538

may have vested, it would certainly have been much moresatisfactory if the fact of suicidal poisoning by a certaindrug had been clearly demonstrated.

A "HOUSE EPIDEMIC" OF PNEUMONIA INSWEDEN.

Dn. FR. RUDBERG gives a brief account in the Eina of anepidemic of pneumonia occurring at the end of last year ina workmen’s barrack at Sandarne, near Söderhamm, in

Sweden, where there are five of these barracks situated in arow at a distance of a couple of hundred feet from oneanother on a piece of sandy soil near a pine wood. The

epidemic was confined to one of these barracks, there onlybeing a single case in the remaining four at the same time,and very few in the surrounding districts. This buildingwas constructed of wood, and had sixteen rooms arranged intwo stories, there being a common porch to every tworooms. Each room was occupied by a separate family.The total number of inhabitants was seventy-eight, of whomforty-seven were over fifteen years, and thirty-one underthat age. The first case occurred on November 16th, in aboy of eight; subsequent cases occurred on November 27thand December 4th, 7th, llth, 14th, 16th, 19th, and 20th. Ofthese there were four males and five females, one boy andone girl being under ten, but all the rest between twentyand forty. Six cases occurred in the lower story, and threein the upper. The disease appeared to have no tendency topass from one room to the adjoining one, or even to anotherroom on the same story; and in no case was more than oneinmate of a room affected; but one woman living at a

distance, who occasionally visited some of those who hadthe disease, was attacked by it herself on December 14th. Itshould be stated that there was plenty of intercommunica-tion among the families. The writer does not mention anyof the clinical characters of the epidemic.

THE GERMAN IMPERIAL BOARD OF HEALTH.

As we intimated a few months ago, the publications ofthe Imperial Board of Health of Germany now take placeon a new system. Every week there is issued a journalcontaining sanitary information and news, whilst from timeto time there are to be published in supplementary quartosthe scientific memoirs which represent the laboratory workof the institution. Hitherto these have appeared in com-pleted volumes at intervals of about two years. There isnow before us the first instalment of the new issue

(" Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsumte," ErsterBand, Erstes und Zweites Heft. Preis 6m.) It contains

(1) a report upon the Condition of the Berlin Water-supply,edited by Dr. G. Wolffhiigel; (2) Methods of Milk Analysis;(3 and 4) Experimental Researches &c. on Swine Fever andPreventive Inoculation, by Drs. Loeffler and Schiitz; and(5) the Vaccination Statistics for Germany for 1882.

INHERITANCE OF TYPICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

THE address of the President of the Section of Anthro-

pology, at the meeting of the British Association at

Aberdeen, was one of the most interesting of the year.The stability and instability of types is held to be governedby a law of hereditary transmission. Captain Galton hasmade this subject his own, and for some years has devotedhimself to the investigation of hereditary stature. He has

compared the heights of some nine hundred adult childrenwith their respective parents, two hundred in number, andhe finds that there is a mid-parentage, the mean of theirrespective heights above and below which the respectiveheights of the offspring average evenly. In the same way,he holds that the hereditary transmission of any rare

and valuable quality in one parent is checked by someopposing quality in the other. This conclusion discouragesthe extravagant expectations of gifted parents that theirchildren will inherit all their powers, and it no less dis-countenances extravagant fears that they will inherit alltheir weaknesses and diseases. Captain Galton holds thatthe number of individuals in a population who differ littlefrom mediocrity is so preponderant, that it is more

frequently the case that an exceptional man is the some-what exceptional son of rather mediocre parents than theaverage son of very exceptional parents.

THE DANGERS OF THE THAMES.

THE dangers of Thames navigation and the perils of locksand weirs are too well known to call for more than passingnotice at our hands; but we are glad to find that the gallantrescue of a lady from drowning by Mr. Henry S. Wellcomelast week has once more directed attention to the subject.It appears that the boat or canoe in which the lady wasseated, in endeavouring to pass through Boulter’s Lock, wassuddenly overturned and sucked down by the inrush ofwater. Mr. Wellcome, seeing that the position was one ofimminent peril, at once dived, and, after some three or fourunsuccessful attempts, succeeded in reaching the lady andbringing her to the surface. The danger, however, was notover, for he found himself whirled with irresistible force

by the inrush of water to the other end of the lock; and itwas only by the exhibition of the greatest coolness andpresence of mind that he was enabled to prevent his chargefrom being torn from his grasp and dashed against the pro-jecting sides. The position was seen to be a most critical

one, and some time elapsed before the rescuer succeededin reaching a pole which was thrown down to him by thelock people, and by means of which he ultimately conveyedhis burden to a place of safety. Coolness and presence ofmind are all-important in an emergency of this kind. Wetrust the Royal Humane Society, with its usual discrimi-nation, will think fit to mark in a suitable manner its

appreciation of Mr. Wellcome’s intrepid conduct.

SMALL-POX AT ZURICH.

THis cosmopolitan Swiss town deserves all the praise justlavished on it by Sir Lyon Playfair as an educational centre,but it must be more attentive to its hygiene if it is to retainthe attractions it has hitherto had for English-speakingyouths. Last year it was severely visited by typhoid-theresult, among other causes, of deepening the lake and leavingthe upturned filth to fester on its banks. And now the

Children’s Hospital at Hottingen (in the educational quarter)has had to be closed by the district medical officers from afatal outbreak of small-pox, supposed to have been broughtinto the institution by a child suffering from varicella.Unfortunately the first cases occurring in the house werealso regarded as due to varicella, and so their isolation wasnot so strictly enforced as is usual in variola proper. Henceit was that in the last week of August and the first week ofSeptember the disease spread to a dozen of the inmates-tenchildren and two nurses. In the cases of these two adultsand of two of the children the malady ran a mild course:but with the rest it assumed a very grave form, and causedsix deaths; while the remaining two cases, though nowquite convalescent, were at one time alarmingly ill. The

epidemic, the leading local journal assures us, may now beregarded as at an end. We hope so: but the same authoritytells us that of the children attacked not one had been

vaccinated; while, it somewhat superfluously adds, theother inmates of the institution, who had been made variola-proof, escaped without blemish and without spot. This fact

it properly regards as yet another rebuke to the anti-