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PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The Investigation of Microbes in Effused F’luids.AT the meeting of the Academy of Medicine held on

Feb. 3rd M. Jousset gave an account of a very originalmethod for the investigation and detection of microbes ineffused fluids-as, for instance, in pleurisy, hydrarthrosis,and hydrocele. Hitherto microbes in these fluids have been’difficult to detect and M. Jousset has devised the followingmethod. He collects some of the fluid and allows it to- coagulate, during which process the microbes are imprisoned-in the meshes of the clot. The clot is then artificiallytligested and the resulting solution is centrifugated. M.- Jousset has been able by this method to demonstrate thebacillus of Koch in 24 out of 25 cases of pleurisy and also incertain cases of ascites which had been attributed to hepaticcirrhosis.

Tuberculosis in the Frrench Army.M. Lemoine, Professor at Val de Grace, basing his facts

’on an observation of 3000 cases, has shown that of soldiers

reported as tuberculous after having joined their regiments69 per cent, had a history of tuberculosis previously to theirjoining their corps. They did not, therefore, contract their’tuberculosis in the army and he draws the conclusion that

greater strictness should be exercised at the time of<enrolment.

Infant Life Protection.

At a recent meeting of the Academy of Medicine M. Porakread the report of the committee on the hygiene of infancy.This report was at once an interesting commentary on theLoi Roussel and an inquiry into its method of working andits results. The efficacy of this Loi Roussel is to-day clearlyshown. Everything goes to prove the correctness of thisstatement and of the generally expressed opinion ofthe medical profession. For instance, the infantilemortality in those departments which receive nurse-

children from Paris has decreased within the last 20years, while within the last 50 years the mortality in

foundling hospitals (Service des Enfants-Ass&iacute;st&eacute;s) has fallen Ifrom 60 per cent. to 21 per cent. All the same, within theperiod of from the end of the first month of life to the endof the first year, the mortality among nurse-children is still.double that of the general mortality among infants of thesame age. It would appear, then, that certain improvementsmight be made in the Loi Roussel, as for instance in the way,of assuring gratuitous medical attendance for nurse-childrenand legal assistance f or nurses, by reorganising medical in-spection, by extending the provisions of the law to the.children of nurses who have taken a place and whohave handed over their own children to the care

of a neighbour or to someone who takes them with-out payment, and, finally, by regulating the delivery ofcertificates and the keeping of the registers of service.The committee was not unanimous as to the interpretation.and scope of clause 8 of the Loi Roussel, which clauseimposes upon nurses who have taken a place as wet nursethat they should undertake to suckle the child for sevenmonths. The committee says that an inquiry should be heldinto the advantages or disadvantages of this enactment.Recent statistics furnished by the Minister of the Interiorshow that 65 per cent. of the women confined in Pariscannot suckle their children, either on account of poverty, orbecause they have no milk, or for other reasons.

The Transmission of Syphilis made a Penal Offenee.The tribunal of the Seine has just delivered an important

judgment. By this judgment the transmission of syphilis bypersons knowing themselves to be affected, even though theydo not wish to transmit the disease, comes under the categoryof injury inflicted on another and gives the victim the rightto an indemnity. Already the law has condemned parentswhose child infects a nurse with syphilis, but the directtransmission of syphilis through sexual relations consideredas a wound for which an indemnity is payable comes underthe purview of French law for the first time. The case inquestion was that of a man suffering from syphilis who had-sexual intercourse with a girl, aged 16 years, who contracted

the disease from him. She had previously been quite welland a virgin. The court condemned the man to pay 12,000francs damages.Feb. 10th.

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EGYPT.(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Cholera and the Tourist Season.

THERE is now no cholera in Egypt and it has been entirelyabsent for several weeks. I am obliged to mention this factbecause the European papers have lately published a tele-

gram stating that the French Government has now forbiddenthe annual pilgrimage to Mecca from Tunis because of theholera in Egypt. This is obviously unnecessary, for most ofthe Tunisian pilgrims arrive at Port Said by sea and then goon to Jaffa through the Suez Canal. It is only a small propor-tion of them who laboriously walk along the North Africancoast or who elect to land from the sea at Alexandria. Butwe often notice that Egypt pays the penalty of her honestdeclaration of bulletins of any epidemic disease by beingaccused of suffering from that disease when it is no longerpresent. The season began badly and even now there arenot so many visitors here as there usually are at the end ofJanuary. But as some of the hotels are already full no onehas a right to grumble. The Commonwealth, belonging to theDominion Line, has lately arrived with 100 Americans fromBoston vid Gibraltar, Genoa, and Naples.

-Dysentery.At the Medical Congress here Dr. Kartulis of Alexandria

was chosen to open a discussion on Dysentery withreference, of course, to its connexion with abscess of theliver. He is a well-known exponent of the amoebic theoryand his experiments by injecting pus from a liver abscess intothe rectum of healthy cats and thereby producing dysenteryare recorded in all text-books. He still believes that amceb2aare the only cause of tropical dysentery, that tropical abscessof the liver is three times out of four caused by amosbicdysentery, and that non-dysenteric abscess of the liver metwith in the tropics is chiefly caused by intestinal lesions, afew exceptional cases only being pyeemic; also that alcoholand malaria produce hepatitis and thus predispose to abscesswithout being the direct cause. Dr. Kartulis quoted 1860cases of dy,entery reported from India by different observers,of which 420 had abscess of the liver, and he contrasted withthem 1896 cases of epidemic dysentery reported from Europe,among which there were only 28 cases of abscess of the liver.His own figures, collected over many years, give 164 cases ofabscess, of which 95 had a previous history of dysentery, 17others were alcoholic, 25 had some unknown cause, two werecaused by wounds of the liver, and the remainder had ahistory of vague enteritis some of which may have been

dysenteric. He pointed out that nobody knows yet thenature of pilgrim diarrhoea or of that of Indo-China, butthat otherwise the dysentery of the world seemed to bedivided into the tropical or amoebic form and into the

epidemic variety characterised by the presence of the bacillusdiscovered in 1897 in Japan bv Shiga and confirmed later byKruse in Germany. Dr. Kartulis firmly believes that suppura-tion of the liver is produced, not by the amoebse, but bypyogenic microbes such as the staphylococcus albus or thestaphylococcus aureus. It is, of course, impossible to preventas yet the occurrence of dysentery, but it seems possible toprevent a dysenteric case from developing later into hepaticabscess. In hospital and private practice numerous instancesare seen of treated dysentery not being followed in afteryears by hepatic abscess, and, on the other hand, cases ofhepatic abscess that are met with are almost always due todysentery neglected or improperly treated. Dr. Kartulis de-nounces the so-called specific treatment by ipecacuanha orcalomel and has but scanty faith in aperients. He maintainsthat dysentery is a local disease and ought therefore to betreated locally. Directly he is called to a patient heprescribes two tepid enemata of a watery solution of tannin(1 in 200), and this he believes to be the essential treat-ment for amoebic dysentery and to prevent the formation ofhepatic abscess. Dr. Legrand (Alexandria) read a paper onthe merits of Kosam which he has used in 30 cases of

dysentery during the last two years. It is a seed coming