had precocious beards. We may Direct attention to one point. The case shows something more than precocious sexual development in the case of the hair. There is also production of male characteristics. Now, curiously, in the adult female this event is also associated with abnormal conditions of the genital organs.
THE following
case,
published by Lesser,
THE SPAS OF SPAIN. SpAlx possesses many mineral springs, but very few of them are at all well known in other countries. Amongst the few exceptions may be reckoned some aperient waters, the sulphurous springs of Panticosa in the Pyrenees near the French frontier, and also the alkaline waters of Vidago, termed the Spanish Vichy." From the official statistics published by the Spanish Governmentit appears that the , total number of establishments is 169, and that they are scattered over forty-three different provinces. The total . number of springs is 443, and those of Alhama (Zaragoz a), Alhama Nuevo (Granada), and Fitero Nuevo (Navarra) yield the most copious supply of water. Amongst the , hottest springs are those of Caldas de Montbuy in Barcelona (122° to 158° F.) and Archena in Murcia (131° F.). The spa of Panticosa in Huesca has the loftiest position, being about 5600 English feet above sea-level and nearly rivalling St. Moritz in altitude. Amongst strong sulphated waters the Spanish sources of Rubinat, Carabana, and Villacabras are tolerably well-known in other parts of Europe, . especially in France; the aperient water of La Margarita, Loeches (Province of Madrid) is widely known in Spain, and is sold in bottles everywhere. The annual number of visitors ,
1
La Gaceta de
Madrid, May 8th, 1897.
article, and editorial notes and comments upon the proceedings of the meeting, together with a (necessarily
brief) report of the proceedings
in the different sections.
THE CLOSURE OF WELLS LIABLE TO POLLUTION. THE interpretation which the law usually places upon the provisions of Section 70 of the Pablic Health Act is far from satisfactory to the medical officers of health, who, in spite of a well being in a most dangerous environment, may be
unable to effect its closure unless the water from it can be demonstrated by analysis to be polluted. That liability to pollution is a far more important point than the result of chemical or bacteriological examination is admitted by every epidemiologist, but, as a matter of practice, a given case must, as a rule, stand or fall according to the finding of the chemist at any given time. The decisions of the law have, however, a way of being modified in a remarkable manner, and when a legal position is obviously opposed to what may be called the common sense view the law tends to place an interpretation upon words and sentences in keeping with the spirit of the moment. This point was illustrated in an interesting fashion by a decision arrived at recently at the St. Albans divisional sessions, when the St. Albans rural district council sought closure orders against twenty-three owners of wells in the Bowling-alley, Harpenden. The contention of the council was that the whole of the area in which the wells in question were situated was pervaded by the enteric fever bacillus owing to the fact that the subsoil was permeated with infected excreta ; furthermore, it was shown by chemical analysis that the water from the wells presented different degrees of organic pollution, although the wells were all supplied from the same source. It was urged, too, that the variations in the analyses wet weather showed the wells to be and during dry liable to intermittent pollution. For the defence it was argued that no chemical analyses had been produced, and that it must be proved before the Court that a well was actually polluted, and not that it was liable to pollution. The Bench, however, after much deliberation, decided to issue orders for closure, as they considered that the wells might prove dangerous in the event of a fresh outbreak of enteric fever taking place. Whatever may be the merits of this decision from a strictly legal standpoint, no epidemiologist is likely to quarrel with it. A locality where the excrement is placed in one pervious hole, and the drinking water taken from another but a short distance away, cannot be other than a dangerous one, and if the law does not enable wells which are thus situated to be closed the sooner an alteration is effected the better. Dr. Frank Dobbin, the deputy medical officer of health of St. Albans, is to be congratulated upon the in which he supplied the evidence in this case, and
manner