Tidswell, m.b., ch.M., d.p.h., and Dr. J. B. Oleland, m.d., ch. m., 

 Dr. A. E. Finckh, m.b., Mr. G. P. Darnell Smith, b. sc, f.i.c, 

 f.g.s., and Mr. J. Harvey Johnston, m.a., b. sc. 



Publications in biochemistry are pouring forth from 

 workers in all parts of the world in a constant steady 

 stream, and form a wealth of materials from which it is 

 difficult to make any selection without overloading my 

 discourse, but I must mention the discovery of a group of 

 bodies termed by Overton the lipoids. These lipoids are 

 contained in the outer layers or cell-membranes, and become 

 the means by which narcotics, anaesthetics, and poisons 

 obtain an entry into the cell and set up their specific action. 

 It would appear that common intoxication is the result of 

 the injury by alcohol to these lipoids, since ethylic alcohol 

 is soluble in fats and thus displaces the lipoidal and non- 

 lipoidal protoplasmic constituents from their normal and 

 active conditions. 



In recent work in bacteriological investigations perhaps 

 the most startling discovery of the last few months has 

 been that of the presence of the Bacillus typhosus in the 

 urine of persons who have once suffered from typhoid fever. 

 The patients may be convalescent or may have apparently 

 completely recovered, but they still go on spreading enteric 

 fever in the most mysterious manner through their excreta. 

 They therefore become dangerous agents in the propagation 

 of this malady and are now regarded as "typhoid carriers" 

 unsuspectingly spreading the disease, and probably becom- 

 ing the primary cause of many new epidemic and endemic 

 outbreaks of typhoid. Recent investigations shew that 

 about four per cent, of convalescent cases become chronic 

 carriers ; up to the present a practical method of treating 

 these chronic carriers has not been devised, and some 

 bacteriologists believe that "once a carrier, always a 

 carrier." It is now recognised that patients, who have 



