with blood, but this is not to be expected, as the treatment most relied on is copious blood-letting. I am afraid, failing any special information, the

THE

The fact of the beast having lately suffered from apoplexy is no bar to its passing.

Before I close I can scarcely avoid reference to that partial inflammation of the udder, popularly known as garget, the importance of which has lately been so much exaggerated. It is common to cows and ewes, and the cause of it appears to be cold, overlying, unskilful milking, or bruising received when suckling. It is usually confined to one of the teats, and as it is amenable to treatment animals are not killed because of it. Acute inflammation of the whole udder, as it is sometimes ushered in with shivering and always accompanied by an increase of temperature, is very commonly called milk fever. This is also readily treated, but the loss in keeping the subject of it till it is cured and in condition again is considerable; thus the owner is often advised to send it to the shambles as soon as the acute symptoms have abated. Under these circumstances I see no objection to its passing.

NOTE. While correcting the proof-sheets of the above, my attention was drawn to Walder's brief account of an outbreak of typhoid fever at Kloten (Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, 1878, xxxix., xl.). The results of his investigations as to the origin of the disease are so interesting I am tempted to make them the subject of a note here.

A musical festival, in which about 700 people took part, was held in a healthy locality, free from endemic disease, and having a good water-supply. In the course of the next day several of those who had been present sickened with fever, which was diagnosed as typhoid; the day following more were affected, and the cases became daily more numerous during the next four days. In all, nearly 500 of those who joined in the festival became affected. The nature of the anatomical lesions in the fatal cases

examined proved the correctness of the original diagnosis. On inquiry being made as to the meat supplied on the day of the festival, it was discovered that forty-three pounds of veal came from a calf a few days old, who was so sick at the time it was slaughtered that the lungs in parts looked like spleen,' and the three persons for whom they were cooked fell sick, and presented symptoms similar to those noticed in the affected among the sharers in the festival. It is surmised that the veal served to poison almost the whole of the meat provided on the occasion. Three days after the festival a children's entertainment took place at Kloten, in the same spot, and the same butcher supplied the meat, but not one out of the several hundred children present

became sick.

It is much to be regretted that the calf which furnished the veal credited with doing so much mischief, was not subjected to a careful post mortem examination. However, by way of evidence in support of the fact that calves are susceptible to typhoid fever, Walder gives particulars of the lesions found in the bodies of two calves who appear to have had typhoid communicated to them from human beings, fatal cases of the disease having previously occurred in the families of their owners.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1879.

The Editor will be glad to receive, with a view to publication, announcements of meetings, reports of proceedings, and abstracts or originals of papers read before the members of any sanitary or kindred association.

THE NEW SERIES OF THE

SANITARY RECORD.

THE next number of the SANITARY RECORD will commence a new series. It will in future appear in greater bulk, each number containing about four times the present amount of matter, in the more serious and weighty guise of a monthly serial, and with all the dignity which befits that more grave and deliberate form of periodical.

An experience of upwards of four years has proved to us that the readers who support this periodical are mainly persons earnestly, and to a large extent professionally or officially, interested in the progress of sanitation and the promotion of

public health.

To those persons the value of a journal such as this is mainly in its permanent and not in its temporary interest. The ephemeral fly-sheet is less suited to the solid discussion of science and art, and of grave deliberative detail of administrative subjects, than the more ample pages of a monthly. The necessity for cutting up papers of value into successive short instalments; the inability to publish others as being more suitable to a monthly magazine ; the repetitions and encroachments on space of the Events of the Week, which we have often had to regret, have induced us to determine to give to the SANITARY RECORD that monthly form which has proved so eminently satisfactory in the case of its sister publication, the London Medical Record.

The SANITARY RECORD will lose none of the features which have conciliated for it so largely the esteem, approbation, and cordial support of the great mass of sanitary workers, and of its most highly distinguished members. It will, as heretofore, present Original Papers (in greater quantity), Special Reports of Sanitary Associations, Proceedings and Board Meetings, Records and Reviews of Medical Officers' Reports, Abstracts of the Reports issued by the Local Government Board, a Parliamentary Review, Summary of Law Reports, Legal Notes and Queries, Correspondence, Notices of Sanitary Inventions, and the Dictionary of Sanitary Appliances, by Mr. W. Eassie, which is proving highly interesting to our readers, will be continued.

In addition, we hope to be able to organise Monthly Abstracts showing the Disease Census of the country for the month, by the aid of returns from medical officers of health. For this we especially ask their aid. We shall, moreover, present a carefully-prepared Abstract Review and Bibliography of Sanitary Literature of the month at home and abroad, including in it the publications of France, Germany, Italy, America, etc.

Withal, in order to increase the popularity of the RECORD, and to bring it within the reach of all, it is intended to reduce the subscription of the RECORD to 12s. a year. We mention this because we hope that the usefulness of the RECORD may thus be independently increased by greatly extending its circulation and influence. The RECORD is now extensively subscribed for by Sanitary Boards and authorities, but we should think that it ought to be subscribed for by everyone without exception, since it affords a review of all that is in progress, officially and unofficially, in respect to health administration and health-knowledge. We should be glad to see it in the hands of every Medical Officer and Sanitary Inspector, and every chairman, clerk, and member of a Sanitary Board; firstly, because it would undoubtedly be of individual advantage to them, and could not fail to maintain and increase their efficiency for sanitary duties; secondly, because it would in this way be greatly to the benefit of the nation in the saving of life, health, and wealth. The achievement of this object would also raise the circulation of the RECORD to 30,000, which is the ultimate result at which we aim.

THE magistrates at Willoughby, in Warwickshire, have lately committed a butcher to prison for three months with hard labour for having on his premises the carcases of four rotten sheep dressed as for human food. In defence it was contended that although the carcases were skewered in the ordinary way of dressing for food, this was the usual treatment preparatory to the carcases being boiled for pig food.

Several farmers stated that they had sold the defendant many bad carcases for boiling down. Notice of appeal was given, so our remarks are not taken as pertinent to the case still sub judice, but as general reflections on the subject.

We have over and over again pointed out the weakness in the clauses relating to the seizure and condemnation of unsound or diseased meat in the Public Health Act. Interpret them which way one will, and they admit of various interpretations, these clauses are clumsy and unsatisfactory in the extreme. They are both hard on the defendant, troublesome for the prosecuting officials, and tormenting to the Justices and their clerks. The framer of them evidently intended that the seizure of the sus

pected article should be followed immediately by the trial of the person to whom it belonged, or in whose possession it was at the time of sale or seizure; but the general practice is to try the case in the absence of the defendant, and then to issue a summons or re-try the case in the defendant's presence after the condemnation and destruction of the article seized. The absurdity of this double trial is apparent, and its unfairness equals its absurdity. It is curious that its legality has not before now been challenged, on the ground that on condemnation the case is at an end, and that it is not competent to try and punish twice for the same offence. We feel sure that the summons which usually follows the condemnation, that is, the conviction, is ultra vires, and we wish some enterprising lawyer would appeal on this point.

It is not within our province to remodel the clauses. of which we complain, but just now we wish to point out once more how badly they are framed and how ill they work. Their whole tendency is towards seizure by one or other of two officers-the medical officer of health and the inspector of nuisances. These are the only officials who can set in motion a diseased meat prosecution, and they must seize or cause it to be seized. The clause should be extended so as to enable a prosecution to be instituted in cases where a purchaser discovers that he has bought unsound meat or food. Of late several cases have fallen through, on the ground that there was no seizure as required by the Act, and it is hard to see what redress a purchaser has, save in the County Court. It is of no use taking the purchase to the medical officer or to the inspector, for the unfortunate possessor is the only person against whom an information could be laid.

Again, while the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council from time to time prescribe certain diseases as requiring immediate slaughter and destruction, the Local Government Board have left it as an open question entirely what diseases do and what diseases and conditions do not render animals unfit for human food, and so we presume that Mr. Vacher, for instance, would pass many an animal Dr. Syson would condemn. We have selected these two authorities, as they admittedly hold extreme views either way, while both are equally anxious for further scientific and conclusive inquiry and legislation on so important a matter. We are afraid, however, that there is little hope that absolutely sound food will be the rule after any inquiry however searching and scientific.

Disease of one kind or other is rampant in our flocks and our herds; but after all there are diseases and diseases, and if we are to eat phthisical meat or the carcases of beasts that have been killed on account of puerperal fever, as is now the case, by all means let us know for certain that if the idea is unpleasant the practice is harmless.

The defence in this Willoughby case is an

interesting one, and points to another defect in the Public Health Act. In this Act there is no provision to ensure the periodical inspection of slaughterhouses, and of rural slaughter-houses there is no mention made at all. Slaughter-houses both rural and urban require constant systematic inspection, and should all be licensed. They should not be allowed to be used except for animals destined for human consumption, and then such defences as the one referred to would be impossible. As a class, butchers would be too glad to see such an enactment, for they are now often used as the farmer's catspaws. Here again the Public Health Act is deficient; the chief culprits, viz., the original owners of the diseased animals, are never prosecuted. They tempt the second class, and indeed often the first class butchers, and on detection it is, as a rule, the butchers only who get punished.

If ever a Royal Commission was imperatively required, it is on our meat supplies and their frequently diseased condition. We are at the present time doing one of two objectionable things-either destroying a very large quantity of meat which might be consumed as food, or on the other hand eating a large amount pregnant with unpleasant and dangerous mischief to our health and lives.

Notes of the Week.

time they had had their infantile business most closely investigated, and by submitting the facts and the work done to their actuary, he had now consented to increase the table of benefits. They had heard it stated that those children's insurances were abused; but that they had not only proved from their own experience to be utterly with out foundation, but he believed that the country at large amine into the cases of interment of children in Liverpool, had given a complete denial to it. If they were to exthey would find that for a child under three years of age, instead of 27. being the cost which parents had to incur, it above three years of age were charged as adults, and the was between 37. and 41. Now he believed that children expenses of interment of a child six or seven years old were as costly, so far as the costs of the ground and the burial were concerned, as they were for a grown-up person. They were now in the position of being able to recommend that, instead of giving a 30s. benefit to a child aged twelve months, they would give 37.; and instead of limiting it to that, the members could, by paying 2d. per week, insure each, and those over five and up to ten could be insured the lives of their children under five years of age for 61. for 10. The resolution was adopted, as was also the report.

THE DRAINAGE OF SOUTHPORT.

A NUMBER of property owners of Southport have recently been proceeded against in order that nuisances existing on their premises might be abated. On one of these occasions, Dr. Vernon, the energetic medical officer of health, stated that nuisances even now existed in parts of the borough that would not be tolerated anywhere. In one case, it was stated, the refuse from the cesspool actually flowed into the cistern in the back kitchen. Dr. Vernon remarked that thousands of such cases had been remedied during the last twelve months, and that the Corporation were determined to have all nuisances abated.

PLUMBING.

THE Court of the Plumbers' Company recently ap

RATE.

Ar the recent opening of the large new block of buildings belonging to the Newcastle Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Dr. Bruce referred to the gratifying fact that during the eight years their old experimental block had been open the average death-rate of the dwellings had not exceeded 12 per 1,000, whilst, during the same period, the average death-rate of the town generally had varied from 29 to 22 per 1,000, that of the neighbouring district of Pandon being even much higher, thus furnishing conclusive proof of the value of these dwellings from a sanitary point of view, apart from other considerations.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES AND INFANTILE LIFE INSURANCE.

THE report presented at the twenty-ninth annual meeting of the Royal Liver Friendly Society, held in Liverpool, indicates a saving on the year's business of 41,346/. There are about 800,000 members in the Society, the total worth of which is over 600,000l. In the burial branch the claims and grants of the year amounted to 128,5637. There had been collected during the same time 251,2517. Mr. Liversage, in moving a resolution with respect to infantile insurances, said that in 1870 the Society passed a table which limited the benefits to children one year of age to 30s., to children from one to two years to 27., and beyond that to 57. Though they were compelled to adopt that table, they felt it was not such as the necessities of the working classes of this country required. Since then they had had not only a valuation of their Society, but they had passed through five years' experience, and during that

Master; Mr. Digby Seymour, Q.C., and Mr. Philip Wilkinson, to consider and report as to the best practical means of extending the utility of the Company and elevating the character and educational standard of the workmen engaged in the trade of plumbing. The committee, after an exhaustive inquiry, have recommended that any workman belonging to the trade who produces evidence of having been for fifteen years in good and approved employ ment as a plumber, and of having done his work to the satisfaction of his master, and who furnishes vouchers of good personal character, should be eligible for admission, free of expense, to the freedom of the Company, with its privileges and benefits; and next, that any workman belonging to the trade who should produce a certificate of having worked for at least ten years as a plumber under one approved employer by whom he should be recommended for his skill, proficiency, and good character, should on passing an examination by the Court as to his knowledge of the principles and practice of the art of plumbing, be entitled to a diploma under the Company's seal, testifying, in the language of their ancient charter, dated in 1365, that he knows how well and lawfully to work and to do his work.'

THE NATIONAL HEALTH SOCIETY. IN view of the domestic dangers to health so constantly arising from imperfect workmanship by plumbers, and the use of defective so-called 'sanitary appliances,' the Council of the National Health Society have taken into consideration the most practical means of striking at the root of these serious evils. A conviction that a want of knowledge by working men of the elementary laws of sanitary science, and of the application of these laws, is a chief cause

of those defects, has led the Committee to the conclusion that great good to the community would ensue from the practical teaching of elementary sanitary science to workmen actually engaged in house building. The Society, therefore, proposes to organise a series of lectures and demonstrations to working plumbers, and at the close of each series of lectures to award handsome money prizes to those who have given the best evidence of having profited by the teaching they have received. The National Health Society state that not only have they reason to believe that the lectures will be very numerously attended, but that the matter will become one of general discussion in workshops. It is believed that such a movement can hardly fail to be of great public benefit, and the committee therefore appeal to the public for funds to enable them to carry out this practical plan of obviating the now well-known dangers arising from faulty plumbing and defective sanitary appliances.

PREVENTIBLE ARSENICAL POISONING.

A FEW weeks ago we reproduced a statement from the Scientific American with regard to the poisoning of a young lady through the use of arsenic with the starch put on the linen (see p. 271). Our attention has now again been directed to the subject by Mr. Adams, of Holloway Road, who writes to us :-The use of paper collars and cuffs becoming so general, and the great competition in trade, has induced some manufacturers to introduce arsenic into the dressing used to produce that beautiful gloss which seems peculiar to some make of collars, I was induced to analyse some, because a patient of mine had every symptom of arsenical poisoning, and the result was that I obtained 10'4 grains of arsenic in one collar.' Neither has the animal creation escaped scot-free from the evil influences of arsenical dyes, for we read that Mr. Fred Greeves, of Emneth, Cambridgeshire, has recently lost three beasts from this cause. It appears that, in course of cleaning, some green paper was torn from the walls of the house in which he lives, and thrown into the yard, where the stock could get to it. Three beasts seem to have eaten a portion of it, and were seized with illness. Mr. Holl, veterinary surgeon, was called in, but two of the animals died, and, on being opened, it was found that the poison contained in the paper was the cause of death. A third has since died from the same cause.

THE DAIRIES, COWSHEDS, AND MILKSHOPS ORDER.

THE first prosecution under this Order was heard last week before Mr. Bridge, the police magistrate, at Hammersmith, and is about as excellent an exemplification of the utility of this new regulation and of the dangers to which the public are exposed in the matter of milk supply as can well be imagined. The peculiar properties of milk as an absorbent of infective matter make it specially adapted for the conveyance of contagion into housholds, and had not Mr. Jennings's little traffic in small-pox and milk been stopped in mid-career, no doubt some mysterious cases of smallpox without apparent origin would have been duly tabulated in one of Dr. Dudfield's careful reports. In the case under notice, Daniel Jennings, a milkman, of Portobello Road, Notting Hill, was summoned before Mr. Bridge for allowing his wife to assist in the business while he was suffering from small-pox. A summons, under the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops Order, made by the Privy Council on February 4 last, in pursuance of the powers vested in them by the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts of 1878, was taken out by Mr. Harding, the clerk to the Kensington Vestry, under the 10th section of the Order, which enacts that it is not lawful for any person following the trade of cowkeeper or occupier of a milkshop to allow any person suffering from a dangerous infectious disorder, or having recently been in contact with a person so suffering, to milk cows, or in any way to take part or assist in

the conduct of the trade until all danger therefrom has ceased. On March 19 Dr. Dudfield went to the defendant's shop, accompanied by one of the sanitary inspectors, and saw the wife of the defendant serving in the shop. She accompanied him upstairs, where he found Mr. Jennings lying in bed suffering from small-pox. There were four other cases of small-pox in the house at the same time, and it will scarcely be believed that two of the daughters suffering from this peculiarly contagious disease were going about the house. Of course, Dr. Dudfield had them all removed to the hospital as soon as possible. Mr. Bridge naturally approved of the enactment, and of the action taken on it; and taking into consideration that the Order was recent at the time, fined the defendant 17. with 25. costs, which most people will think a very lenient punishment when all the possibilities of Mr. Jennings's course of conduct are taken into consideration.

NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

By an Order, dated the 14th instant, the Local Government Board have extended the duties with regard to the notification to the medical officer of health ofthe occurrence of cases of infectious diseases (see p. 134) to the medical officers appointed by the boards of management of district schools. By Article 2 of this Order every such medical officer appointed after the 24th instant will be under the obligation of giving notice to the clerk or to the medical officer of health of the sanitary authority within which the school building is situated, of the occurrence of contagious, infectious, or epidemic disease of a dangerous character amongst the pauper patients under his care, and of furnishing to the medical officer of health, from time to time, information with respect to sickness and deaths amongst such patients. He is also required to observe any regulations made by the Local Government Board for all or any of the purposes specified in Sect. 134 of the Public Health Act, 1875, in relation to the prevention of the spread of dangerous infectious disease.

TYPHOID FEVER AT WAKEFIELD.

The

CAPTAIN TAYLOR, the Mayor of Wakefield (coroner for the district), and a jury of fourteen gentlemen, have been prosecuting an inquiry into the cause of the death of one of three persons who have recently died from an outbreak of typhoid fever in the town of Wakefield. matter has caused no little interest from the fact that the Board of Guardians are of opinion that the Corporation ought to have removed the sufferers-the total number of whom was nineteen-to the Infectious Hospital belonging to the Corporation; and on the other hand, the Corporation and its officials hold that as the parties were not paupers, and as Dr. Wade, the medical officer of health for the borough, is of opinion that typhoid fever is not infectious, the case was one in which they had no power to interfere. According to the evidence given, the sanitary condition of the houses in which the outbreak of fever took place was something horrible. Until recently the people in the yard where the fever cases were, obtained their drinking water out of a well in a wash-house, close to which, and only separated from it by a wall, was an open drain in a most filthy condition. There was only one place of convenience for thirty-five persons, and it was stated that this was full to overflowing, and could not be used for ten weeks. The result was that the people in the yard placed their dry ashes in the street, and emptied their chamber utensils and other refuse into the drain. The filthy matter evidently percolated out of the drain into the well, and consequently the residents in the district not only inhaled the foul air from the open drain into their lungs, but intensified the evil by drinking polluted water. The officials of the Corporation declared that they were ignorant of this shocking state of affairs until their attention was called to the locality on the 8th of last month, after fever had been raging in the district