104 AROUND THE WORLD VIA INDIA. 



ver appears to be more frequent in the country and vil- 

 lages than in the large cities, as the latter have an ex- 

 cellent water supply. At Melbourne this disease is 

 most prevalent during the holiday season, when the 

 people leave the city for their vacation and live in 

 the country towns, where the danger of infection from 

 contaminated water is much greater. Isolated cases 

 occur in the cities and can usually be traced to infected 

 wells, which are still in use in parts of the cities that 

 remain outside of the reach of the regular water sup- 

 ply. The skill of the medical men is well shown by the 

 very low mortality which attends this disease and which 

 does not exceed 6 per cent. Prof. F. D. Bird has oper- 

 ated on three cases of typhoid fever in which a fatal 

 termination from sepsis was imminent. He opened the 

 abdomen, where he found a small quantity of serum, 

 flushed with a hot saline solution, closed the wound and 

 had the satisfaction of saving all of them, marked im- 

 provement being noticed as soon as the patients recov- 

 ered from the immediate effect of the operation. 



Tuberculosis of the lungs, joints, bones and lymphatic 

 glands is met with in about the same frequency a? with 

 us. Leprosy prevails to some extent in Sydney and its 

 vicinity. There are at present 17 cases in an isolation 

 hospital on the coast at Botany Bay, several miles from 

 the city. Tf a patient affected with leprosy has sufficient 

 means to support himself in a house sufficiently iso- 

 lated from other habitations he is not molested: if 

 this is not the case he is compelled to seek the shelter 

 of the "leprosery." Although actinomycosis is quite a 

 frequent affection among cattle it is almost unknown 

 in man. Blastomycosis is very rarely seen. !N"ot a 

 single case of hydrophobia has ever been seen in Aus- 

 tralia, although it has a large dog population, and the 

 dingo or wild dog is numerous, as well as other ani- 

 mals capable of transmitting this disease. Tetanus is 

 not more common than with us. Tn every large hos- 

 pital from two to four cases are treated annually. Tn 



