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however, there were no appreciable differences between thetwo reactions ; in these cases Dr. Detre assumed that the in-fection was " mediated " by both bacilli. He did not considerthat one bacillus was the infecting agent and that the otheronly accompanied it; he held this opinion because there werecases in which besides the great sensitiveness against onespecies there was no sensitiveness at all against the other.The infection might take place in the following manner-aview which is also taken by Professor Behring. Duringinfancy a child became infected with the bovine bacillusthrough taking milk, butter, &c., and this bovine infection,if it was not entirely recovered from, created a predisposi-tion to the human infection contracted at a subsequentperiod by inhalation when sensitiveness against both speciesdeveloped in the doubly infected diseased organism.

Dec. 20th, 1907. ________________

CONSTANTINOPLE.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Mataria.

IT is reported that malarial fever is raging at Smyrna andKonieh. The epidemic is attributed to the many swamps andmarshes which are to be found almost everywhere in theabove localities. From Konieh comes an urgent demand fora medical man, but the authorities of the medical school inConstantinople think that medical skill will be of very littleuse if the source of the epidemic-namely, the marshes-isnot removed. The municipal authorities of Konieh have.however, been informed that a medical man will be sent tothe affected districts. In connexion with this subject theTurkish newspaper Sabah publishes some details concerningthe irrigation of the plain of Konieh and the drying up ofits marthy places which are of medical interebt. Theschemes proposed for carrying out the work have been

approved by the Council of Ministers and sanctioned by theSultan. Large areas of land will be rendered capable ofcultivation and the Anatolian railway, which is now carriedas far as Boulgourlou, will shortly reach Adana, the lineeverywhere traversing fertile land. The water required forirrigation is to be supplied by Lake Beyshehir, situateabout 100 kilometres to the west of Konieh. Two smallstreams, the Beyshehir Sou and Tcharshembe Sou, whichprovide an escape for the overflow of the lake, are to becanalised and controlled for a distance of about 145 kilo-metres. A canal of 30 kilometres will be built round themarshy depression at Karaviran, known as the Sogla Gol,and another canal of 20 kilometres will connect the twoabove-mentioned streams in the narrow Valikova Pass.Several barrages and three large reservoirs will also benecessary, as well as an aqueduct and innumerable smallcanals for the distribution of water for irrigation purposes.It is estimated that it will be possible to supply 600,000"deunums" " with water ; in other words, 132,500 acres ofland will, it is hoped, now be brought under cultivation.Through this scheme it is expected that not only will theirrieated places produce annually grain of excellent qualitysufficient to load at least 20.000 railway wagons but alsothat in consequence of the drying up of the marshes theywill cease to be a source of malaria.

The Italian Hospital.A service of gratuitous consultation and surgical treatment

has been opened in the above hospital by its newly appointedsurgeon, Dr. A. de Fabii, who has just arrived from Italy.He was surgeon to the principal hospitals of Rome and it isexpected that he will be able to do much good work in theTurkish metropolis. The gratuitous operations will be

performed daily from 9 to 11 AM., excepting Mondays andThursdays.

Cases of Extraordinary Longevity.The Stamboul new’papers assert that no other country

produces so many cases of extraordinary longevity as doesthe Ottoman Empire. Not all the cases brought before theattention of the public are genuine or credible, but, on theother hand, an individual is occasionally found whose

remarkably great age is proved by substantial testi-mony. The following case seems to be genuine. At YeniBaghtcbé, Stamboul, there resides a certain Hadji RaifEffendi who is 124 years old and who has been the book-binder of the Military School of Pancaldi for the past 80years. This man’s father died at the age of 142 years. He

was named Edhem Pasha and was a Government official. It,seems that in Russia centenarians are also found. It is

reported (this time it is the Levant Herald that is responsiblefor the news) from Revel in the Baltic Provinces that anEsthonian lady, born in 1783, and therefore aged 124 years,has just thought it about time to make her will in case

" anything should happen." The old lady, who was born inthe reign of Catherine II., has thus lived in the reigns of sevenof the eight Tsars belonging to the house of Romanof-Holstein whose sway dates from 1762.

Dec. 24th, 1907.

CANADA.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Winnipeg General Hospital.THE city council of Winnipeg has decided to grant the

request of the board of go ernors of the Winnipeg GeneralHospital to raise the annual grant from$30,000 to$40,000.The former grant had been fixed on the basis of the workdone in 1904, but since that time the number of city patientshas increased 40 per cent. Last year the hospital under-took several absolutely necessary impr6vements and addi-tions caused by the great increase in its work. Thisinvolved an expenditure of$150,000 and so far the cityhas paid$125,000 of this amount. For the first timein the history of the hospital it was unable to payits monthly accounts in October. These amount toabout$13,000 per month. The board of governors alsoasked that the hospital be granted by the city$25,000at once on debenture account to close out the accountsincurred by building operations last year. They also askedthat legislation be obtained to provide for the immediateerection of a proper mortuary and a place for holdinginquests, post-mortem examinations, &c. ; also a properpathological department. Winnipeg requires a new isolationhospital ; and the board requested that it be erected andconducted by the city and so relieve the General Hospitalof the work of taking care of cases of infectious diseases.The cost of such a hospital for Winnipeg is placed at$150,000. It should accommodate from 80 to 100 patientsand have provision for from 40 to 50 tuberculous patients.

Toronto Hospital for Incurables.The annual meeting of the board of managêment and

patrons of the Toronto Hospital for Incurables, formerlycalled the Toronto Home for Incurables, took place recently.Dr. Bruce Smith, the Ontario Government inspector of suchinstitutions, was present and said that of ail similar institu-tions both in Canada and in the neighbouring country of theUnited States which he had visited none could surpass thestate of this hospital. He also pointed out that the grantof the Ontario Government of$5323 and that of the cityof Toronto of$4000 were totally inadequate when the

importance of the work was considered. The secretary pre-sented the annual report and showed that during the pasttospital year 176 persons had been cared for. On Oct. lst,1906, patients numbering 139 were registered, and to thatnumber 37 were added during the year. The deaths in the

same period totalled 31 ; four patients left and there were nowin the institution 141. There are 80 patients supportedat present absolutely free of cost ; 18 pay a nominalamount for maintenance. The present year’s work was-

carried on with the small deficit of$486. The averagecost of each patient was 56 cents per day.

Alexandra and St. Paul’s Hospitals, Montreal.These two hospitals in the city of Montreal look after

respectively the cases of infectious and contagious diseasesoccurring amongst the English- and French-speaking popula-tion of that city. The first arrangement for the mainten-ance of these made with the city called for a grant to eachof$15.000 per annum, but it has been found that almost adoubled grant would just about be adequate to continue theirwork. A new agreement is now required from the citycouncil. It is asked that each be granted$5000 for the-balance of the present year and that on Jan. lst next the totalgrant to each be$25,000, this agreement to last for a termof three years. The hospitals then agree to treat all

patients without regard to religious denomination who maybe sent to them by the city in such numbers as the said

hospitals can accommodate, each accommodation not to be

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for less than 100 patients per day. In case of an epidemicthe city will be allowed to use all the beds for the treatmentof cases of one contagious disease only.

Montreal Maternity Hospital.The sixty-third annual meeting of the friends and

supporters of the Montreal Maternity Hospital was heldrecently in that city, Dr. T. G. Roddick being inthe chair. In making a short address Dr. Roddick statedthat the building was now practically free from debt

owing to the energy of the ladies of the governing body andtwo or three good donations and bequests. The endowmentfund was increasing gradually and now amounted to$6000.During the last hospital year 370 married women had beentreated in the institution, and the report for the present yearshowed that the number had reached 440 Private patientshad nearly doubled while the number of the unmarried

patients had not increased. The hospital had conducted itsRnancial affairs successfully during the year and there was acredit balance in the bank of$356.

A Simple Staining Metltod for the Gonocoeous.In the Dominion Medical Monthly Dr. J. G. Fitzzerald and

Dr. E. H. Young of the Toronto Hospital for the Insane givea preliminary note on the above subject. It is simple andhas been found useful by them and, as they state, mustappeal to the busy general practitioner. The gonocofcus isstained by an aniline basic dye and is decolourised by Gram’smethod. Their method is simply the application of Nisl’ssoapy methylene-blue solution without any counter-stain, thesolution being made as follows : methylene blue B. patent,3-75; Venetian soap, 1 75 ; and distilled water, 1000. Thesmears, which should be made on slides (and care must betaken to have them as thin as possible), are fixed in the airand then stained (without heating) for one minute withNissl’s solution, washed, blotted, and are ready for examina-tion with the oil-immersion lens.

Is Toronto to Have a New Medical Behool? ?McMaster University is a denominational institution in

Toronto belonging to the Baptists. At a recent Baptist con-vention held at Woodstock the board of governors and Senateof McMaster University submitted to that convention a

report recommending the project of establishing a medicalfaculty in connexion with that university. The Universityof Toronto, with which McMabter University is not affiliated,has a strong medical faculty, their treshmen numbering thisyear about 230. Probably McMaster University considersthis is too large a class even of freshmen for one universityto handle successfully and that it could attract to itself aconsiderable proportion of the medical student body attachedto the Provincial University However, as yet no definitesteps have been taken along the lines suggested by the Senateand board of management of McMaster University.Dec. 20th, 1907.

________________

NEW YORK.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

A Oentralised Ambulance System.ALTHOUGH New York was the first city in this country to

adopt the army ambulance as a means of conveying the sickin civil practice there has never been a well-organied systemof ambulance service. Each hospital has had its own

ambulances and the police officials have summoned them incases of emergency. The police authorities have createddistricts for the different hospitals to which the ambulancesof that hospital have been limited, except on occasions ofgreat emergencies. The Municipal Hospital Commissionrecently devoted a session to conferences with represpntativesfrom the various hospitals for the purpose of obtaininginformation in regard to the working of the present system.The concluion was that there should be a central ambu-lance station corresponding to the fire headquartersto which all ambulance calls should come and throughwhich they should be assigned to the various hospitals.

Flies the Oa1/se of High Sumnzer Mortality.The Merchants’ Association Committee on Pollution of the

Waters has published the report of the bacteriologist of theWater Bureau of New York city on investigations to deter-mine the influence of river flies in conveying the germs ofdisease to the people of the city. It appears that a largenumber of fly-traps were placed underneath the piers of the

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city which were daily visited and the flies collected and sub-mitted to examination by counting and the best bacterio-logical methods. The examination showed that a "SouthStreet house-fly" carried 100,000 bacteria. At the sametime a careful investigation was made of the sanitarycondition of the water front of the entire city. It wasfound that sewage abounded and that these flies were

thickest at the point where there was the most sewageand that where it was scarce the flies were few innumber. The flies were found to carry less bacteria inthe early season than during the hot term. The tabula-tions and diagrams of the report show that the time ofthe greatest prevalence of flies in 1907 was the threemonths beginning July 1st and ending Oct. lst. A record ofthe deaths from intestinal diseases shows that the deathsfrom these diseases rose above the normal at the time atwhich the flies became prevalent, culminated at the samehigh point, and fell off at the time of the gradual falling-offof the prevalence of the insect. The report concludes withthe assertion that this so-called harmless insect is one of thechief sources of infection, which in New York city causesannually about 600 deaths from typhoid fever and about7000 deaths yearly from other intestinal diseases.

The Plague on the Pacific Coast.It appears from a report of a commission acting under the

authority of the American Medical Association that the

plague has not been exterminated from the Pacific coast.Since August 108 cases have been verified, of which 65 died.There was in addition a large number of suspected cases.The first recognised case occurred in 1900, but suspectedcases had from time to time been previously reported. Theeffect of the great fire following the earthquake seems to havebeen to extend the disease by scattering the rats and the in-oculation of ground squirrels, though an enormous number ofrats were killed in the fire. Another feature of the fire whichincreased the spread of the plague was the insanitary con-ditions which followed. The commission states that thesewer system was almost completely broken up, water wasscarce, people were compelled to cook and almost to live inthe streets, garbage was thrown about promiscuously, refugeeswere crowded together in tents and later in shacks, and thesecamps became filthy. Some of these camps are said to havebecome hives of dirty humanity and to have swarmed withrats and fleas. That the plague is now widely scatteredamong the cities of the Pacific coast is evident and themeasures taken to arrest and exterminate it seem altogetherinadequate owing to the indifference of the people and thelocal authorities outside of San Francisco and Oakland wherethorough anti-plague work is being done. The commissionconcludes that the continued existence of such a disease oversuch an area, and for the time during which it is evidentthat the infection has existed here, ,wauld seem to make theinfection a subject for national consideration.

State Prohibition of Nostrums.The State of Massachusetts, through its board of health, is

rigidly enforcing its laws against the sale of noxiousnostrums, one of the most conspicuous of which is cocainein various forms. The law, which went into effect onSept. lst, 1906, provides-That it shall be unlawful for any person (including physicians) to

sell or to expose or offer for sale or to give or exchange any patentor proprietary medicine or article containing cocaine or any of its saltsor alpha-eucain or beta-eucain or any synthetic substitute of theaforesaid.

A large number of preparations, generally advertised as

remedies for catarrh or diseases of the throat, have beencondemned by the board of health, and their proprietorsbrought into court and convictions obtained. the effect ofthis law in the suppression of these injurious and oftendangerous nostrums has awakened a wide-spread interest andother States are certain to take similar action.

Tuberculosis in gerds of Cattle.The New York State Veterinary College reports through

its expert bacteriologist that 72 per cent. of the herds of theState of New York are tuberculous. This expert has madea careful study of meat inspection and states that althoughthe citizens of the State are now thoroughly protected againstChicago and Western beef by the pure food and meat

inspection laws, the markets of the State are loaded withdomestic beef, a large percentage of which is infected withthe tuberculous germ. The statistics collected by ProfessorM"ore show that of 364 herds examined 72’3 per cent.included tuberculous animals. Estimates based on these