PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Si 
for promoting its spread through the mouse population, if 
the organisms could be eaten with impunity. 
Mr. F. E. Place, in the South Australian Journal of Agri- 
culture for 1917, attributed paralysis and other symptoms 
in horses to their having been fed on mousey, and conse- 
quently mouldy, chaff. The mouldiness would be due to the 
aecess of rain to the damaged stacks, and so only indirectly 
attributable to mice. Any deteriorated food may be re- 
sponsible for indisposition in horses, and it seems to me 
that in this instance undue stress has been laid on the part 
played by the mice in the direct causation of disease. 
Disease in Men Associated with the Mice——Human skin 
affections might arise in two ways in this connection. 
Firstly, the handling of decomposed carcases amongst soiled 
and destroyed grain might lead to ordinary dirt infections 
of scratches or cuts. Secondly, the specific infections of 
certain ringworms might establish themselves in man. Of 
the former, which is not, of course, confined to the condi- 
tions brought about by the mice, but might occur under 
dirty conditions of any kind, or eyen apart from such, I 
have seen several instances. In one case, the back of one 
hand, and the back of the other near the thumb, shewed red, 
glazed, echthymatous patches of the size of a threepenny- 
bit or sixpenny-bit, the edges being slightly raised, and the 
epithelium grey beyond the edge. There were some smaller 
similar areas (about seven on each side) on other parts of 
the backs of the hands and of the fingers, and a single 
pustule just above the left wrist. The patient attributed 
the sores to being bitten by mice at night; but he could not 
give a clear account of having felt the bites at the time. 
Staphylococcus aureus and diphtheroid bacilli were grown 
from the lesions. As regards ringworm in man, Dr. Her- 
man Lawrence first called attention to its undue preva- 
lence under the title of ‘‘Dermatomycosis “in Mice and 
