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no influence in the absence of a strong impression ; (5) thatthe impression need not be lasting to cause defects ; (6) thatpersonal maternal injury is no more likely to mark the childthan the sight of it in another ; and (7) that the defect is notnecessarily similar in location or appearance to the objectcreating the impression, but is likely to be. The apparentconstancy of likeness is due to the reporting of such casesonly. Among these propositions there are no doubt severalwhich would not receive universal assent.

THE LONDON WATER COMPANIES.

ALTHOUGH little has been heard lately touching the

question of the acquirement by the London County Councilof the metropolitan water undertakings the subject has notbeen allowed to lapse, for we learn that notification was

published this week of the intention of the Council to applyto Parliament in the ensuing session for Bills authorisingthem to acquire, by agreement or arbitration, the undertakingsof the eight companies supplying water to the metropolisat the present time. We doubt if a larger or more seriousquestion for arbitration or for agreement has ever beforebeen brought before the public, and it is certain that the

proceedings will occupy a very considerable time. But nota single proceeding will pass which will not be watched withthe keenest interest by all classes, since, of course, the

question at issue is of vital concern to the whole community.

SCARLET FEVER IN WREXHAM RURAL DISTRICT.

.UB. DWAED UAvlES, tne medical omcer ot neaitn in tne

Wrexham rural sanitary district, has reported on a prevalenceof scarlet fever in his district during the past month, twenty-five cases having been notified to him, all apparently fromGwerysllt, the schools of which place he has recommendedto be closed for one month. The schools at Stansty havebeen already closed for a similar reason, and the disease inthat locality seems to have been got under control, as muchuse as possible having been made of hospital isolation. But

Dr. Davies feels confident that all the cases occurring are notbrought to his notice, for the reason that, the attacks beingmild, no medical man has been called in, and for the furtherreason that parents in some instances do not look favourablyon the practice of having their children sent to hospital, andaccordingly try to conceal mild cases in their homes. House-holders would not appear to be aware of the obligationresting upon them to notify all cases of notifiable infectionsdiseases, and the medical officer of health has suggested theposting of notices warning parents of their responsibility inthe matter. It is greatly to be regretted that this questionof dual notification is not more impressed on householders,as its general adoption would do much to enable sanitaryofficers to cope with disease in its early stages, and beforeany great extension of its spread.

ISOLATION ARRANGEMENTS AT ST. ALBANS.

THE members of the town council of St. Albans havebeen considering the question of providing hospital isolationfor cases of infectious diseases, but the outcome of thediscussion is by no means promising. They first heard thereport of their medical officer of health, which gave anaccount of a low death-rate ; but as it related to a singlequarter, and the borough is but a small one, no material

inference can be drawn from the statistics. And yet onthe basis of this return some of their number seem tohave arrived at two conclusions ; first, that the smellfrom their sewers, though a nuisance, is not injuriousto health; and next, that since the town is now so

healthy there is no need for the ratepayers to be called

upon any longer to incur expense in connexion with a

hospital, known as the Sister’s Hospital, and to which

cases of scarlet fever have been sent. But when they weretold by their medical officer of health that means of isola-tion must be maintained, the argument was reversed, andit was contended that isolation had not tended to preventextension of disease-or, in other words, to promote healthi-ness. What it was that had helped to make the town sohealthy in their estimation did not appear. It could not bethe sewers, and if one councillor is to be believed it wasnot the isolation of infectious disease. The subject was atlast referred to a hospital committee, and we trust it will

be settled before the discovery is made that the absence ofadequate means for isolating first attacks of fever in a townis one of the certain means of involving that town in risk.

SUBDURAL HÆMORRHAGE.

I IN the P7tiladelp7tia .flIedicaZ Nens Dr. Shelton Horsleyrecords a case of this character which occurred in a man agedforty-three years. He had a syphilitic history and had been ahard drinker. One day in August while sitting in a waggonhe fell off, striking his left parietal eminence against a kerb-stone. The wound was about an inch and a half long,but slight and not extending to the bone. He got up andseems to have had a slight convulsion affecting the left arm.He was then sent home, and at this time he was quiteconscious. Half an hour later he suffered from generalconvulsions, and an hour after this was unconscious,with stertorous breathing. The head and eyes becameturned to the left side and there was frequent spasm of theleft arm. The patient gradually sank and died. Eight hoursafter the accident, at the necropsy, the bloodvessels of thecortex were all engorged. There was found to be an

irregularly shaped clot on the outer surface of the righttemporo-sphenoidal lobe, covering a portion of the outer

surfaces of the three temporo-sphenoidal convolutions. Therewas also a small clot on the anterior portion of the innersurface of the ascending frontal convolution at its upper end.The walls of the bloodvessels were much degenerated andtherefore liable to rupture, and it is interesting to know thatthere was no fracture of bone and that the largest extravasa-tion was found almost diametrically opposite to the point atwhich the skull had impinged on the kerbstone.

THE LATE OUTBREAK OF BUBONIC PLAGUEAT HONG-KONG.

THE further official correspondence relative to the outbreakof bubonic plague at Hong-Kong, which has been publishedand presented to Parliament, does not add much to the

information that has been already laid before the readers ofTHE LANCET. The correspondence mainly consists of reports,telegraphic and otherwise, from Sir William Robinson to

the Marquess of Ripon giving an account of the epidemic,which gave rise to a total mortality of 560 in the colonyfrom the beginning of May to August last. The Governorof Hong-Kong adverts to the extraordinary energy and

efficiency of the permanent sanitary committee, in conjunc-tion with Dr. Lowson, Surgeon Penny, R.N., and Surgeon-Major James, and to the vigorous practical action taken

by the military and naval services. There is no doubtthat it was mainly owing to these measures that the

epidemic did not assume larger and more disastrous pro-portions. As might have been expected, however, they werenot undertaken without giving rise to much obloquy andmeeting with great opposition from the Chinese quarter ofthe colony ; but it is difficult to believe that, after our havingoccupied and governed Hong-Kong for upwards of fifty years,any resident Chinamen should have been found capable ofgiving credence to the monstrously ridiculous stories thatwere circulated attributing ghastly cruelties to the Englishmedical men and others. The Chinese are not the onlypeople in the world who loathe cleanliness and sanitation