es 
— = 
case of the older observatories to adhere to the same 
system of observing hitherto in use; until at least four or 
five years’ observations have been made simultaneously 
with a second set of instruments placed in uniformity 
with those of other observatories. 
The question of the practicability and utility of 
Weather and Storm Signals in Europe was considered, 
and it was remitted to Messrs. Buys Ballot, Scott, and 
Neumeyer, to collect the opinions of meteorologists on 
this important question, and draw up a report for the 
Vienna Congress. As it is understood that the committee 
have collected a good deal of information, some valuable 
results may be expected. 
In the “Sequel to the Suggestions,” Dr. Buys Ballot 
has suggested for the consideration of the Congress, the 
establishment, by societies, of stations in regions which 
are at present a blank, The Smithsonian Institution, 
the Dutch Meteorological Institute, and, in our country, 
the Scottish Meteorological Society have, with the means 
at their disposal, done a good deal in this direction, with 
results which have aided much in the furtherance of 
the science. But to fill up the enormous blanks which 
still disgrace British America, South America, most of 
Africa, and the Pacific, some concerted action on the part 
of meteorologists is indispensable. In connection with 
this proposed development, reference may be made to 
the scheme in contemplation by the Chinese Govern- 
ment, in carrying out which Mr. Campbell has been 
sent to this country to request advice from scientific 
authorities as to the general crganisation of the stations, 
and to procure the necessary instruments, registers, &c. 
Towards the carrying out of this plan, the Congress will 
doubtless give Mr. Campbell very hearty support. 
THE TYPHOID EPIDEMIC IN LONDON 
HE recent outbreak of enteric fever in the West End 
of London presents many points of remarkable in- 
terest and teaches many useful lessons. Typhoid, Enteric, 
or Pythogenic fever, although a disease about which all 
our accurate knowledge is quite recent, is a fever about 
the causes of which we really know a great deal, but 
which, for all that, seems to appear from time to time in 
the places where it might be least expected. 
About the nature of the poison which produces it we 
know as yet but little ; we know that its habitat is in the 
refuse matters excreted from human intestines ; we know 
that it is, under certain circumstances, developed in such 
excretal matters during their decomposition, but it is yet 
a moot point whether it is from time to time produced de 
novo under suitable conditions, or whether it is always 
necessary that some of the poison, however small a 
quantity, be introduced from without to cause such de. 
composing matters to become infectious. We are accus- 
tomed to regard this as the least specific of the diseases 
of its kind, but each outbreak which is traced to its source 
gives a rude shock to such ideas. The “ filth-born ” fever 
dar excellence, it ought not, one would think, to need 
to wait to be introduced to the country places where, year 
after year for centuries, the shallow wells from which 
drinking water is obtained are, in effect, the drains of 
the premises ; or to the town houses, in which the only 
NATURE 
343 
ventilator to the sewer is the waste pipe which opens 
directly over the surface of the water in the cistern ; but 
yet such is the case so universally, that when we cannot 
find out how the poison has been introduced, we should 
acknowledge our inability to do so, and not cut the knot 
by saying that it has originated on the spot, a conclusion 
for which, in the present state of our knowledge, we have 
no real proof whatever. The number of instances in 
which epidemics have been traced to single imported 
cases is now so great that, although it does not actually 
prove that such is always the case, still it should make 
us hesitate before declaring that the disease has broken 
out without direct importation in any given place. 
The facts relating to the epidemic which still engages 
general attention in England, are, in order of sequence, 
and independently of any theory at all; as follows :— 
The disease was noticed to be prevalent, in the middle 
and latter part of July, in certain houses in the parish of 
Marylebone, and notably in houses inhabited by medical 
men, houses where every possible precaution was believed 
to have been taken: it was observed by Dr. Murchison 
that an undue proportion of the persons attacked obtained 
their milk from a particular dairy, and on further investi- 
gation the conviction grew upon him that this milk was, 
somehow or other, contaminated with typhoid poison, and 
was spreading the disease. A difficulty arose, inasmuch 
as the locality in which the fever cases were was only a 
small part of the district supplied with milk from the sus- 
pected dairy ; but Mr. Radcliffe, on examining the mode 
of distribution of the milk, showed that on the hypothesis 
that the milk from one of the several farms was contami- 
nated before coming to the dairy, a localised outbreak or 
several localised outbreaks of fever must have been the 
result ; so that any suspicion which may have existed as 
to the cause being possibly to be found in the precincts 
of the dairy in London, vanished at once. 
On the other hand it was found that the owner of one 
of the dairy-farms had died on June 8 ; that he had been 
out of sorts since early in May, and sufficiently so for his 
two medical men to consult with a third on the subject ; 
that the medical men all suspected that he had enteric 
fever ; that this suspicion became stronger when the 
patient passed a large quantity of blood and putrid 
niatter on June 1, which blood, &c., was ordered to be 
buried away from the house, as being most probably 
infectious ; that the patient became considerably better 
towards the end of the first week of June, but that he 
died suddenly on June 8 while getting out of bed, no 
medical man being present ; and finally that the medical 
attendant not being sure of the diagnosis of enteric fever, 
and considering that, anyhow, the man had got over it, 
certified that he died from heart disease, as he had for 
years been suffering from the effects of a “fatty heart ;” 
nevertheless he took the precaution to have the body 
buried as speedily as possible, thinking that it might be 
infectious. 
Taking all the facts together, these two series of events 
present at any rate a most remarkable coincidence ; and 
when we find that enteric fever is and has for some 
months been prevalent in the villages near the farm and 
in daily communication with it, and that a son of the 
farmer has since had the disease, the conclusion is irre- 
sistible that the farmer died of enteric fever, and that he 
