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to the tidal river at Teddington Weir during times tof threatened floods in its higher readies. A well- (considered scheme on the lines suggested would, iin Dr. Seaton’s experience, prove an immense boonto the country generally, including certain parts ofSurrey, inasmuch as it would he the inei,ns of

removing a potent factor in disease. Further,labourers’ dwellings should be planned with dueregard to health requirements. Dr. Seaton con-

(

siders that by sufficient drainage of low-lying,damp regions which are at present uninhabitable, these regions would be reclaimed to the publicadvantage.

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THE CONTROL OF MASSAGE AND OTHER

ESTABLISHMENTS IN LONDON.

THE Public Control Committee of the London b

County Council have reported to the Council as to the details of the proposals for the control of c

massage and similar establishments recently aadopted. The subject has been thoroughly dis- t

cussed in our columns from several aspects.’ rThe committee stated that nursing homes were proposed to be included, but added that withregard to the great majority of nursing homes, and many ’establishments providing the other forms of treatment, there was no suggestion as to their being carried on in any other than a c

proper manner. It was sometimes alleged that nursing homes were conducted by unqualified - tpersons or with an insufficiently qualified staff ; as , to this the committee was not in a position to judge. They did not consider it to be the duty

*

of the County Council to interfere in such matters.They felt, however, that the principle of registra- tion was the best one that could be adopted, the ;right of appeal to a court of summary jurisdictionbeing given. The report stated that special meansmust be taken to deal with attempts at evasion byadopting trading descriptions other than those I

specified by the Council. Furthermore, if the pro-posed legislation was to be effective severe penaltiesmust, they concluded, be imposed, while all powersobtained ought to be exercised by a central authority.The powers proposed to be acquired by registrationare very full. The premises to be registeredare to comprise those used as nursing homes orfor the purposes of massage or manicure or for

administering curative treatment by light, elec-

tricity, or baths, or other similar treatment, but allPoor-law institutions, and such hospitals and otherpremises as may be later defined, are to be exemptfrom registration. Where the registration authorityhas reason to believe that the title of a business hasbeen adopted as a cloak to the carrying on of adisorderly house, its officers having a special rightof entry, subject to regulations, will proceed toaction. The penalties provided are £50 and a dailypenalty not exceeding £20 for a first offence, andthe same maximum penalties, with or without aterm of imprisonment, in respect of a second or

subsequent offence. In the case of a company it isprovided that proceedings may be taken against allor any of the directors as well as against the

company. The committee have also proposed that-It shall be an offence for any person or company knowingly

to advertise or print or publish an advertisement -of anyowner or occupier who has been struck off the Register,a method of action which shows that the source ofthe evil is properly recognised. The proposals of

1 THE LANCET, Oct. 18th (p. 1131) and 25th (p. 1206).

he Public Control Committee were approved by thecouncil, and action will follow upon the linesndicated.

____

THE TRIAL OF BEILISS.

THE Justschinski trial has concluded, with averdict of acquittal for Beiliss, the Jew accused ofnurdering a Christian boy for the purpose of)btaining Christian blood for ritual use. A differentverdict would have been unthinkable in any civilisedcountry save Russia. But in Russia, and in a leadinganiversity town, possessed of all the appurtenances)f an advanced civilisation, the barbarous beliefbhat such murders do take place still prevails, anduntil the very end of the case Beiliss’s fate hung inthe balance. Indeed, skilled experts seem to havebeen so affected by the prevailing belief as not torealise that the established medico-legal facts in thecase, so far from lending support to the accusationagainst the accused, failed completely to substan-tiate any likelihood of a ritual murder. The matter i&

really brought to a very clear issue in -a pamphletentitled " Der Fall Justschinski,’ Ofizielle Dokumenteund private Gutachten." This pamphlet containsfirst the following protocols: the post-mortem record.of March 2nd, 1911; the second post-mortem recordof March 26th, 1912 ; the report of Professor J. A.Sikorski, of the University of Kieff ; Protocol 61,Report of Professor Obolonsky and ProsectorTufanow. The second part consists of the opinionsthereon of Professor Haberda, of Vienna; ProfessorZiemke, of Kiel; Professor Lacassagne, of Lyons;and Professor Thoinot, of Paris; Mr. A. J. Pepper,Dr. Charles A. Mercier, and Dr. W. H. Willcox, ofLondon; Professor Bleuler, of Zurich; ProfessorBonhoffer, of Berlin; Professor Boedeker, ofZehlendorf ; Professor A. Forel, of Ziirich; ProfessorMeyer, of Konigsberg; and Professors v. Jaureggand Obersteiner, of Vienna. None of these

opinions lend any support to the theory of ritualmurder put forward with circumstantial detail byProfessor Sikorski in a report which is traversed ina lucid and weighty manner. From perusal of thispamphlet it seems to us quite clear that the lucklessboy was not killed with any design of securing hisblood for any purpose, and was not tortured. Theact was probably that of a lunatic.

INACCURACY OF AMERICAN MORTALITYSTATISTICS.

A STARTLING article on the inaccuracy ofAmerican mortality statistics, written by Dr. HorstOertel, pathologist to the Russel-Sage Instituteof New York, has been sent to us, extracted from ajournal called the American Underwriter, andits lessons may not unprofitably be taken toheart by some persons in this country who justlyfall under Dr. Oertel’s censure as dogmaticwriters on the statistics of fatal diseases withouttroubling to test the reliability of the data

upon which their statements are founded. " It isstrange," says Dr. Oertel, that, notwithstanding,much discussion about improvements in themethods of recording and interpreting thesestatistics, the reliability of the death certificate-itself is generally accepted." He then proceeds to.show that the errors and inaccuracies in the

present returns of causes of death are so greatthat it may fairly be doubted whether deductionsbased on the evidence of American statistics areat all trustworthy. The majority of American-

1 Berlin, R. Boll, 1913.

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death certificates, even those of the larger hos-pitals, which represent the best available records,are based mainly on bedside diagnosis only.The testimony of American physicians who havesystematically performed necropsies appears to be tothe effect that the majority of clinical diagnoses areeither wrong or quite insufficient to establish thecause of death. From his own experience Dr.Oertel does not hesitate to state that even at thetime of the necropsy the medical man is frequentlyuncertain about the character of the disease andarrives at the truth only after prolonged study.The statistics of Dr. Cabot, of Boston, are instruc-tive in this regard. He has published the per-centages of correct diagnoses of what appeared tobe the most important lesions revealed by 3000necropsies in that city, from which it appears thateven in the hands of an experienced diagnosticianthe diagnosis of certain diseases was proved correctin the case of not more than 25 per cent. of thedeaths ; whilst the percentage did not exceed 75 percent. in the case of any other fatal disease in thelist. Commenting on Dr. Oertel’s paper the editorjustly remarks that if the actual causes from anyconsiderable proportion of deaths have been in-

correctly diagnosed, and the death certificates madeout accordingly, the whole structure of a country’smortality statistics fairly totters, and the grouping ofclasses, ages, and ratios is necessarily subject to themost serious doubts. It is this gravest of dangers inthe compilation of American mortality statisticsto which Dr. Oertel directs attention, and, in ourjudgment, the subject is worthy of the serious

attention, not of vital statisticians alone, but of allthe more important medical societies, medical

colleges, and hospital authorities of the country.

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

THE death of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace occurred,.at the ripe age of 90, on Friday of last week,Nov. 7th. He will for ever be remembered byhis association with the great alteration in all,our scientific standpoints brought about by theestablishment of the modern doctrines of evolution.As is well known, Wallace enunciated the theory ofnatural selection at the very time when Darwin,after 20 years of solid work, had arrived at similarconclusions, though after more profound and wide-ranging investigations. The attitude of the two

philosophers was marked by the greatest gene-rosity to each other; and when the world elected,and elected quite rightly, to give to Darwinthe chief credit, Wallace’s acknowledgment of thejustice of the verdict was complete. The state-ment that has been made in many places latelythat the work of Wallace was put aside and thathe himself was unduly neglected does not bearinvestigation. He was not a candidate for the

Fellowship of the Royal Society until quite late inhis career, but that body elected him as soon as theusual formalities were complied with, and he wasthe recipient of one of their most important medals.Wallace was an individual and romantic thinker,but his intuition did not always serve him as wellin his attempts to solve other problems as it hadwhen he had jumped at the correct explanation ofthe processes and changes in organic life. Some ofhis writings, while they displayed independentjudgment, were not marked by the discrimina-tion that might have been expected from so

famous a man, and his attitude towards one

phase of scientific medicine was unfortunate.But it would be wrong to be blind to the value of

- grand receptive intelligences like his, because in, one or two points the conclusion which Wallace. ’came to appears to us to be hasty. Medicine

combines with the scientific world in deploring the) loss of a leader, and in acknowledging the debt of

the world to a pioneer in the interpretation of theuniverse.

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OCTOBER AT HOME AND ABROAD.

OCTOBER was a very mild month, with a succes-i sion of winds from the south and south-west,

: bringing abundant rain, but occasional clear skies,which allowed the sun to shine for about the average

.

number of hours for the month. October is normally; the wettest month of the year in nearly all parts of. this country, and generally gives at least one badwind storm. On this occasion, however, the cyclonicsystems either remained on the Atlantic or became,

reduced in energy on arriving over these islands,and except on some of the most exposed points ofthe western and northern coasts the wind seldomrose to the strength of a gale. On the ocean to thewest a vast area was frequently in a very disturbedcondition, some of the storms being very severe, andcontinuing for days. In England the thermometerwas often 5° or 6° above the normal levelboth during the day and at night, and sometimesthe divergence was greater, but as there were a fewrelatively cool spells, the mean for the whole periodwas no more than 3° or 4° above the average.’ At

Kew, where the maximum temperature was as

high as 60° or higher on 17 afternoons, the mean,60°, exceeded the average by 4°, while the meanminimum of the night, 46°, was 3° above. At Bath,Torquay, Bournemouth, and Brighton the meanmaximum was 61°, and the mean minimum also

higher than at Kew, except at Bath. At Torquayand Brighton the figure was 51°, and at Bourne-mouth 48°. In the Midlands the mean maxi-mum temperature was a little below 60°,and in the north of England, as representedby Harrogate and Buxton, 54°, and the mean

minimum 44° or 43°. Paris was warmer thanthe mainland of this country during the day,recording a mean maximum of 62°, the same

figure as Jersey, but at night it was colder, themean minimum being 45°, no higher than thatat Bath. At Brussels the corresponding figures were61° and 46°, but at Berlin they were lower, the meanmaximum of the day only reaching 57°, and themean minimum of the night being as low as 42°.Over the southern regions of Europe there were fewdays with a lower temperature than 70°, whilein southern Italy the thermometer occasionallyexceeded 80°. Round about the 23rd the shelteredthermometer fell to a little below the freezingpoint in the Midlands and north of England,and to some degrees below it in centralIreland, but no frost was registered at Paris orBrussels, and only one, on the 26th, at Berlin. Inmost parts of this country there was more or lessrain on at least 18 days. In the metropolitan areathe total fall was about 3’5 in., exceeding the

average by about 0’75 in. Bath had rather lessrain, its total of 3’1 in. only exceeding the averageby 0’05 in., while at Harrogate there was no morethan 2’8 in. against an average half an inch greater.Along the south and south-west coasts there was,as a rule, more rain than in London. At Brighton,where as many as 20 days furnished a measurableamount, the aggregate was 4’2 in., a figure 0’7 in.more than the normal. At Bournemouth it was3’4 in., at Torquay 3’7 in., or 0’4 in. less than