PLAGUE IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

1022 THE EYESIGHT OF BOARD SCHOOL CHILDREN.

abdomen a red, painful, crepitating, gaseous abscess appeared.It contained viscid, inodorous pus and the bacillus perfringens.In the standard works MM. Soupault and Guillemot couldnot find any similar cases, but they have collected fromdifferent sources the following observations. After the intra-muscular injection of ether a huge gaseous abscess formed.2Two other cases in which ether was injected are recordedby Lautaret.3 Frankel has published two cases.4 In one etherand camphorated oil were injected successively and in theother morphine. He found a microbe in both cases which hetermed the " bacillus phlegmones emphyematosus" and whichseems to be identical with the bacillus perfringens describedabove. Numerous other microbes produce gas in livingtissues. The bacillus perfringens has been found frequentlyin the pus of appendicitis. It has also been found in cases offcetid otorrhcea, foetid pleurisy, and pulmonary gangrene.In almost all the cases of gaseous abscesses the patients wereaffected with grave disease-phthisis, typhoid fever, pyloriccancer, cholera, &c. Cachexia seems therefore to be a predis-posing cause. The liquids injected have almost all beenirritant: possibly this property also plays a part, favouringthe development of the bacillus in injured tissues. Whetherthe bacillus is inoculated by the hypodermic needle in

consequence of neglect of antiseptic precautions or whetherit reaches the skin by the circulation from some intestinal orother lesion has not been determined.

THE EYESIGHT OF BOARD SCHOOL CHILDREN.

AT the annual general meeting of the supporters of the IIRoyal Eye Hospital, Southwark, held on March 28th, an Ienergetic protest was made against a line of policy recently pursued by the London School Board. Mr. Malcolm McHardy,the senior surgeon, who occupied the chair, complained thatthe system in question had threatened to disorganise the entireout-patient work of the hospital. It was very important thatthe eyes of children subjected to the strain of compulsoryeducation should be systematically examined as to their

powers of vision, and he considered that the London SchoolBoard ought to have from the first arranged to ascertain thefitness of the children’s eyes and eyesight for the tasksimposed upon them. Compulsory education of the youngcarried on without regard to the fitness of the children’s

eyesight must cause deterioration of the eyesight andof the eyes of the young in a ratio increasing withboth the advancing age and the educational standardof the pupils. The truth of this proposition was

so obvious that last year the board directed that the

eyesight of the pupils should be examined by the teachers,who, when the visual power appeared to be below a

given standard, should report on the subject to the child’sparents on a printed form, recommending that skilled adviceconcerning the child’s eyes should be secured immediately,and suggesting that for the purpose the child should be takento an ophthalmic hospital or to the ophthalmic department ofa general hospital, and the addresses and hours for attend-ance thereat were tabulated on the paper. The con-

sequence of this was that during the Christmas holidays,without notice to the ophthalmic surgeons concerned,thousands of children with radically defective eyesightwere brought to the various ophthalmic out-patientcharities of the metropolis. The out-patient machineryand staff, thus inundated, were overwhelmed, and thedifficulties of the position were increased by the short-ness of the daylight at that season of the year. At the

Royal Eye Hospital alone, in one week, upwards of 800 suchchildren with defective sight thus referred from the boardschools were counted among ne new attendances. By

2 Cayla: Thèse de Bucquet, 1883.3 These de Paris, 1898.

4 Ueber Gas Iphlegmonen, Hamburg und Leipzig, 1893.

prolonging the hours for the attendance of the staff until aslate as 7 P.M., 8 P.M., and even 9 P.M., and by abstainingfrom all attempts at clinical instruction, it was possible tosee every new case, but Mr. McHardy maintained thatthis very important work should be done systematically byspecially trained examiners, not at the expense of charitybut at the cost of the London School Board, and that the

ophthalmic out-patient departments of the hospitals shouldoffer the consultation advantages which might be desirablefor a selected minority of cases.

PLAGUE IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

LETTERS received from Buenos Ayres show that since theend of January the plague has made but feeble progress inthat city and in Rosario and has not manifested itself inany fresh place. The extreme measures taken by theGovernment,l which included the isolation of an importantcity like Rosario and many vexatious limitations of railwayand river traffic, have been and are still being severelycriticised. The contention is that while the few cases whichhave occurred are undoubtedly of the nature of bubonic

plague, inasmuch as the specific bacillus has been identifiedin them, in no way can these few sporadic cases bedesci ibed as epidemic," enough time having now elapsedto prove that the bacilli have not found favourable soil for

development. Official circles now tacitly admit that theywere too precipitate" in proclaiming a state of trueOriental epidemic plague. "

TEMPERAMENT AND TENDENCY TO CRIME.

IN a recent issue of the Archives d’Anthropologie CriminelleDr. J. Marty publishes an important communication on theabove subject which, based as it is on extensive and carefulobservations and supplemented by statistical tables, throwsan interesting light on the subject of temperament and thetendency to crime and moral delinquency. The diagnosis oftemperaments is a difficult and delicate affair. Dr. Martyhas brought together, after long observation, the recordsof several delinquents whom he classifies as belongingto the sanguine temperament, of an equal number of thelymphatic temperament, of 119 of the nervous and 20of the bilious temperament, of 200 of the lymphatic-sanguine, 171 of the lymphatic-nervous, and 200 of thenervous temperaments. The conclusions which he arrives atare as follows. As regards precocity in crime the " lym-phatics" belong to the first rank, while far behindand in the last rank are the "lymphatic-nervous." The

"lymphatics" occupy the first rank in the crime of

vagrancy, while for crimes and assaults against personsthose of the sanguine temperament take first place. For

crimes without violence against morals and propriety the"lymphatic-nervous" slightly surpass those of sanguinetemperament. For habits and vices of idleness the purelymphatics take the palm. Apart from crimes due to violentimpulses such as characterise the sanguine other sub-divisions of crime are hard to correlate with the other

temperaments. ’’ Police crimes against the safety of railways "

were all met with among "lymphatics," but, as Dr. Martypoints out, it is not legitimate to press such coincidences toofar, as the various factors are highly complex and the nexusof the association between temperament and the specificnature of crime is not always demonstrable. Among soldiersDr. Marty has found that the sanguine are the least criminaland that the nervous are the most given to " crimes ofviolence against persons or property " and to drunkenness.All these distinctions are fairly consistent and constant andimply correlations between temperament and tendency tocrime.

1 THE LANCET, March 10th, 1900, p. 721.