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tion. Under some conditions the periosteum may give riseto exudation containing mucus, consequently there is noneed to suppose that the pus corpuscles undergo mucousdegeneration, and a better name for the affection underconsideration would perhaps, according to the author, be" non-purulent osteo-periostitis." I

’

PTOMAINE POISONING.

AN interesting condition, apparently resulting from theingestion of unwholesome food, is described by Dr. Guttmannin the Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, and a shortabstract of the case is given in a recent number of theCentralblatt fur Klinische Medicin. A man aged thirty,after enjoying part of a somewhat " high " goose, sufferedfrom symptoms of gastric disturbance accompanied by rigors.In five days he was unable to raise his eyes, and he haddiplopia and swelling of the parotid and sublingual glands.Twelve days from the commencement nearly all thebranches of the right third nerve were affected, as well asthe fourth and sixth on the same side. On the left side thecondition was similar, but there was no ptosis. The pupils,however, were normal, vision was good, and there was nooptic neuritis. There was no paralysis of accommodation.Except for some paraesbhesia in the left hand there wereno other signs of disease, and in four weeks’ time the

patient had recovered perfectly. Dr. Guttmann concludesthat the case was one of meat poisoning, and he mentionsthe fact that nuclear palsies, although no cases of completeophthalmoplegia, have been described as occurring undersimilar circumstances.

__

FOREIGN UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.Geneva.-Dr. Sulzer has been recognised as privat.docent

in Ophthalmology.Kkarkotf.-Dr. Popoff has been promoted to the Pro-

fessorship in Ordinary of Anatomy.Lausanne.-M. Barde has been recognised asprivat-docent

in Hygiene.1lladrid.-Seiior Don Rodriguez y Fernandez of Havana

has been appointed to the chair of History of Medicine.2tfosco.—Extraordinary Professors Ostrumoff and Man-

suroff have been promoted to the chairs of Therapeuticsand Dermatology respectively. Dr. Korzakoff has been

appointed Extraordinary Professor of Midwifery and Gynae-cology.

Warsaw.-Extraordinary Professor Nikolski has been

promoted to the chair of Pharmacology.

DEATHS OF EMINENT FOREIGN MEDICAL MEN,THE deaths of the following distinguished members of

the medical profession abroad have been announced:-Dr. C. Hubert de Change, late Inspector-General of theMedical Department of the Belgian Army. He was a

particularly skilful surgeon, and while on the surgicalstaff of the University of Liege he wrote a good deal, anddesigned several improvements in surgical instruments.

During the Franco-Prussian war he was chief of the fleldlazaret of the First Division of the Belgian Army of

Observation, and rendered important services to thewounded who were conveyed across the frontier.-Dr. J. vonHasner, formerly Professor of Ophthalmology in the GermanUniversity of Prague.-Dr. Smortchevski, senior chef declinique of the St. Petersburg Town Hospital, suddenly,while in the hospital.-Dr. Popoff, Prosector of theNikolaeff Naval Hospital, St. Petersburg.

IT is believed that Portland will be the place selected forthe meeting of the Congress of American Physicians nextsummer. Cushing’s Island will probably be the rendezvous,and the Congress will assemble about Sept. lsb for itsannual business.

FniNCESS CIIRISTIAN will be present at a public meetingto be held in support of the Royal British Nurses’Asso.ciation at the Mansion House on Friday, March 18th, at4 P.M. Sir William Savory, Sir James Crichton Browne,and Sir Dyce Duckworth have promised to address the

meeting. ____________

REPORT OF

The L ancet Sanitary CommissionON

SANITATION IN THE SHOP,

PART II.

THOUGH shop assistants have so much to complain about,but little has been done on their behalf. This is nn.

doubtedly in a great measure their own fault. For reasonswhich it is not our special mission to investigate or to.

explain, shop assistants have not resorbed to those methodsof combination and of association by which the workingclasses have ventilated their grievances and often obbainedredress. The shopkeeper’s assistant, though receivinginferior pay and working longer hours, deems himself to bealtogether a superior person, and disdains to follow thesame tactics as the skilled artisan. Also, as in many shops.a commission is paid on the amount of sales effected, thi&engenders a spirit of competition and antagonism betweenshop assistants, so that it is difficult to bring them togetherinto one compact and harmonious organisation. Neverthe.less, some associations have been formed, and there are theUnited Shop Astistants’ Union in London, the NationalUnion of Shop Assistants, with its headquarters at Man.chester, the Scottish Shop Assistants’ Union, and the EarlyClosing Association. These organisations, and the protestsraised from time to time in the press, have effected someslight improvements. If this progress is not very effectivein itself, it at least suffices to show that there is a pos-sibility of achieving much more. One of the first endeavours,and in this THE LANCET took a leading part, wae,

to provide seats for shop assistants. For young womenespecially the long hours of standing are most injurious,and we sent circulars round to the principal retail shops ofLondon asking if seats were provided. Many answeredfavourably, and in consequence of this movement seats wereintroduced where they had not existed previously. Therewas even a sort of contrivance invented to meet the case,which consists of a little seat that can be pulled out fromunder the counter and pushed back again when no longerrequired. The shop assistants themselves, however, main.tain that this reform, though kindly meant, is of but littleuse to them. The seats in too many cases were providedin deference to a popular outcry rather than from any desireto see the assistants utilise them. The theory of trade is thatthe assistant should always be busy, and should not havetimeto sit down. The shopkeeper imagines that if a customer wereto enter his establishment and find a number of assistants.sitting down behind the counters an impression would beengendered that the shop was not well patronised and di6but little business. Therefore, when the shop assistant hasnothing to do he has to invent something and pretend to>be busy. A shop assistant told us that when he first,took a situation he imagined the seats provided behindthe counter were meant to be used. He therefore sat down,but his employer soon came up, exclaiming that he wantedsomeone who was "more lively." Another assistant ex.plained to us that, though there were seats in his shop:.anyone found idle was fined sixpence. The assistants there-fore had to pretend to work, even when they had nothing t&do and there was no work that they could do while sitting.At another very large establishment, which boasts of the--seats it provides for its assistants, anyone found sittingdown is reprimanded the first time and dismissed on a,

repetition of the offence. The assistant, who worked therehimself, added to this information that there were mirrors.on all sides, in which every movement was reflected.The shop assistants themselves do not, therefore, think

that the seats provided behind the counters are of muchservice. They may be there, but it is not often practical

601

to utilise them. Of course the circumstances differ in varioustrades, and in restaurants, for instance, there is ampletime for sitting down between the rush at the meal hours.In some places, however, the sitting down is not all rest.A vegetarian restaurant was pointed out to us in where, it wasstated, the waitresses receive only five shillings a week wagesand vegetarian meals ! Between the meal hours, when thereis nothing to do, the forewoman distributes sewing amongthe waitresses, and makes them work for her. Probably theowner of the restaurant knows nothing about this, but it isequally hard upon the girls. Nor is this all. During thefirst month of service they do not receive any wages what-ever, as they are then supposed to be only learners. It isnot, therefore, always advantageous to work in places whereit is possible to sit down during the day. Yet undoubtedlythe standing for such long hours is a great and terriblegrievance. Young shop assistants have explained to us howtowards the evening they became giddy, " a swimmingsensation" overcame them, and they continued to servealmost unconsciously. In time they became hardened tothis excessive strain, but in the course of years many wereobliged to lie up, the most frequent complaint from whichthey suffered being that of varicose veins.

m_____!1.1- __. --- --- - I- - _ m_ _ _.______ _e --.1.---- --- ,

1’errible as must be the strain of standing fourteen hoursa day and sixteen hours on Saturdays, with only about onehour’s rest in all for meals, this is greatly intensified atthe Christmas season. In the grocery trade especially isthe pressure hard to bear, and but few people realise whatan amount of acute physical suffering the Christmas puddingcauses to the grocer’s assistant. At the Christmas seasonthe assistants have often to remain in the shop all night toweigh out parcels of plums, fruit, spice, candied peel, sugar,&c., so as to sell more quickly on the morrow, when theehop will be crowded and overflowing with persons makingtheir Christmas purchases. It would be an act of humanityif customers would get into the habit of buying leisurelysome weeks before time their Christmas provisions. Veryfrequently in the grocery trade the assistants are kept upthree nights consecutively. They may snatch a momentor two’s sleep. Coffee-bags are, it appears, especiallyattractive as forming cushions on which a little rest

may be obtained, but of course this is contrary to allrules. An assistant described how, during one of theseChristmas nights, devoted to weighing and packing, he wasso overcome by fatigue that he fell asleep on a marblecounter, and only awoke when almost frozen. Workmenthus toiling through the night would be paid overtime,at the rate of perhaps 50 per cent. more than their usualages. The poor shop assistant gets only a small Christmas-box, varying from half a crown to half a sovereign; but,as one of them put it, " the half sovereigns only come fromthe princes in the trade."The long hours which men find so hard to bear are,

of course, much more injurious to women. ,This factis so obvious that we need not insist upon it. Morethan three hundred medical men practising in Londonsigned a petition in favour of the Early Closing Billintroduced in the House of Commons by Sir JohnLubbock in 1888. The evidence collected by the Houseof Commons’ Select Committee on the Shop HoursRegulation Bill, and published on May 18th, 1886,confirms this view. According to the special report ofthe Select Committee, drawn up after hearing all theevidence, "the practice of keeping open shops till a latehour of the evening prevails extensively." The Committeestate that the prolonged standing and labour, especially incrowded and ill-ventilated shops, "must be exhaustingand often injurious to health, especially in the case ofgirls." The packing of parcels is often done underground,where gas has to be burnt all day. Apprentices andyoung persons, after working in a workshop the number ofhours allowed by the Factory Act, are sent into the retailshop attached to the premises and made to serve customersor to clear up. Thus the spirit, if not the letter, of theFactory Act isdisregarded, and anotherproof given of thefact,on which we insist, that much better protection is given tothe artisan and the labourer than to the shop assistants."The Select Committee then added :-" A widespread desire has also been expressed by grown-

up persons employed in shops that in some way their laboursalso may be limited by law, and your committee believethat employers are not indisposed, as a rule, to such limita-tion, provided that it takes the form of general early closingof shops ...... Your committee have evidence that in

many localities the desire of the great majority of shop-keepers to close early has been frustrated by the dissent,of some few individuals, while in many cases the largeestablishments are induced to keep their doors openlonger than they otherwise would do for fear of theircustomers being diverted to smaller shops in the trade.......It appears, moreover, from the evidence taken beforeyour committee, as well as by that taken before the Factoryand Workshop Act Commission of 1876, that a largemajority of the inspectors of factories are in favour of somelegislative regulation of the hours of labour in shops wMr. Taylor, inspector in the North-west Lancashire Divi-sion, expressed his belief that they are now almost unani-mously of this opinion."The report goes on to say that work in licensed public-

houses and refreshment-houses of all kinds "must be at.least as fatiguing, and in many respects as injurious, as in.shops....... In conclusion, your committee, being satisfiedthat the hours of shop assistants range in many places as.high as from eighty-four to eighty-five hours per week,being convinced that such long hours must be generallyinjurious and often ruinous to health, and that the sameamount of business might be compressed into a shorterspace of time, recommend this Bill to the favourable con-.sideration of the House."As a result of this Parliamentary inquiry and of the.

efforts then made on behalf of shop assistants, the Shop.Hours’ Regulation Act came into force in 1886. Half a

century ago the Factory Act limited the work of women infactories to sixty hours. This Act only limited the workof young persons to seventy-four hours a week. NowMr. Provand has a Bill before Parliament to extend this.limitation from young persons to women; and, again, after-the second reading of the Bill, it has been thought necessaryto appoint another Select Committee to travel all over the;same ground once more. The objection to Mr. Provand’s,Bill is that it is a direct blow struck against the indepen-.dence of women, and will make it more difficult for a woman,to earn her living than for a man. In some cases, it is thought,,women will be discharged, and men employed in their stead.Without entering upon the vexed question of women’srights we may nevertheless urge it as an indisputable phy-siological fact that, when compelled to stand for long hours,women, especially young women, are exposed to greater in-jury and greater suffering than men. The proportion of womenwho are under twenty or only just a little over twenty, andwho are employed in shops, is very large. Numerous wit-nesses testify that healthy looking girls come up from thecountry; but after a couple of years spent in serving behindthe shop counter they become pinched and pale. Not onlydo they suffer, but their offspring suffer after them. Mr. T.Sutherst, in his book entitled " Death and Disease behindthe Counter," quotes the opinion of Dr. B. W. Richardson tothe effect that "the diseases incident to these long hours.in the young are : anaemia in both sexes; dyspepsia, withmuch constipation and flatulence ; depression of spirits. Inthe females, the suppressed natural function; and in male and;females, the development of pulmonary consumption, wherethere is a tendency to it. In my opinion, eight hours dailyof actual work is the maximum time during which labourought to be carried on in shops." Mr. Lawson Tait,.surgeon of the Midland Hospital for Women, says that,judging from his own experience, "long hours for womenproduce a great variety of uterine and ovarian diseases,general dyserasia and anaemia. Women should not workmore than ten hours a day, and in many cases not sa,much as that. A great many cases have come under myobservation of women suffering from uterine displacements,chronic inflammatory diseases of the ovaries and tubes.’Dr. J. H. Rutherford (Newcastle-on-Tyne) insists moreparticularly on the general enfeeblement of the mental andmoral nature. Dr. Arthur W. Edis, honorary physician tothe Dressmakers’ Medical Institution, attdbutes to thelong hours and bad sanitation the great prevalence among.women shop assistants of "consumption, heart disease,.indigestion, dysmenorrhcea, constipation, haemorrhoids,leucorrhcea, neuralgia, varicose veins, amenorrhœa, andcountless other conditions." He also considers eighthours’ work sufficient, and argues that the overworkand miseries the girls have to endure drive many toimmoral lives. Any amount of evidence of the samedescription could be adduced, but in quoting the above ourobject is to show that, though it is most necessary to reducethe hours of work for men and youths, it is still more urgenb

602

where women and girls are concerned. Consequently,Mr. Provand’s Bill will undoubtedly do good, though itcertainly will not put an end to most of the existinggrievances. If the only object in view is the preservationof health, there is no reason why its provisions should notapply to adult males ; for no one can say it is healthy, evenfor adult males, to work and stand, often in unhealthyshops, for more than seventy-four hours a week. Theshop assistants themselves see no necessity for makingany difference between male and female, old or young.Their demand is for a law by which all shops shouldhe licensed to be opened only for a certain numberof hours, no matter who are employed therein. Mr. Mussetand Mr. Lillington, secretaries of the United Shop Assist-ants’ Union, were particularly anxious that a limit shouldbe put to the number of hours a shop could remain open.In that case we urged that, as the exigencies of trade variedso greatly according to the district and the nature of theoccupation, shopkeepers should be free to select their ownhours. For instance, it would not cause a very great shockor disturbance-and in some cases, that is, with the better-class shops in central districts, would occasion no change atall&mdash;if a law was passed rendering it illegal for anyoneto keep a shop open for more than twelve hours in thetwenty-four. One of the objections to legislation for re:duction of hours is that it requires an army of inspectors<to enforce such laws. Bab, in this case, each shopkeepermight be required to take out a licence on which should13e inscribed the hours he proposed to keep open. Then,in some prominent place, as is already done with regardto public-houses, an inscription could be put up statirghat the shop is licensed to be open for trade from eight inthe morning to eight in the evening, or from nine to nine,or any other hour found advantageous by the tradesmen con-cerned. No additional inspectors would be required. Thepoliceman on his beat could see that each shop closed at thehour indicated over the shop-door. By this also we shouldet rid of the invidious distinction made in so many projectsof law between shop assistants who belong to the shopman’sfamily and strangers. Whether the shop assistant be relatedto the shopkeeper or not, excessive hours and excessivefatigue are equally injurious; and why should a shop wherethe assistants belong all to the same family be allowed to"compete unfairly with other shops where the assistants areaiot related ? ?

Something in any case must be done to prevent the,physical degeneration of the million or so of men andwomen who in England work as shop assistants. Abroadthe male shop assistants are, in a measure, saved fromphysical degeneracy by compulsory military service. Forso many years at first, and then for so many days each year,they have to join their regiment and go through hard,healthy exercise. But in England the shop assistant has littletime for healthy exercise. He cannot join the Volunteers;he has not the time and he is too exhausted. Then, unlessin the presence of the enemy, the soldier is never keptunder arms for more than four, or at most, in exceptionalcases, six hours, and this with intervals of rest ; but theshop assistant has to stand at "attention," when he isnot actually working, for twelve, fourteen, and sixteenhours a day. In the army care is taken of the health and,physique of the soldiers ; in the shop these are too oftenlooked upon as negligeable quantities. As a result afew shop assistants have formed the societies to whichwe have alluded, and we cannot perhaps better con-

clude this report than by quoting the evidence of Mr.W. Johnson, general secretary of the National Unionof Shop Assistants. Mr. Johnson writes to us sayingthat the inevitable results of shop labour, as at presentobtains, is to dwarf the physical and mental capacitiesof those employed-in short, to produce a state of general- debility, to engender nervous complaints, kidney diseases,indigestion, &c , and these maladies prevail more exfien-

sively among shop assistants and kindred trades, clerks, &c.,’;,1;han among the general population. Mr. Johnson goes onto say that these, he presumes, arise from &deg; lack of physicalexercise, draughty shops, long hours, mental anxiety, in-sufficient time for eating meals, limbs and mind working atracing speed. The food and bedroom accommodation in some..places is vile, outrageous, and abominable. In fact, themature of the work and its conditions prevent the girls fromarriving physically at womanhood. Mentally and pbysi-cally a large percentage are, in my opinion, unfit for theresponsibilities of wifehood, and the same may be said with

regard to the men and the effect upon their manhood." Mr.Johnson also suggests that enforced celibacy may be a causeof ill-health. This remark brings us to a last point.There are some large establishments where great care istaken of the assistants. They are provided with manycomforts, and even with some luxuries. But they must besingle men and single women. They lose their situationsif they marry, and in any case the men lose their rights ofcitizenship, for, as they sleep in dormitories on the premises,they do not come under either the lodger franchise or thehouseholder franchise. Consequently boarding on the pre.mises is not popular with shop assistants. They demand tobe free when their work is done, and they urge that hoursof work should not be so long and the pay so slight as todebar them from the possibility of living healthy, useful,enjoyable lives.

____________

THE REPORT OF LORD WANTAGESCOMMITTEE.

No. I.

WE make no apology for returning to a consideration ofthe Report of Lord Wantage’s Committee on the terms andconditions of service in the army. The subject) is im-

portant-from a national as well as from a medical

point of view. It is of interest to the taxpayer and tomedical officers of the military services generally. The

subject is confessedly a big one, and of extreme difficulty.Disguise it as we may, the fact remains that militaryservice is not popular with " the masses," whatever it maybe with "the classes." The Britisher does not like to

sacrifice his inherited freedom for the discipline and restraintof army life. Recruits are hardworked in the present day.Drills are not a particularly exhilarating cccnpation.Young men who enlist are but imperfectly acquainted withthe terms proffered them. They look at the promisedadvantages on a Government poster, and, disregarding allthe conditions, find out after enlistment that, what withstoppages and outlay on their clothing, but little is leftof their daily pay to spend on themselves. They conse-quently consider that somehow or other they have beendefrauded, and speedily become discontented.Lord Wantage’s committee seem to have fully availed

themselves of the opportunity afforded by their instructions.They certainly have not circumscribed their inquiries withinany narrow limits. The evidence before the committee hasnot yet been issued. After referring to the present organisa.tion of the Army, their report discusses the questions ofhome establishment, recruiting and recruits, the proposalsto meet requirements for drafts, deferred reserve pay andpensions, civil employment after leaving the colours, and soforth, here and there touching upon matters of medical andphysiological interest. The general report, signed by allthe members of the committee, is followed by some

remarks from those members who dissent from differentportions of it, and notably by an exhaustive contribution,which is really a separate and independent report, from SirArthur Haliburton. Sir A. Haliburton is in agreementwith the committee on some subjects. His two strongpoints of objection, however, appear to be these-theadmirable nature of Lord Cardwell’s original scheme, andthe futility and costliness of some of the committee’sproposals. Whether he is right or wrong in his views, wefeel bound to sav he has stated them with conspicuous forceand ability. We are nevertheless inclined to doubt if hisviews would be quite the same were he a soldier and aspractically well acquainted with the state of the army as heunquestionably is theoretically. The committee is stronglyin favour of a "short" as opposed to a "long" .),

service system. There is no other system practicablefor creating and maintaining a reserve. The evidenceas to the value of the territorial connexion 19 held tobe overwhelming. The committee have no hesitationin stating their belief that the double- battalion systemis not only the most economical, but also the best machinerywhich can at present be devised for furnishing the foreigndrafts and effecting reliefs. The fact that England has atone and the same time to maintain an army in India (whichmay be considered as permanently on active service),adequate garrisons in her colonies, and an army at home,