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myrrh has also proved very useful in eczema of the nostrilsa,nd in atrophic rhinitis, both simple and fetid. Pledgets ofcotton wool impregnated with the cerate are passed into themoatril and allowed to remain ten or fifteen minutes.

ROYAL BRITISH NURSES’ ASSOCIATION.

THE PETITION FOR A CHARTER.

THE Committee of the Privy Council appointed to considerthe petition for a charter of incorporation made on behalf ofthe Royal British Nurses’ Association met on Monday at thecinces of the Privy Council in Downing-street. The Com-mittee consists of the Marquis of Ripon, Lord Oxenbridge,-Lord Hobhouse and Lord Hannen. Sir Horace Davey, Q.C.,Mr. Muir Mackenzie, Q.C., and the Hon. W. H. Cross

appeared for the petitioners, and Sir Richard Webster andMr. L. S. Bristowe for the respondents, who are the governingbodies of training schools and hospitals in various parts ofthe country as well as the Council of the Nightingale Fund.

Sir Horace Davey, stating the case for the petitioners,explained that the Association was a purely charitable

organisation. It did not seek profit, nor did it seek any com-pulsory powers. It was founded five years ago, its greatobject being to establish a register of nurses founded on thecertificates of competency given by the training schools andlhospitals. In no sense whatever did it seek to enter into

competition with any of these institutions or to control their;3,ction. Its great aim was to save the public from beingimposed upon by incompetent or inefficient nurses. By:inefficient he meant, not only inefficient in skill, but inefficientin point of character. The Association did not pretend totrain nurses. It did not pretend to do more than inquireinto the competence and character of the persons applying for!registration, and to state on the register the result of theenquiry. The registration was, of course, purely voluntary.There was no statutory provision that no one should havethe right to call herself a nurse unless her name appeared onthe register. The second object of the Association was toafford facilities for nurses exercising thrift and making pro-’vision for old age and for those accidents to which nurses were

,peculiarly exposed. The third object was to afford as muchas could be facilities for rest and what might be called recrea-tion. The nurse’s life was exposed to great peril of sickness,and periods of rest and recreation were essential, and it wasthought that this Association might supply a convalescenthome for those who required it. Another object of the_Association was to promote meetings, lectures and the like.Since its inauguration five years ago the Association hadreceived a much larger measure of support than even itsmost sanguine friends expected. His information was

to the effect that there were about 2700 nurses upon theregister, published yearly by the Association. The im-

portance of this figure would be appreciated when lieinformed their lordships that there were, according toestimate made, not by his clients, but by others, about5000 trained nurses in the United Kingdom and about15,000 women engaged in nursing. Their lordships had;also to bear in mind that the Association had had the opposi-tion of some of the principal hospitals and training schools,who had, from their point of view, done all they could toprevent their pupils and nurses entering on the register of theAssociation. In the circumstances of the case, he thought theAssociation had good reason to congratulate itself on the largenumber of nurses on its register. A great deal of the opposi-tion to the Association had proceeded from a misunderstandingof the facts of the case, and he wished to make it clear tortheir lordships that the Association in no sense undertook to’train nurses, but left that work entirely to the useful insti-tutions now carrying it on. The Association desired to act,not in opposition to these institutions, but as supplementaland ancillary to them. It wanted to tell the world whatp.ersons held certificates and qualifications from them, leaving’the world to judge of their value. One reason for desiringincorporation was the difficulty in obtaining funds. The peti-tioners had reason to believe that there were charities whichwould devote funds to such a work as the Association carried onif the latter were incorporated. If the work of the Associationwere admitted to be useful, then he contended it would bemore advantageously and efficiently carried on if the Associa-

tion had the statns of an incorporated body rather than thatof a voluntary institution which might be dissolved at anymoment. The petition, he might say, enjoyed the support ofsomething like 1100 medical men, 1000 nurses and the matronsof hospitals all over the world. The opposition to it pro-ceeded mainly from training schools and hospitals whichderived a large part of their income from the out-nurses intheir employment. The Association only admitted to itsregister the names of women who had gone through threeyears’ training, while most of the training schools and hos-pitals which opposed the petition required a much shorterperiod of training.Lord Hobhouse pointed out that there was nothing in the

Charter about a three years’ course of training.Sir Horace Davey said that the period of training would be

defined in the by-laws of the Association.Lord Hobhouse.-And of course the by-laws may be altered

by the Association.Sir Horace Davey.-Certainly.Lord Oxenbridge.-Is the register to be gone through year

by year and purged ? ‘! A good character might in course oftime disappear.

Sir Horace Davey replied that this was a matter of some’ difficulty. All the Association could do was to say that atthe time of registration the person registered was capable andreliable. The guarantee of the Association was solely withregard to the period of the training ; it had no reference tothe character of the training.

Sir Richard Webster then presented the case of therespondents. Before dealing with what he said it may beconvenient to state here the reasons drawn up by his clientsand presented to their lordships. They were to the followingeffect :-1. That a general register is not adapted to thecalling of nurses for the sick, and that any possible registerof nurses would be misleading to the public and detri-mental to the interests of nursing. 2. That the proposedregister of nurses is in no way analogous to the existingregister of medical men, and that the arguments in sup-port of the latter do not apply to the former. 3. That aregister of nurses could not be effectually carried on exceptunder statutory powers. 4. That any attempt to maintainsuch a register under the authority of a Charter would leadto mischievous results. 5. That the grant of a Charter wouldenable the Royal British Nurses’ Association to acquire a real,if indirect, power of controlling the education of the wholenursing profession. 6. That the Royal British Nurses’ Associa-tion is not a sufficiently representative body, and that it hasnot secured sufficient support or achieved sufficient success toenable it to be entrusted with such powers. 7. That it hasnot the means of discharging the duties and responsibilitieswhich the Charter would impose upon it. 8. That theestablishment at the present time of any register of nurseswould be premature and injurious. 9. That a general registerof nurses is unnecessary. That the other objects for whichthe incorporation is sought can be accomplished without thegrant of a Royal Charter.

Sir Richard Webster submitted that if any such powersas those contemplated in the Charter were granted they mustbe surrounded and safeguarded by provisions analogous tothose found in the Medical, Pharmacy, and other Acts. Hecould not help thinking that there was a good deal of mis-apprehension about the whole business. It arose from alittle forgetfulness of some first principles. This Associa-tion could get itself incorporated at once if it simply chose touse the word " limited." It was not a fact that a corporation

! must carry on trade simply because it used this word. The: question for their lordships was whether, the Board of Trade: not having thought fit to allow the Association to be incor-. porated with the omission of the word, the Association should be entitled to incorporation by Royal Charter. He) contended that this could not be regarded as a purely) optional system of registration. If the Association received- this Royal Charter its register would come to be considered, by the public as a series of certificates. Every person whose

name appeared on the register would be regarded as a personin every way fit and qualified to be upon the register of duly; trained and qualified nurses ; thus it would become compul-; sory for a nurse to get admission to the register.- Lord Oxenbridge.-You mean that, in your opinion, if anurse wants business she must get upon this register ? 1 Sir Richard Webster replied in the affirmative. He con-i tended that the register set forth in the proposed Charter

would not lead the public in any way to the source of infor-- mation from which they could best obtain convenient and

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accurate particulars as to what were the qualifications of thenurse.

When the Committee adjourned Sir Richard Webster hadnot concluded his speech. The Committee will meet againon Monday next.

CHOLERA.

CURRENT NOTES, COMMENTS AND CRITICISM. ’

THERE is no need to say much this week in the way of i,comment in our chronological- record of the progress of

epidemic cholera. There have been manifestations of the

disease at numerous places widely separated from one

another, showing that the cholera cause is extensively dis-tributed, and probably ready to develop itself afresh here-after on the occurrence of conditions favourable to its

manifestations. The disease seems to have obtained a firmer

footing in Russia than in other countries. The cholerareturns for the past week indicate that the epidemic still

prevails there to a serious extent. The reports fromSt. Petersburg show that in the eighteen districts principallyaffected there were altogether 3313 cases and 769 deaths, ofwhich the highest figures are from Podolia, Kieff, Bessarabiaand Kherson. Apart from these districts, the disease still lingersin fourteen other provinces, where the weekly mortality variesfrom 10 to 20, while the number of cases is sometimes as

high as 50. In St. Petersburg itself the returns for the weekwere 58 cases and 19 deaths ; at Moscow there were 45 casesand 33 deaths ; at Warsaw 170 cases and 71 deaths ; and atGitomir 52 cases and 27 deaths. According to a report inThe Times the Medical Department of the . Ministry atSt. Petersburg had determined on summoning a council ofmedical men who had acquired a practical experience of thedisease during the present epidemic in that city towards the end of December, with the view of considering the questionof the best means of preventing or limiting its spread duringthe ensuing spring and summer.Cholera still prevails at Budapest, where there were as

many as 10 fresh cases and 5 deaths on the 20th inst. ; butthese numbers declined to 6 cases and 1 death according tothe report of the 22nd from that city. From the Hague welearn that there have been sporadic cases at Utrecht, Breda,Rotterdam and several other places. Last week there were14 deaths from cholera in the entire country, and there havebeen 242 since the beginning of the epidemic. Therehave been several cases of cholera in Brussels, at

Bruges and other places. From France we learn that anoutbreak occurred at a home for destitute poor at Ville Vaude,in the Seine-et-Marne, where 5 cases occurred. At Dunkirk 6 cases of cholera and 4 deaths were reported at the beginningof the week. The Temps publishes a despatch from Lorientto the effect that for the past three weeks choleraic diarrhoeahad prevailed there, upwards of 100 cases having occurred, ofwhich about 30 had proved fatal. The disease is speciallyrife in the suburbs, principally at Kerentrech. The deathshave chiefly occurred among poor, aged or enfeebled people.There have been some cases also in the neighbouringcountry ; at the village of Loemiquelle there were 20 freshcases on Tuesday last and 4 deaths.

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS,ROME, 1893.

THE following is a list of the English committee formedto further the su cess of the above Congress :-

Sir James Paget, Bart.Sir Andrew Clark, Bait.Mr. Thomas Bryant.Sir Dyce Duckworth.Mr. Hutchinson.Sir George Humphry.Sir W MacCormac.Sir Henry Acland, Bart.Professor Clifford Allbutt.Sir R. Quain, Bart.Mr. J. N. Dick, C.B.Sir W. A. Mackinnon, K.C.B.Sir J. Fayrer, K.C.S.I.Dr. Charles Taylor.Dr. G. H. Philipson.

Sir Joseph Lister, Bart.Dr. Withers Moore.Sir W. Turner.Professor Michael Foster.Dr. J Watt Black.Mr. H. Power.Mr. Shirley Murphy.Mr. Gordon Brown.Dr. Cheadle.Dr.Saundby.Dr. Dreschfeld.Mr. Mitchell Banks.Mr. T. P. Teale.Mr W. F. Favell.

I Dr. E. Long Fox.

VITAL STATISTICS.

HEALTH OF ENGLISH TOWNS.

IN thirty-three of the largest English towns 6057 births and3632 deaths were registered during the week ending Nov. 19th.The annual rate of mortality in these towns, which hadbeen 19 6 and 19 ’5 per 1000 in the preceding two weeks,further declined to 18 6 last week. In London the rate of mor-tality was 18 4 per 1000, while it averaged 18 ’7 in the thirty-two provincial towns. The lowest rates in these towns were12 4 in Halifax, 13 ’1 in Wolverhampton, 13 ’3 in Croydon,and 14’1 in Derby ; the highest rates were 22’4 in Brighton,22’5 in Preston, 236 in Burnley, 25.1 in Bolton, and 25-7 inSalford. The 3632 deaths included 392 which were referred tothe principal zymotic diseases, against 434 in each of thepreceding two weeks; of these, 137 resulted from measles,61 from scarlet fever, 53 from diarrhoea, 51 from whoop-ing-cough, 47 from diphtheria, 39 from "fever" (prin-cipally enteric), and 4 from small-pox. No fatal case oiany of these diseases occurred last week in Norwich ; in theother towns they caused the lowest death-rates in Derby,.Wolverhampton, Burnley, and Liverpool, and the highestrates in Croydon, Hull, Brighton and Salford. The greatestmortality from measles occurred in Cardiff, Nottingham,West Ham, Oldham, Hull, Croydon, Brighton and Salford;from scarlet fever in Swansea, Newcastle-on-Tyne andPlymouth ; from whooping-cough in Salford and Swansea yfrom "fever" in Preston, Halifax and Sunderland ; andfrom diarrhoea in Plymouth, Gateshead and Blackburn. The47 deaths from diphtheria included 29 in London, 3 inBirmingham, 2 in West Ham and 2 in Brighton. Twofatal cases of small-pox were registered in Leeds, one

in Sheffield, and one in Leicester, but not one in Londonor in any other of the thirty-three large towns ; 15cases of this disease were under treatment in the Metro-politan Asylum Hospitals (of which 12 had been admittedduring the week) and 2 in the Highgate Small-pox Hospitalon Saturday last. The number of scarlet fever patients inthe Metropolitan Asylum Hospitals and in the LondonFever Hospital at the end of the week was 4045;against 4067 and 4063 on the preceding two Saturdays ;404 new cases were admitted during the week, against462 and 403 in the preceding two weeks. The deathsreferred to diseases of the respiratory organs in London,which had been 319 and 357 in the preceding two

weeks, declined to 340 last week, and were 80 belowthe corrected average. The causes of 76, or 21 per cent.,of the deaths in the thirty-three towns were not certifiedeither by a registered medical practitioner or by a coroner.All the causes of death were duly certified in Cardiff,Nottingham, Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in sevenother smaller towns; the largest proportions of uncertifieddeaths were registered in West Ham, Birmingham, Blackburn,Preston and Sheffield.

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HEALTH OF SCOTCH TOWNS.

The annual rate of mortality in the eight Scotch towns, whichhad been 22’9 and 20’6 per 1000 in the preceding two weeks,rose again to 21’5 during the week ending Nov. 19th, andexceeded by 29 per 1000 the mean rate during the sameperiod in the thirty-three large English towns. The ratesin the eight Scotch towns ranged from 17 ’2 in Dundee and18-2 in Greenock to 24-1 in Perth and 37-2 in Leith. The 598deaths in these towns included 65 which were referred tomeasles, 24 to scarlet fever, 11 to diarrhoea, 11 to "fever,’"7 to whooping-cough, 6 to diphtheria, and 3 to small-pox.In all, 127 deaths resulted from these principal zymoticdiseases, against 109 and 110 in the preceding two weeks,These 127 deaths were equal to an annual rate of 4 ’6 per 1000,which exceeded by 2 3 the mean rate last week from the samediseases in the thirty-three large English towns. The fatal casesof measles, which had been 69 and 61 in the preceding twoweeks, rose again to 65 last week, of which 22 occurred in Edin-burgh, 16 in Glasgow, 15 in Leith, and 11 in Aberdeen Thedeaths referred to scarlet fever, which had been 13 and 19 in thepreceding two weeks, further rose to 24 last week, and included14 in Glasgow, 4 in Edinburgh, and 4 in Leith. The 11 fatalcases of diarrhoea exceeded those recorded in any recent week,and included 6 in Dundee. The deaths referred to differentforms of "fever," which had increased from 2 to 9 in thepreceding three weeks, further rose to 11 last week, of which7 occurred in Glasgow and 2 in Dundee. The fatal cases of zdiphtheria, which had declined from 12 to 5 in the previous