eee” 
SEPTEMBER 15, 1899. ] 
until the mortality from this cause is less in 
London than in any other large city. (It is, 
however, important to notice that the death- 
rate of young children from disease of the 
bowels has little, if at all, diminished. See Sir 
Richard Thorne’s Harben Lectures.) 
B. The prevention of infection of the lungs 
by the bacillus of tubercle depends chiefly on 
the rational treatment of the sputa of con- 
sumptive patients, or rather, for practical pur- 
poses, of the sputa of all those affected with 
cough and expectoration. The phlegm should 
never be deposited on the ground or on a hand- 
kerchief, where it ean dry up ; it should be kept 
moist until it can be destroyed by heat, and the 
vessel used to receive it should contain phenol 
or some other antiseptic solution. 
C. The prevention of infection by tuberculous 
milk may be accomplished either by boiling all 
milk given as food to children or by inspection 
of dairies, so as to prevent tuberculous milch- 
cows being used. 
D. The prevention of infection by meat can 
be secured by careful and thorough inspection 
of carcasses, or by diagnostic testing of cattle 
with tuberculin. This, the only undoubtedly 
useful application of the so called tuberculin, 
has the drawback that after the effect of the in- 
oculation has passed off a tuberculous animal 
becomes immune to it for a time, and so may 
be passed as healthy. (It is said that cattle 
suspected of tubercle are thus rendered immune 
to the tubercular test before being sent over the 
French frontier.) 
Though the question of the treatment of 
pbthisis was only a supplementary part of the 
work of the Congress, Dr. Pye-Smith gives the 
following facts, which are, he says, ‘‘important 
for the people as well as their governors to be 
aware of’’: 
a. That tuberculous disease of the bones and 
joints of the glands and skin and abdomen, 
though dangerous, is not incurable, and, by the 
modern methods of operative medicine, is in 
most cases successfully cured. 
b. That tuberculosis of the lungs (phthisis, or 
consumption) is frequently cured, and probably 
more often now than formerly. (Curschmann, 
of Leipzig, fourth day of Congress.) 
c. That there is no specific drug which has 
SCIENCE. 381 
direct influence upon consumption, but that 
many, both old and new, have valuable effects 
upon its complications. (On the Action of the 
New Tuberculin, see Briger’s paper, on the 
second day of Congress, and Dr. C. T. Williams 
in the R. Med. Ch. Trans. for the present year.) 
d. That abundant food, particularly of a 
fatty nature, and a life in the open air, 
are no less valuable in the treatment than in 
the prevention of phthisis, and that the hos- 
pitals and asylums for providing these essen- 
tials, which are now numerous in Germany, and 
far from rare in England, Austria and Hungary, 
France and the United States, are of essential 
value. That the ‘open-air treatment’ has been 
long known and practiced in the United King- 
dom was handsomely acknowledged by Profes- 
sor Von Leyden (first day of Congress). Com- 
pare papers by Kaurin (Norway), Westhoven 
(Ludwigshaven), J. R. Walters (London), De- 
sider Kuthy (Budapest), Schmidt (Switzerland), 
Démene (Spain), fourth day. 
e. That the influence of climate, altitude, 
temperature, and dryness of the air and soil, of 
travelling and of sea voyages has been very 
differently estimated at different periods, and 
that, while each is in various degrees important, 
popular opinion probably exaggerates their 
power. (Herman Weber, of London, fourth 
day of Congress.) 
f. That the prospect of improved success in 
the treatment of tuberculosis in general, and of 
consumption in particular, by the advance of 
pathology and the progress of surgery and 
medicine, is a hopeful one, almost as hopeful as 
that of limiting the spread of the disease by 
preventive measures. 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
PROFESSOR SIMON NEWCOMB has been elected 
president of the Astronomical and Astrophys- 
ical Society of America, organized last week at 
the Yerkes Observatory, in succession to the 
Conferences of Astronomers and Astrophysicists 
which met last year at the Harvard College 
Observatory and the preceding year at Yerkes 
Observatory. 
THE delegates of the National Geographic 
Society to the Seventh International Geograph- 
