179MEDICAL RESEARCH IN BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA PROTECTORATE.

eft there by him. He was accordingly summoned and con-victed. By a sub-section of the Act on which the prosecutionwas founded it is provided that the seller shall not be

Hable to conviction if he proves that when he soldthe articles in question "he did not know, and had noreason to believe," that they were unsound. Evidence

was called to prove that Baxter had bought the goods foundin the shop from firms of good standing and that he hadno grounds for supposing that they were bad. As to the

goods found in the yard he contended-and it was admittedby Mrs. Grant-that he had not sold them to her, but hadleft them on the premises saying that they were bad andthat he would send for them and have them destroyed.The court upheld the first conviction and the sentencethereon on the ground that even if the appellant hadnot direct knowledge that the goods were unsoundhe had reason to believe that they were ; but thesecond conviction was quashed as there appeared to besome doubt whether the goods found in the yard and scullerywere in fact intended for the food of man. This decision

certainly seems to be a just one founded on common sense.The results of eating tainted food may be so serious thatheavy penalties must be inflicted on those selling such food,knowing or suspecting that it is bad. At the same time it is

only fair that if the accused sells the food in entire ignorancethat it is unsound he should have an opportunity of callingevidence in his favour, and if no culpable negligence is

found no penalty should be inflicted.

MEDICAL RESEARCH IN BRITISH CENTRALAFRICA PROTECTORATE.

WE hail with satisfaction, as a movement in the rightdirection, the beginning of a project on the part of the

medical staff of the Protectorate of British Central Africato publish a series of small circulars dealing with cases

of climatic disease, more especially with those of hæmo-

globinuric fever, coming under the observation of the

medical officers serving in that part of the African con-

tinent. The second number of the publication is

before us which, besides containing much useful and

practical information, is likely to prove very service-

able in calling attention to various points still re-

quiring elucidation, and about which further scientific

and systematised observations are much needed. The ideais that medical reports of all cases of importance are to beforwarded to Zomba where they will, if they are of sufficientinterest and value, be printed and circulated among themedical officers of the protectorate who will be invitedto supply any fresh information which they may desireto give together with comments for publication in the

following issue. We do not know who in particulardeserves the credit of starting the project in ques-tion, but we assume that Dr. G. Douglas Gray, the

acting principal medical officer in British Central Africa atZomba, will generally supervise and edit the publication ;and anyway the arrangement strikes us as a well-conceivedand good one. We hope that it may prove successfulin getting together a number of well reported observa-tions of cases calculated to throw light on hasmoglobi-nuric fever and some other local climatic diseases. As

a sample of the nature and character of the subjectstreated we may say that the circular before us containsthe following articles : A Study of Black-water Fever,Notes on Quinine in Hasmoglobinuria, A Case of Black-water Fever with Description of the Blood Examination, andan interesting case of Gunshot Wound by the Snider Bullet.An impetus has been recently given to the study of tropicaldisease, and not before it was needed, seeing the number andextent of our various colonial possessions. Medical officers

and practitioners proceeding to tropical and subtropical

countries can have, of course, little or no practical knowledgeof the diseases incidental to such climates and are naturallydesirous of obtaining all the information they can

from those who have already studied them clinicallyon the spot. Professor Koch’s lecture on Malaria at Berlinin June last, moreover, furnished some new and importantaspects and features for further research. The actual cause,for example, of black-water fever is still obscure, some

regarding it as the gravest and most pernicious form ofmalarial infection, others as a specific form of fever

attributable to the presence of a still undiscovered micro-

organism, whilst some affirm that the black urine andextreme prostration witnessed in this disease are, in reality,only signs of quinine poisoning. The papers in the circularunder notice give a good account (as far as is yet known)of this disease; but there remains very much to be clearedup in regard to its exact nature, causes, and pathology.

MR. WILLIAM CADGE AND THE NORWICH

HOSPITAL.

IT is not often that a medical man is able to give largedonations to hospitals other than of time and skill. It is,therefore, with a double sense of interest that we offer ourcongratulations and thanks in the name of the medical pro-fession to Mr. William Cadge for his second princely gift of£10.000 to the Norwich Hospital. At the quarterly meetingof governors held on Jan. 14th Mr. Cadge was present. In

speaking on the report he mentioned that "lump sum" "donations did not go very far in increasing the annualincome of a hospital and therefore that there was just asmuch need for annual subscriptions as before. We haveno doubt that the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital will bepleased to receive and be able to make use of all the annualsubscriptions that are sent to it, but Mr. Cadge must not inhis modesty be allowed to belittle his own generosity. A

perpetual endowment of .6300 or .f.400 a year is a substantialincrease to the resources of the Norfolk and Norwich

Hospital and will enable that institution with still freer

steps to follow up its excellent charitable and scientifictraditions. But such an endowment by one citizen doesnot excuse others from bearing their share of a noble

burden. Rather it should excite them to imitation of the

donor’s munificence. ___

MILK-SUPPLY AND TUBERCULOSIS: THE

INFECTIVITY OF CREAM.

WE printed last week a paper in which will be foundrecorded the results obtained by the late Professor Kanthackand Dr. Sladen in their investigations as to the presence ofthe tubercle bacillus in sixteen different milk-supplies inCambridge. The methods which they employed are givenin detail and are clearly of so thorough a character as toleave no room for reasonable doubt as to the accuracy oftheir results. There can be no question that animal inocula-tion carried out with due precautions and controlled bymicroscopic observations constitutes the most delicate testat our disposal for the detection of the tubercle bacillus,whether in milk or elsewhere. This test was lavishlyemployed, no less than 6 guinea-pigs having been inoculatedfrom each milk-supply ; the results show that this numberwas by no means unnecessarily large, for in two instances outof the 9 in which a positive result was obtained only 1 of the6 animals inoculated became tuberculous. The facts elicited

by Professor Kanthack and Dr. Sladen are indeed striking and,we may almost add, appalling. More than half the suppliestested-9 out of 16-proved infective, while of the 90 guinea-pigs inoculated in the course of the experiments no less than23 (25.55 per cent.) developed tuberculosis. These results

are considerab in excess of those recorded by Delepine in