601

stomoxys are recognised to be carriers of a trypanosomedisease of horses known in South America as nial de oaderas,and inquiries made at the instance of Lieutenant-ColonelBannerman showed that a species of stomoxys was prevalentin Assam and Bombay. As above mentioned, this insect didnot appear to be a carrier of surra. The conveyance of

trypanosomiasis becomes an important subject in view ofthe possible introduction of sleeping sickness into India.The collection of snake venom was continued throughout theyear, the dried venom being sent to Kasauli for the manu-facture of antivenene. The laboratory snakeman was un-fortunately bitten on the left forefinger by a Russell’s viper,but was immediately treated by Major G. Lamb, I.M.S.,with appropriate antivenene which he had himself made atKasauli. The result was very gratifying, for the man didnot develop any constitutional symptoms of poisoning,although the finger became gangrenous and had to be

amputated. ____-

I

EXPLOSIONS IN SEWERS.

ATTENTION is called by the London County Council to ahighly dangerous practice of which motor men appear tobe sometimes guilty-namely, that of allowing inflammablenaphtha or petrol to escape down the drains. The CountyCouncil has issued a timely warning on this subject to

persons concerned in th use of petrol. It is pointed outthat on several occasions recently explosions have occurred’in sewers in which men were working and that life has

been lost thereby. The explosions have been traced to

the presence of highly inflammable gas in the sewer givenoff by light petroleum. Under Section 10 of the London

County Council (General Powers) Act, 1894, there is an orderprohibiting the disposal of inflammable petroleum productsin this way, and any offence committed is punishable by afine not exceeding £20, with an additional fine not exceed-ing .E5 for every day on which the offence continues. Inour opinion the fine should be very much heavier consideringhow very serious the results of such reckless conduct may be.

Apart from the danger to life involved, an explosion mayrupture the sewer and along its course the result may be aserious pollution of the subsoil.

SUICIDE IN ITALY.

"FOLLOWING up the comments in THE LANCET 1 on’Suicide and its Methods,"’ writes an Italian contributor,"I may now supplement them by the last statisticalreturns issued on the subject by the Direzione Generale della Statistica. These returns deal with the year 1904 and are full of interest as painful as it is dramatic. Self-murder, itappears, was on the increase in Italy from 1887 to 1898, afterwhich period a slight diminution was noted up to 1903. The

cases of suicide in 1887 were 1449, those in 1898 were 2059,while those in 1903 were 1922. But in 1904 the cases

amounted to 2156 ! Of this appalling total, Lombardy con-tributes the largest number, 337. Next comes Piedmont

with 297, the Emilia with 236, Venetia with 224, Tuscanywith 210, Sicily with 163, Latium with 132, Liguria with 116,and Campania with 110. In the other provinces of Italythe number of suicides were, in each instance, below 100-the lowest number being in the Basilicata, 19. Classified

according to sex, of the 2156 individuals who put them-selves to death in 1904 the males numbered 1705and the females 451. As to the stato civile’ (con-dition as citizens), 963 of the suicides were bachelorsor spinsters, 888 were married, 250 were in the widowed

state, and 55 were of unknown civil condition. The greatmajority of the suicides occurred between the ages of20 and 39 years. Between those periods of life the cases

1 THE LANCET, August 4th, 1906, p. 311.

were 877 ; 700 made away with themselves between the agesof 40 and 50 ; 380 between 60 and 79 ; 150 between 15 and19 ; 28 at ages above 80 ; and 12 under ten years old.

Touching the means of self-murder employed, that by fire-arms was the most frequent, numbering 522 cases ; drowningwas the means in 433 cases ; hanging in 388; precipitationfrom a height in 213 ; poison in 188 ; asphyxia in 98 ;cutting instruments in 68 ; and crushing under vehicles in61. As to the mental state of the suicides delirio perpsicopatia’ (frenzy due to psychical causes) figures largely,two under that head being ascribed to alcoholism, ten to themania consequent on pellagra, and seven to neurasthenia. Ofthe four seasons the spring was the most prolific in suicide,numbering 640 cases ; summer follows with 610, winterwith 463, and autumn with 443. The months of April,May, June, and July witnessed the largest number of

suicides; October, November, and December the smallest.Classified according to occupation in life the most

numerous were those of the agricultural, pastoral,or artisan class, 452. Next, but at a long interval,come the well-to-do (capitalists and such like), numbering86; and officers (combatant in either service), 77. Of theliberal professions those of the Church and medicine figureleast, there being seven among the former and nine amongthe latter."

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NEW VIEWS ON PATHOGENIC MYCOLOGY.

Dr. P. I. Koubassoff (a Russian physician) has set himselfthe formidable task of disproving the fundamental concep-tions of modern mycology and epidemiology.1 From hisobservations on malarial and typhoid fever made during a 12years’ stay in Turkestan he concludes that the life cycle ofthe pathogenic microbes evolves through the following stages:a growth of the nature of a mycelium sprouts from a hiber-nating spore, as a bush (buisson) from its seed and its diverseconstituents (parties) develop gradually into a mono-

sporium, a penicillium, an aspergillus, ascospores, bacterio-genetic spores, and facultative spores that turn again intohibernating spores, thus resuming the life cycle....... The

spores, more particularly the hibernating modification, arethe real carriers of infection ; the microbes, thought specifichitherto, as, e.g., bac. typh. Eberth, are mere pro my-celia.’ They are too little resistant to form a pathogenicfactor of any degree of importance. Their presence in theblood is possible only after the resistance of the organismhas broken down." There is, unfortunately, in the array ofobservations practically nothing to support these statements.The animal experiments with the microbe of paludism(malaria) and the microbe of typhoid fever " are little

convincing and nothing is done to prove evolution ofone of the forms into another by way of culture. Dr.Koubassoff states that he has succeeded in isolatingmost of the forms described by him from the blood of

patients by diluting the blood drawn during the differentstages of malaria, typhoid fever, and even pneumonia, withphysiological saline solution, and growing them on thefollowing media : Medium I. : To a kilogramme of broth :glycerine, 60 ’ 0 ; peptone, 12’ 0 ; ferratin (an iron albu-

minate), 1-2; glucose, 4-0; and sodium chloride, 4-0.From 7 to 10 per cent. of gelatin is added for a gelatinmedium, and for agar from 2 to 3 per cent. of gelatin and1 per cent. of agar-agar. Medium II. : An entire eggbeaten up with a tablespoonful of glycerine and one

glass of skimmed milk. On sterilisation this forms a

very soft semi-solid medium. The forms thus obtained areidentical with forms which were isolated from the green film

I1 Du Microbe de la Fièvre Typhoïde (Ileo-typhus) et de la Théorie

Ternaire de Pettenkofer. Des Microbes du Paludisme: RecherchesMicrobiologiques, Epidémiologiques, et Cliniques. Print. by I. N.Kouchnereff, Moscow, 1906. Des Champignons du Paludisme, 1895.Ueber die Pilze des Paludismus, A. Hirschwald, Berlin, 1898.