EDITORIAL. 
789 
the young man, whose family and all ancestors had been 
healthy. 
* 
* * 
Now, to close this already long chronicle on the subject of 
tuberculosis, a few suggestions which I find in one paper, and 
which I give for what they are worth : 
Rules for the regulation of the means for controlling the 
disease are the order of the day, and the efforts of those who 
work in that direction are worthy of success. The injunction 
not to expectorate in public conveyances (stages, omnibuses, 
tramways, etc.) has been followed by an urgent request to the 
people, by little bills posted all over the city of Paris, not to 
spit on the sidewalks. These measures have in them a certain 
amount of good reason ; but what of the law which, it is said, 
will be asked of the government, and which among its clauses 
has this : No spitting shall be allowed in government build¬ 
ings by the functionaries Under penalty of dismissal; dry 
sweeping of the offices shall be replaced by wet cleaning obli¬ 
gatory in all governmental buildings; every official functionary 
shall have a clean sanitary record ; annual statistics shall be 
made of all functionaries as to their morbidity and mortality, 
etc., etc. 
Of course, the law will never be passed ; will it ever be pro¬ 
posed ? But, at any rate, it shows to what absurd extremes 
some may be carried, and be serious in their errors. 
* 
* * 
Vaccination Against Dog Distemper. —In one of my 
last chronicles I wrote briefly in relation to Dr. Physalix’s mode 
of vaccination against dog distemper, and told of the appoint¬ 
ment of a commission to test the value of the new discovery. 
Experiments were started several months ago, and a meeting of 
the commission was called recently to discuss the value of those 
experiments and prepare a report for the Societe Pratique. A 
very serious discussion took place and a somewhat unfavorable 
interpretation might have been the result had it not been shown 
that the experiments were not entirely exempt from criticism, 
