REVIEWS. 2!1 



T. Nash on the Non-Biting Flies, in which we must confess we cannot trace 

 one new or original observation. 



A good and popular account of some Indian Sand Flies is given by 

 Mr. Howletfc, who also contributes a useful table with helpful diagrams of 

 the Blood-Sucking Flies, which has modestly concealed itself at the back of 

 the volume in a " Catologue of Exhibits.'' 



The discussion on the Treatment of Snake Bite would seem to have been a 

 lively one, and will doubtless have an interest for the field naturalist. A 

 startling line of treatment is recommended by our own valued contributor, 

 Major F. Wall, which we would take for a slip of his facile pen but for the 

 fact it is twice repeated. As we find no comment from the numerous keen 

 critics present, we doubt if his advice can have been read at the meeting. 

 He advises in all cases of colubrine and viper poisoning when the appropriate 

 antivenene cannot be obtained, "the intravenous injection of350c.c. of a 

 5 pier cent, solution of Permanganate of Potash" ! ! ! 



As this is the equivalent of half a gallon of undiluted Condy's Fluid, the 

 immediate effect of which would be to coagulate all the blood with which 

 it came in contact, it is needless to say the patient would be dead long 

 before the injection was completed. 



Simond's theory that plague is mainly transmitted by rat fleas, the truth of 

 which he had established for most observers in 1898, but which the Indian 

 Plague Commission dubbed "hardly deserving of consideration," seems to have 

 been generally accepted at the Congress. 



Long papers on water supply were contributed by Dr. Dadachanji, the 

 scientific value of which may be judged by a single paragraph. " The terrible 

 scourge of cholera in London in 1854 was "believed to have had its origin in 

 the upturning of the earth in which the plague-striken victims of the yeai 

 1665 had been buried." Truly a striking phenomenon in evolution, the 

 Bacilus pestis of 1665 developing into the Comma vibrio of 1854 ! ! ! Lengthy 

 papers on the sanitation of Bombay by Drs. Cursetji and Master are illumi- 

 nated by flashes of unconscious humour and the play of a little poetic license. 

 They tell us the City of Bombay " in every respect the pioneer City of India 

 " having en terprising and intelligent citizens and being ahead of most of the 

 "other cities in adopting the latest and newest measures for its sanitary 

 '' improvement and owned extensive water- works, the largest and most costly 

 "of their kind . . . perhaps in the whole world." 



Having given us this and other original information, on the very next page 

 they fall foul of the Municipal Executive. " The peculiar habits and customs 

 " of the people bom of sheer ignorance and stupidity must have surely been 

 '' known to the Municipal Executive for over so many years, " and we learn 

 that there is practically nothing good from a sanitary point of view in Bombay. 



The impression left upon us by the whole 160 pages devoted to Sanitation 

 in India is that they could have been conveniently condensed into a Chapter 

 like that on ' Snakes in Ireland,' — " There is no Sanitation in India." 



