UNHEALTHY CLIMATES.

487 motive power by means other than those in use on ordinary railways. It has, too, yet to be decided by the engineering SiNCE Britishers went far afield in pursuit of territory, world whether the erection of a shaft or shafts in the either by conquest or annexation, there is little doubt that Channel is practicable. In considering this important subthey have invariably imported into a new colony, among ject of ventilation in connexion with the Channel tunnel, much useful material, many insanitary sins and habits that we have no work in existence at all analogous to the prohave from time immemorial existed in the old country in a posed structure; for that through Mont Cenis is comparagreater or less degree. During the last decade, however, a tively short, and admirably situated for purposes of ventigreat deal has been done, both here and in India, to purifyr lation, and the Metropolitan Railway is so riddled with persons, manners, customs, and dwellings, and it will be openings, shafts, and holes in every direction, that even hard if, when His Excellency Sir A. Gordon takes formal London smoke and dirt fail to make its atmosphere more possession of our newly acquired territory in the Pacific,, than dense, or, in some parts, disagreeable. he does not plant there some of these newly-acquired virtues. The governor has already on his staff two very UNHEALTHY CLIMATES. able surgeons, who, if vested with proper power in all (as we A LARGE body of civilians serving under the Crown in should say at home) "urban, rural, and port" matters, ought to ensure, in a sanitary sense, a palmy prospect for Fiji. We various parts of the world will henceforth be specially interested in the official definition of an unhealthy climate. A are told that the climate is charming, that there are no wild kind and inimical to new Superannuation Act (the terms of which, as a Bill, we of beasts or creatures mankind, any that the earth gives forth abundantly all things necessary referred to briefly some weeks ago) has just become law, to life. Under these circumstances, and armed with powers which gives to the Commissioners of the Treasury power to analogous to those granted under our own Public Health, declare by order a country or "place" unhealthy, in reMerchant Shipping, Emigration, and Contagious Diseases ference to the scale of retiring allowance to be awarded to Acts, it should surely be almost possible to keep out of the civil servants under the Act of 1859. In computing any islands venereal and epidemic diseases. The area of terri- allowance under this statute, two years’ service in a place tOTY is small, but scattered, and there are very few ports officially designated as unhealthy shall be reckoned as of call. A strict system of port sanitary surveillance, E service for three years, and so on in proportion for any modified system of quarantine, and the establishment ofa greater or lesser period. We are curious to see the schedule floating hospital, are the chief working items needed t( of unhealthy places compiled by the Commissioners for the command success. Dr. Mayo and his colleague have a finl purposes of this Act. The factors that go to make a field open to them for the practice of those 11 preventivi ! "place" unhealthy are many and various. Some are, so principles" about which we are just now disposed to be s’ ) to speak, natural, found ready to hand, and never eradicated proud. by any amount of civilisation ; some have been introduced by colonisation, are firmly rooted, and grow with the popuEXCISION OF TONSILS. lation. Will "places" suffering from preventable unA WRITER in the Revue die Thérapeutique Medico- Chirurgi- healthiness be scheduled ? for if so, many civilians serving cale for March 15th, in a note upon amygdalotomy, suggested at home as well as abroad will be benefited by the new by a new guillotine, states that the operation is sometimess Act. And what about certain " places " in various public attended with fatal haemorrhage, but that it is never neces- buildings not one hundred miles from Charing-cross? PALMY

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the whole or even the greater part of a tonsil, the cicatrisation following on removal of the superficial parts alone sufficing to reduce its size; nor is it essential to operate on more than one of these organs, Strong preference is given to the employment of the guillotine over the bistoury, because of the inutility of re moval of large portions, and the less liability to accidents In support of the necessity of operating speedily in certaii cases, a melancholy instance is given from the practice 01 the writer, in which the patient, a girl of sixteen years suffering from angina with great enlargement of tonsils literally died from asphyxia from excision being deferred at the instance of a colleague, who thought hsemorrhag would be very severe, and that the case would speedily ge well if left alone. sary to

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OBSTETRIC ENGAGEMENTS.

THEJudge of the County Court of Barrow has pronouncedthe idea of a medical practitioner holding himself in readiness to fulfil an obstetric engagement, and postponing a holiday on this ground, to be such nonsense as he never heard in his life ! Dr. Williams had been engaged to attend a woman in her confinement. He stayed in Barrow some weeks longer than he would have done to fulfil his engagement. When the labour came it was so short that they did not send for him. But he claimed the fee in the County Court on the score of his engagement, which had hindered his freedom. Our readers know that this claim is constantly recognised by County Court judges. Here it has not only been disallowed, but the judge has thought it consistent with his position and his duty to make THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. light of obstetric engagements, and throw ridicule upon a THis tunnel, if it becomes an accomplished fact, will test conscientious practitioner who respects them. We should very severely the abilities of our "ventilating" architects and suggest to His Honour to acquaint himself with the ordinary engineers. Our contemporary, the Engineer, has elaborated. judgments of his fellow judges. He will not injure the proso much as the public by treating thus lightly very some curious statistics on the subject, and arrives at the serious contracts. conclusion that, having regard to the number of trains seni; will it be if locomotives through daily, necessary, ordinary A VINDICATION OF MEDICAL STUDENTS. are used, to renew the air in the tunnel entirely every hour and, as the tunnel will be twenty miles long, and all the ai] contemporary, the Pall Mall Gazette, alluding to thE must be withdrawn from one end or the other, a current o evidence adduced at a recent inquest on the body of an un air must be passed through at the rate of twenty miles a fortunate police-constable at Birmingham, who lost his lift hour. These results are, of course, arrived at on the sup in consequence of being stabbed in the neck by some das be rendered th that the air would irrespirable by tardly ruffians during a street riot, praises the humane an( position conduct of the students of the Queen’s Hospita coke smoke evolved, and the obvious alternative is to appl; ____

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