SEPTEMBER 3, 1897. ] 
York Medical Record, since the appointment of 
medical inspectors of schools in this city has 
been made by Dr. Blauvelt, the chief medical 
inspector. The report includes a table show- 
ing the different kinds of diseases for which 
children were excluded from the schools, 
Parasitic diseases of the head appear to have 
been the most prevalent, 2,627 cases having 
been discovered among the children examined. 
Contagious diseases of the eye come next on 
the list, over 700 cases being reported. Skin 
diseases claimed 175 victims, and diphtheria 91. 
Measles was responsible for the exclusion from 
school of 51 children, and 20 cases of genuine 
scarlet fever were discovered. Croup was of 
comparatively rare occurrence, but 26 scholars 
were compelled to forego school attendance for 
a short time on account of whooping-cough. 
The report gives the number suffering from 
mumps as 117, and from chicken-pox as 93. 
Ir appears from an article in Machinery that 
the Stockholm Exhibition, which has attracted 
but little attention in the daily press, is of con- 
siderable scientific interest. The exhibition 
grounds cover an area of about 220,000 square 
yards—a space which is about doubled if the 
mountain plateau, which is given up to a real- 
istic reproduction of Swedish country life from 
the Laplander’s hut to the thriving farmer’s 
homestead, with all the fauna and flora of the 
country, is added to it. The most imposing 
building in the grounds is the Industrial Hall, 
which is said to be the largest wooden structure 
in the world, a forest of about 34,000 trees hay- 
ing been used up in its elevation. The exhibits 
in this building are selections from the ordinary 
products of the industries of Sweden, Norway, 
Denmark and Russo-Finland. Not far from it 
is the Machinery Hall, and in close contiguity 
are mining exhibits, forest exhibits, electric 
works and numerous private pavilions illustra- 
tive of the industrial works of the country. 
PROFESSOR RAPHAEL MELDOLA writes to the 
London Times regarding the case of death from 
an inflammable hair wash which has excited 
much discussion in Great Britain. ‘‘It is, of 
course, well known to those who are in the 
habit of dealing with low boiling-point liquids 
giving off inflammable vapors, such, for ex- 
SCIENCE. 
367 
ample, as ether, that the presence of a naked 
flame, even at a distance of many yards, is at- 
tended with great danger. But in the present 
case Professor Meldola corroborates by personal 
experience the contention of Lord Kelvin that 
an electric spark, although in itself feeble, is 
quite sufficient to ignite an explosive mixture 
of hydrocarbon vapor and air. Some years ago 
he was consulted by a manufacturer who had 
an extensive business in what is called the ‘ dry 
cleaning’ of wearing apparel. In this process 
the goods, previously well dried, are immersed 
in a vessel of benzine, in which they are kept 
in motion by means of mechanical stirrers. In 
spite of every precaution to insure the absence 
of naked flames in the building in which the 
operation was conducted, fires were constantly 
occurring, and at one time the process threat- 
ened to become a failure on account of this 
apparently spontaneous inflammability of the 
hydrocarbon vapor. It was only when the pos- 
sibility of the generation of electricity and the 
passage of sparks were suggested that precau- 
tions were taken to exclude air from the upper 
portions of the vessels and that the process be- 
came practicable. The experience afforded by 
this process points most conclusively to the cor- 
rectness of the electric spark theory of the 
ignition, and on this ground alone the use of 
such inflammable hydrocarbons for cleaning 
the hair—apart from the very doubtful ques- 
tion of their efficacy—-should be absolutely con- 
demned.”’ 
THE Executive Committee of the Interna- 
tional Medical Congress has followed the ex- 
ample of its predecessors at earlier gatherings 
in publishing descriptions of the medical insti- 
tutions of the country. The British Medical 
Journal gives an account of one of these, con- 
taining a full description of the medical societies 
of Russia. The oldest Russian medical society 
was founded in Moscow in the year in 1804, 
and is still in existence. It is attached to the 
University of Moscow, and is known as the 
Physico-Medical Society. A year later the 
Vilna Medical Society was instituted; it also 
still exists, but owing to the chequered career 
of the University of Vilna (which was removed 
to Kief after the Polish rising of 1833) this 
society has lost something of its former prestige. 
