THE EMPRESS CHARLOTTE

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Government by the vice-consul of France to the district. The

poor fishermen returned to Fecamp full of gratitude for thekindness they had received at the hands of their Englishneighbours, and they expressed their gratitude in enthusiasticterms. The inhabitants of Fécamp assembled in public meet-ing to express their admiration at the humane and noble con-duct of the authorities at Scarborough, and they voted toDr. Taylor a case of surgical instruments, and a bronze plateto Mr. Woodall, to be permanently placed in the workhouseinfirmary. To each of the gentlemen named above was alsopresented a written testimonial of the gratitude of the peopleof Fecamp. These gratifying proceedings were terminated byreciprocal hospitalities on the part of Commander Vence, ofthe French navy, and the mayor of Scarborough.

This simple narrative exemplifies the truth of the adagethat "peace has its victories as well as war." Such acts of

humanity tend to cement the friendship of rival but not hos-tile countries. They give fresh force to the aphorism of thegreatest amongst Englishmen, that " one touch of naturemakes the whole world kin."

YELLOW FEVER AT JAMAICA.

THE appearance of a few cases of this disease at Jamaicaseems to have given rise to considerable apprehension. We

believe, however, that the total number of deaths among themilitary, since the occurrence of the first case on June 27th,has been but seven. On the recommendation of the medical

authorities, the troops were to be moved into tents. Between150 and 160 men of the 84th Regiment were already encampedat a height of about 4500 feet. At the time of the last re-

ports, there were no cases of yellow fever at Port Royal, Up-park Camp, or Kingston; and only two had occurred amongcivilians at Spanish Town. The Pall Jlall Gazette of the20th inst. speaks of this outbreak of yellow fever at New-castle as if it were the first occasion on which it had ap-peared there; but this is not the fact. For instance, it

prevailed among the troops at Newcastle, in 1856, fromSeptember to December, causing considerable mortality. Thecantonment at that time was composed of a series of woodenhuts, which were erected on the crest of a narrow mountainridge from 3500 to 4100 feet above the level of the sea. Themarked limitation of the disease to certain localities or certain

buildings is a curious, but not an uncommon, feature in thehistory of yellow fever. On the present occasion, the troopsoccupying huts were affected; those in tents were exempt.Five admissions were, we understand, from one barrack-room.The bad state of the drains, owing to their defective construc-tion, the insufficiency of rain to flush them, and, in a minordegree, some overcrowding, are mentioned by the medicalofficers as the special causes of the outbreak.

THE EMPRESS CHARLOTTE.

IT is with much satisfaction that we hear that the unfor-tunate ex-Empress of Mexico has been placed under the careof that very able and distinguished physician, Dr. Bulkens.The accounts which from time to time have been published inthe newspapers, and the private reports which have reachedindividuals, though fragmentary and incomplete, have con-veyed enough information about the treatment to which theEmpress was submitted at Miramar to arouse the greatest un-easiness in the minds of English alienist physicians. Solitude,silence, and gloom of every kind seemed to have been her sur-roundings ; while there was too much reason to believe that anabsolute system of Court etiquette was permitted to interferewith those vigorous measures which must be taken with themelancholic insane in order to ensure their being properlysupported with the sustaining nutriment that is indispensablefor the reparation of the exhausted nervous system. The fact

that a priest was one of the guardians appointed to regulate

the control of the unhappy patient was ominously suggestiveof those dark days of lunacy treatment which in this countryare happily now only a tradition of the past-days when itwas thought much more important for the attendants of theinsane to have right theological and metaphysical views aboutthe nature of the mind, than to have any special knowledgeof bodily diseases.In Dr. Bulkens we are certain that the Empress will find a

medical adviser whose system is the very reverse of all this.

Known to the whole medical profession of Europe and Ame-rica in connexion with the famous lunatic colony at Gheel,Dr. Bulkens has given every pledge that his principles willlead him to the most humane and Pnlicbtened measures oftreatment in a case which, like that of the Empress Charlotte,so obviously requires them. It is only what we expected tohear, when we read the announcement that Dr. Bulkens hasalready insisted upon being allowed to entirely change thesystem under which the unfortunate lady has been permittedto withdraw herself into the gloom of her own heavily darkenedmind. Pure fresh air, pleasant converse with friends, andother modes of employing the mind, a generous nutrition,kindly but firmly enforced,-such are the remedies which wemay be sure the illustrious patient will now receive; and theyare the same that have rescued many an unfortunate from the

impending fate of incurable melancholia. We shall earnestlyhope that it is not too late, even yet, for the same treatmentto save a lady whose character inspires respect and affection,as well as pity, in everyone who has read her sad story.

STIMULANTS IN WORKHOUSES.

IN a discussion which occurred at the meeting of the

Wolverhampton Board of Guardians the other day, one of theguardians propounded a theory which is so characteristic aninstance of the blunders which laymen necessarily make whenthey attempt to discuss medical subjects that we cannot allowit to pass without some words of comment.Mr. Barker brought forward certain statistics, ostensibly to

show that, as compared with other workhouses, the Wolver-hampton establishment was spending an excessive and un-necessary amount of money upon alcoholic liquors. This wasa very proper subject of inquiry, since one of the functions ofguardians is to check wasteful expenditure of all kinds. ButMr. Barker went much further than this. Being, as it

appears, a teetotaller, he took occasion to air his particularbeliefs on the subject of the medicinal value of alcohol, forwhich he was properly called to order by the chairman andothers of his colleagues. He then produced statistics to showthat, by comparing a number of workhouses, those establish-ments which consumed the greatest quantity of " intoxicatingliquors" were invariably found to have the highest mortalityand the greatest amount of sickness ; and he proceeded toinsinuate that these evils were caused by the excessive use ofalcohol !A more absurd blunder of reasoning than this could hardly

be made, and one’s first inclination is to laugh at it. But it

really becomes a grave matter for reflection when we considerthat nonsense of this pernicious kind might (and by someboards of guardians probably would) have been permitted toinfluence the decision of such a serious question as whetherthe medical officer was to be interfered with in his discretionof ordering such quantities of stimulants as he thought proper.Of course, the blunder consists in ignoring the fact that thepresence of much and severe sickness is the cause, and not the

consequence, of the larger consumption of stimulants in someworkhouses and hospitals than in others. It is a sufficientlyperilous thing even for doctors themselves to dabble in medicalstatistics. But when a layman like Mr. Barker, who, pro-bably, is ignorant of the most fundamental and necessaryelements in the calculation, attempts to decide a question oftreatment by statistics, all we can say is, Heaven help the