The last Legislature of this State passed a law, which is now in effect, and which makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine, for any minor, "actually or apparently under sixteen years of age," to smoke or use tobacco in any form in any street or place of public

resort.

The Board of Aldermen of the city of New York have passed resolutions asking the Police Commissioners to "see that the police are instructed to enforce the law by arresting such minors as they find using cigarettes or tobacco in any form upon the public streets, or on or in any public place." Verily, the way of the young smokers is to be hard. By a recent resolution of the Board of Education of Brooklyn, it is proposed to have the law read in the schools once a month, so that no schoolboy shall be uninformed as to his responsibilities in the

matter.

The American Analyst of August 14th quotes the following words of Dr. Holmes, of Rome, Ga., who says: "Smoking is not such an injurious and dangerous habit as has been claimed. A person who smokes uses one of the best germicides and antiseptics. During the war I was in charge of over five thousand soldiers at the post in Florida. There were marshes near by, and the dysentery broke out among the troops, raging with great virulence. I noticed that all the Irishmen who went about with clay pipes in their mouths did not contract the disease. I smoked all the time, and was free from it... So that smoking, instead of being objectionable, is in reality a good protective against disease. There is at least food for thought in its utility as a prophylactic against disease." (See BROOKLYN MEDICAL JOURNAL, July, 1890, p. 478.)

Pathologist and Adjunct Professor of Histology and Pathological Anatomy, Long Island College Hospital; Associate Director of the Department of Histology and Pathology, Hoagland Laboratory; Pathologist to the Brooklyn Throat and Nose Hospital.

MORPHOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PARASITIC ORGANISMS OF MALARIA TERTIANA AND QUARTANA.

Camillo Golgi (Arch. per le scienze med., Vol. XIII., No. 7). According to G.'s observations, malaria tertiana and quartana are induced by two parasites biologically and morphologically different.

The biological differences are as follows:

The parasite of the tertiana completes its development in two days, that of the quartana in three days.

The amoeba of the tertiana are more motile than those of the quar

tana.

In the red blood corpuscles the parasites of the tertiana destroy the hæmoglobin much faster than those of the quartana.

The red blood corpuscles in the quartana often appear collapsed, in the tertiana swollen and round.

Morphologically the two parasites differ in the following particu

lars:

In the first stage of development the tertiary parasites present a less fine protoplasm, and hence a sharper contour than those of the quartana.

The pigment granules and rods are coarser in the quartana than in the tertiana.

Finally, the segmentation of the two amœba forms is different; that of the tertiary occurs in less regular order than that of the quartana.

ETIOLOGY OF ANEURISM OF THE PARS MEMBRANA SEPTI VENTRICULOSUM CORDIS, AND ITS RUPTURE.

The case re

G. Klein (Virchow's Archiv., Bd. cxviii., p. 57). ported is that of a housewife with previous history of syphilis. She had had two births and one abortion. The heart-disease was of four months' standing. Auscultation gave indefinite symptoms which did not admit of a positive diagnosis. The necropsy findings revealed an aneurism of the pars membrana half the size of a walnut, with rupture into the left ventricle. From the nature of the findings K. thinks arterial sclerosis and atheroma are of ætiological weight in the occurrence of the aneurism.

A CASE OF PROBABLE AUTO-INOCCULATION WITH A STAPHYLOCOCCUS FROM A HYPODERMIC SYRINGE-DEATH.

(Hoagland Laboratory, Dept. Histology and Pathology, 1890.) Mrs. B., æt. forty, had for some years been a semi-invalid; had suffered more or less with pelvic disturbance, which caused much pain, and had induced the opium habit, the drug being used in the form of self-administered hypodermics of morphia. For four years. this habit was practised.

During the recent epidemic of la Grippe she fell prey to the distemper and was seriously ill with typical symptoms. From this attack she was slowly recovering, when the following symptoms made their appearance. Severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, with more or less marked prostration. The pains finally extended over the entire body. Vomiting persistent, some purging, urine scant and high color, contains considerable albumen. Patient apparently greatly exhausted.

Pupils normal, respond to light. Vomiting persists in spite of all effort to control it. Urine more scant and higher color. Slight twitchings are now noticed in the left arm, the fingers of left hand somewhat flexed. All symptoms are progressively more marked, clonic spasms of left arm increase in frequency and severity. The entire body is finally thrown into clonic spasms much resembling the convulsions of uræmia. Urine almost suppressed, very high color, contains blood and considerable albumen. Slight oedema of extremities. Death a few days after invasion in coma and convulsions.

Necropsy.-Inspection. Body somewhat emaciated, rigor mortis not marked, slight oedema of lower extremities. Thoracic and abdominal walls contain much fat, their muscular substance is very pale and much atrophied. Over each deltoid region there is an oval area of indurated skin, dark in color, very firm and thick. That on the left side is suppurating, and pus is here forming under the cutis vera. Both areas are about two inches in their long diameters.

Diaphragm Left fifth rib, right fifth interspace.

Peritonæum appears normal.

Thorax: No fluid in either pleural cavity. Old adhesions at apex of left lung. Both lungs are retracted.

Heart a trifle

Heart: Pericardium contains a great deal of fat. small, flabby, soft in consistence. Its cavities contain a considerable quantity of fluid blood dark in color, also straw-colored post-mortem clots. All its valves normal and competent. All its cavities show eccentric dilatation. Myocardium thin, pale brown and intensely anæmic. Coronary vessels very tortuous, are surrounded by enormous quantites of fat.

Lungs appear normal, excepting that the upper lobes are intensely anæmic and the lower lobes congested and oedematous.

Abdomen Diaphragm very thin, translucent, its musculature markedly atrophic.

Spleen six or eight times its normal size, very soft and flabby, pale in color. On gross section, cut surface pale red, smooth. Mesentery contains much fat, as do also the great omentum and mesocolon.

Kidneys Left elongated and somewhat lobulated, soft in consistence, capsule not adherent, surface smooth and studded with countless small punctiform hæmorrhages, otherwise pale and anæmic. On gross section the cut surface is dull, cortex a trifle swollen, markings indistinct. Around the malphigian corpuscles are numberless hæmorrhages, otherwise cortex very pale. Right kidney smaller than but otherwise resembles the left.

Stomach very thin, round in size, mucosa thin, pale, dull, and everywhere studded with punctiform hæmorrhages. Intestines very

thin.

The entire muscularis of the alimentary canal is markedly atrophic. Liver small, anæmic, contains much fat and slightly increased stroma. Ovaries both cirrhotic.

Microscopic Findings (fresh double-knife sections).-Heart: Myocardial fibres atrophied, contain much perinuclear pigment and many small fat granules. Their trans-striæ are everywhere indistinct, and in spots obliterated. Between the atrophic fibres in many spots is seen adipose tissue and in others hyperplastic connective tissue.

Kidneys: Most of the glomeruli are hæmorrhagic, extravassated blood being seen around the malphigian tufts, within Bowman's capsules. Cortex and medulla both markedly congested. Some of Bowman's capsules are thickened, and the parenchyma of the cortex is everywhere swollen and cloudy, many cells containing fat in granules. Stroma in some locations thickened. The epithelial cells are in many tubules desquamated. Many tubules contain hyaline, epithelial and granular casts, while others contain much granular detritus.

Liver Slightly cirrhotic. The hepatic cells are either cloudy granular and swollen, or atrophic, containing golden pigment, or show fatty degeneration.

Alcohol hardened celloidin sections of the heart, kidneys, and liver are found to contain in their blood-vessels, quite generally, zoöglea masses of staphylococci which completely plug the smaller vessels in spots. These cocci are rather large, appear uniform, and take a very beautiful Gram stain easily. In the kidneys are seen foci of small abscesses located in the glomeruli principally. In other spots are hæmorrhages in which are micrococci.

(Here is evidently a case of microbic infection. Here the interest of the case centres; and the prime question is, as to the source of the infection. The microorganism is a coccus forming zoöglea masses resembling much the staphylococcus pyogeneus aureus, with a tendency to the formation of abscess. Now examination of the left deltoid region reveals, as above, an area of suppurating tissue, giving ample opportunity for inoculation with a hypodermic needle.

The clinical symptoms are peculiar. The vomiting, purging, gastro-enteric pains, together with the fever and progressive clonic spasms, all coincide with the idea of microbic infection, and the plugging of the blood-vessels as described.

I believe this patient, while administering to herself morphia, drove the hypodermic needle through the pus in the left deltoid region, thus carrying the staphylococci into the deep tissues, and causing general infection, which was too much for a constitution already greatly enfeebled by wide-spread parenchymatous and interstitial changes.

The practical interest in the case lies in the possibility of dangerous,

even deadly, infection from the careless use of improperly sterilized needles. It has already been shown that certain remedies, as tincture of musk, may contain such organisms as the bacillus malignis cedematis, and that patients have died from its exhibition hypodermically. Such occurrences are warnings, and call for the utmost caution in the use of hypodermic medication, that both fluids and needles should be sterilized, and the patient's own integument thoroughly aseptic.-V. C.)

OPHTHALMOLOGY.

BY RICHMOND LENNOX, M.D.

Assistant Surgeon, Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital.

SUGGESTION AS TO THE FUNCTION OF SOME OF THE RETINAL ELEMENTS.

Uniformity of opinion has by no means been reached in the views as to the end organs of the optic nerve in the retina, and therefore a suggestion by Berry (Oph. Review, May, 1890, p. 134) as to the functions of the light percipient retinal elements has considerable interest. While ascribing to the retinal pigment light perception without regard to form, he credits the retinal cones with the perception of form (and color?). The histological structure and arrangement of the rods and the greater number of nerve fibres running to the papillo-macular area of the retina, render it probable that the rods have some subordinate function as end organs, and Berry advances the supposition that they may have to do with the projection of the image and with movements of the eye started in the interest of fixation. This is of course hypothesis only, but while not capable of direct proof, is not contrary to what we already know on the subject.

ANILINE COLORS AS ANTISEPTICS.

All will admit that the ideal antiseptic has yet to be found; one that is not poisonous to the human organism and that is diffusible enough to penetrate even to the centre of bacterial colonies, as well as through the mucous envelope surrounding the micro-organisms.

Stilling (Revue Générale d'Ophtal., April, 1890) has experimented with aniline colors as antiseptics and publishes his results in a paper which strongly upholds their merits in this respect. He says that certain of the aniline colors (notably violet) possess all the qualities which one can demand of a good antiseptic, not only preventing infection, but also arresting an established snppuration. It is a fact known to all botanists that bacteria, bacilli or cocci of every sort die when an aniline color penetrates by diffusion their mucous envelope and colors their protoplasm.