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flagation may in some country districts have relightedfrom embers still smouldering there unobserved ; but the

more extensive outbreak again followed that of the capitalin a way to suggest connexion between the two such as

would be expected in the case of an infectious disease byone acquainted with local conditions of trade &c." The

disease subsided in November and again during the followingApril there was slight recrudescence. The seasons, thoughthe reverse of ours, seem still related in some way to

the prevalence of the disease. Whatever the condition of

the air, the presence of an infecting particle is assumed

throughout the report as necessary to influenza and the

conditions under which it acts are well discussed. "A

special mode of communication must be inferred, as pro.

pinquity, though it may be necessary, is insufficient byitself. " ____ .

SLANDER OF A MEDICAL MAN IN BANFF.

THE North British Mail of Glasgon contains a report ofan action in the First Division of the Court of Session beforethe Lord President and a jury, brought by Dr. Barclay of Banffagainst Mr. Robert Duncan, merchant, of Banff, for £1000

damages for alleged slander. The plain tiff had practised in Banffand held various medical offices there since 1863. He wasone of the visiting surgeons of Chalmers’ Hospital, but owingto differences with the officials he had resigned, and sent hisresignation to the defender. The pursuer complained that thedefender had on various occasions slandered him by statingthat he was guilty of using indecent familiarities with thenurses in the hospital, and that these statements were false,malicious and calumnious. In the course of the evidence it

appeared that the word " familiarities " had been used withall its mischievous insinuations, but under cross exami-

nation the defender said he did not believe there was any"impropriety" on Dr. Barclay’s part. The pursuer’s mannerwas known to be frank and fussy. It is certainly ratherhard on a respectable man, even if a little frank and fussy inmanner, to be charged with familiarities, " and we are gladthat the verdict was given to the pursuer, with damages atf200. The defender was let off mercifully, and will perhapslearn to speak with more caution where the character ofmedical men is concerned.

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A SERIOUS NUISANCE.

HAMMERSMITH has been suffering from a serious nuisance.The owner of a piece of land has been engaged in diggingout and selling gravel from it; and, the land being near theriver, water has filled the hole which has thus been created,making a pond containing from one and a half to two milliongallons of water. Into this pond has been pitched the refuseof the neighbourhood and this decomposing has poisoned theair with foul odours, which have driven those resident in thevicinity of the pond from their homes. How this has been

permitted to occur is not evident, but the fact remains thata gigantic nuisance has been created which deserves all thecondemnation it has received at the hands of angry rate-

payers. When the nuisance had become patent the vestry ofHammersmith held an "emergency meeting" and served anotice upon the owner, calling upon him to abate thenuisance within seven days. The County Council thenbecame cognisant of what was taking place and made

inquiry into the matter ; but the vestry, having institutedproceedings, were not in default, and the council, like

everyone else, has to wait the result of the action of the

vestry. In the meantime a correspondent of The Times, whosevexation evidently makes him ignore the fact that the councilis limited by the terms of an Act of Parliament, attacks thecouncil and the vestry alike, and later solaces himself withthe statement that his published letter was the means ofmaking the council undertake a duty which it was quite im-

possible they could perform before the vestry was known tohave failed. The owner of the pond has now proceeded totake steps for the abatement of the nuisance and men areengaged in pumping the offensive water into the sewer, andin filling in the pond with earth. If his efforts should proveinsufficient or should in any way relax the vestry must

obviously summon him before the magistrate and this weanticipate they will not be backward in doing, for the eyes ofthe public are upon the Hammersmith vestry, and no sym-pathy will be felt for a sanitary authority which does not useall the powers it possesses for removing from its district soserious a menace to the public health.

CENTENARY OF "THE RETREAT" AT YORK.A HUNDRED years have elapsed since the foundation of an

Institution for the Insane which has excited admiration inall interested in their welfare, whether at home or abroad.The Medico-Psychological Association held its annual meetingat York this year on July 21st, to mark its appreciation of anevent so beneficent in the reform of the treatment of theinsane. The medical superintendent of the Retreat, Dr.

Baker, was appropriately elected President on the occasion.Dr. Yellowlees moved a resolution, which was unanimouslyadopted, expressing the Association’s warm appreciation ofthe work effected by the founder, William Tuke, and

his fellow-workers in regard to this remarkable asylum,where chains were unknown at a time when it was

supposed they could not be discarded with safety, and

where gentleness and consideration were substituted for

inhumanity and empiricism. The inestimable benefits con-ferred by the philanthropic and far-sighted founder welldeserve the recognition it has just received in so striking amanner in the place of its birth. A very remarkable feature ofthe occasion was the number of congratulations which pouredin from the psychological associations of America and Europe.The English, Scotch and Irish boards of lunacy paid a hightribute to the movement in the interests of the insane

commenced in 1792. A highly interesting circumstanceoccurred at the meeting at York. The great-grand-nephewof Pinel, Dr. René Semelaigne, was present to speak for hisnation and his family. It was a happy international

recognition of benevolent action common to both countriesand was responded to by Dr. Hack Tuke’s proposing thehealth of the French physician, which was duly honoured.Belgium was worthily represented by Dr. Morel of Ghent, thePresident of the Medico-Psychological Association in thatcountry.

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THE PROGRESS OF CHOLERA IN EUROPE.

CHOLERA continues to make steady headway in Russia andwe have now reached a stage when even the incompleteofficial returns admit about 1000 fresh attacks and some 550deaths per diem. It is possible that south of the Caucasusthe disease may have somewhat diminished, but, on the

other hand, the disease has spread westwards round the Seaof Azov and to Kertch, and it is also reported to haveinvaded Roumania. No details are as yet to hand as to thislast invasion, which, if true, is of serious import to Europe.A further extension of cholera northwards and along thebranches of the Volga has also taken place, and at last thereis no question as to the prevalence of the disease in Nijni-Novgorod, where the preparations for the great fair and thesubsequent dispersion of caravans may serve as a mediumfor distributing the infection such as will be beyond control.The German Government are evidently very anxious as totheir eastern frontier and their Baltic ports. At each such

port and at frontier towns where traffic crosses the boundaryinspection stations have been established and it has beendecided that such articles as used linen, old clothes, rags &c.,shall not be admitted. Some check seems also intended as

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regards the emigration which is now going on from the awestern provinces of Russia. Prussia is also watchful on her (

eastern frontier, Paris being in this case the centre of sus- ipicion. This suspicion must also be shared by us, for no 1

proper account has ever been issued as to the actual cause of ’the cholera which has been going on in the northern suburbsof the French capital, and some of the official records havecome to a standstill since alarm became general. In thesuburbs the disease seems for the moment to have distinctlysubsided in severity, and we earnestly hope that thisabatement may be maintained. On the other hand, wehave an account of Dr. Brouardel’s inspection of the

asylum at Chartres where forty patients have been

attacked, of whom twenty are stated to have died within aweek. One report says emphatically the disease is

cholera nostras, but so long as half the people attacked dieit matters very little what name be given to the cholera,whether in the Paris suburbs or at Chartres. For a similar

reason we can attach but little importance to the announce-ment which comes by telegraph to the effect that Dr. Proustreports, "there is in France ...... no invading or importedcholera." We fear all Dr. Proust’s utterances are not

published, and under any circumstances the cholera whichhas prevailed is very fatal and hence very serious. We trust

no invasion may ensue. And as regards importation, we shalllook with great interest to Dr. Brouardel’s and Dr. Proust’sfurther announcements. They are both recognised authoritiesand their untrammelled utterances will be of the greatestvalue. One of the most remarkable features of this occur-rence of cholera in France is the apparent absence of anyhistory of importation. But the disease began in a districtwhere cholera prevailed in 1884, and it may be either thatthe present outbreak is a recrudescence after a singularlylong interval, or else that there is some history of com-

paratively trivial occurrences of a like sort in and about thesame suburbs in past summers, and that these occurrenceshave served as a connecting link between the cholera of 1884and 1892. This might explain the comparative feeblenesswith regard to diffusion which a somewhat exhausted infec-tion would be expected to display.

THE SOCIAL EVIL.

BY a coincidence the first lesson for the morning service onJuly 27th which generally comes in the height of the London i

season and which this year fell on a Wednesday is the seventhchapter of the book of Proverbs. It is the chapter whichdescribes in stern language relieved in parts with beautiful

passages the scene between the young man void of under-

standing and the woman with the attire of a harlot. It is

terribly significant of the persistence of prostitution that thedescription of the sight witnessed by Solomon in the twilightin the evening, in the black and dark night, " nearly 2900 yearsago should be read in our cathedrals and churches in the morningand be reproduced in our streets the same and every eveningalmost to the letter. The wise man endeavoured by warningto induce the young men of his day to adopt wisdom and toavoid vice. In the pages of THE LANCET similar advice hasbeen frequently given, and the high moral tone adopted bySir William Jenner, Sir James Paget, Dr. Gowers and manyother leading physicians and surgeons must have its effectsupon the present and future generations. It is the more

necessary to repeat this since many excellent persons of bothsexes have been too ready both to state and to persist instating that young men have had medical sanction for

believing continence to be dangerous to health and in-

continence justifiable on physiological grounds. GeorgeHerbert’s words, "Continence hath his joy,".is not

merely a poetical effusion, but a sober truth, of which

most medical practitioners have both positive and nega-tive evidence. The excellent advice given by the manly

author of "Tom Brown at Oxford," that the best thing todo with wild oats is to put them into the hottest part of thefire and let them burn there," should be taken in conjunc-tion with Sir James Paget’s words, " Chastity does no harmto mind or body, discipline is excellent ; marriage can besafely waited for." While heartily re-echoing these grandwords we still lament that more is not done by legislation toremove temptations from young and thoughtless men who arecompelled by their avocations to pass along the streets atnight. That the streets should be permitted to remain thehappy hunting ground of aggressive prostitution is an evilwhich cannot be justified, and calls loudly for vigorousmeasures of repression.

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ESCAPE OF A SCARLET FEVER PATIENT.

LAST week we had to comment on the escape of a patientsuffering, from small-pox from a hospital for infectiousdiseases. This week a similar incident is reported at Aber-deen. A boy eight years old, suffering from scarlet fever,the day after defervescence, and while desquamation wasgoing on actively, was restless and unruly, and was

allowed by the staff nurse of the Aberdeen City Hos-

pital to go to the lavatory at the end of the ward. As hedid not return he was looked for, and it was then found thathe had managed to escape by lowering the upper partof the window; the opening being at least seven feet anda half from the floor and the walls perfectly smooth.After freeing himself from the ward he succeeded in scaling awall about nine feet high. The moral of such incidents is

obvious, but it still needs to be pointed. Patients withexanthematous disease are not to be held responsible fortheir actions and nurses should allow them only that

liberty which is sanctioned by their medical attendants.

GLANDERS IN MANKIND.

THE dangers attending the prevalence of glanders in horsesin London and other parts of the United Kingdom have beenbrought prominently before the public by an inquest heldbefore the coroner for the City of London last week, atSt. Bartholomew’s Hospital, on a woman aged twenty-fouryears, the wife of an ostler, residing at Compton-mews,Brunswick-square, who died at the above-mentioned hospitalfrom this loathsome malady. There is nothing extraordinaryin people dying from this essentially equine disease, and theonly wonder is that more cases are not recorded consideringthe extent to which it prevails ; the only matter of interestis in the way in which infection is supposed to have takenplace, if we may judge from the evidence given before thecoroner. It appears that the husband, wife and two children

occupied two rooms over stables in the mews and in one ofthese stables horses were taken ill about a fortnight pre-viously. The illness from which they were suffering wasstated to be farcy (or skin glanders) and two of them weresubsequently destroyed because of being so affected. Thewoman had nothing to do with the stables, but it was sug-gested that she might have become affected through usingwater conveyed in a pail upstairs from the stable. The

house physician of the hospital was of opinion, when

stating that the woman had died from glanders, that usingwater from a pail that had been contaminated by a glanderedhorse, if she had a superficial wound, would be sufficient to im-

part the disease. The use of public watering-troughs in Londoni has long been suspected of spreading this disorder amongr horses, and it has been often suggested that resort to these- should be prohibited until glanders is suppressed ; but up to

the present nothing has been done to ascertain whethert there is any foundation for such an accusation against these.1. refreshing places. We have already complained of the very.- perfunctory and lax manner in which this dangerous and

y destructive disorder is dealt with by the Government and the