December 18, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



533 



hand, is disseminated through the air to a con- 

 siderable distance : some claim that this may be as 

 much as haK a mile, but this is probably exag- 

 gerated. The disease known in France as ' rouget ' 

 is supposed by some to be identical with our swine 

 plag-ue or hog cholera. Its virus is a long and slender 

 bacillus. Pasteur's vaccine contams this bacillus, 

 and not the figure-of-eight form which he first 

 described. The • rothlauf ' of Germany is character- 

 ized by a fine bacillus, apparently identical with 

 that of Pasteur's vaccine. In rothlauf the period 

 of incubation is shorter than in swine plague ; 

 and another difference is absence of ulceration of 

 intestine. The author inoculated four hogs with 

 Pasteur's vaccine : one died ; the three others sur- 

 vived, but, when they were subsequently exposed 

 to our hog cholera, they contracted it, and died. 

 It" is evident, therefore, that the rouget of the 

 French, and the hog cholera of the United States, 

 are different diseases, and that to introduce into 

 this country general vaccination with Pasteur's 

 vaccine would not protect our swine against 

 cholera, but would introduce a new disease, and 

 result in great loss and injury. 



In the discussion which followed. Dr. Salmon 

 stated, that, in his opinion, the virulence of the dis- 

 ease did not depend in any great measure upon 

 the sanitary conditions with which the animals 

 were sun'ounded. It was as fatal at the experi- 

 mental station in Washington, where the most 

 rigid^ cleanliness was practised, as elsewhere. 



At the evening session on Dec. 8, Dr. James E. 

 Reeves, the president, delivered the annual ad- 

 dress. He especially called attention to some 

 glaring deficiencies in the national organization. 

 Congress had made no provision for the study of 

 the causation of diseases that carried off tens of 

 thousands of the people every year, and to-day we 

 are compelled to submit to the mortification of 

 having our children taken to Paris, where a 

 Frenchman, Pasteur, has the only means w^hich 

 can save their lives. His address was an earnest 

 plea for help to estabMsh such a biological labora- 

 tory as the country could take pride in, for the in- 

 vestigation of human diseases with reference to 

 then- causation and prevention. He also deprecated 

 the weakened condition in which the National 

 board of health had been placed by the with- 

 drawal of funds. 



An account of the small-pox in Canada, and the 

 methods of dealing with it in the different prov- 

 inces, was given by Dr. P. H. Bryce, secretary of 

 the Provincial board of health, Toronto, Ontario. 

 In 1884 the town of Hungerford was visited by 

 small-pox. Before a knowledge of its existence 

 there was obtained by the board of health, one 

 hundred and fifty persons were attacked ; and yet 



so vigorous were the methods adopted to control 

 it, that within two weeks the last case occurred. 

 In April of the present year two cases occuiTed in 

 Montreal : one was taken to a house in the city, 

 and gave no further trouble ; the other was re- 

 moved to a general hospital, the Hotel Dieu, and 

 soon there were nineteen cases, of which seven 

 were fatal. From this the disease Sfjread, so that 

 in April there were 6 deaths ; in May, 10 ; in June, 

 13 ; July, 46 ; August, 239 ; September, 660 ; Oc- 

 tober, 1,391 ; November, 633. In aU, thus far, 

 there have been three thousand deaths, in about five 

 hundred different houses. From the city it spread 

 to the suburbs, where it is now prevalent. In order 

 to prevent the introduction of the disease into On- 

 tario, the board of health of that province sent in- 

 spectors into Montreal, and every passenger and 

 his baggage were inspected before they passed the 

 boundary-line between the provinces. Rags were 

 prohibited under all circumstances, and other 

 goods were admitted only when accompanied by 

 the certificates of these inspectors that they were 

 not infected. Vaccination of all unprotected per- 

 sons was enforced. Although the disease was so 

 prevalent in aU the eastern parts of Canada, yet 

 but fifteen cases have occurred in the entue prov- 

 ince of Ontario, and not one case from infected 

 baggage, merchandise, or clothing,— a far less 

 number than have occurred in the city of New 

 York in the same period, distant as it is from the 

 centre of infection. One case had been traced to 

 a letter. 



Dr. Hingston of Montreal ex]Dlained at some 

 length the difficulties which the health officials had 

 had in their attempts to stamp out the disease in 

 that city. Some thirteen years ago anti-vaccina- 

 tion documents began to be cuculated in the 

 French language, and this has continued ever 

 since. Every vaccination followed by any in- 

 flammatory trouble was denounced as an outrage, 

 the inflammation denominated erysipelas, and the 

 child declared to be poisoned. As a resiflt of this 

 agitation, but few of the French Canadians born 

 during the past thirteen years were vaccinated, 

 and it was among them that smaU-pox has found 

 its victims. 



' Impure air and unhealthy occupations as pre- 

 disposing causes of pulmonary consumption,' was 

 the title of a paper by Dr. C. W. Chancellor, secre- 

 tary of the State board of health, Maryland. Con- 

 suiuption causes one-fifth of all the deaths in 

 England, one-sixth in France, one-seventh in Ger- 

 many and Austria, and one-eighth in the United 

 States. In 1880 the total deaths m this country 

 from all diseases was 756,893. Impure air in 

 rooms where tailors and seamstresses worked all 

 day, with closed wmdow^s and no means of venti- 



