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The students will be required to keep their hair short, andsatisfy the medical superintendent that they are protectedagainst small-pox by vaccination or otherwise. Strict

discipline over them is to be observed by the school withwhich they are connected. It is suggested that the studyof infectious diseases be taken late in the curriculum, thatthe duration of the course be two months, and that theresident medical superintendents are the proper clinical

instructors, and should receive a portion of the special fees(f3 3s.) to be paid by the student for the course of two omonths, and one guinea for each month afterwards. The

scheme seems to be well adapted for its purpose, and, webelieve, will be practically safe for both students and thepublic---the more so if on leaving the hospital the studentstake a good walk. The risk to the public with these pre-cautions will be nil, and that to the students will be slight,besides being a risk as natural to them as that of war is toa soldier. We recognise in these arrangements a greatimprovement in the provisions for medical education.

Annotations.

THE PARIS ACADEMY OF MEDICINE AND THETUBERCULOSIS QUESTION.

" Ne quid nimis."

IT may be remembered that a committee, appointed bythe Tuberculosis Congress which met in Paris in thesummer of 1888, promulgated last year a series of instrue-,tions respecting the prophylaxis of tuberculosis. Theseinstructions were widely circulated ; and their promoters,desirous of obtaining the highest medical support (althoughthe names of the members of the committee were those ofeminent men), submitted the document to the Academy ofMedicine in October. The Academy referred the questionto a committee, which reported much on the lines of theoriginal draft of instructions, with some abbreviations.The Academy has ever since been engaged in debating thesubject, many eloquent speeches have been made, to oneof which we referred last week ; and whilst there has been inthe main an agreement as to the contagiousness of tubercle,a serious difference of opinion has been shown with regard tothe particular part to be played by the Academy in pub-lishing its conclusions to the world; so that when in duecourse the debate came to a close it was found impossible tovote the report of the committee as it stood. Matters werealmost approaching a deadlock, when M. Bergeron, theperpetual secretary, proposed a resolution embodying thepoint upon which there was almost general agreement-viz.,that tuberculosis is contagious, and likely to be disseminatedby the dust of dried sputa and tuberculous pus. Thatresolution was referred back to the committee, which, how-ever, could not agree unanimously either to recommend itsadoption or to advise the adoption of the original report.In the end the following resolution was passed with hardlyany dispute, and, as has been remarked, the long and formaldebating has eventuated in the promulgation by the

Academy of a general statement, which leaves the matteralmost in the position it was before the Congress onTuberculosis directed attention to it. The resolution runs :"Tuberculosis is a parasitic and contagious disease. Themicrobic agent of the contagion especially resides in thedust produced by the dried sputa of phthisical subjects,and by the pus of tuberculous wounds. The safest measure forpreventing contagion consists, therefore, in destroying thesesputa and pus, before their desiccation, by means of boiling

. water or by fire. The parasite is also occasionally found inthe milk of tuberculous cows; it is therefore prudent not to

. use any milk until it has been boiled. The Academy callsthe attention of competent authorities to the dangers arising

! from the presence of tuberculous subjects in lycées, barracks,

. State offices, workshops, &c."

THE INFLUENZA.

THE spread and decline of the epidemic, which is fast

disappearing from this country, was well illustrated in the

figures adduced in The Times of the 5th inst., by Mr.Horace Hart, Chancellor of the University Press, Oxford.e gave a table of the number of persons employed therewho were absent from sickness each day during the fourweeks ending Feb. 1st. Out of a total number of employesamounting to 562, the usual daily absentees from this causenumbered four, but from Jan. 6th onwards the numbersrose from 29 on that day to 70 on the 18th, after whichthe number steadily decreased till, on Feb. 1st, therewere only 17 absent. We may hope that the returnsreceived by the Local Government Board from all partsof the country will in like manner illustrate on a

large scale the decline of the epidemic. There is verylittle to report on the further course of the pandemic,which has now spread practically over the whole of thenorthern hemisphere. If any conclusions can be drawnfrom general statements, it would be that in Great Britainthe affection has been less virulent than in some of the con-tinental cities. Opinions vary much as to the contagious-ness of influenza. Dr. Baumler of Freiburg, writing in theMünchener Med. Wochenschrift, would consider it to be ratherof the contagio-miasmatic type than the purely contagious. Asregards the alleged discovery of an influenza microbe, it maybe remarked that the published statement of Dr. M. Jollesof Vienna does not convey the impression that the organismhe met with in the sputa of a patient suffering from pneu-monia after influenza, and in the urine of other cases, wasmaterially different from the pneumonococcus of Fried-

lander, the main point of distinction resting upon itsbehaviour in gelatine cultures; and his detection of it

in the main source of water-supply to Vienna does not

per se indicate that the organism is really the influenzamicrobe. In a review on this subject (La Province

Medicale, Feb. 1st), Dr. G. Roux calls to mind that in1884 Otto Seifert described a streptococcus in the nasalsecretions of influenza, and later was associated withFr. Muller in confirming this discovery. Dr. Ribbertdeclares that he has found a streptococcus in eight casesof influenza, six being cases of pneumonia, identical withthe streptococcus pyogenes; and his observations are in partconfirmed by those of M. Vaillard of Val-de-Grace. Itwould seem, however, that none of these researches andothers in the like direction have been able to satisfactorilyaccount for the cause of influenza, but that the presence ofsuch microbes may be favoured by antecedent conditionsinduced by the general "influence," and that here may befound the key to the varying degrees of intensity of thedisease, the variety of its manifestations, and its com-

plications. We understand that in the MetropolitanPolice the number of officers on the sick-list has diminishedfrom 1860 to 851, and that there has been only one death,which resulted from broncho-pneumonia.

"PSILOSIS," OR "SPRUE."DR. C. BEGG, in writing on the intestinal disorder

variously nai-ned 11 psilosis " or "sprue," which is commonin China, from his nine years’ medical experience inthat country, points out that there is little ground forbelieving the affection to be a specific disorder of the