been Quiz Master and Demonstrator in Chemistry, Quiz Master in Physiology, and Demonstrator of Bacteriology and Pathological Histology. In the management of these departments he has made a reputation as a teacher, and fully qualified himself for the important trust to which he has just been called.

The Chair of Chemistry in the University has been held by such men as the elder L. P. Yandell, Benjamin Silliman, J. Lawrence Smith, Thomas E. Jenkins, and James W. Holland. Whatever may have been the subsequent attainments of these eminent and honored men, it is certain that none of them entered upon his professorial work with a better equipment than that of the new incumbent or with fairer promise of success.

Notes and Queries.

KALA AZAR.—The Englishman of Calcutta in a recent issue calls attention to the increasing prevalence in Assam of the disease known there as kala azar. After pointing out that the original idea of the nature of kala azar-that it is a manifestation of malaria-had been abandoned in favor of that which looks on it as a form of beri-beri, and subsequently of its being a severe type of ankylostomiasis, our contemporary informs us that it is now regarded as something quite different from any of these and as altogether peculiar to the district. Our contemporary traces its progress through the country, describing it as decimating the population in many parts, and leaving "behind it a perfect trail of desolation." On the basis of Dr. McNaught's statistics, we are informed that whereas in 1891 the total mortality from all causes amounted to 9,114, it had risen in 1893 to 14,430, an increase apparently accounted for by the 5,107 deaths from kala azar. The returns for 1894 have not been published, but it is anticipated that when they come out they will show a still further increase. In many tea gardens, notwithstanding the great efforts made to maintain good sanitary conditions, kala azar carries off the coolies in large numbers; and at least five deaths have occurred at Nowgong from this cause in the European community. This very fatal disease does not appear to be amenable to treatment, but surely claims its victims in from three to eighteen months. The course of kala azar is described as follows:

"A severe attack of continued fever, with a very high temperature, lasts usually for a fortnight or more, subsiding to recur at frequent intervals. Both spleen and liver undergo enlargement; diarrhea and dysentery are frequent complications, and dropsy is occasionally met with, edema of the

face and extremities being more frequent. Anemia is usually absent at the commencement of the attack, but becomes more or less pronounced as the case progresses. Extreme emaciation often accompanies the termination of the case, but the appetite, as a rule, remains good for many weeks during the progress of the disease, notwithstanding that the patient is unable to digest his food; and it is curious that, although the thermometer may register three or four degrees above normal, the patient thinks he has no fever. It is still more curious that the usual anti-malarial remedies seem to have absolutely no effect."

An influential meeting of the medical men of the affected districts, summoned by the Sanitary Commissioner, resolved that it was "absolutely imperative that an expert should be appointed to inquire into the pathology and cause of the disease." We trust that something will be done soon to throw light on this important subject, and regret that at the recent Medical Congress held in Calcutta little or no notice was taken of so serious a state of matters, and a disease with which the profession is so intimately concerned.-British Medical Journal.

TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA WITH ANTITOXIC SERUM.-Bokai (Deut. med. Woch.) reports 120 cases of diphtheria treated with antitoxic serum (Behring's) in hospital in Buda-Pesth between September 10 and December 31, 1894. All the cases counted as cured were in good health on February 11, 1895, the date of the report. There were 31 deaths, a mortality of 25.8 per cent, which is compared with a total of 337 cases in the fourth quarter of the three preceding years, with a mortality of 203 or 60,23 per cent. His statistics are as follows:

The Klebs-Loeffler bacillus was found in all but 5 cases at the time of admission, but in nearly all it was associated with streptococci, staphylococci, and small micrococci. The causes of death in the fatal cases were: sepsis, 5; descending membrane, 13; pneumonia, 7; heart failure, 3; acute nephritis, ; scarlatina, 1; tuberculosis, 1. In 63 cases there was laryngeal stenosis; intubation was performed in 49 cases with a mortality of 43 per cent (21 cases). His previous statistics of death after intubation varied from 57.3 to 77.5 per cent. The average period for which the tube had to

retained in the 200 cases of recovery before the serum was introduced was 801⁄2 hours; after the serum was used this average was reduced to 58 hours. Albumin in the urine was tested for in all but a few cases which died very shortly after admission, and was found in 53 cases. In 13 cases it was found before the serum had been injected. It was not found in certain cases of fibrinous laryngitis and tracheitis, in which very large doses of the serum had to be given. Bokai had not sufficient data to answer the question whether paralysis and heart failure occur more frequently after the serum treatment. He thinks it reasonable to expect that more cases of paralysis will be seen since a larger number of severe attacks are survived. Urticaria followed the injection in II out of the 120 cases, at an interval varying from 3 to 13 days. In 4 cases it was accompanied by high fever, in 1 by slight fever. One patient, a girl, aged six years, had erythema exsudativum multiforme, which came on after an urticarial eruption which started from the point at which the injection had been made ten days earlier; the child. complained also of pain in the larger joints. Complete recovery ensued in less than a week. Bokai states, in conclusion, that he is fully convinced of the value of the serum in diphtheria, and that it has no injurious action beyond the tendency to produce a skin eruption. He considers, however, that its value in cases in which a septic character is pronounced from the beginning is doubtful, and that it can not be depended on to check the development of heart failure when that sets in.-Ibid.

NUCLEIN IN DIPHTHERIA.-At a meeting of the Society for Medical Progress of the New York Westside German Dispensary, held April 14th, Dr. William Jacobson read a paper on the use of nuclein in the treatment of diphtheria and other contagious diseases. For the introduction of this agent (which is a normal constituent of blood-serum chemically represented by 49 parts of hydrogen, 32 parts of oxygen, 29 parts of carbon, and 6 parts of phosphorus) he said we were indebted to the researches of Prof. Victor Vaughan and Dr. Charles McClintoch, of the University of Michigan. Out of 200 cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles, which were observed during several months, he claimed that there had been only nine deaths, and that in these cases the fatal result was due either to the fact that the nuclein injections were not made until the disease was too far advanced for any remedy to be of any service, to necessarily fatal complications, or to lack of proper care or other unfavorable conditions affecting the patient. The theory upon which nuclein was employed was that, as nuclein was found to a greater extent in the blood of healthy than in that of diseased persons, it was the real food upon which the blood tissues fed, and as such was nature's own antitoxin.

Nuclein was first tried on a girl, four years of age, who was suffering from diphtheria. The agent was introduced into the system hypodermically and in a very small quantity. It was found that the temperature at first slowly rose, and then had a sudden drop. The pulse soon became normal,

and in three days the child showed no sign of disease. The result was so successful that the treatment was resorted to in other cases, and with similar good results. "To treat fever," said Dr. Jacobson, "we must remove the cause, the toxines, and especially, as in contagions, the microbe and its poison. Nuclein is the substance to which the cell owes its resisting power, and if present in sufficient quantity the microbe and its toxin are prevented from attacking the cell, and are ultimately destroyed.”—Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.

CURIOSITIES OF THE DISSECTING-ROOм.-Mr. J. M. Barrie, in one of his works, states that bargains by which persons sell their bodies during their lifetime to anatomists for dissection after death are not uncommon. We do not know whether this statement is founded on facts within the knowledge of the distinguished author of Auld Licht Idylls, or whether it is a flight of his agile fancy. One sometimes does hear (mostly in works of fiction) such a device referred to as a means of "raising the wind" when every other resource has failed, but we have never heard of an instance occurring in real life, nor do we see how it would be worth the while of an anatomist to make an investment of so speculative a nature, unless it were to secure possession of some rare freak of nature. Even as regards such scientific prizes, not every anatomist is so keen in pursuit as John Hunter was in the case of the Irish giant. There used to be a legend among the students of one of the leading schools of London, some twenty years ago, that the dissecting-room porter had brought the dead body of his wife in a sack to the lecturer on anatomy, and dedicated it to the furtherance of science for a consideration. That, however, as Mr. Rudyard Kipling would say, "is another story." A tale has recently come to hand from America of a "noted resurrectionist" of Indianapolis having left his body by will to the Indiana Medical College. He directs that after his body has been dissected by the students, and lectured on by the professors, the skeleton is to be placed in an upright position in the dissecting-room of the college, with the right hand on the handle of a new spade, and the left foot resting on the blade; the latter is to be highly polished, and the words "J. G., the Resurrectionist," are to be painted on it in large black letters. This, according to the testator's directions, is to be the only monument erected to his memory, and the authorities of the college have, it is stated, promised to carry out the testator's wishes to the letter. Many persons have left their bodies for dissection; Jeremy Bentham was, in accordance with the terms of his own last will and testament, dissected, and his skeleton was dressed in the habit of the philosopher as he had lived, and is now, we believe, in a cupboard in University College Museum, where it may be seen by the curious. A celebrated professor of anatomy in one of the Scandinavian universities directed that his remains should first be disposed of for the instruction of students in the dissecting-room, and that the bony framework should serve permanently for the same purpose, the skeleton being

hung up in the anatomical lecture room and used for demonstration. This plan had at least the merit of being practically useful, and there is something that appeals to the imagination in the thought of the professor, who, being dead, yet teaches the elements of the subject to which he gave his life.-British Medical Journal.

THE MODERN Trained NurSE.-Sir Dyce Duckworth has always taken a deep interest in nursing, and in the Royal British Nurses Association, of which he is vice-president, and in an address delivered before this body the other day he laid stress upon various important points connected with the profession of nursing, and not the least of these was the absolute necessity, as he pointed out, of a nurse being subservient to the medical man. The old style of nurse has so entirely disappeared that the patients and practitioners of this generation can hardly realize how much the successful treatment of disease owes to the help of an intelligent, trained woman; and this expression, trained, means, as Sir Dyce Duckworth clearly pointed out, not only medical and physical knowledge, but tact and silence. The abbot of a Nitrian monastery once gave one of his monks as a rule of life the first verse of the psalm commencing, "I said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue." When you can keep that rule," he said, "come, and I will give you another." Tradition has it that the worthy monk never arrived at the second. Be this true or not, it shows how the tongue in all ages has been regarded as an unruly member, and all nurses ought to remember to be absolutely silent as regards any thing they may see or hear outside their own immediate duties. The Hippocratic oath still remains the canon for every attendant on the sick, either nurse or medical practitioner, and on this point Sir Dyce Duckworth rightly spoke with great earnestness.-The Lancet.

DIARRHEA AND EARTH TEMPERATURES.-The close relationship between rise of diarrheal mortality and rise of earth temperature is strikingly shown by Dr. Priestley in his report for the past year for the borough of Leicester. Dr. Priestley studied very carefully the death-roll from diarrhea in those weeks wherein the temperature at four feet below the surface reached or exceeded 56° F. with the view of ascertaining whether the height of the thermometer had any causal relationship with the disease. By a comparison of data at one and another portion of the year he has found fresh prima facie evidence that a very close relationship of the sort in question does exist. Thus, allowing a period of fourteen days to elapse between the date of attack and death, seven days for average duration of fatal cases, and seven days for notification from the registrar of deaths, Dr. Priestley shows that, the four-foot thermometer having reached and passed 56° F. on July 2d, the deaths began to rise considerably a fortnight later, and continued high so long as the thermometer registered above that temperature, but that immediately the thermometer dropped below the figure so, too, the