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bringing under control the elastic force which must residein liquid air or other liquefied or even solidified gases.True, the six-cylinder engine has even thus early beensucceeded by the Rolls-Royce eight-cylinder, but this is amatter of development rather than of constructive change. Asolution of the speed-limit problem is to be attempted withthe eight-cylinder engine, for a car is being manufacturedfor a well-known motorist with one of these enginesspecially designed to travel on the flat at a speednot exceeding. 20 miles an hour and to ascend hills

at not less than this speed without changing gear. On

this particular car only two speeds forward and a

reverse are provided. Magneto-ignition is making con-siderable headway and the prediction that it will as surelydisplace the coil and accumulator as the spray has the sur-face carburettor seems to be a correct one. Improvements inminor details were much in evidence but were not of anystriking character. Of accessories of all descriptions therewas an extensive display and the battle of the tyres is asundecided now as it was years ago. The pneumatic tyre,with its chief drawback from the point of view of themedical practitioner-its liability to puncture at a criticalmoment-still holds the field in immense numerical

superiority to its competitors and the only contrivancein any way seriously to challenge its position at

the present seems to be the Hallé spring wheel,of which more will undoubtedly be heard. Of the

large number of cars on exhibition it is not possible,of course, to speak in detail in a medical journal. There wasan immense variety of cars at the exhibition, ranging inprice from a little over £100 to considerably over £1000.There were a few cars specially put forward as designed forthe medical profession, and these, with one or two cars

not shown at Olympia, making similar claims, we hope torefer to in a subsequent issue. Prices have practicallyremained stationary, a tendency to a fall in the higherpriced cars being insignificant. There are at least a

dozen firms who can supply a serviceable car at from.E200 to .E300 and there are a few who will supply one at alower figure than &200. We notice that not a single effortappears to have been made by any manufacturer to grapplewith the dust problem ; at any rate, there was no evidenceof such effort. The manufacturers take up the position thatany move in this direction must come from those responsiblefor the making and upkeep of the roads and perhaps theyare in the main right. But the dust raised by motor-carsconstitutes one of the chief objections to their use andall interested in them should do their utmost to mitigatethe evil.

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THE MEDICAL MAN, THE CORONER, AND THEPATHOLOGIST.

Mr. T. Barclay Cockerton, Local Government Board

auditor, resumed his inquiry on Tuesday last at the officesof the London County Council into the application of theBritish Medical Association, as ratepayers, to disallow certainpayments made by Mr. Troutbeck, the coroner for West-minster and South-West London, to Dr. L. Freyberger formaking post-mortem examinations and giving evidenceat inquests. Mr. W. C. Ryde, who represented the LondonCounty Council, the body which is supposed to approveof Mr. Troutbeck’s methods, argued that Mr. Troutbeckhad not exceeded his discretion as coroner, andhad not contravened the Coroners Act by giving thepost-mortem examinations in his district almost exclusivelyto Dr. Freyberger. Mr. Bodkin, who appeared for theBritish Medical Association, quoted the opinion of the LordChancellor, who "is not in favour of the coroner’s practice "

though he does not find "that there is such a case as wouldenable him to exercise his only jurisdiction in removing the

coroner." Mr. Bodkin took exactly the same view of theCoroners Act, 1887, that we have taken in our numerous

articles under the heading of " The Medical Man, the Coroner,and the Pathologist," for he pointed out that a pathologistresident in Hampstead (Dr. Freyberger’s registered addressis in the Regent’s Park-road) could not be described as "alegally qualified practitioner who is at the time in actualpractice in or near the place where the death happened "when the death happened in South-West London. The cruxof the case is whether a definite appointment has beencreated by Mr. Troutbeck in favour of Dr. Freyberger,or whether it is mere chance that Dr. Freybergerhas received from Mr. Troutbeck £1767 of publicmoney in 22 months for the performance of post-mortemexaminations and the giving of medical evidence. The

figures are Mr. Bodkin’s, but all our readers knowthat Mr. Troutbeck, in defiance of medical opinion,and apparently in opposition to the Lord Chancellor’s view,has given the medical work in connexion with his office ascoroner almost exclusively to Dr. Freyberger. The inquiryhaving concluded the auditor said that he would reserve hisjudgment, the case being of public importance and also ofconsiderable difficulty.-At a recent inquest at Westminsterthe policy adopted by Mr. Troutbeck in assigning all post-mortem examinations to Dr. L. Freyberger was again illus-trated. It will be remembered that the suggestion has beenput forward that his employment is necessary in complicatedand obscure cases in order to obtain satisfactory evidence asto the cause of death. In the particular instance referred tothe deceased was found by a rent collector lying dead witha bottle and a tumbler beside him, each containing a smallquantity of cyanide of potassium. The police, who werecalled in at once, summoned their divisional surgeon, Dr.

Percy J. Edmunds, who took possession of the poison, pru-dently considering that it ought to be in the keeping of onefully aware of its properties and not in that of a policeman.Apparently Mr. Troutbeck held the opinion that Dr. Edmundsshould not have done this and perhaps technically he had noright to do so, particularly as the coroner was pretty certainto follow his usual course with regard to the evidence at theinquest. It seems unnecessary, however, to point out thatin a case of poisoning the question whether the deceasedcommitted suicide may depend quite as much upon what isobserved by a medical man summoned immediately to seethe body as upon post-mortem examination, and also that adivisional surgeon of the Metropolitan Police, selected for hisposition on account of his ascertained qualifications, wouldhardly be likely to find a case such as that described beyondthe range of his attainments as a pathologist.

HEALTH IN THE TROPICS.

ON Nov. 22nd Dr. Charles F. Harford, physician to theChurch Missionary Society, gave a lecture in the anatomicaltheatre of the University of Cambridge under the presidencyof the Master of Trinity aud in the presence of various

professors in the Faculty of Medicine. Maps illustrating thegeographical distribution of the different tropical diseaseswere shown. After alluding to the Schools of TropicalMedicine in London and Liverpool and the part which they,as well as the University of Cambridge, played in makingknown the causes of tropical diseases, Dr. Harford

spoke of Livingstone College, of which he is the

principal. Micro-photographs of parasites were shownand the lecturer then instanced the enormous dropwhich has occurred on the Suez Canal in the frequencyof malaria, a drop which is almost entirely dueto the thorough carrying out of operations directed againstmosquitos. He advocated that all medical men destined forservice abroad should be trained in tropical medicine andadded that missionaries and others going to tropical climates

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-should be trained in the elements of tropical hygiene andthat the principles of tropical hygiene should be taught inall elementary schools of our tropical dependencies. We

quite agree with Dr. Harford, but there will always be acertain proportion of even educated men who althoughthey have been taught simple rules for hygiene will notbelieve them, as was the case with the American colony inPanama to which we referred in our issue of Nov. 25th.As regards mosquitos the use of a net as a protectionagainst the stings of these pests is older than the time ofHerodotus, who mentions that nets for this purpose werein common use in Egypt (Euterpe). Moreover, althoughthe definite connexion between mosquitos and malariahas only been quite recently determined, yet it was known,by at all events the middle of the last century, that the useof a mosquito net "kept out malaria." And yet we fancymany of the early school of missionaries looked upon the useof a net, or indeed of other means, of preserving their healthas something just as unsuitable for soldiers in the field ofspiritual warfare as Horace considered the conopium unsuit-able for the carnal warrior,

Interque signa turpe militariaSol aspicit conopium,

though-probably in this case the poet was referring to whatthe conopium concealed. Nowadays, however, it is reco-

.gnised that for a worker in the spiritual vineyard to take

means to preserve his health is to do just as good or evenbetter work than the practice of the extreme asceticism orthe fatalistic view which cut off so many valuable lives intheir prime. -

EPSOM COLLEGE.

WE print on p. 1641 a letter from Sir Constantine Holman,the treasurer of Epsom College, appealing for funds on

behalf of the foundation attached to the school. As our

readers probably know, 50 boys, the sons of medical men inpoor circumstances, are educated, clothed, and boarded freeof charge, and 50 pensioners, who are either aged medicalmen or the widows of medical men, receive small annuities.In consequence of a breakdown in the drainage systemwhich was constructed about 50 years ago, a sum of over

..R6000 has had to be expended in putting the sanitarysystem into order. A public school is expected to be

especially well drained and Epsom College is governed by acouncil on which are several well-known members of themedical profession. Nothing, therefore, has been sparedto render the drainage of the buildings perfect in everyway, while the whole of the work has been carried out

under the direction of a sanitary expert, Mr. Reginald G.Hansell, with the full approval of the local sanitaryauthorities. Though the sum expended is large the councilwas right to face the difficulty boldly. In order to

repay loans from the bankers and to meet applicationsfrom the contractors a part of the small general purposesfund has had to be sold, with the result that theincome from invested funds will in the future be

materially reduced. Since the pensioners and founda-tion scholars are almost entirely maintained out of

voluntary contributions the treasurer earnestly appealsfor increased support, more especially for annual sub-

scriptions, and he frankly states that the present numbersof beneficiaries cannot be kept up unless more support isreceived. That a reduction in the number of either

,pensioners or foundation scholars would inflict hardshipmay be gathered from the statement that there are alreadyon the books of the institution 14 candidates for pensioner-ships and 23 candidates for foundation scholarships, in spiteof the fact that six pensioners and 11 foundationers wereelected in June last, while the number of a<pplica.’tions is.sure to be swelled during the- next few months. Since

the opinion is sometimes expressed that this founda-tion is a " southern charity " and should not lookto the north for pecuniary support, it is well to

notice that at the last election there were candidates

residing in Bolton and Blackburn, in Wales’and the Westerncounties, and in various parts of, Scotland and Ireland,while of the present pensioners some reside in all parts ofGreat Britain, some in France, and some in South Africaand Western Australia. It is to be hoped that the medicalprofession generally will come to the help of the council atthe present time. The need for funds is not, as in the caseof so many charities, simply chronic poverty, but is of an

exceptional character, while the cause is one for which thegoverning body is not in the least responsible. We havebefore now pointed out that the financial position of EpsomCollege could be made secure by a subscription of 5s.

per annum from every member of the medical pro-fession. Those who have put off from time to time the

pleasure of contributing to the funds of the foundation ofEpsom College could hardly find a more suitable occasionto commence subscribing than the present, for Old

Epsomians have just celebrated the jubilee of the openingof the College. Those wishing for further particularsregarding the work of the institution can obtain copies ofthe council’s annual report on application to the secretary,Mr. J. B. Lamb, at the office, 37, Soho-square, London, W.,where contributions will be gratefully received; or theymay be sent to the treasurer, Sir Constantine Holman, M.D.,26, Gloucester-place, Portman-square, London, W.

BILATERAL PARALYSIS AT BIRTH OF THELOWER ARM TYPE.

PARALYSIS in the child after difficult labour is generally ofthe upper arm type. Occasionally paralysis of the lower armtype is seen but it usually is the remains of a total paralysisof the arm. Cases of bilateral paralysis of the lower arm typeare very rare. In the Boston -Iledical and Surgical Journal ofOct. 19th Dr. J. J. Thomas has reported two cases. In the

first, a boy, aged seven months, was taken to hospital onDec. 7th, 1902. He was born after difficult labour, in whichthe face presented with the chin posterior. Under chloro-form an attempt was made to flex the head but failed.

Traction with the forceps also failed ; so did an attempt atversion, in consequence of contraction of the uterus. Duringthe latter attempt, however, the head was pushed back alittle and with difficulty the presentation was converted intoa cranial one. The labour then proceeded normally but ondelivery paralysis of the arms was observed. On examinationthe forearms tapered to the wrists, probably from muscularatrophy, and the hands hung flaccidly, the wrist-joints beinglax. There were a tendency to extension of the wrist-jointsand no power of prehension. The arms were held abductedalmost at a right angle with the body. The forearms wereheld flexed on the arms and passive extension at the elbowwas resisted. The only voluntary movement of the upperlimbs seemed to be elevation of the arms and flexion of theforearms. On Feb. 4th, 1903, there were found slight move-ment in all the fingers of the left hand except the middlefinger, and movement in the thumb and index finger of theright hand. The hands were held extended and deviatedtowards the ulnar side ; the fingers were extended at theproximal phalanges and flexed at the terminal ones. Therewas well-marked atrophy of the muscles of the forearms,especially of the flexors, and of the muscles of the thenarand hypothenar eminence. The biceps, deltoid, and

supinator longus of both arms responded wejil to faradism,while the triceps and all the muscles of the forearms

gave no response. In May, 1905, the paralysis persistedexcept ,that the,grasp was, stronger, which seemed tp he dueto recovery of power in the loog flexo. Dr. Thomas reports