578 lateral columns which they occupied in the cord. In the pons the two become separated by a, layer of grey substance ; the sensitive part becomes considerably modified, and becomes more and more external. It occupies the outer part of the cerebral peduncles, and enters the optic thalami with the antero-internal columns. Annotations. "Ne quid nimis." HOW TYPHOID FEVER IS SPREAD. DR. FRANKLAND, in a recent address to the Fellows of the Chemical Society on the Organic Impurities of

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... r, adduced, as a striking instance of the persistency of the typhoid poison when disused in water, the outbreak of a violent epidemic of typhoid fever in a Swiss village through the use of spring water which, after contamination with the poison, had filtered through nearly a mile of porous earth, but had nevertheless lost none of its virulent properties. The occurrence in question is one of the most remarkable, if not the most remarkable, on record, and the circumstances in connexion with it have been exhaustively investigated by Dr. A. Hagler, of Basel. The facts have been set forth by the late Professor Parkes in the last volume of the Army Medical Bluebook, and briefly by Professor Frankland in a communication to Nature. In the village of Lausen (on the railway from Basel to Olter) epidemic enteric fever had never occurred in the memory of man, and the neighbourhood was also free. The ground consists of marl and lime, and is tolerably waterholding. Certain well-water was only used by the inhabitants of six houses, while the other inhabitants (780, in 90 houses) used the water from a public spring which arises at the foot of a hill, the "Stockholden." This water is received into a reservoir, and then led, by wooden pipes, into four stone tanks. On 7th August, 1871, ten inhabitants were attacked, and, in nine days more, fifty-seven persons were sick with typhoid fever. These cases spread over the whole village using the spring water, but the inhabitants of all the houses which had wells of their own were entirely spared. To the end of October, 130 persons were attacked, besides several children; and, towards the end of the epidemic, two persons were attacked who lived in the houses which did not have the water from the common spring. The proof that the "springwasser" had distributed the "infectious matter" was based on the following:-Stockholden is a hill 300 feet high; its westerly spur extends into a little side valley. Through this little valley runs the Furler streamlet, which beyond the village of Lausen ends in the " Ergolz." In the Furler valley were some scattered farm-houses. In one of these farm-houses, in June and July, two persons were attacked with typhoid, and later on two others. The latrines of these houses were all in direct connexion with the brook, but this opens into the Ergolz below Lausen. After accurate inquiry it was found, however, that the Furler brook communicated directly with the spring descending from the Stockholden. It was known to the inhabitants of Lausen that when the meadows in the Furler valley were watered, the spring increased in amount ; besides, about ten years ago, 100 paces below the infected houses in Furler valley, the upper-earth strata had fallen in, and formed a large opening, into which some of the water of the Furler brook flowed without again reappearing. After the hay harvest in July the meadows were water-manured, and the spring in Lausen shortly afterwards obtained a turbid and bad-tasting water. The ground was geologically explored, and when the above-named spring was dug up, salt water was poured into the Furler brook and made the spring in Lausen quite briny. As Professor Frankland puts it in his communication to Nature, the passage of water from the irrigated meadows to the spring at Lausen was proved by dissolving in it, at the meadows, eighteen hundred-weight of common salt, and then observing the rapid increase of chlorine in the spring water; but the most important and interesting experiment consisted in mixing uniformly with the water fifty hundred-weight of flour, not a trace of which made its way to the spring; showing that the water was filtered through the intervening earth, and did not pass by an underground channel. The conclusion is obvious—viz., the risk which attends the use, for dietetic purposes, of water to which even so-called purified sewage gains access, although, as in the case of Lausen, such water may be used with impunity until the moment when the sewage becomes impregnated with typhoid poison. MORPHIA DISEASE. THE vast abuse of narcotics in modern society is becom. ing a serious evil. There is no denying the fact that in countries where no administrative control of chemist-shops exists, as in England and America, the public has too easy access to such drugs. The report of the Medical Officer to the Privy Council on the use of laudanum in the industrial districts of England for the purpose of keeping infants quiet startled its readers some years ago. It is not long since a political weekly contemporary boldly contended that chloral was to be found in the workboxes and baskets of nearly every lady in the West-end ,to calm her nerves." Chloral-punch had become an 11 institution" in the drinking-saloons of New York scarcely a year after its introduction into medical practice. Now we hear from sober, orderly, and paternally ruled Germany that there is such a thing as morphia disease spreading amongst its population. The easy application of subcutaneous injections left to the patients themselves or their attendants by indulgent practitioners has proved so tempting to persons afflicted with bodily or mental pain that they have taken to habitually practising them, and, of course, as in the case of the continued and uncontrolled internal use of opium, alcohol, or chloral, the effect soon becoming weaker, the ' dose has been increased, and, in some cases related by the physician of the private maison de sante' at Berlin in the ' Klin. Wochenschrift, reached the amount of from 12 to 16 grains per diem. The symptoms seemed to be very much , like those of opium-eating. One lady took to morphia injections, after she had become acquainted with their effect in an attack of gall-stone colic, during the French . war, when the anxiety about her male relations in the field ' weighed too heavily on her mind to stand the mental stress. After she had practised the soothing operation four years, L her face showed a greyish-leaden hue, the pupils became ' the size of a pin's bead, and her monthly periods had ceased, though she was only thirty-three years old and married. Violent shiverings after the type of tertian fever, hyper-æsthesia and neuralgia, dislike for meat diet, great weakness, inability to pursue any continued occupation, existed, L with unimpaired intellect and memory, in the well-educated , and clever patient. She was cured in the space of four ! weeks by gradual deprivation of the drug. Her catamenia , returned in ten days. If patients subject to this kind of disease become aware of their state they are apt to change it into alcoholism. The wife of a medical man who saw in , a book on Materia Medica that alcohol was considered an , antidote for morphia became a confirmed drunkard. The 6 ! author observed four similar cases. In two other cases the 579 patients committed suicide, and two died from marasmus. His friends had observed with, anxiety for some time past, These last four had refused medical treatment. numerous indications of failing health, but Mr. De Morgan, The task of the physician seems to be always a very who was in his sixty-fifth year at the time of his death, had difficult one, as it is impossible to wean these persons from apparently much improved in health during the past few their habit unless they are treated like prisoners, searched weeks. After sitting up on the night of Thursday, the before admission to the hospital or sick-room, put under the 6th inst., with his friend, he returned home to breakguard of attendants inaccessible to bribery, and cut off fast, and afterwards visited a patient out of doors. from all communication with the outer world before the Whilst prescribing for a lady in his own house early critical time has passed. The most highly educated and in the forenoon, he was seized with very severe and prootherwise respectable will tell any amount of lies and per-longed rigors, accompanied by intense stabbing pain in the jure themselves to procure the accustomed poison. Like left mammary region. He at once sent for his colleague, dipsomania and opium-eating, the morphia disease degrades Dr. Greenhow, and in his absence Dr. Henry Thompson was the moral character. Twelve hours after the stoppage of summoned. Both these gentlemen attended unremittingly the morphia injections a severe collapse generally ensues, throughout his illness. The temperature rose rapidly to and it is advisable to keep the patient for a week in bed. 104°, and the pulse to 90; and in the course of a few hours Wine and ammonia may be given, the latter injected, but there was evidence of consolidation of the greater part of alcoholic stimulants are, for the reason stated, to be used the left lung, especially of the apex, accompanied by other sparingly. Wild excitement and depression follow in altersigns of pneumonic hepatisa.tion , and marked pleuritic' nation. The tepid bath, with or without cold afflision, a friction was audible over the whole of the left chest. He mild generous diet, and an occasional dose of chloral will continued to suffer from intense pain in the original seat,. be useful. Ganerally, after some days, diarrhœa of a cripain which was only relieved by repeated doses of chloral tical character sets in and lasts from a week to a fortnight, and morphia. The pulse soon became somewhat irregular, without requiring any remedy but two or three warm water and free stimulation was had recourse to. Early on Monday enemata during the day. Uncontrollable vomiting may moist crepitation was audible over the whole of the left necessitate nutrition by means of an enema. If no diarlung, increasing rapidly throughout the day, when also rhcea makes its appearance, and the usual behaviour and evidence of oedema of the lower lobe of the right lung showed chee) fulness of the patient remain unaltered, the physician itself. From the very first he was struck down by the can be sure that he has been able to partake of morphia in severity of the attack, and he died early on the morning of secet. Experience seems to make it advisable to deprive Wednesday the 12th, after but five days' illness. We are people suffering from this disease at once and entirely of informed that the funeral will take place at Kensal-green. the drug. Their wilfulness and liability to relapses are, next Tuesday, at 12 o'clock. however, so great that only about 25 per cent. have been seen to recover in a large series of cases. The moral treat-SIZE OF THE ULTIMATE ATOMS OF MATTER. ment, by urging them early to some kind of steady work, is IN a recent remarkable address delivered before the Royal particularly to be insisted upon. Microscopical Society by Mr. Sorby, an attempt is made to determine the size of the ultimate atoms of matter. Expe-DEATH OF MR. CAMPBELL DE MORCAN, F.R.S. riments recently made by Dr. Royston-Pigott, a well-known WE little thought when, two weeks ago, we drew atten-microscopist, satisfied him that the smallest visual angle tion to the excellent bust of Campbell De Morgan, executed we could distinctly appreciate was a bole one inch and a by his friend John Graham Lough, and presented by him to quarter in diameter at a distance of 1100 yards, which corthe Middlesex Hospital, that in so short a time we should responds to about 6" of arc. This visual arc in a microscope have to point out that that fine work of art was indeed magnifying 1000 linear would correspond to about the none other than a memorial of him whose features it so three-millionth part of an inch ; on various grounds, howwell portrays. With very great sorrow do we record the ever, Mr. Sorby is inclined to think that a size between death of one whose departure from amongst us has been so 1/80000 and 1/100000 of an inch, is about the limit of the visiswift and sudden. Full of years and honours, yet sharing bility of minute objects, even with the best microscopes. to the last in those duties which it has been his delight to He then proceeds to consider the relation this magnitude follow during a long professional career; honoured and bears to the size of the ultimate atoms of organic and inrespected by all who knew him, venerated with no common organic matter, and shows in the first instance that the veneration by a multitude of our profession who were proud mean of the calculations made by Stoney, Thomson, and to claim him as their teacher, he is mourned to-day by as Clerk-Maxwell gives 21770 as the number of atoms of any large a circle of friends as any man could have. We must permanent gas that would lie end to end in the space of leave to another occasion to speak more fully of his long 1/1000 of an inch in length. The cube of this mean is about career-a career striking in its simplicity and honesty of 10,317,000,000,000, which represents the number of atoms in purpose. There is one melancholy fact in the history of his a space of 1/1000 of an inch cube, that is in 1/1000000000 of a last and fatal illness. It is this: His friend Mr. Lough had cubic inch. But if the gas containing this number of atoms just completed his task and superintended the erection of consisted of two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen, his tribute of affection and gratitude, when he was when combined to form vapour of water, there would taken ill with bronchitis. Mr. De Morgan was unremitting be a condensation of volume from three to two, and in his attention, and watched throughout the night of the on condensing to liquid a further contraction to 1/77 6th instant by the bedside of his dying friend. The next of the bulk of the vapour. Each molecule of water day he was himself struck down by the attack of pleuro-would, however, consist of three atoms of gas, and hence pneumonia which has hurried him to the grave. Mr. the number of molecules of liquid water in 1/1000 of an inch Lough died on the Saturday, the day after Mr. De Morgan's cube would amount to about 3,972,000,000,000,000. A seizure. Few can doubt that in this last act of friendly similar train of reasoning applied to albumen in the form of devotion Campbell De Morgan sacrificed his own life. horn leads to the result that in a cube of 1/1000 of an inch " Greater love hath no man than this." there are about 71,000,000,000,000 molecules. According to We are indebted to the courtesy of a hospital colleague these principles there would be in the length of 1/80000 of an for the following account of Mr. De Morgan's last illness. inch (the smallest visible object), about 2000 molecules of 580 water or 520 of albumen, and therefore, in order to see the coatings, as limewash, distemper, &c., materially impair the ultimate constitution of organic bodies it would be neces-permeability of the porous materials, oil almost entirely sary to use a magnifying power of from 500 to 2000 times abolishing it. 4. Wetting such substances impairs their greater than those we now possess. These, however, would porosity. 5. Porous substances give off the water they have be of no use unless the waves of light were some 2 & O t i l d e ; & O t i l d e ; part taken up with a rapidity proportionate to the size of their of the length they are, and our eyes and instruments cor-pores. Clinkers were found to be absolutely water-tight, respondingly perfect. As matters now stand we are about and hence Lang recommends them as being peculiarly apas far from a knowledge of the ultimate structure of propriate for the formation of drains. organic bodies as we should be of the contents of a news-paper seen with the naked eye at a distance of a third of a THE Diagnosis OF HYDROPHOBIA. mile, under which circumstances the letters of various sizes _ fallacies attending a diaonosis of hydrophobia are would correspond .L the smaller and larger ultimate mole-THE fallacies attending a diagnosis 0 hydrophobia, are would correspond to the smaller and larger ultimate mole-.. , ." , , boy a 0 . ., n few days cules This being the case, th particles of organic matter strikingly illustrated by a case which occurred a few days may differ in an almost infinite number of structural I ago at Leamington. An inquest was held on the body of a woman, aged forty-six, who was popalarly supposed to have characters, iust as any number of different newspapers in various languages or with varying contents would look died in consequence of hydrophobia caused by the bite of a alike at a distance of a third of a mile. The bearing of cat. A month after receiving the bite a convulsive attack these calculations, as Mr. Sorby shows, is important on the ushered in a period of restlessness and nervousness, during physical aspect of Darwin's doctrine of pangenesis, and he which the bite was evidently foremost in her mind. These thinks they are, upon the whole, favourable to that theory symptoms lasted ten days, and suggested to the medical men in attendance the probability, and to the friends of the deceased the certainty, of hydrophobia. Its distinctive THE LATE DR. PARKES. symptoms, however, were absent, and on the eleventh day an A FEW of the former colleagues of Dr. Parkes at Uni-attack of epileptiform convulsion occurred, followed by hemiversity College met, on Monday evening last, at the house plegia, coma, and death. A certificate of apoplexy and of Mr. Erichsen, to consider the desirability of establishing hemiplegia was properly given, but the popular supposition some permanent tribute to the memory of Dr. Parkes in of hydrophobia led to an inquest. the whole of the symptoms. The case itself is instructive. and Dr. Wilson Fox were prevented by unavoidable circum-Bites. from dogs and cats are very common ; cerebral stances from being present. After some discussion the diseases leading to general symptoms are not very rare. following resolutions were unanimously agreed to :-The concurrence of the two incidents generally leads to 1. " That this meeting is of opinion that it is desirable to the inference that the bite is the cause of the symptoms, -establish at University College, London, a permanent and when, in addition, a state of nervousness and rabiomemorial of Dr. Parkes." 2. "That such memorial should phobia is present, the symptoms are rendered complex, and be of a character to aid scientific investigation and practical the diagnosis is a matter of some difficulty. study in the subjects to which Dr. Parkes's work has been . especially directed." 3. "That subscriptions be invited to THE PROPOSED UNITED SANITARY DISTRICTS a fund for the establishment of such a memorial, to which IN WALES. Mr. Erichsen be treasurer, and Dr. Gowers and Dr. Poore WE learn from the Wrexham Advertiser that the sanitary honorary secretaries." authorities in that neighbourhood having generally eapressed opinions unfavourable to Mr. Doyle's scheme of THE POROSITY OF SOME BUILDING combination, the Local Gocernment Board has deferred the MATERIALS. consideration of the question for the present year. In other IN a memoir devoted to this subject in the Zeitschrift fi'cr words, as our contemporary expresses it, " Mr. Doyle's Biologie (Ba.nd xi., Heft 3),which has attained considerable scheme is effectually bowled over." Even the authorities importance since the publication of Pettenkofer's classical that at first assented to the scheme, it would appear, have lectures on Ventilation, C. Lang gives the results of a now voted against it. Our contemporary observes :large series of experiments he has performed on the differ-" The officers intended to be appointed to the districts ent kinds of stone, brick, &c., usually devoted to building under this clause would not, in our opinion, secure the purposes. The points he elucidates are the permeability of sa,nitary supervision expected, and on this ground we are building materials in the dry and in the moist state, the supported by high medical authority. The Local Gopermeability of the dry materials for coal gas,-tbe recovery vernment Board would secure much better supervision of their permeability after being moistened if a constant by appointing efficient sanitary inspectors on a similar current of air be transmitted through them, and, lastly, basis to those under the new Poor Law, who would their power of taking up water. It is impossible to follow see that the sanitary laws were properly and effec-Lang's statements into particulars, but.amongst the more tively worked. The appointment to such an office of men important results at which he arrived are :-1. That the acquainted with sanitary science and sanitary law, under amount of air traversing a porous substance is directly pro-the control of the Board above, and responsible to and paid portionate to a constant dependent on the nature of the by that Board, would go far to secure efficient administramaterial directly proportionate to the difference of pressure tion of the law, the application of the most efficient means on the two sides of the septum, and inversely proportionate for that purpose, and the general collection of facts and to the thickness of the septum. 2. He gives a long list of statistics bearing upon the important question of the general substances, arranged in order of their permeability, com-public health. Any way we are glad Mr. Doyle's scheme is mencing with tufaceous limestone, which is most perknocked on the head, and the Wrexham rural sanitary meable, through bricks, Portland cement, to glazed clinkers, authority is entitled to the credit of having turned the tide which are least permeable. 3. He finds that all kinds of against it, and that successfully." 581 THE British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review for the TOWNS AND THEIR SUBURBS. present quarter seems to be one of the best that has ap-AN important representative conference of the local peared for some time, as far as variety, analysis, and sanitary authorities of Birmingham and the surrounding criticism are concerned. The first article is a review of districts was held in Birmingham on the 31st ult.