115PARIS.-BERLIN.

and Mr. Newland superintendent medical officers under thecholera regulations for this union.

Children’s Hospital, Dublin.A new juvenile comedy operetta will be performed at the

theatre attached to the hospital in Harcourt-:;treet in aidof the funds of the institution on the 21st inst. The playwill be "Cinderella" and the chorus will include thirtychildren.

Sir Charles Cameron of Dublin has been elected Presidentof the Public Analysts’ Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Dr. Thomas Myles has been appointed by the TreasuryMedical Referee for Ireland in connexion with the Civil Serviceand superannuations.

The Belfast Health Society.The new Health Society was very successfully inaugurated

on Jan. 4th, when at a public meeting Dr. Whittaker, medicalofficer of health for the city of Belfast, delivered a lectureon "Sanitary Science." The President of Queen’s College,Dr. Hamilton, who as President of the Health Society occu-pied the chair, pointed out that Mulhall’s statistics for1861-80 showed that Ireland was the healthiest country inEurope. In Hungary the death-rate is 38 per 1000 per annum,in Austria 30, Italy and Spain 29, Belgium 22, England 21,Scotland 21, Denmark and Sweden 19, Ireland 17. Butwhile this fact is true in regard to Ireland as a whole,unfortunately the large towns of Ireland, Belfast amongst thenumber, are among the unhealthiest in the United Kingdom.In Birmingham the death-rate is 19 per 1000, in London 21, inGlasgow 25, in Liverpool and Cork 26, in Dublin 27, and inBelfast (the worst of all) 28. In his lecture Dr. Whittakershowed the great prevalence of phthisis in Belfast (1017 diedfrom this cause in 1891 and 1082 in 1892) and he said thatthe preventable causes of disease existing in this city were-(1) the unhealthy occupation of many of the working classes;(2) the presence in the backyards of thousands of the housesof the working classes of middens of the worst possibletype ; (3) the bad sanitary conditions in far too many ofthe workers’ houses ; and (4) the imperfect drainageof the houses into the sewers. A very important state-ment was made by one of the speakers at the meet-

ing-Mr. Thomas Harrison, a member of the Public HealthCommittee of the Belfast Corporation. He said all theefforts of that Society would be of little avail unless they andthe public could get the Infectious Diseases Notification Actintroduced into Belfast at the very earliest opportunity. At

present Dr. Whittaker (the public officer of health) and his largeand efficient staff know nothing of the march of disease throughtheir town. They must not, Mr. Harrison said, blame eitherthe Public Health Committee or the Legislature ; the BelfastCorporation refused to pass a resolution in favour of theadoptionof the Act. Even so late as Monday, Jan. 2nd, 1893, anotherattempt to get the Act introduced was unsuccessful. He calledupon the Medical Society of Belfast and upon the newlyorganised and newly established Health Society to assist thePublic Health Committee, even against the corporation itself,to get that Act introduced into Belfast. There is no doubtthat this new society (the inception of which is entirely dueto the ceaseless energies of the hon. secretary, Dr. H.

O’Neill) will do an immense deal of good, especially in

educating the citizens as to the laws of health, and already,by the attention it has drawn to the very high death-rate ofBelfast, it has accomplished no small end.Jan. 10th.

PARIS.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Revival of an Ancient Remedy for Phylloxera.OK April llth last M. de Mely called the attention of the

members of the Académie des Sciences to book vii., chap. viii.,of Strabo’s Geography, wherein mention is made of an insector parasite-perhaps our own phylloxera-which already atthat remote period, 60 B.C., attacked the vine. Roughlytranslated the passage runs as follows :-" The Apollionateshave in their territory a rock which vomits fire ; from its basethere escape springs of tepid water and asphalte, the result,apparently, of the combustion of the soil, which is bituminous,as is proved by the presence on a hillock close byof an asphalte mine. In this mine the loss seems

to be balanced by fresh deposits derived from the soilthrown in, which is converted, according to Posidonius,

into bitumen. The same author mentions another bitu-minous earth, ampelitis, which is extracted from a mine inthe neighbourhood of Seleucia and which is employed as apreservative against the insect that attacks the vine. The-mere rubbing of the vine with a mixture of the earth and oilsuffices to kill the animal before it can ascend from the rootsto the buds. Posidonius adds that when he was Prytanis ofRhodes there was found there a similar earth, which, how-ever, required more oil than the above (ampelitis)." M. de

Melyhas since conducted experiments on a large scale in orderto put Strabo’s assertion to the proof. Six hundred vine;stocks, planted on land impossible to sulphur, were treatedwith 100 kilogrammes of chopped rags saturated with tenkilogrammes of schist. M. de Mély has in addition treatedsome vines with bituminous earth sent him from Rhodes, theearth being placed in circular buckets around the vine stock.The result is said to be most gratifying, the vines subjected-to the Strabonian treatment being remarkably vigorous andthe yield of grapes greatly superior to that of neighbouringvines untreated thus. VI. de Mely suggests that the method.should be put into practice throughout all phylloxera infestecl’districts, the moderate cost of the remedy bringing it withinthe reach of even the poorest wine-grower.

Remarkable Transposition of Organs.Some days ago there died in Paris, under what appeared to.

be suspicious circumstances, a gentleman of independentmeans aged eighty-five. A hecropsy was deemed necessary, .

and Dr. Descouts, the well-known Morgue expert, was entrustedwith the task. No abnormal cause of death was discovered ;but Moliere’s famous Médecin nzalgre lui, could he havebeen present on the occasion, would have been gratifiedto find his peculiar topographical notions confirmed ina striking manner. The heart, liver and spleen were

completely transposed, the first-named organ being on

the right side of the chest and so on. Commentingon this strange abnormality, Dr. Descouts remarks on itsrarity. He further says that he would like to knowhow many errors of diagnosis -have been committed bythe different practitioners who were consulted by the de--funct during his long life. Asked if it would not be aswell to interrogate the deceased’s ordinary medical atten-dant, Dr. Descouts humorously replied that it was most un-likely that he had ever had one and that that was probablythe reason he had lived so long ’ ’. Dr. Descouts has evidently:studied iNfoli6i-e to some purpose.

The new Medico-legal Institute.Anyone who, like myself, has followed a series of summer

lectures at the Morgue will not readily forget the sufferingentailed on the students by the sweltering heat prevailing inthe wretched little theatre in which post-mortem examina-tions are performed by a volunteer from amongst the audience.The teaching is so excellent that both Professor Brouardeland his assistants and the Faculty students deserve to be-provided at an early date with more appropriate premises.The construction of a new Medico-legal Institute has forsome time past been on the tapis, and it is now announced"that the discussion of the project will be definitely under-taken by the Conseil General du Departement de la Seine-in February next. Fortunately for the chances of the promptrealisation of the scheme Professor Brouardel possesses greatinfluence, which he will doubtless employ in this direction.January llth. ;

BERLIN.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The Emperor aod Empress Frederick Children’s Hospital.THE Emperor and Empress Frederick Children’s Hospital

in the Reinickendorfer Strasse here, of which the Empress.Frederick is patroness, is an institution for the treatment ofsick children, especially such as are suffering from infectiousdiseases. It was founded and is maintained mainly bybeneficent donations. The hospital consists of four depart--ments, one for non-infectious internal diseases, another-for surgical cases, a third for diphtheria, and a fourth for-scarlet fever. The doctors and attendants are as strictlyisolated in the several departments as if they did not

belong to a uniformly governed institution. Other depart- ments for measles, whooping-cough and mixed forms ofinfectious diseases are projected. The institution was openedon Aug. 1st, 1890, and then consisted only of the consulting-and diphtheria departments. During the first year 4941