554 



NATURE 



[September 15, 1910 



ably about 3 per cent, of the cases of typhoid fever which 

 have recovered from the disease continue to breed and 

 distribute the germs (Bruckner). To scarlet fever, diph- 

 theria, cerebro-spinal meningitis, and measles some risk 

 of the same kind is attached. The importance of this 

 matter can hardly be exaggerated. Instruction in cleanli- 

 ness, periodical examination of the excreta of typhoid 

 carriers, disinfection of the alimentary canal by drugs, 

 are obviously necessary ; with restriction to such occupa- 

 tions as aliford the least opportunity for the dissemination 

 of disease. Control of Foods. — There can be no hope of 

 freeing the milk supply from the bacillus of tubercle with- 

 out more effective control of milk growers and milk 

 sellers. At present the milk supply can be stopped onlv 

 for one particular district, and the farmer is at liberty to 

 send the condemned milk to any other district without 

 incurring any penalty. Housing and Town Planning. — 

 Dr. Fremantle argued that the expense and opposition 

 which an attempt to proceed under the Regulations of 

 19 10 will entail will deter municipalities from taking 

 advantage of the .'Vet. Sewage Disposal— C. Chamber's 

 Smith maintained that economy in the disposal of sewage 

 may be carried much further than at present. -Sedimenta- 

 tion tanks and percolating filters are less expensive than 

 contact beds. Shenton advocated the sterilisation of 

 sewage effluents by hypochlorite of lime, proving with well- 

 ordered figures the need for this final destruction of 

 bacterial life, and showing the efficiency and inexpensive- 

 ness of the agent recommended. .\n interesting paper on 

 the influence of underground waters on health" was read 

 by Baldwin Lathain, who associates the epidemic appear- 

 ance of fever with a fluctuating level of subsoil water, and 

 especially with an unusually low water level. 



.^conference of women on hvgiene was held under the 

 presidency of the Countess of Chichester, at which ques- 

 tions of great practical importance in relation to the 

 artificial feeding of infants and the influence of the 

 employment of married women upon infant mortality were 

 discussed ; but the subject which aroused most interest 

 was " Home-making Centres "—centres for the teaching 

 of what in Canada is defined as household science. Whaf- 

 ever other items m.iy be introduced into the curriculum to 

 meet the needs of particular localities, the chief subjects 

 taught at such centres must always be cooking, house- 

 wifery, dressmaking, the care of infants and children, 

 personal and domestic hygiene. 



In the popular lecture, which brought the proceedings 

 of the congress to a close. Dr. Alex. Hill took the oppor- 

 tunity of directing attention to some of the recent triumphs 

 of sanitary science, quoting especially from the report of 

 Sir Rubert Boyce on the condition of the West Indies :— 

 ■" Look to your laurels, Brighton ! * The West Indies are 

 rapidly becoming the sanatoria which nature surely in- 

 tended them to be .'" He next proceeded to expound the 

 prmciples of Mendelism, answering, incidentally. Dr. 

 Archdall Reid's objection that they have onlv been shown 

 to hold good for human abnormalities 'and for the 

 characters of cultivated plants and domestic animals bv 

 pointing out that, unless characters are either so unusual 

 as to be " abnormal " or so much exaggerated by breed- 

 ing as to be outstanding, it is impossible for the biologist 

 to isolate them as allelomorphs. He then submitted a 

 scientific basis for Dr. Newsholme's contention that all 

 infant lives must be cherished by the community by show- 

 ing photographs of a white albino guinea-pig from 

 which the ovaries were removed soon after birth and re- 

 placed by those of a black guinea-pig ; one of several 

 litters of young, all black ; and their white albino sire. 

 The doctrine of the continuity of germ-plasm, the lecturer 

 said, by throwing the origin of the individual so far back, 

 has profoundly modified our ideas of the heritability of th' 

 moral and pathological characteristics of the immediate 

 parents. 



The congress was fruitful in discussion, and those who 

 attended it will carry away many new conceptions and 

 discard some misconceptions ; but amongst the many con- 

 gresses which meet at this season that of the Sanitarv 

 Institute stands somewhat apart in that it supplies the 

 stimulus for the publication of a large number of papers 

 of permanent value. Medical officers "of health and others 

 stationed in distant parts of Britain find in it an oppor- 

 NO. 2133, VOL. 84] 



tunity of putting their observations and reflections in print, 

 and submitting them in this form rather than orally, to 

 a considerable body of their fellow-workers. An admir- 

 able and extensive Health Exhibition was organised in 

 connection with the congress. 



INTEKN.ITION.IL CUXGRESS OF PHARM.ACY. 

 T^HE tenth International Congress of Pharmacy was held 

 in Brussels on September i to 6, and was attended by 

 over five hundred pharmacists. The Governments which 

 sent official representatives were those of France, Italy, 

 Spain, Russia, the United States, Norway, Denmark, 

 Sweden, Holland, Greece, Hungary, China. Japan, the 

 Ottoman Empire, Venezuela, the Argentine Republic, the 

 Republic of San Salvadore, Guatemala, Haiti, and Chili. 

 The delegates from the Pharmaceutical Society of Great 

 Britain were Mr. Edmund White, a member of the society's 

 council, and Mr. E. S. Peck, one of the permanent hon. 

 secretaries of the British Pharmaceutical Conference. The 

 most important subject which came up for consideration 

 related to analytical methods. The international conference 

 for the unification of the formulae of potent drugs, held 

 at Brussels in 1902, defined standards for a number of 

 drugs and galenical preparations, but different methods of 

 standardisation give different results, and it was one of the 

 objects of the pharmaceutical congress to consider what 

 steps could be taken to bring about the approximation of 

 analytical methods. After a long discussion it was unani- 

 mously resolved, on the motion of Prof. Bourquelot, 

 representing the French Government, to ask the Belgian 

 Government to convene an interational conference, com- 

 posed largely of practising pharmacists, for the purpose of 

 unifying the methods of estimating potent drugs, with the 

 recommendation that, for the estimation of alkaloidal pre- 

 parations, preference should be given to gravimetric 

 methods. The congress also agreed that it was desirable 

 that pharmacopceias should indicate the precise methods of 

 determining physical constants, and that in the case of 

 chemical tests the reactions should not be capable of giving 

 rise to any difference of interpretation. The related topic 

 of the international unification of analytical reagents also 

 received consideration, and the congress resolved to request 

 pharmacopceiffi commissions to adopt as far as possible 

 normal reagents or some multiple of the normal. The 

 decisions on these two questions constitute the most useful 

 part of the work of the congress. 



Next in importance was the discussion on the sale 01 

 proprietary disinfectants, and the congress unanimously 

 resolved to recommend that the sale of proprietary anti- 

 septic products and disinfectants should be ofl'icially 

 regulated. No such products should be sold unless the 

 manufacturers of them shall have obtained a licence from 

 the Government, only to be granted after the products 

 shall have been officially examined both chemically and 

 bacteriologically with the view of ascertaining if they 

 possess the properties claimed for them. It was also 

 resolved to recommend that all such products should be 

 labelled with the name and address of the seller as well as 

 the manufacturer, and that the bactericidal strength and 

 the date of manufacture should be stated on the label. 



.^mong other subjects discussed were : — (i) The desira- 

 bilitv of a large representation of pharmacists on the com- 

 mission charged with the preparation of an international 

 pharmacopoeia ; the congress expressed approval of the 

 principle. (2) The advisability of pharmacists making their 

 own galenical preparations ; the congress agreed that this 

 was desirable where possible. C3I The limitation in each 

 country by the State of the number of pharmacies ; the 

 congress approved of the principle of limitation and agreed 

 on a method of limitation. (4) The desirability of institut- 

 ing in schools of pharmacy courses on the macroscopy. 

 microscopy, and chemistry of natural and pathological 

 secretions'; the congress agreed that such a course of study 

 might with advantage be instituted. 



In addition to the discussion on topics of general and 

 pharmaceutical interest, several communications of purely 

 scientific interest were presented. Prof. Bourquelot made a 

 further contribution to the biochemical method of 

 examination of vegetable glucosides hydrolysed by emulsin. 

 Me pointed out the relation between the optical properties 



