Cambridge has spontaneously " recognised " medical study in its wards as a part of the required university curriculum, will commence, with the new year, courses of lectures and clinical demonstrations intended for those students who may wish to obtain a certificate of having attended the practice of the hospital. We think that this is a good movement on the part of the hospital in question, as well as on that of the University of Cambridge. Notwithstanding the multiplication of hospitals for

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... ldren, it is much to be regretted that medical students are but ill informed as to the kind of diseases that are most frequent in children, and are lamentably ignorant of the methods of clinical investigation. This is the more unintelligible in that at most of the large hospitals separate wards are set apart for the treatment of and instruction in children's diseases. Perhaps the recognition of this, the oldest children's hospital, by Cambridge may lead to a wider diffusion of the study of the diseases of children and infants than at present obtains. TEMPERATURE AT BIRTH. SOME experimental researches have been conducted by M. Bonnal of Nice on the temperature of parturient women and of infants at the moment of birth. It appears that the work of accouchement does not markedly elevate the temperature of the parturient woman. In normal labours the temperature is not in the majority of cases below 375° C. ; sometimes it reaches 38° C. With abnormal labours the temperature may be raised to 396° C. The temperature of the infant oscillates between 37'6° and 383° in normal parturition ; it may attain to 39° or 394° in abnormal labour. The rectal temperature of the infant is nearly always above that of the temperature of the maternal vagina, rectum, or uterus. The infantile temperature rapidly falls after birth, and may descend as low as 34-8° C. = 96° F. FEES FOR MEDICAL ASSURANCE REPORTS. OuR attention has been called to the fees for medical examinations and certificates offered by the Sickness and Accident Assurance Association of Edinburgh. In a circular issued by the directors of this office, it is proposed that for the examination of proposers the fee of 7s. 6d. shall be paid to the medical examiner, and that for the inspection of claims the sum of 5s. shall be the fee within the three miles radius. The circular asks the views of those to whom it is addressed as to the scale of remuneration thus offered, and whether it may be accepted as a "tentative arrangement" with especial terms for the inspection of claims at long distances. We do not know what our Scottish brethren may think of this proposal, but on this side of the Tweed it would, we suspect, meet with a response which the movers of it are but little prepared for. To expect a medical man to fill up carefully a report such as this company submits, for the fee named, is out of all reason. About fifty points have to be dealt with by the medical man in each case, and the urine has to be tested to determine reaction, specific gravity, presence or absence of albumen, and the presence or absence of sugar and deposits. A careful return, in point of fact, could not be drawn up under one hour by any conscientious and scrupulous man, and for that labour, and for all the serious responsibility connected with it, the magnificent sum of 7s. 6d. is offered by the Sickness and Accident Life Assurance Association (Limited). Comment on such a proposition would be labour thrown away. To solicit professional direction on such absurd terms is as unfair to the company and to the assured as it is to the medical referee, and those who ask for it either do not know the value of what they want, or do not understand that all who practise medicine as an art and not as a trade are simply insulted when requested to forget what is due to their art as distinct from mere clerkship and rule of thumb. PHYSIOLOGY OF SEVENTH AND TENTH NERVES, THERE still remains much to be learnt in regard to the physiology of some cranial nerves. According to his renewed experimentation, M. Vulpian finds that the glandular and vaso-dilator fibres of the chorda tympani are derived from the bulb at the level of the facial nerve, and do not emanate from the trigeminal nucleus. The chorda tympani contains, besides, fibres which are concerned largely in the sense of taste ; Vulpian states that these truly belong to the facial nerve, and are not derived from other sources by anastomosis. The secretory and vaso-dilator fibres of the glosso-pharyngeal exist in the nerve as soon as it has left the medulla oblongata. -THE BROWN LECTURES. MR. VICTOR IlORSLEY, Brown Professor of Pathology of the University of London, will deliver five lectures in thetheatre of the University of London, Burlington-gardens" at 5 P.M., on December 7th, 9th, llth, 14th, and 16th. The ground that these lectures will cover is a most extensive one, and chiefly relates to matters of neurological interest. The relations of the thyroid gland to general nutrition, the modern pathology of the central nervous system, functional disorders of the central nervous system produced by loss of function of the thyroid gland and pituitary body, canine chorea, and the pathological anatomy of functional nervous disorder are some of the main headings of the lectures, which are sure to attract large and scientific audiences. DEATH OF MR. ROBERT LAWSON. WE regret to have to announce the death of Mr. Robert Lawson, one of the house-surgeons to St. Thomas's Hospital. This gentleman's death, which took place on Nov. 30th, was caused by a severe attack of scarlet fever, contracted in thecourse of his duties. Mr. Lawson was a distinguished prizeman and universally esteemed. His early death, at the age of twenty-four, cuts short a career of exceeding promise and usefulness. -