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ASSOCIATION OF MEMBERS OF THE ROYALCOLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

A CONSIDERABLE number of Members of the Collegeattended the annual general meeting of this Association,held on the 31st ult., in the Masonic Temple of the IlolbornRestaurant, Dr. Robert Colliiiii in the chair. After thetransaction of formal business, oflicers were elected for

1889, the notable changes in this respect consisting in theaddition of Dr. J. D. Macdonald and Mr. Lawson Tait to a.list of vice-presidents which already includes, among others,the well-known names of Dr. V’. Carter (Liverpool), Dr.W. A. Elliston (Ipswich), and Dr. Danford Thomas

(coroner for Central Middlesex). A resolution "pledging theAssociation to continued action" was followed bv the im-portant business of the evening-viz., the passing of a

resolution, "That the Draft of Parliamentary Bill sub-mitted to this meeting be referred to the Central Com-mittee, with the instruction to consider the same, underadvice of counsel, and to take immecliate steps to introducea Bill into Parliament, such Bill to make provision thatthere shall be no limitation as to the right of Members ofthe College to vote in the election of the Council of theCollege"; and the passing of a resolution, "That, in view ofthe refusal of the Council of the College to summon a

meeting of the corporation to consider Parliamentary action,it is hereby resolved that the lion. secretaries of this Asso-ciation do forthwith summon a meeting of the College to beheld at Lincoln’s-inn-fields within one calendar month."Each of these resolutions was carried unanimously.The meeting was followed at 7.30 by the Annual Dinner of

the Association. Among the guests were Dr. Farquharson,M.P., Mr. R. Davy, and Mr. Walter Rivington. SirGuyer Hunter and Mr. (’Xeorce Pollock were at the lastmoment prevented from attending--in the former case byillness, and in the latter by pressing family an’airs. Thetoasts given were-" The Queen an([ Royal Fiiiiil pro-posed by the Chairman ; The Houses of Parliament,"proposed by Mr. Davy, and replied to by Dr. Fanquharson: -,"The Navy, Army, and Auxiliary Forces." proposed byDr. Weir, and replied to by Sir William Moore, Brigade-Surgeon J. Candy, and Surgeon-Major (Volunteers) SamuelSmith; "The Association of Members of the Royal Collegeof Surgeons," proposed by Mr. Lawson Tait, and replied toby Dr. Danford Thomas and Mr. Joseph smitlr ; "OurGuests," proposed by Dr. Stretch Dowse, and replied to byMr. Walter Rivington; and "The Chairman and Secre-taries," proposed by Mr. Lawson Tait, and replied to by Dr.R. Collum, Dr. W. C. Steele, and Mr. W. A. Ellis.The proceedings terminated with a musical selection, the

executants being Mr. Joseph Smith and his brother, Mr. J. C.Smith, with songs, and Mr. W. A. Ellis at the pianoforte.

YELLOW FEVER: EXPERIMENTAL RE-SEARCHES IN FLORIDA.

AT the meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine,held on Jan. 17th (Med. Record, Jan. 26th), hr. Paul Gibierof Paris read a paper on Experimental Resetrelies in theEtiology of Yellow Fever undertaken during the recentepidemic in Florida at the request of the French Govern-ment, in continuation of his researches in the previous yearin Havana. When he arrived at Jacksonville the epidemichad began to decline, but he was able to study severalcases of undoubted yellow fever; for, although some

deaths were due to fevers prevalent in the country, andsome cases of vellow fever ran a rnodiiied course fromthe presence of such fevers, there was no doubt theepidemic was one of genuine yellow fever. He saw somecases which were absolutely as characteristic, judged by thesymptoms and pathological lesions, as any he had seen

at Havana or elsewhere. He had opportunity to makebacteriological observations in comparatively few cases, butthese were confirmatory to a degree of the more numerousobservations made in Havana in 1888. The substanceswhich had been planted in cultures had been taken with

every precaution. While it was not impossible that tlwmicro-organisms which developed in the iluids experimentedupon during the culture process were introduced in thenecessary manipulations, yet this uncertainty, he thought,did not exist in the case of the solid media. While headmitted, as he had done in preceding publications, the intro-duction of the micro-organism into the hollow viscera as pos-sible, owing to alterations in the mucous membrane, yet thispossibility seemed excluded in the case of the liver, spleen,and kidneys. Dr. Gibier gave the results of cultures madein about six cases at Jacksonville; in one case, however,the disease was not yellow fever. The fifth case was thatof a light mulatto, aged thirty-five, who died after fourdays’ illness with undoubted symptoms and lesions of yellowfever. The liver was "nutmeg," the kidneys were congested;the stomach and bowels contained a large amount of blackliquid, the contents of the stomach being acid, of the smallintestine decidedly alkaline, of the large intestine neutral.Cultures were made of the blood, kidneys, liver, spleen,and intestinal contents. The blood was sterile. Thekidneys, spleen, and liver contained some microbes ofdecomposition, the necropsy being made eight hoursafter death ; and the temperature was high. The intes-tinal fluids contained the microbe which he had iso-lated in Havana, and believed to be the origin of yellowfever. In this case alone was the microbe present, andonly in the intestines, and it was noticeable that the liquidcultures of this microbe resembled in character the blackvomit. The theory propounded by Dr. Gibier was that

yellow fever was an intestinal affection, and if that weretrue it should be treated from the beginning by remediesdirected to the intestinal tract-as bichloride of mercury,naphthalin, and tannic acid. There were two objections tothis theory-viz.: 1. If yellow fever was an intestinaldisease due to a micro-organism, why was this not foundin all cases after death ? ’! 2. If this cause were admitted,how could one explain the albuminuria present? :’ Inanswer to the first question, he stated that after a micro-organism had saturated a culture medium its growthstopped ; and if then another microbe was introduced itwould replace the former. So it might be in the fluids ofthe intestine in yellow fever. As soon as he should have

opportunity, it was his intention to examine the dejecta ofpatients, from the first day of the disease until the last, forproof of this view. He would not he surprised to find hismicrobe in some cases only during the first days of thedisease. The alterations in the other organs during thecourse of the disease might be accounted for by theptomaines generated bv the microbe which entered andpoisoned the blood. The poisons seemed to be especiallyplentiful in the radicles of the vena porta. As to thepresence of albuminuria, he remarked that it was notunusual for it to be present in other affections, as typhoidfever, when the original lesion was in some other organ.

JOINT ACTION OF EMIGRATION SOCIETIES.

THE joint action taken by various emigration societies,which we briefly described recently, will, we trust, be

rapidly followed by other and stronger efforts of a similardescription. First and foremost, now that so good a begin-ning has been made, those societies which abstained fromthrowing in their lot with the Liverpool pioneers, as theymay worthily be called, will, we hope, no longer stand aside.The representatives of the three lines of steamships con-cerned did not fail to notice the absence from the conferenceof several societies and institutions that yearly send abroadlarge numbers of emigrants by these lines. We would

strongly urge on these bodies that they have everything togain and nothing to lose by taking common action with thesocieties represented at the Liverpool conference. Nor isthis all. To the philanthropic and semi-religious characterof these associations we would add a purely scientific,economic, and sanitary element. Thus every force thatinfluences emigration could be brought to hear, and thisnot merely on the steamship companies that carry emi-grants, but also on the Parliaments and Legislatures bothof England and the colonies. Joint action thus organisedon a very extensive scale would have a double advantage.Firstly, the power that union gives would more promptly