A MEDICAL OFFICER'S SALARY. BOARDS of guardians, as is only too well known to the medical profession, do not always err on the side of generosity and sympathy towards their medical officers. An account in the Bradford Observer of a recent meeting of the Bradford board of guardians reveals a condition of over-work and under-pay in the terms of employment of the medical officer of No. 1 district under that board which calls for public attention, particularly at a time when the amount and method

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... remuneration for medical service has become a public question. We learn that the deputy chairman of the Bradford board of guardians proposed that, subject to the consent of the Local Government Board, the salary of this medical officer should be increased from .E50 to 2100 per annum, exclusive of medicines and dispensing, which should in future be provided by the guardians. In answer to a critic the deputy-chairman justified his proposal by the statement that " the doctor had spent all the money allowed him in medicines; he had had nothing for himself. During the past year he had made no fewer than 3500 visits, which ran out at 3 1/2d. per visit, so that really the doctor did not get paid for the medicine he gave, and the guardians thought it was time for every man to receive his hire." It is satisfactory to note that the motion was carried without further ado. CHOLERA AND PLAGUE IN RUSSIA. Mr. A. W. Woodhouse, British Consul at St. Petersburg, in his report for the past year just received at the Foreign Office, writes: " During 1910 conditions of public health in Russia were severely tried by a recurrence of plague and intensification of the cholera epidemic which had prevailed for three years previously on a much smaller scale. This increase of cholera is shown in the following comparison of figures for the past four years YM.-Provinces and Cases. Deaths. Year. territories affected. Cases. Deaths.