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the men have not sufficient determination or money to enablethem to obtain a release from their unfair engagement.

I am, Sirs, yours truly, .

Uape Colony, Uct. 4th, 1893, M.D. AFRIKANDER.

RANSOM v. OD CHEM. CO.To the Editors of THE LANCET.

SIRS,-Our attention has been called to a letter from Dr.W. B. Ransom published in your issue of the 12th Sept.which you (upon your own responsibility, as that gentleman’ssolicitors inform ours) affixed the heading " CommercialImmorality," and in connexion with which you published inthe same issue a leading article containing similarly pre-judiced and unfounded reflections upon the character andbona-fides of the Od Chem. Co. of New York who are the pro-prietors of the drug "Sanmetto." As the publicationof comments of the kind in your influential paper iscalculated to inflict considerable injury upon us we mustask you to give equal publicity to the following short state-ment of fact showing your strictures to be wholly undeservedand, having regard to the motto "audi alteram partem "with which your correspondence columns are prefaced, wefeel confident that you will in fairness comply with ourrequest.

It is a fact that we did actually receive in America in themonth of April, 1895, a letter in the terms of the" objec-tionable " testimonial (with a slight immaterial varia-tion). This document had been posted in Nottinghamand had ostensibly been sent by Dr. W. B. Ransom, whosesignature it purported to bear. We shall be happy toproduce it for your inspection if desired. Suspectingnothing we embodied it in one of our published books oftestimonials, our legal right to do which would, as yourleading article admits, have been undoubted if the docu-ment had been genuine and authentic. It now appears fromDr. Ransom’s repudiation of any knowledge of the documentthat we have been the victims of a wicked hoax, the responsi-bility for which we will do our best to trace. As soon as Dr.Ransom’s disclaimer was communicated to our representativein London we gave an undertaking not to continue the publica-tion of the purported testimonial, and on the 21st inst., uponthe application coming before the vacation judge, we raised noopposition to its being granted. We may mention furtherthat the indignation displayed in Dr. Ransom’s letter, pub-Tished by you on Sept. 12th, is no doubt to some extent

explained by the fact that he had not then seen or heard ofthe document which formed our justification for publishingthe testimonial. Under these circumstances we think youwill now agree with us in regarding as altogether unjustifiedthe statement that Dr. Ransom’s name had been delaberatelyappended to words which he never used, as well as the otheradverse comments in your leading article, and we rely uponyour well-known spirit of fair play to relieve our reputationand character from the imputations cast upon us.We do not desire to make any special reference to the

terms in which your leader writer alludes to the drug11 Sanmetto beyond stating that in committing himself to aconclusion adverse to the merits of a drug of which heavowedly knows nothing he is placing himself in directissue with the expressed opinions of a very large number ofmedical men of high standing in America as well as in the’United Kingdom by whom it has been fully tested.

We are, Sirs, yours faithfully,

Oct. 21st, 1896.OD CHEM. CO.,

W. Kühlenthal, Manager.

* * As this matter is still sub judice we refrain from Icomment.-ED. L.

INOCULATIONS AGAINST CHOLERA.To the Editors of THE LANCET.

SlRS,-In a pamphlet headed "Two Years of Anti-- choleraic Inoculations," addressed to the Calcutta corpora-tion, Dr. W. J. Simpson makes a further contribution toour knowledge on this subject. The two years’ record-consists in part of the experiences of inoculations afterM. Hafrkine’s method, which Dr. Simpson has previously"reported,l and which were enumerated by M. Haffkinehimself in his lecture to the Royal Colleges of Physicians-of London and Surgeons of England in December of last

1 See the article on this subject in THE LANCET, Oct. 19th, 1895.

year, and in part of the experience of a further year’sinoculations in Calcutta. The value of the inoculations hasbeen tested in Calcutta by keeping accurate record of allpersons inoculated and of the houses they inhabit. The

sanitary department has thus been able, on hearing of theoccurrence of cholera in a house where inoculations havebeen performed, to institute strict inquiries as to theincidence of the disease among the inoculated and un-inoculated inhabitants. Dr. Simpson’s record is now ofseventy-seven such houses invaded by cholera In these therewere 652 uninoculated individuals, among whom 82 wereattacked and 71 died, and 402 inoculated, among whom 13were attacked and 12 died. The mortality from cholera inthese inoculated and uninoculated populations thus proved tobe 2.9 per cent. and 10’8 per cent respectively. These results,Dr. Simpson notes, have been checked in detail by M. Haffkineand by other observers. The cases are classified into three

groups according to the time which elapsed in each casebetween inoculation and occurrence of cholera. 1. In houseswhere cholera occurred within the first four days there were167 uninoculated who had 6 deaths (36 per cent.) and 3attacks ending in recovery, and 259 inoculated who had5 deaths (19 per cent.) and 1 attack with recovery.2, In houses where cholera appeared in the next

period-extending over a year-there lived 502 unin-oculated with 42 deaths (8’4 per cent.) and 5 attacksending in recovery, and 269 inoculated with 1 death.3. In houses where cholera had occurred more thana year after the inoculation there were 283 uninoculatedwith 23 deaths (8’4 per cent.) and five attacks ending inrecovery, and 96 inoculated who had 6 deaths (6’2 percent.). Provisionally it may be inferred from these figuresthat protection has been afforded for a certain period(after the first four days) to the inoculated persons inCalcutta. Very little protection, however, has been shownin the case of those inoculated more than a year beforetheir exposure to cholera infection. It is suggested thatthe reason of this failure is that five of the six individualswho died from cholera in spite of their inoculations morethan a year previously had been injected with a weak"first vaccine" only-an explanation which was alsoadvanced when inoculations among soldiers of the EastLancashire regiment failed to be protective in the Lucknowepidemic of 1894. Whether this be the true reason orwhether it is that in the case of cholera (where we do notknow accurately how far one attack protects against another)any inoculations after M. Haffkine’s method are certainto afford at most a transient protection cannot at present bedetermined. Further information may be expected now thatin all inoculations performed in Calcutta the use of the

preliminary "first vaccine" has been discarded and the"second vaccine" is used directly in smaller doses. Differentobservations on the effect of these inoculations have had,almost without exception, a noteworthy feature in common.However much or little the inoculation may have seemedto protect against cholera attack, no corresponding protectionhas been afforded against fatal result. Dr. Simpson’s recordsappear to give another example of this fact. Of the 82 un-inoculated persons who contracted cholera 71 died, while ofthe 13 inoculated persons 12 died. If the protective valueof the inoculations against attack is really considerable, thisfailure to modify the seveiity of the disease in inoculatedpersons is curiously at variance with all the laws whichgovern immunity from other diseases.

I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, --

Oct. 25th, 1896. M.O.H.

- TROPOSED HOSPITAL FOR THE UNDERCLIFF, 1 SLE OFWIGHT.-Dr. Theodore Thomson, an jnspector of the LocalGovernment Board, held an inquiry at Ventnor on Oct. 22nd,as to an appeal by the island rural district council againstthe action of the island county council, who had arrangedthat the urban district of Ventnor and five rural parishesshould be formed into a district to be styled the UndercliffIsolation Hospital District. The chief plaint of the ruralcouncil, as laid down in the evidence, was the loss of aboutP,22,710 of their rateable value and the upset of a schemefor a central hospital for the entire rural district. Amongthose on the other side Dr. Whitehead, as representing theVentnor Medical Sanitary Association, gave evidence infavour of the scheme of the county council. The associa-tion’s points were that the area was not an arbitrary onedevised for this purpose solely, and that it would conduce tothe convenience of all concerned.