November 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



631 



ease contracted was of the pneumonic form, 

 which is especially contagious and is usually 

 fatal, but the possibility of its extension in 

 Europe has unfortunately been demonstrated. 

 This is not likely to occur at Vienna, where 

 every precautiou has been taken to isolate those 

 infected and to destroy all cultures and animals 

 under experiment. But the plague may at any 

 time be imported from the present epidemic 

 centers in India, and may obtain a foothold 

 before it is detected. It will be remembered 

 that the last epidemic of the ' black death' in 

 Great Britain was the great plague of London, 

 in 1665, when 70,000 persons died. 



The Indian government has determined to 

 appoint a special commission, says the BrUisli 

 Medical Journal, to consist of five members, to 

 conduct investigations regarding the plague. 

 The speciiic duty of the commission will be to 

 inquire into the origin of the various outbreaks 

 of the plague and the manner in which the 

 disease is spread. An official statement also is 

 required as to the efficacy of the serum treat- 

 ment and the prevention of plague by means of 

 inoculation. So far as the nominations on this 

 commission have been made public, two Indian 

 civilians, Messrs. J. E. Sewwett and A. Cumine, 

 have already been appointed, but it is under- 

 stood that three other members will be nomi- 

 nated by the Secretary of State for India to pro- 

 ceed from this country, of whom one will act as 

 chairman, while two will be experts. There is 

 plenty of work for the commission to do. 

 Plague, as Dr. Simpson in his address at Edin- 

 burgh stated, has demonstrated the absolute 

 necessity for a trained sanitary service for India, 

 and, although the intended commission may 

 work out the scientific bearings of the epidemic 

 of plague, it must be remembered that plague 

 is but one of the epidemics which ever threaten 

 India. Plague is but an expression of the gen- 

 eral insanitary state, and any governmental in- 

 quiry which does not deal with the general re- 

 lief of the insanitation of India will but touch 

 the fringe of the evil. A sanitary service, com- 

 plete in all its branches, administrative, investi- 

 gative and scientific, is required in India. 



The Harveian oration was delivered at the 

 Royal College of Physicians on October 18lh by 



Sir Dyce Duckworth. According to the report 

 in the London Times, after urging the claims 

 of the College to the consideration of gener- 

 ous benefactors, he pointed out that Harvey 

 had definitely charged them to encourage re- 

 search. What were greatly needed now in Eng- 

 land were research laboratories attached to 

 hospital wards and post-mortem theatres, and 

 also a select staff of fully-trained investigators 

 available for service throughout the Empire. 

 It was surely humiliating that researches were 

 permitted to be made for the public benefit in 

 various parts of British territory by foreigners, 

 while many of their countrymen and country- 

 women, owing to ignorance and mawkish senti- 

 mentality, were doing their best to debar the 

 training of such men in England. After allud- 

 ing to the results of recent pathological research 

 in regard to the preventive treatment of tuber- 

 culosis. Sir Dyce Duckworth observed that the 

 Bontgen rays have as yet yielded little new in- 

 formation, and their therapeutic influence was 

 not determined, but according to Rieder, of 

 Munich, the rays emitted from high- vacuum 

 tubes killed bacteria. The influence of glycer- 

 ine in destroying some of the most noxious 

 microbes which gained access to ordinary vac- 

 cine lymph was very noteworthy, arid he could 

 not but imagine that this agent might yet be 

 found of more extended usefulness as a bacteri- 

 cide. Expressing his private opinion, though 

 he believed it to be shared by the majority of 

 those he addressed, he did not hesitate to stig- 

 matize the recent Vaccination Act as a piece of 

 panic legislation, a lamentable concession to 

 ignorance, fraught with serious peril to the 

 whole community, and unworthy of the duty 

 and dignity of any British government. He 

 closed with a brief appreciation of Harvey's 

 chief scientific achievements, and of his great 

 guiding principle, devotion to truth.' 



The office of Regents of the University of the 

 State of New York calls attention to the fact 

 that the last few years of this century are wit- 

 nessing greater activity in building and equip- 

 ping medical schools than any other period. 

 At no time in New York State history has so 

 much been done as within the past few years to 

 advance the interests of medical education. 

 The advanced requirements for license, instead 



