berlin

902

The banquet took place at i8 P.M., under the presidency ofProfessor Bouchard, of the Paris Faculty. This eminentsavant expressed the pleasure it afforded him to have suchan opportunity of meeting so many English-speakingconfrères, who for the most part had chosen his own countryas the field of their labours. Several toasts were dulyhonoured, the health of the learned President of theevening being drunk with enthusiasm. In tasting 11 Ournew Members," Dr. Barnard (Paris) suggested, with a viewof consolidating the position of the Society, that papers bein future read at the annual meeting (either by members,or by an honorary President, or by an eminent Frenchauthority), or a visit paid on that occasion to the hospitalsor laboratories of this metropolis. The idea seemed to meetwith general approval. I may, in conclusion, mention thatthe Society now numbers close on a hundred members.

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For the past twelve years or so M. Lancereaux has taughtthat there exist three distinct clinical varieties of diabetes-viz. : 1. The traumatic or nervous, due to lesion of someportion of the nervous system. 2. Constitutional diabetes,or diabète gras, often hereditary, closely allied to chronicrheumatism, occurring at about thirty to thirty-five years, inindividuals who, at twenty-one years in women and twenty-five in men, become very obese, and running a chronic course.The quantity of sugar passed per diem is usually below100 grammes. 3. Pancreatic diabetes, or diabte maigre,accompanied always by partial or complete atrophy ofthe pancreas, generally the result of obstruction of its ex-cretory duct. Clinically, this form is characterised byits rapid evolution, extreme wasting, large excretion ofglucose (from 300 to 500 grammes per diem), and by a fataltermination in two or three years. Several years agoVon Mering succeeded in inducing permanent glycosuria inthe dog by the removal of the pancreas. Last yearDr. de Dominicis exhibited before the Academy of Naplesthirty-four dogs rendered diabetic by the same means. Ata meeting of the Paris Academy of Medicine, held on the29th ult., M. Lancereaux showed an extremely emaciateddog, which, in consequence of ablation of the pancreas,had been diabetic since the operation. He characterisedthe case as an exact reproduction of the pancreatic type(diabte maigre), upon the existence of which as a distinctvariety he had so strongly insisted. M. Germain See,in supporting M. Lancereaux’s views, explained the super-vention of glycosuria in such cases by the absenceof the suc intime of the pancreas, recalling in this particularthe mysterious influence exerted on the economy by thejuice of the thyroid body and of the testis (Brown- S6quard’selixir). M. See also reminded the Academy of the experi-mental permanent glycosuria excited (by him and M. Gleyconjointly) in dogs by injections of phlorizin. M. Semmolaof Naples urged the importance of distinguishing betweenglycosuria and diabetes, the latter being a malady unpro-vokable by experimental means. Bocardo of Naples hadrecently demonstrated the presence after ablation of thepancreas of nerve degeneration, reaching in some instancesas high up as the cord. In M. See’s view, when an indi-vidual passed sugar for a long time, he was an undoubteddiabetic. Such a person might not exhibit any othersymptom of his condition, but he was, nevertheless, liableto succumb to the slightest skin abrasion. He cited, as acase in point, a patient of M. Semmola, who is at thepresent moment suffering from gangrene of the toe follow-ing the operative manoeuvres of a corn-cutter. M. Lan-cereaux is inclined to ascribe experimental pancreaticdiabetes to some irritative process set up in the nervousplexuses by the operation. Researches calculated to eluci-date this point are now being conducted in M. Lancereaux’slaboratory at the Hôtel-Dieu. In the course of the discus-sion M. Lagneau stated that diabetes, as well as othernervous disorders, were quite common amongst the Jews.Paxis, Oct. 14th.

BERLIN.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Virchow’s Seventieth Birthday.THE great event of to-day in Berlin is the celebration of

Professor Virchow’s seventiebh birthday by the medicaland other scientific societies, the press, and the German

Liberal party, of which that many-sided man is one of thefounders and leaders. Such a shower of honours hasprobably seldom fallen in one day on any human head, andI hope to give a brief account of the celebration next week.Meanwhile I may mention that the Deutsche MedizinischeWochenschrift (German Medical Weekly) has published aspecial number in honour of the day. Besides sketches ofVirchow’s life by Professor Klebs of Zurich and the editor(Dr. Guttmann), it contains exclusively articles from first-rate pens on subjects of pathological anatomy, the provincewhich may, rather than any other, be regarded as Virchow’sown. The writers of these articles are Baumgarten ofTubingen, Weigert of Frankfort, Grawitz of Griefswald,Ribbert of Bonn, Chiari of Prague, Dreschfeld of Man.chester, and Saundby of Birmingham. A biography ofVirchow by W. Becher has just been published by S. Kargerof Berlin.

Dr. Jakob Polak.’ Dr. Jakob Polak, once physician in ordinary to the Shah.

Nasr Eddin of Persia, died the other day at Vienna, agedseventy-one. He left Vienna for Persia in 1851, to teachmilitary surgery in the newly established military schoolat Teheran. He learned Persian so quickly that he wasable to deliver his lectures in that language in the secondyear of his stay. He wrote text-books of anatomy andphysiology and a medical dictionary in Persian. It was athis advice that the Persian Government established a,

surgical clinic in Teheran. He made exploring journeys inPersia, and visited regions where no European had everbeen before. He possessed in a high degree theconfidence and favour of the Shah, who protectedhim against the intrigues of the Court dignitaries, andappointed him his physician in ordinary in 1855. He heldthat office till 1860, when he returned to Vienna, toutilise the results of his studies. In 1865 he began topublish a great work on Persia containing much that wasnew concerning the flora, the geology, and the monumenta,,of the ancient civilisation of that country. He ordered thewords of the Persian poet Hafis-" The kind man shuts nogate till he has opened another "-to be engraved on his.tomb.

Projessor Beckmann.Professor Ernst Otto Beckmann, who has been called to

an ordinary professorship at Giessen, has taught chemistryand pharmacy at Leipsic, where he has held an extra-ordinary professorship for about a year past. He has beenknown in science since 1878. His writings have appeared edin the Archives of Pharmacy, the Journal of PracticalChemistry, the Journal of Analytical Chemistry, and theReports of the German Medical Society. He is in his thirty-eighth year.

TheTt’7 Prize

The Welz prize of the German Ophthalmological Society,.which is awarded every three years for literary work inophthalmology, has been bestowed on Professor von Hippelof Konigsberg, in recognition of his writings on the treat-ment of corneal opacity. The founder of the prize wa&

Robert von WeJz, Professor of Ophthalmology at Göttingenwho died at Wiirzburg in 1878.

Berlin, Oct. 14th. ______________

AUSTRALIA.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Tlte hatercolonial Medical Congress.THE preliminaries for the third session of the IntercolonialMedical Congress of Australasia have just been concluded.

The Congress is to assemble at Sydney on Sept. 19 th, 1892, andwill last for five days. The Hon. H. N. MacLaurin, M.D..,LL.D., M.L.C., is the President-elect. The work of theCongress will be divided into five sections: Medicine, in-cluding Pathology and Diseases of the Skin; Surgery,which will embrace Diseases of the Eye, Ear, and Throat;Midwifery and Diseases of Women; Public Health, underwhich will be embraced State Medicine, Forensic Medicine,Psychological Medicine, and Demography ; Anatomy and Phy-siology. In order to attracb visitors from America and Europespecial fares will be charged by the various steam-ship com-panies to medical men travelling to and from the Australias;while the Australian Governments will issue tickets over allthe railways at largely reduced rates. An executive com-