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the investigation has been carried out by the French criminalinvestigation department has been the occasion, very natu-rally, of serious complaint. Not only does the law not allowwhat we term the " Queen’s evidence" of an accomplice underpromise of immunity from punishment, but no reward wasoffered by the Government, and it was with difficulty that onemade by the friends of Mrs. McNeill received official sanction.Is it from sheer parsimony that our neighbours withhold apowerful means of detecting crime; or do they fear that theoffer would be putting a premium on mendacity and perjury,and as a temptation which their subjects would not have themoral force to resist ?

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DISTRIBUTION OF LEAD IN THE BRAIN.

AN instructive chemical research into the distribution oflead in the brains of two lead factory operatives dyingsuddenly is the subject of a contribution to the Journal ofMental Science, No. 144, by Mr. Wynter Blyth. Presumingthat the whole of the cerebrum was contaminated with leadin the same proportion as in that portion made the subjectof investigation, and that the cerebrum weighed 1097

grammes, then the total weight in the whole cerebrum oflead sulphate would be 99’7 milligrammes, which, added tothe 17’4 found in the cerebellum, pons, and medulla, makesa possible total of 117’1 milligrammes. It may be signifi-cant that the cerebellum contains more lead relatively thanthe cerebrum, the cerebellum yielding 1’07 per 10,000 parts,and the cerebrum ’92. Mr. Blyth’s views on the nature oflead-poisoning are metaphorically represented by likeningplumbism to some very refined method of vivisection bywhich an operator is able to destroy, not nerve centres, butthousands of the ultimate parts of nerve centres. Such aview is merely regarding the so-called 11 elective " influenceof lead from another and slightly different aspect.

FEVER IN LONDON.

DURING the week ending Feb. 10th there were admittedinto the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board 135cases of scarlet fever, 14 of enteric fever, and 3 of small-pox,the latter being received from the parishes of Greenwich,Poplar, and Camberwell. At the end of the week there were1695 patients under treatment in these institutions, of whom1520 were suffering from scarlet fever, 154 from entericfever, 2 from typhus fever, 9 from other diseases of a febrilecharacter, and 10 from small-pox. The Managers haveinformed the Metropolitan Board of Works that the fullextent of their monetary needs in regard to the exercise oftheir borrowing powers was .E50,000 for the present financialyear, and the same amount for the year following.

WILLIAM HYDE WOLLASTON, M.D., F.R.S.

The Electrical Engineer has recently presented its readerswith a very handsome engraved portrait of Dr. Wollaston,which forms a fitting commencement to a series of portraitsof eminent electricians of the present century which ourcontemporary has put in hand. The engraving is copiedfrom a painting by J. Jackson, R.A,, and fittingly com-memorates a man in every way worthy to be remembered.Born shortly after the middle of the last century, young’Wollaston was led by scientific proclivities to devote him-self at Cambridge to the study of medicine, and althoughhe later on abandoned the practice of the healing art forphysical research, his genius and his achievements must everremain prized and treasured ornaments of the profession.The sciences of chemistry and optics are those which aremost largely indebted to Wollaston’s labours, but electricityand magnetism received no small advancement at hishands. Such versatility and range of intellectual scope,

rare at any time, have become rarer and far more difficultof achievement since his day, for the subject matter of thesciences has in the interval been enormously increased. Butmaking all allowance for changed conditions, the exampleof such breadth as Wollaston’s is still a useful stimulus, andthe more so that the affectation of omniscience never hadless chance than now of imposing upon men’s good opinion,and the danger of overdoing specialisation was never morereal or more serious than to-day.

LEICESTER SELF-COMPLACENCY.

THE Leicester Post contains a series of communications

by Mr. J. T. Biggs, on Sanitary Progress in Leicester, thepurport of which can be guessed. We had hoped to see alittle more breadth in Mr. Biggs’s writing of sanitary history ;but, like most men of one idea, he sticks to it. The leastcreditable part of his history is an attempt to extolDr. Johnston at the cost of the present medical officer of

health, though they are both in the same condemnation ofbeing revaccinated up to the hilt. Mr. Biggs exalts freshair, pure water, and sanitary measures. It would be strange,indeed, if he did not. He says, in effect, " What finefellows we are in Leicester"; but as disparagers of

vaccination, and having an exceptional death-rate frominfantile diarrhoea, they do not appear to the same advan-tage to others as to themselves.

0 wad some power the giftie gie us,To see oursels as ithers see us."

THE DONDERS MEMORIAL FUND.

AN influential joint committee has been organised by theLondon Ophthalmological and Physiological Societies, withthe view of co-operating with the committee formed in theNetherlands to celebrate the seventieth birthday of theeminent Professor of Utrecht, on the 27th of May next. Onthat date the law requires Dr. Donders’ resignation as Pro-fessor at the University and Director of the PhysiologicalLaboratory. It is therefore proposed on that occasionto connect his name in a permanent way with the

spot where he has lived and worked for more than

forty years, by a fund devoted to any scientific purposehe may select, to be called the Donders MemorialFund." The London committee feel that his numerousfriends and admirers in this country will avail themselves ofthis opportunity to honour one who has contributed solargely to the advance of biological science and ophthal-mology, and appeal for contributions, rather for the purposeof paying a tribute than of collecting any large sum ofmoney; and suggest that the amounts contributed should notbe specified, but amalgamated into a common sum for trans-mission to the Dutch committee, with the names of the con-tributors inscribed in a suitable form, for presentation toProfessor Donders. Subscriptions may be sent to either ofthe Secretaries-namely, Professor G. F. Yeo (Secretary ofthe Physiological Society), King’s College, London, W.C.;or Dr. W. A. Brailey (Secretary of the OphthalmologicalSociety), 11, Old Burlington-street, London, W.

DIPHTHERIA AT EPPING.

THE outbreak of diphtheria at Epping having assumedconsiderable proportions, and there being no evidence thatits causes were being successfully met, Dr. Bruce Low of theLocal Government Board has been commissioned to in-

vestigate its circumstances and to report upon them. Sofar, there seem grounds for believing that the disease, whichhas been very fatal, is not due to any ordinary sanitarydefects. There has also been a spread of the outbreak intoWalthamstow and Edmonton.