380 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



and MacCrimmon, and if we except the last-named, which 

 is represented by one old woman only, at whose demise the 

 family will become extinct, there are only five. This, of 

 course, indicates a good deal of blood relationship amongst 

 the. existing population, but the ill effects of in-breeding 

 are not so apparent as might have been anticipated, ami 

 are less evident thau in some other isolated portions of the 

 British Isies with which I am acquainted. All the older 

 people speak Graelic, and nothing else ; but the younger 

 generation, having been taught English in the school, can 

 converse in that language, and some of the young men 

 speak it very well. There arc now nineteen children 

 between the ages of 5 and 14 attending the school, and 

 there are eight in the place under live years of age. Small 

 families are the rule in St. Kilda, but this is in part due 

 to the ravages of that terrible disease, Tetanus neonatorum, 

 which up to recent } T ears carried off a very high proportion 

 of the infants. Now, however, thanks to the exertions of 

 the late minister, Mr. Fiddes, who was instructed in the 

 requisite antiseptic measures to adopt by a Glasgow 

 surgeon, this dread disease has been banished from their 

 midst. There is no doubt that the disease was conveyed 

 by direct infection in uncleanly wrappers used to swathe 

 the infants in, and no child was safe until the cicatriza- 

 tion of the umbilical cord, about the eighth day, barred the 

 channel by which the tetanus bacillus entered the system. 

 Much ingenuity has been expended by various writers in 

 discussing the causes of the prevalence of this remarkable 

 disease; but a simple explanation may be found in the 

 damp mud floors of the houses in which the people till 

 Lately lived. The tetanus bacillus, as is well known, lives 

 in damp soil, and there can be little doubt that it was in 

 this way introduced into their tenements, and handed on 

 from one child's clothing to another, owing to the want of 



