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The preliminary examinations for Arts and Medicine are infull swing this week. There are thirty candidates for theMedical preliminary and 220 for the Arts preliminary, a fall-ing off of about twenty since last year. Greek is as popular.as ever, but then it still counts more than modern languagesfor the Bursary competition, which is decided by the samepapers as the preliminary examination.-Dean of GuildWalker has presented to the Senatus "Minstrel" Beattie’svioloncello, which belonged to the late Mr. James Walker.-The bust of the late Professor Minto is now finished, and willshortly be added to the collection in Marischal C,’ollege.
The IIealth of Aberdeen.The zymotic diseases notified last week were : Measles, 2 ;
scarlet fever, 21 ; whooping-cough, 25 ; erysipelas, 3; total,.51; being 6 cases fewer than the preceding week.
Oct. 2nd. ____
IRELAND.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.) illtl
Tlte Nursing in Government Prison Hospitals. alAN inquest was held in the Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, on
Sept. 30th, on the body of a convict who had died thererather suddenly from asphyxia caused by some inflammatory w
disease of the throat. The coroner made some strong com- bEments on the system of nursing at the institution ; and the bE
jury added a rider to the verdict " that the nursing system fcin the prison hospital was defective and ought at once to stbe improved." E
Death under Chloroform. cl
A death under chloroform has recently occurred at the tl
Coombe Lying-in Hospital, Dublin. The patient, a woman 01
aged forty-eight years, was about to undergo an operation at tl
the hands of Dr. F. Kidd, the master of the hospital, and ?J
chloroform was being administered by one of his assistants inwhen a sort of spasm occurred and the woman ceased to fcbreathe. The chloroform, of which less than a drachm had it
been administered, was stopped at once and every effort lumade to restore the patient, but without avail. At the b-inquest, which was held on Sept. 27th, evidence was given tlby Mr. Kenny, who had made a post-mortem examination, H
that "the heart was small, fiat, and flabby." The jury found 12
" that the deceased died from cardiac syncope while under tl
the influence of chloroform; that the chloroform was tl
administered with all proper precautions and skill; and that rfno blame was attachable to any official of the hospital." it
a<Outbreak of Typhus Fever near Stewartstown. h
A serious outbreak of typhus fever, a disease formerly very e:
common in Ireland, is reported to have occurred among the n
poor fisher and farmer class on the shores of Lough Neagh, t!
seven miles from Stewartstown in county Tyrone. These npeople live in small, badly ventilated, and overcrowded ahouses, and fifteen have been removed to Cookstown 11Infirmary. All the patients, except two whom the dispensary n
medical officer did not think it was necessary to compel to enterthe fever hospital, have gone there. All the clothes of thepatients are to be burned. c
The Duties of Medical Officers, Masters, and Matrons in Irish r
Workhouses. t
With reference to the duties of medical officers, masters, d
and matrons in Irish workhouses, which was raised at a late c
meeting of the Ballymena board of guardians by their medical officer, Dr. Davison,’ the matter was again referred to by the master of that union at the weekly meeting on xSept. 28th, and it was decided to ask the Local Government
r
Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the whole subject. a
The Kilrea Dispensary. c
The Ballymoney guardians recommended recently that the salary of Dr. Lennox, medical officer of the Kilrea dispen- f
sary, should be increased by £15 per annum, but after some 1correspondence the Local Government Board would only rsanction an addition of £10, a decision which the guardians =
regard as very strange.The Queen’s College, Cork.
The annual report of the President, which has been just 1issued, gives some interesting details with regard to the
i i
1 THE LANCET, Sept. 28th, 1895.
College. The President states that the total number ofstudents attending the College during the session 1894-5 was222, the lowest number reached since the year 1876. I findthe President of the Belfast Queen’s College also reports adiminution in the attendance, which he says was thesmallest for twenty years. No doubt the same influencesaffected both Colleges. The religious denominations of theCork students were as follows: Roman Catholics, 137;Church of Ireland, 59 ; Presbyterians, 11; Wesleyans,12 ; and other denominations, 5. From the openingof the College in 1849 to the year 1860 the RomanCatholic students slightly exceeded the number of
Protestants, but from 1861 to 1872 the Protestants were in amajority except in one or two years. From that yearforward, however, the Roman Catholic students have out-numbered, sometimes by more than two to one, all the otherdenominations. Since 1882 the number of Protestantstudents has fallen steadily, being now little more than one-half of the number of thirteen years ago. As the medicalschool forms an important part of the College it would be
interesting to analyse the various causes that have producedthe results tabulated by the President, but in notes such asthese it would be utterly impossible to discuss the subject atall adequately.
flospitccd Saturday at Cork.Last Saturday was Hospital Saturday in Cork, and the
weather was all that could be desired. The fair lady collectors,bearing their tinkling tambourines, were bedecked with
bewitching summer costumes, and all seemed to augur wellfor a successful collection, but I regret to say that thestreet receipts were less than those of last year by about£120. The mayor, who takes a lively interest in the citycharities, was much disappointed and publicly stated thatthe recent " unwarrantable attack on the city hospitals " wasone of the most potent influences which militated againstthe collection. If the mayor’s opinion be correct the championof the Cork clubs can hardly congratulate himself on beinginstrumental in procuring the diminution of the resourcesfor relieving human suffering and misery. However, I thinkit only fair to say that in my opinion the mayor attaches anundue amount of importance to the influence possessedby the gentleman to whom he refers, and as an indication inthat direction I would mention that the contribution to the
Hospital Saturday Fund from the working men of one of thelargest firms in the city has been this year almost identicallythe same as it was last year. Furthermore, it is well knownthat the committee of management, rightly or wrongly,requested the lady collectors not to press the public, andit was a matter of general comment that the ladies,acting on the instruction they had received, did not ex-
hibit at all the same zeal as had characterised theirefforts on previous occasions. The Cork amusement com-mittee gave important aid by providing a very varied enter-tainment during the afternoon. Amongst the items weremusical drill by a detachment of the Royal Irish Fusiliers,and a tug-of-war between sailors from H.M.S. Warspite andmembers of the city,police force, in which the constabularymen were the victors.
The &nitary Condition of Cork.The Public Health Committee recently appointed a sub-
committee to make a general inspection of the city, and as aresult of their investigations they have already recommendedthat in one district several of the houses be closed anddemolished, and in the case of other houses that the over-crowding be reduced by permitting only two families to
occupy each house. The step taken by the Health Com-mittee is a very important one, and I have no doubtpersonal inspection by our city fathers will impress them farmore than any number of official reports with regard to theabsolute necessity for providing decent sanitary habitationsfor the poor of the city. The medical superintendentofficer of health reports that the death-rate for the fourweeks ending Aug. 24th was only 15’87 per 1000, the in-fectious death-rate being 2’06 per 1000. The birth-rate washigher and the death-rate lower than for the correspondingmonth of last year.
INCREASE IN THE SALARY OF A MEDICAL OFFICER.At the last weekly meeting of the Barton Regis (Bristol)board of guardians it was stated that the Local GovernmentBoard had approved of the resolution of the guardians toincrease the salary of Mr. D. E. Bernard, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Edin., the medical officer to the workhouse, by £25.
