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experts and to discuss with them the risks to healthpeculiar to their everyday work. Thus the personalinterest is aroused, as anyone must recognise who hasbeen present at some village institute in a miningarea and has heard discussions on miners’ nystagmusand pithead baths, or in a Lancashire hall when mule-spinners’ cancer has been debated. The society beganits work in Scotland, but during 1927 its headquarterswere moved to London and its activities were spreadover the south and the west. The demand for lecturesseems to be already greater than can be supplied fromthe society’s funds. Hitherto, through contributionsmade from the Miners’ Welfare Fund, the coal-miningcommunity has been able to command most attention.But workers in other industries are realising thathealth is an inheritance requiring to be guardedagainst sickness and disease incidental to specificoccupations. Though the society doubtless owes partof its success to the fact that teaching on occupationalrisks can be fairly clear-cut and dogmatic as comparedwith instruction about health in general, a specialtribute is due to the competence and energy withwhich the work is being carried out.

BORAX AS A MOSQUITO LARVICIDE.IN warm climates, when water is stored for purposes

other than drinking, regular oiling of the surface isusually needed to keep it free from mosquito larvae.This is an expense and, when the cost is minimised byemployment of cheap (and generally unreliable)labour, an anxiety to those responsible for publichealth. R. Matheson and E. H. Hinman have foundthat the addition to such water of commercial boraxin the proportion of 1-5 g. to the litre, or aboutan ounce in six gallons, forms an efficient larvicidalsolution, since young larvae placed in it seem invariablyto die. In the same way, although culex egg massesappeared at intervals in those experimental pailscontaining borax which were left uncovered, thelarvae which hatched never reached the second instar.Inasmuch as time and evaporation leave boraxunchanged, the larvicidal effect remained as great atthe end as it had been at the beginning of the sixweeks’ experimental period described in the paper,water having been added as required to make good theloss by evaporation. The original cost is small and thereseems no reason why renewal of the solution should berequired for many months. The explanation of thelarvicidal character of borax does not seem to lie inits reaction. The pH of the solution in the pails didindeed stand at 9 or over, but when boric acid wasused the hydrogen-ion content was indicated as 7 orless and yet the fluid was fully larvicidal. The effectmust accordingly be attributed to the boron. It ishoped during the coming season to test the solution onsuitable natural pools. ____

THE WASHINGTON HOURS CONVENTION.

WHEN the Mouse 01 Uommons discussed, the

Washington Hours Convention during the pastsession, the debate proceeded mainly upon party ’Ilines and the results were negative. The Convention,the terms of which were scarcely mentioned, has for itsmain purpose the adoption of the eight-hours dayor the 48-hours week in countries where thatstandard has not already been attained. The BritishGovernment has refused to ratify the Convention ;its spokesmen have described the document as

ambiguous and unworkable, the result of a series ofcompromises ; they have declared that it requiresrevision and they have argued in favour of awaitingthe date (in three years’ time) when it must in anycase be revised. They point out that ratification ofthe draft Convention involves an internationalobligation which can be enforced at The HagueInternational Court by all the sanctions provided bythe Treaty of Peace ; they add that ratification wouldimperil the existing agreements which have been

1 Amer. Jour. of Hygiene, March, 1928, p. 293.

reached in this country whereby hundreds of thousandsof workers have the prospect of employment in con-ditions of industrial peace. In criticising the Govern-ment, Mr. Thomas Shaw could say with considerableconviction that Great Britain, in setting her signatureto the Treaty of Peace, accepted certain principlesfor the betterment of the lives of the workers, buthad made no attempt to carry out her agreements inthat respect. We ought not, he said, to allow ourlabour legislation, particularly for women and youngpersons, to sink below the level of European countrieswhich we have hitherto regarded as somewhat back-ward in industrial development. The ratification ofthe Convention will now presumably be suspendedindefinitely unless a strong public demand for itshould arise. Probably public opinion in GreatBritain inclines to the view that our labour questionsare intricate enough already without importing inter-national problems, that our labour legislation com-pares favourably with that of other countries, andthat our traditions of administering justice make theenforcement of moderate laws a better thing thanthe adoption of rigid and high-sounding principleswhich are imperfectly observed. Many people, too,are resentful of the apparent surrender of legislativeindependence involved if Parliament at Westminsteris expected to give effect without modification todraft Conventions signed in foreign countries bypersons of whom the average citizen here knowslittle. The controversy over the Lead Paint (Protec-tion against Poisoning) Act of 1926 was not withoutsignificance. Nevertheless, those who uphold theimportance of a British Parliament in relation tolegislation as to British industrial conditions wouldbe in a far stronger position if that Parliament wouldfulfil its promises, made so long ago, for the revisionof the Factory and Workshop Act.

SPLENOMEGALY ASSOCIATED WITH

ASPERGILLOSIS.

UNDER the name of splenomegalie primitiveaspergillaire Drs. Emil-Weil, Chevalier, Gregoire,and Flandrin in the current issue of Le Sang drawattention to a form of splenomegaly associated with thepresence of fungi in that organ. The condition doesnot appear to have been recognised in this country,though it has attracted some attention in France.The essential lesion is enlargement of the spleen,though in the later stages patients may show cirrhosisof the liver, ascites, and a severe degree of anaemia.The authors point out that attention is in many casesfirst directed to the condition by the occurrence ofsevere heematemesis ; in such cases a diagnosis isusually made of splenic anaemia of the type firstfully described by Osler. A moderate degree ofjaundice may be present and urobilin may appear inthe urine.

Differential diagnosis during life or before removalof the spleen is difficult from that rather inchoatemass of syndromes passing under the name of Banti’sdisease. When the spleen is available for examinationthe presence of mycelial threads and even of suchorgans as ascospores serve to define the condition.So far as can be judged from the descriptions givenby the authors, the mycelia show up fairly readilywith the ordinary histological stains ; the splenictissue shows presence of inflammatory cells includinggiant cells and of areas of haemorrhage with a fibroustissue reaction. Much iron-containing pigment is

deposited in the neighbourhood of the haemorrhagicareas. The authors succeeded in cultivating fungifrom a series of spleens examined and satisfiedthemselves that their cultures represented fungipresent in the cultured material and not contamina-tions. Cultures grew but poorly on ordinary bacterio-logical media at 370 C., but good growths were

obtained on Sabouraud’s medium at room tempera-ture. The fungus obtained on culture was identifiedby M. Jacques Duche as belonging to the genusEurotium and was named E. amstelodam. All