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some of the Approved Societies, and there was afeeling that the general effect of the Act was in thedirection of lowering the status of the medical pro-fession. The only satisfactory point brought beforethe meeting was the fact that financially the.committee was in a sound condition, and that afterclearing expenses it was able to contribute E20 tothe Irish Medical Committee. What will be the’future of the Insurance Act in Ireland as regardsboth the Friendly Societies, the insured, and themedical profession no one attempted to prophesy,but the note of the assembly was the reverse oftcheerful.

Tyrone and Fermanagh A8ylu1JLDuring the year 1913 the number of the patients

-under treatment was 1021, being a net decrease of-one on the preceding 12 months. There was an ex-cess of patients over accommodation of 58 males and3 females. The expenditure for the year amountedtwo .E24.874 6s. ld.June 16th.

PARIS.

The Street Subsidences in Paris.As a sequel to Monday’s terrible storm in Paris

subsidences have occurred in various parts of thecity, accompanied with a tragic loss of life, great de-atruction of,property, an infinite amount of seriousinconvenience, and lastly, widely prevalent mental,disturbance. The danger zone, in which the worstsubsidences have occurred, is well known to manyvisitors, being in the two districts where thelBoulevard Hausmann is crossed by,the BoulevardMalesherbes and by the Rue du Havre. The collapseshave occurred along the line of a new branch- of the Metropolitain, but the numerous under-ground works in Paris may all have to bearthe blame. The public health problems involvedboth in the present position and in the futurerestoration to order and efficiency in our subter-ranean world are very anxious ones.

A Victim of X Rays.’To the catalogue of X rays martyrs must now be

ridded the name of Dr. Maxime Menard, chief of,the service of radiology and electrotherapy.of then6pital Cochin, who has recently had his rightindex finger amputated. Dr. Menard presented lastNovember to the Academy of Sciences a new

- apparatus of his own invention for protecting "against the rays, as reported in THE LANCET.lHe conducted 8500 operations in radiology last

.year without any assistant, nurse, or patient being,burnt. His own misfortune was due to his dis-regard of an old-standing dermatitis contractedbefore the invention of his apparatus.

° "

A Bonesetter as a Deputy. ,

A person who practised in a little village in i’Savoy as a

" bonesetter " without any diploma, and i

who has been many times convicted for the illegalpractice of medicine, in spite or perhaps in con- i

sequence of this notoriety has succeeded in gettinghimself elected by a large majority to the Chamber 1of Deputies. He frankly declares that he adopted ithis course to gain the Parliamentary immunity i

against judicial proceedings which continues during 4

the four years of office; for the authorisation of the 4

Chamber, which can alone waive the exemption, iis always s refused. Thanks to the ’free trans-port granted to deputies he expects to spend mostof his time at home, free from interruption in his i

1 THE LANCET, Nov. 15th, 1913, p. 1423.

business, leaving one of his colleagues in theChamber to vote for him. This is a curious com-mentary on present Parliamentary procedure.

A Medical Lawsuit.

M. Reynier, a well-known surgeon and a member ofthe Académie de Medecine, has been granted judg-ment in a suit brought by him in the case of a patienton whom he had operated. The case had been dia-gnosed as one of appendicitis, and a fee of 3000 francshad been agree on. At the operation, however,M. Reynier discovered that the condition was onenot of appendicitis but of perinephric abscess,which he operated on accordingly. Although theoperation was even more difficult than wouldhave been the case for an ordinary appendi-citis, the patient, when cured, refused to paythe sum agreed on, contending that that sum.was fixed for an appendicitis operation. Sheoffered 500 francs. The Tribunal of the Seine,before which the case was tried, gave judgment forM. Reynier, holding that the surgeon is alwaysmaster of the situation, should perform the operationthat he considers necessary for the patient’s cure,and that the special operation to be performed byhim cannot be made the object of an agreementbinding on him when an unforeseen situation isfound, and more particularly if the correctness ofhis decision is substantiated by a cure.

.Footsore in Soldiers.

Every year at the military manoeuvres, in spite ofthe fact that the military boot is chosen a

trifle large to avoid injuring the feet, in thefirst few days’ marching a large number ofsoldiers suffer from blisters and chafing, which,compel them to go on the sick list, and the samewould doubtless be the case in warfare. Dr.Arnould, a military medical officer, having notedthe coincidence of these injuries with too greatmobility of the foot in the regulation boot,suggested the use of a leather thong, 75 cm. longby 5 in width, which is bound round the boot out-side, being placed in the hollow of the foot, broughtover the instep, and crossed in a figure-of-eightbackwards round the tendo Achillis, thus immobil-ising the foot in the boot and obviating the chafing.In all the regiments in which this method has beenadopted the number of footsore soldiers after theearly marches has been reduced to an insignificant.proportion. The analogous German

" Fussschoner "

contains steel bands, which render the apparatusboth more complicated and more costly.

Ambulance Dogs.In consequence of the favourable experience

,during the last manoeuvres, the Minister of Warhas -decided on the regular employment of dogsspecially trained to accompany the bearers whensearching for wounded. For the training of the

dogs instruction kennels had been established atFontainebleau, and the non-commissioned officers ofthe hospital orderlies put each dog through a threemonths’ course of training there. The militarykennel now officially established has been trans-ferred to the camp at Chalons, where the dogs areregularly exercised in searching for wounded. The

dogs subsist on a ration of soup from the regi-mental supplies, a daily allowance of 10 centimesper dog being made.

Visit of Spanish MedicaZ J<Ien to Paris.A group of Spanish medical men have been visit-

ing the medical institutions of Paris on the invita-tion.of the Union JB1&eacute;dicale Fra,neo-Iber--Aea:icaine

1776

(Umfia) established last year by a group of Frenchmedical men. M. Landouzy, doyen of the Facultyof Medicine, has presided at a great banquet tothe union.June 15th

BERLIN.

Pyelography.AT a recent meeting of the Berlin Medical Society

Dr. Joseph read a paper on Pyelography, a com-paratively new method of examining the pelvis andthe calyx of the kidney. He said that the firststage of pyelography consisted in the introduction ofa catheter into the ureter as far as the pelvis of thekidney; a solution of collargol of 10 per cent.

strength was then allowed to flow through thecatheter; after which the calyx and the pelvis ofthe kidney might be examined by Rontgen rays, asthe collargol filling these cavities threw a verydistinct shadow of that part of the kidney on thephotographic plate. He had already employedpyelography in about 90 cases, of which 70 wereexamples of diseases of the kidney. Poisoning anddeath from rupture of the tubuli uriniferi might,of course, happen when the pressure had been toohigh, but generally the method was not more

dangerous than the introduction of a stomach

probe in gastric ulcer. Colicky pains might occurin connexion with pyelography as in other cases inwhich a catheter was introduced into the ureter.In the discussion it was stated by some of the

speakers that the method was valuable in certaincases, but that it was dangerous in tuberculosis.It was not always possible to prevent the collargolfrom entering the tubuli uriniferi and producingserious symptoms.

Transplantation of Sexual Organs.According to a report published in the daily

newspapers Professor Brandes, the director of thezoological garden in Dresden, has succeeded in

transplanting the genital organs from male animalsto females, and vice versd. The report has beenconfirmed in an interview with the professor, whostated that he had made his experiments on deerwhich had not sustained any injury in consequenceof the operation, and in fact continued to be in goodhealth. A male animal, of course, did not becomethoroughly transformed into a female or a femaleinto a male, for only the secondary signs of altera-tion of the sex develop. In female deer the hornsbegan to grow, whilst in males the horns ceased togrow and an udder became developed. ProfessorBrandes was of opinion that his experiments mightturn out to be of importance for the human subject,because individuals with doubtful sexual charac-teristics, or suffering from sexual perversion,might possibly be benefited by an implantationof normal sexual organs.

Facilities for the Supply of Medicine in RuralDistricts.

The Post Office has issued new regulations forthe purpose of facilitating the supply of medicinein the country. According to these regulationsmedical prescriptions may be handed to post-men, who are thereupon required to take themto some pharmacy without bringing them first Ito the post office in the same way as otherletters. Medicine may be sent by a pharma- other :ceutical chemist, not only by parcel post, but 1also by letter post, and by the shortest way 1without the intervention of the local post office; 1

for this purpose the medicine bottle only re-

quires to be handed to a postman or a post officevan, or a post office carriage in a railway train.The characteristic feature of the new regulation isthat the public and the pharmaceutical chemist areput into communication with one another by meansof the postmen without the prescription or themedicine being brought first to a post2office. Muchtime is saved in this way. The new regulationsare, of course, valuable only in thinly populateddistricts where the dispensary may be at a distance.

-31-useum for Infant Hygiene.A museum for the hygiene of infants has been

opened in Berlin in connexion with the EmpressVictoria Hospital for Infants. It includes a numberof departments devoted to such subjects as statisticsof infant mortality; causes and prevention ofinfant mortality ; pregnancy, childbirth and the

puerperium; the development of infants; the

anatomy and physiology of infants; general hygienein connexion with infant mortality, nursing andfeeding of infants; milk-supply; and, finally,diseases of infants, especially gastro-intestinaldiseases, rickets, syphilis, and tuberculosis. Themuseum is intended not onlv for the information ofmedical men and nurses but especially for theinformation of young mothers who will find thereevery kind of instruction in the care of infants.

The Question of Multiple Consulting-rooms.The court of honour of the medical chamber of

Berlin has lately decided that for practitioners tohave consulting-rooms in two different portions ofthe city is at variance with professional ethicsexcept in the case when only club patients are seenin the one place and only private patients in theother. It is, however, not allowed to receive bothclub patients and private patients in both places.This decision has caused great annoyance amongstthe Berlin specialists because it has for many yearsbeen usual for them to receive patients for con-sultation not only in their private residence butalso in a clinic; they asserted that it was im-

possible for them to perform operations or

make certain examinations at their residence,and that medical men of the highest professionalstanding, professors of the university, and membersof the medical chamber had consulting-rooms in

two different localities. A society of medical menhaving two consulting-rooms has been formed for

the purpose of bringing the matter to a decision,and four well-known members of the professionhave accordingly informed the court of honour thatthey receive private patients at two different placesand submitted themselves to the decision of thecourt. Although even the prosecutor on behalf ofthe Government admitted on the trial that therewas no ground of complaint, the court gave, never-theless, a verdict of guilty as before, without, how-ever, inflicting any penalty on the defendants,but only warning them against the practice.The association thereupon denounced all themedical men who were in the same case, thelist including 392 names of medical men who willhave to appear before the court. This number farexceeds the total number of cases adjudicated onby the court for several years. Some of thedefendants who as professors of the university arein the service of the Government will, of course,not have to appear before the court of honour ofthe chamber, but the court in their case must handthe matter over to the Government which will thenhave to decide the matter. The first-named four