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Hird as treasurer to an institution now unembarrassed and

commencing a new era in its existence. Epsom Collegehenceforth is to aspire to be a great public school, fitting boysnot only to enter the medical profession, but other professionsand the universities. Dr. Holman, on entering office, pledgedhimself to the governors present at the annual meeting thatthe sons of members of the profession should reap the fulladvantage of any extension of the school, and this, too, atonly afraction above the prime cost of their education. We

place on record this assurance of Dr. Holman in order that iit may not be lost sight of in what we hope will be a suc-cessful phase in the history of Epsom College. Eachmember of the profession is as much interested in doing forEpsom what he can, as military men have been in Welling-ton and clergymen in Marlborough. At these schoolsmasters have been found ready to build boarding-housesfor boys, and the same has been done at Charterhouse andWinchester. Epsom College may be extended in the sameway, to the advantage of the foundation. But to this endscholars must be forthcoming from outside the profession,and at a rate of remuneration such as shall be sourceof profit to the institution. The present happy positionof Epsom College cannot but be highly gratifying to themembers of the family of the late Mr. Wakley who are nowconducting this journal, of which he was the founder. It

will be remembered that a large memorial fund, subscribedafter his death in 1862 by members of our profession, waspresented to Epsom College, to establish a scholarshipwhich should bear his honoured name.

ZIEMSSEN ON COLD WATER TREATMENT OFTYPHOID.

The Joumal of the American Medical Association for

May 14th contains a full abstract of a lecture on Ant,ipyresisand Antipyretic Methods by Professor Ziemssen, director ofthe Medical Clinic of Munich, especially in regard to typhoid.The lecture is very interesting and earnest. It claims a

high value for the treatment by baths, and expresses a hopethat after the favourable results of active antipyresis pby-sicans will not lapse again into the therapeutic indifferenceof the Vienna School. Of all antipyretic measures Ziemssenconsiders hydrotherapy the chief : first, because it com-bines in itself all the attributes of a remedial measure ; and,secondly, because its action on the fevered organism may bevaried to any degree. The benefit of such treatment is notconfined to typhoid, but is also to be noticed in other febrilediseases, such as pneumonia, erysipelas, and acute phthisis.The cold and lukewarm baths act, he thinks, by cooling theblood at the periphery, the vital fluid being returned to theinternal organs with an indescribably pleasant as well asbeneficial effect. Sleep is favoured. There is an improvementin digestion, so that the patient can be fed better. On thecirculation the effect is to contract the peripheral vessels,the heart works more slowly, the vessels show an improvedtension, dicrotism is decreased, and the elasticity elevationreturns. The respiratory apparatus is excited by the peri-pheral irritation to deeper and slower movements, cough ismore effective, and in this way bronchial obstructions and con-sequent atalectasis and catarrhal pneumonia are better avoidedthan by the impracticable advice to turn a fever patient on hisside. Ziemssen gives two or three statistics to show theeffects of the cold and the lukewarm bath treatment respec-tively. He takes his illustration of the strictly cold bathfrom Vogl, physician to the Garrison Hospital at Munich.He gives (with a rectal temperature of 1022° F.) a cold bathat 635°, lasting a quarter of an hour, about every three hours,winter and summer, in unheated rooms, with windows openday and night. This is bold treatment, and for soldiers (forthe most part with young and picked lives) does well.There were only 52 deaths in 610 casep, or 5’4 per cent.

Murchison gives the mortality of typhoid in the LondonFever Hospital, after deducting cases which died within

forty-eight hours of admission, as 15’82 per cent. Ziemssen

compares Vogl’s practice with strict cold water treatmentwith Naunyn’s in a civil hospital, who, with an axillary tem-perature of 1031°, taken every three hours, gives usuallyeight baths in twenty-four hours, generally between noonand midnight, at a not lower temperature than 72-5°. He

divides baths into cold (72’5° to 815° F.; duration, fiveto ten minutes), lukewarm (from 815° to 905°, ten to

fifteen minutes), and warm (90 5° to 95°). The warm are

given in the later stages in very active delirious patientswith great restlessness and muscular weakness. By thistreatment Naunyn lost 10 of 145 cases, or 6’9 per cent," certainly a favourable percentage." Ziemssen himself saysthat for twenty years he has recommended, for private prac-tice, the gradually-cooled bath. The patient is placed in awarm bath of 905° or 86°. The water is continually pouredover him with hands or sponge. While this is being done,cold water is very slowly poured in at the foot of the bathtub, and the water reaches gradually a temperature of 77°or 72 5°, until the patient’s teeth chatter, or he declares hecan stand it no longer. He is then taken out and placed ina blanket previously warmed, and wrapped in it withoutbeing dried. In this he remains in the greatest comfort forfifteen minutes, is then rubbed dry, and allowed to sleep.Ziemssen, like a wise physician, recommends the study ofthe peculiarities of individual cases. While lauding thebath treatment, he speaks respectfully of antipyretic drugs.

STATISTICS OF SUICIDE.

THE Chronicle, an enterprising journal in New York, has, made a very painstaking compilation of statistics relating

to suicide, culled from the daily press of America over aperiod of five years. In this way a large number of caseshas been brought together, and although the sources ofinformation are not always the best or the channels throughwhich it flows the most trustworthy, yet the result presentsmany interesting features, and well repays the compiler’strouble. Among the most striking of the facts brought outis the very obscure influence of the season of the yearupon the prevalence of suicide. It would be a curious

experiment to poll a constituency of ordinary peoplefor opinions on this point. We much suspect thatautumn or winter would commonly be credited with

being best adapted to develop and foster suicidal ten-dencies. In America it would seem that summer enjoysthis unenviable pre-eminence. And not only so : the summermonths all rank high-the highest in the year; but, actually,the highest of them all is " the flowery month " of June.On merely psychological grounds, it would seem quite un-intelligible that suicide should be at its maximum just asspring is making way for summer. The reason must be

sought elsewhere-in the organism and its environment;and possibly the circumstance that a very large proportionof the suicides are agriculturists affords a practical explana-tion. At least, this is the season of the year, just beforeharvest, when a farmer is likely to find himself most hardlypressed for money. The demand for money for agriculturalpurposes, which is so well known in our own money marketas a regularly recurring feature of that season of the year,bears testimony to the existence of a state of things which,indeed, may be seen by the help of merely a priori con-siderations to lie in the natural and necessary course ofevents. It is very conceivable that this pressure ina country like agricultural America, where banking faci-lities, compared with ours, are very limited, may be

pronounced enough to affect quite appreciably the suiciderecord of the agricultural class. This explanation doesnot seem, however, to be fully adequate, for, giving to

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it the fullest weight possible, we still are face to face withthe anomaly that a special circumstance is made to ex-plain a very general feature of the figures given. It is

probable that the truth lies deeper still in the nature of

things and men, and must await for its full disclosure themore complete analysis of the relations between mentalstates and pathological conditions, and again between theselatter and the season of the year. In the meantime theseseasonal figures, being among the most reliable, presumably,that our contemporary has put together, are of sufficientinterest to warrant reproduction.

Dist-ribaction in seasons Qf S.’,126 American Suicides.Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.

March ... 649 ...... June ... 833 ...... Sept.... 781 ...... Dee.... 627

April ... 687 ...... July ... 746 ...... Oct.... 681 ...... Jan.... 538

May......706 ...... Aug.... 80i 1 ...... Nov....600 ...... Feb.... 571

Total, 2042 Total, 2386 Total, 2062 Total, 1736

Of the suicides brought under review, nearly 6000 havebeen classified under causes. The results thus brought outagree more nearly with one’s expectations. Insanity, ofcourse, heads the list. Family trouble comes next, whilebusiness trouble, dissipation, and disappointed love rankalmost together for the third place. So far all is common-

place, but the list contains, as would be supposed, someeccentricities. The refusal of a pension might easily sug-gest suicide to a severely logical mind, but it is passingstrange that self-destruction should be chosen as arefuge fromassassination, yet two such cases are recorded; while in oneinstance a source of trouble is assigned so utterly trivial as apimple on the nose! But more striking, upon the whole, are theresults brought out by classifying according to occupations.Strangely enough, farmers contribute by far the largestquota. Possibly the number is not disproportionate to thenumerical strength of the farmer class in America-forthese proportions are not worked out,-but it is singular tofind them outnumbering the saloon-keepers, merchants,labourers, and clerks put together. Yet so it is. Amongother classes, that of courtesans is sadly and suggestivelyconspicuous. For the rest, the list, though long and varied-for no condition is free from the occasional temptation tosuicide,-contains nothing of special interest or in any waypeculiarly noteworthy. The problem of the seasonal varia-tion, however, appears likely to reward careful examination.

THE PHYSICALLY DETERIORATING INFLUENCESOF CIVILISATION.

AT the meeting of the Anthropological Institute on the24th ult. (Mr. Francis Galton in the chair), Dr. GeorgeHarley, F.R.S., gave a discourse on the " Relative Recupera-tive Bodily Powers of Man living in a rude, and Man livingin a highly civilised, state," in which he brought forwarda number of hitherto unpublished, though mostly wellknown facts in support of his contention that the refininginfluences of civilisation had not been altogether an un-alloyed boon. Cases were cited by the speaker in supportof his view that, while man’s physique as well as hismental powers had increased during his evolution froma barbaric condition into one of bienseance (his stature

and his strength, as well as his length of days, havingbeen increased pari passu with this improvement gra-dually), he has deteriorated in his bodily power, eitherto resist the lethal effects of injuries, or to recover

from them as rapidly and as well as his less favouredbarbaric ancestors. Nay, more: the cited illustrative casesshowed it apparently to be a fact that all the appliances ofcivilised life which most potently minister to human com-fort and human enjoyments have a deleterious enervatingeffect on the animal frame, as was demonstrated (saidDr. Harley) both by striking examples drawn from gipsy

and tramp life, and also from domesticated animals, such asthe sheep, the ox, the horse, and the dog, in all of which

species high breeding was shown to conduce to a markeddiminution in the bodily recuperative capacity. The speakerfurther maintained that man universally had naturally a highstandard of bodily recuperative power inherent in his consti-tution, and that the present higher bodily recuperativecapacity shown to be possessed by all men living in a rudestate, whether in the form of savages, like the South AfricanKaffir or the North American Red Indian, or the gipsy ortramp wanderer among ourselves, arises from the fact thatthe refining influences of a higher civilisation materiallydiminish the animal recuperative capacity ; and further that,although all men are of the same flesh and blood, theirdifferent modes of life and different social habits haveinduced in them very varied degrees of nerve sensibility,as well as of recuperative bodily power. I

EXTREMES OF TEMPERATURE.

IT is not without cause that Englishmen so ceaselesslygrumble at the weather. There is no stability, no modera-tion about our climate. It is either very cold or very hot; orif the general atmosphere be fairly comfortable the bitternorth-east wind makes us miserable. At this moment thedelicate have barely recovered from the sufferings inflictedupon them by a cruel season, which had no legitimateclaims to be called Spring, when they are assailed with theplague of summer heat. There is really no rest or peace for

,

any save the strongest in this " tight but ungenial" little: island" of ours. It is vain to preach caution. How can, the most careful of mortals avoid draughts when thej ordinary temperature in-doors is between 70° and 80° F. ?Windows must be thrown open, and the air will rush in, whichis relatively, if not absolutely, of such lower temperature as

’ to give the sensation and do the deadly work of cold, draughts. So with clothing. In the sweltering heat it is: impossible to wear wraps which are nevertheless necessary tor

protect the susceptible from those currents of air that rush-

up side streets and round corners. If, regardless of comfort,) the weakly consent to endure these wraps, they cannot dor

more than in a very moderate way defend themselves against’

exceptional perils. Perhaps the wisest - certainly the. happiest-are those who have never, by pampering their sus-

ceptibility, rendered themselves the creatures of conditionsin the presence of which it seems impossible to be eithercontented or safe.

___

SANITARY WORK IN PETERBOROUGH.

A REPORT which was presented to the Town Council ofthis city by the inspector of nuisances in March last showsa very discreditable state of things as regards refuseremoval. We are informed that house refuse is periodicallyremoved from 332 houses in a city which in 1881 had apopulation of 21,212, and it is added that great difficultyis experienced with occupiers of small tenements who allowtheir ashpits to be filled to overflowing before they willhave them emptied. We are bound to infer that the

inspector is here speaking of houses other than the 332 asto which periodic removal is in force; and we can onlywonder what else could be expected than the grave resultwhich he deplores, and which ensues "in the thicklypopulated and poorer parts of the borough." It is a primaryduty of a sanitary authority to see that such refuse is

periodically removed from the neighbourhood of all dwellingswithin their jurisdiction, and this at very short intervals.Occupiers should never be held to have a voice in determin-ing the frequency of such removal unless they have a pieceof garden ground on which such refuse can be properlydeposited at least once in every week. Where, as in Peter-,borough, this is not possible, it is the obvious duty of the