found in persuading eligible candidates to come forward, and so far twentysix out of the thirty-one clubs and medical societies in the place have but two medical men who have accepted the terms. The Council of the British Medical Association at its quarterly meeting adopted resolutions expressing cordial sympathy with the members of the profession in Cork, and commending a fund started to indemnify those who are serious financial losers in the strife.

Another case of trance is reported from the neighborhood of Hywood. A woman, supposed to have died, was washed, laid out, and measured for her coffin, a piece of linen being placed over her mouth. Eight hours later the supposed corpse blew the linen away and raised herself up in bed. Two women who were present beat a hasty retreat, and some time elapsed before any of the neighbors could be induced to enter the house. The woman was eventually found sitting up in bed, and, although weak, the medical man in attendance thinks there is a likelihood of her recovery.

The Home Secretary has received a deputation of the Association of Police Surgeons, which pointed out that half a guinea a day for giving evidence in criminal cases was not an extravagant remuneration. The Home Secretary promised to cause a circular to be issued by his department to the various watch committees throughout the country, calling their attention to the rules complained of, and suggesting that new arrangements be made. Two guineas a day in town and three guineas a day in the country was the scale suggested by the deputation as worthy of adoption.

A new home for nurses has been formally opened at the Southeastern Fever Hospital. The new home is unsurpassed by any similar building in London. It is connected with the hospital by a covered way, and contains a very large sitting-room, tastefully decorated and furnished, a dining-room, and fine hall and staircase, all floored with polished Austrian oak. Each nurse has a separate bedroom, and on each landing are presses to hold all clothing worn in the wards, a stringently enforced rule prohibiting this being kept in the sleeping apartments.

Dr. Reid, of Staffordshire, has drawn attention to the very heavy mortality among infants whose mothers go out to get their livings. He points out that there is no dispute as to the extent of loss of infant life in the factory districts, but that the point of interest is how such loss of life may be minimized. The general establishment of creches, where infants could be taken care of while their mothers are at work, meets with most approval, and two or three medical authorities have suggested that employers should be compelled to support them. This idea, if it became law, would be a virtual death blow to the employment of married women. Dr. Reid questions if the rate-payers could be expected to provide the creches.

Dr. J. Russell Reynolds, who is one of the newly-created baronets, is at distinguished alumnus of London University, where he graduated M. D. with honors in 1852. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of numerous other scientific and medical societies. For many years he has been

Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty's household, and Consulting Physician to University College Hospital. He is the author of a work on "Epilepsy," "Lectures on the Clinical Uses of Electricity," and of other works. Dr. Reynolds is president of the Royal College of Physicians.

In a paper upon "Cycling and its Effects," Sir B. W. Richardson, M. D., said that, as a practical cyclist of sixteen years standing, he thought that cycling in moderation might be recommended by medical practitioners, and even in all cases of heart disease it was not necessary to exclude this exercise. In cases where there were signs of fatty degeneration he had found it of service, since increased muscular exercise frequently improved the condition of muscle, and of no muscle more than the heart itself. Sir Benjamin considered that in advising on the subject of cycling it is more important to consider the peripheral condition of the circulation than the central, wornout arteries being more dangerous than the feeble heart, and when connected with a heart that was working at high pressure serious consequences might ensue.

A centenarian has just died, aged one hundred and three years. He was born at Soham, in Cambridgeshire, July 31, 1792, and leaves three sons aged respectively seventy-four, seventy-six, and seventy-eight. Up to a week or two previous to his death his faculties were unimpaired, and he was able to take daily walks about the town. He could read without the aid of glasses. Dr. Cullingworth, Obstetric Physician to St. Thomas' Hospital, had a short time ago to defend an action in the High Court. The other evening the medical and surgical staff of the hospital presented their colleague with a cheque which covered the whole of his costs incurred. Dr. Cullingworth was much overcome by this spontaneous act of sympathy.

At the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, the first of a series of demonstrations on sick-room cookery has been given to the medical students attached to that institution. The demonstrations will be given by teachers from the Edinburgh School of Cookery, and the text-book recommended is the School Cookery Book along with Sir William Roberts' Receipts for Peptonized Foods.

LONDON, January, 1895.

M. MOTZ communicates researches concerning the blood of sarcomatous subjects. The cultures obtained from such blood show a very small micrococcus, simple or double anaerobic, and staining with difficulty. This result was obtained in eleven out of twelve cases. Inoculation of animals was negative. He considers sarcoma an affection of the blood, localizing itself in the venous walls or capillaries and causing a thrombosis of the affected vessels. This infection of the blood will serve as a diagnostic measure in doubtful cases.

Abstracts and Selections.

THE STUDY OF HEREDITY.-In his address before the Abernethian Society Sir James Paget drew attention to the great gaps which exist in our knowledge of the laws of heredity. Some of the broad facts of heredity are familiar enough, and are indeed too palpable to be overlooked even by careless observers. That gout, cancer, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and insanity, to take a few examples out of many, are often inherited is a well-recognized and certain fact, but, says Sir James Paget, "it has never been studied carefully what may be the result when one parent has one transmissible disease and another has another; what comes if one parent is a member of a cancerous family and another a member of a tuberculous family. Do these two diseases in any respect disturb one another? Are they mutually exclusive, or do they mingle together? We know that acute tuberculosis. and acute cancer never make rapid progress together; they seem in so far as that to be antagonistic. But what comes of it when they are mingled together by inheritance? Of that I think we certainly know nothing." This is only a specimen of numerous questions which might be put in connection with the subject of heredity, but are for the present without any certain answer. Is heredity more usually through the male or the female? If a son or daughter strongly resembles the male or female parent, will he or she be likely to develop the diseases occurring in the corresponding stock? Why does disease sometimes "skip a generation" only to reappear with increased virulence? Why does the epilepsy of the parent become insanity in the child, or vice versa? How comes it that the female transmits the tendency to hemophilia, but is herself exempt, while the male who suffers does not usually propagate the disease? We might multiply these queries a hundredfold, but they are sufficient to show how much darkness still envelops so patent and all-important a fact as the inheritance of disease.

Some of the laws of heredity are approximately known, although often their raison d'être is inexplicable-as, for example, the law that disease often skips a whole generation and reappears in the generation that follows. This fact has long been observed, and is known as "the law of atavism." It seems to involve the assumption that an individual apparently quite healthy may contain in his organism the seeds of disease, for example, tuberculosis or cancer, and transmit the tendency to such diseases to his offspring although he has never presented any symptom of them himself. This may be so, but if such a theory be correct it intensifies our conception of the mystery of pathological processes. If it could be shown in such cases that the "latent" seeds of disease (we are compelled to use figurative

language in this connection for want of better) remain latent until certain favoring conditions combine to bring them to maturity, the mystery would be materially lessened, but in many cases we have no evidence that such is really the true explanation. It may, however, be regarded as often a probable hypothesis. .

A great deal of work still remains to be done in connection with the heredity of phthisis. It is generally asserted that from thirty to forty per cent of the cases arising in practice occur in infected families, but it is striking how various are the figures given by different observers. Owing to the great frequency of the disease and the probability of infection, it is evident that many cases of apparent inheritance might be otherwise explained. It would be a great gain to practical medicine if we had decisive evidence as to the influence of heredity upon phthisis on the one hand and the frequency of infection on the other. We are still without any quite satisfactory theory to harmonize the apparently certain facts that pulmonary tuberculosis is due to a specific bacillus and that it is frequently transmitted by inheritance. Some French observers published a few years ago evidence tending to show that the actual bacillus of tubercle was conveyed to the offspring through the ovum, but this view has not been generally accepted.. Many believe it to be more probable that the parent transmits simply a constitutional delicacy or some peculiarity of the pulmonary tissue which renders the individual more liable to become the subject of bacilliary infection; but it can not be said that we have any certain information on the subject.-London Lancet.

LESIONS OF THE STOMACH.-Hayem (Sem. Méd.) discussing this subject, says that, in his opinion, acute parenchymatous gastritis is a process beginning in the glandular elements, and in the pure form is independent of any leucocytic infiltration. The portion of the stomach first affected seems to be the cardiac, and thence the lesion spreads, with the result that the pyloric portion becomes completely changed, losing its distinctive character, and finally being indistinguishable from the cardiac end. He maintains that there are no special cells for the secretion of hydrochloric acid, and in support of this he points out that in the stomach of the new-born child the parietal cells are well developed, although gastric digestion is carried on without any hydrochloric acid being present. Again, he has found no increase of parietal cells in the adult stomach in cases of hypersecretion of this acid, but that in these cases the increase in amount of hydrochloric acid seemed to correspond with the transformation of pyloric into peptic glands, or, in other words, with the disappearance of the alkaline pyloric secretion. The debated question of the presence or absence of hydrochloric acid in cancer of the stomach has, according to the author, lost all interest. The state of digestion, he says, depends in cancer, as in any other gastric condition, on the condition of the gastric mucous membrane. Cancer is developed most frequently in hypopeptic or apeptic cases, and it is in such that free

hydrochloric acid is absent, while histological examination of the stomach shows "atrophic gastritis." On the other hand, a hyperpeptic condition may exceptionally be found in persons suffering from gastric cancer. such cases one would expect to find a different anatomical condition, and in such a case he quotes Lion as having found well-marked parenchymatous gastritis. Gastric ulcer, on the other hand, is most frequent in hyperpeptic cases, and the dominant lesion is a form of gastritis more or less parenchymatous in nature. The pathogenesis of gastric ulcer, however, is a very much more variable question than that of malignant disease.-British Medical Journal.

DEATHS UNDER CHLOROFORM.-A death recently took place during an operation performed under chloroform at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The patient, a man aged forty, suffering from cancer affecting the pharynx and structures of the air and food passages, was admitted to have tracheotomy performed, an operation the nature of which was explained to him, and which was rendered imperative owing to the extensive character of the invasion of the neoplasm. The man was given chloroform according to the method in vogue at this hospital, and when under its influence the operation was commenced. While the tracheotomy was in progress the man's breathing stopped. Death is, however, stated to have been due to heart failure caused by the combined shock of the operation and of the chloroform. The necropsy revealed extensive carcinomatous infiltration. The operation as such, we presume, is not calculated to produce severe shock, but doubtless the condition of the man and the probable narrowing of his respiratory outlet rendered him less able to bear shock or withstand the depression due to the anesthetic. We are indebted to the chloroformist in the following case for a lucid account of the fatality. The patient, a muscular but pale man, fifty-five years of age, of abstemious habits, was admitted into the Wallingford Cottage Hospital on November 9th for treatment of extensive disease of the carpus on the right side. On the roth he was put under the influence of chloroform; the anesthetic was given from a wire mask covered with flannel. He was lying on his back and was rather nervous. A careful preliminary examination of the heart and lungs was made, and they were found to be in a satisfactory condition. A drám of chloroform was poured upon the wire inhaler and given slowly. From time to time half a dram more was added. The man appeared to take the anesthetic well. The chloroformist noted the respiration, the pupils, and the pulse, and observed no departure from the normal. When under the anesthetic the operation was commenced, an incision being made, and immediately the pupils dilated and the respiration ceased. Instantly the chloroform was stopped, the head was lowered, and artificial respiration was commenced by Sylvester's method. Nitrite of amyl, hot flannels to the precordium, hypodermic injections of ether, and galvanism were resorted to without avail. The artificial respiration was kept up for twenty minutes, as the heart's action was observed