213LAUNDRIES AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE.

It Will intimidate those who are desirous of bringing thelight of publicity to bear upon unwholesome and dangerousplaces, -

LAUNDRIES AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE.

THE keeper of a laundry in Kentish Town has recently beensummoned by the St. Pancras Vestry for having, whilst

suffering from diphtheria, wilfully exposed himself in thestreet and in his shop without taking proper precautionsagainst the spread of the disease. When the defendant was

first taken ill the case was notified in the usual way, and oneof the sanitary inspectors having found that the defendantwas not isolated, a warning notice was served upon him.Dr. Sykes, the medical officer of health, subsequently calledand found that the caution had been disregarded. Mr. Cooke,the magistrate who heard the case, fined the defendant ;Bl,and stated that he inflicted a mitigated penalty for the reasonthat he thought that the defendant’s action was not inten-tional, but was due to carelessness. It is, however, such actsof carelessness against which the public has to be protected,and it is to be hoped that the smallness of the penalty willnot encourage other laundrymen to commit similar acts ofnegligence. But for Dr. Sykes having called at a particularmoment it is quite possible that the offence might have escapeddetection.

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SALVATION ARMY SHELTERS AND THE DIFFUSIONOF SMALL-POX.

IT will be recollected that a somewhat recent decision inthe High Court was to the effect that Salvation Army sheltersneed not be registered as common lodging-houses becausethey were conducted for the purposes of philanthropy andnot for gain. Mr. Slade decided last week that thefact that the superintendent of the Salvation Army shelterin Blackfriar’s-road charged only a penny per nightdid not exempt him from the liability to which all

other persons are subject who knowingly let for hire anyhouse or part of a house in which any person has been

suffering from any dangerous infectious disease without

having had such house or part of a house and all articles thereinliable to retain infection disinfected to the satisfaction of a

legally qualified medical practitioner, as testified by a cer-tificate signed by him. A further plea put forward by thedefendant’s solicitor that the daily disinfection of the shelterwas sufficient for the purpose was also rejected. Mr. Slade’sdecision is satisfactory not only from a legal point of view butalso from that of the public health, and the sanitary authorityof St, George the Martyr, Southwark, who instituted the pro-ceedings, has done useful service in bringing the matter beforethe magistrate. These shelters receive persons of the poorestclass, and the reports of the medical officer of health of thecounty of London (which have been published in the minutesof the London County Council) have shown the part whichthe vagrant classes play in spreading small-pox in London.It is, indeed, to be regretted that these shelters are not underthe same control as other houses receiving lodgers for thenight, The fact that they are not intended to be remune-rative should, in common sense, be no bar to their registrationand regulation, and we trust that it will not be long beforethe la is altered in this respect.

A MEDICO-LEGAL FARCE.

IT is a mistake to regard the law as a mere body of dryprecepts. It is more than this, more than mere matter offact. Practical, exact and monotonous to the limit ofendurance it has yet its endowment of romance. Its historyrecords tragedies as grim in aspect as any of the weirdshadows created by fiction, it has its comedies, its emotionalmelodramas and its farces. The latter, happily it may be, arenot the least common of its borrowed associations. They.

temper somewhat the severity of justice even whilst theytend, as they needs must, to besmirch the pride of judioialermine. It may be some consolation to the sister professionwhen, as on a recent occasion, another hitherto respectedcalling’, that of medicine, is compelled to share its forcedindignity. In the case we refer to, a person, himself a,

lawyer, was admitted the worse for liquor, with his legbroken, into the Guest Hospital at Dudley. He receivedthe treatment customary in such cases, and in considera-tion of his restless habits, which were evident during hisconvalescence, was retained within the hospital for a longerperiod than usual. At last, however, be became so insub-ordinate that he had to be summarily dismissed, and the Euit.which we have classed amongst the recreations of justice-was the result. In it he complained that a plaster-of-Parisdressing ordered for his leg was not used, and he applied onthis ground for a verdict of damages to the large amount ofIs. against the resident surgeon. It was shown in court thatthe plaintiff incurred no risk by his dismissal, which was.justified by established rule, and which, therefore, the pre-siding judge very properly approved. A case like this callsfor little comment. Clearly an in-patient in any hospitalmust conform to the usages of the institution or leave it, andthis is a rule which admits of no exception but such as may ariseout of the actual necessities of illness. Many persons have noparticular liking for the subtleties of law and as little desireto take part in a comic trial, notwithstanding its grotesque-associations ; few, at all events, of our ever-busy fraternitywould regret the introduction of a legal process which coulddeal in a more summary manner than is at present possiblewith vexatious case3 like the above.

FOREIGN UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.

Basle -Dr. Buri has been recognised as privat-docent inDermatology.Bonn.-Dr. Gustav Veit being about to retire from the

Professorship of Midwifery and Gynaecology, the post hasbeen offered to and accepted by Dr. Heinrich Fritsch, pro-fessor of the same subjects in the University of Breslau.Nancy.-Dr. A. Nicolas, agrégé, has been promoted to the

Chair of Descriptive Anatomy.! Naples.-Dr. Francesco Sgobbo has been recognised asprivat-docent in Neurology.Rome.-Dr. Pietro Avoledo has been recognised as privat-

docent in Otology.Strasburg.-Dr. Heinrich Bayer has been promoted to an

Extraordinary Professorship of Midwifery and Gynaecology.Vienna.-Professor Naunyn of Strasburg has, following the

example of Professor Erb of Heidelberg, declined the invita-tion to take the vacant chair of Medicine.

THE Edinburgh Congress of the British Institute of PublicHealth will inaugurate its proceedings at the EdinburghUniversity on Thursday, July 27th, and the labours of thevarious sections will terminate with a dinner given bythe Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on Monday,July 31st. Some important papers will be read on the

subjects of Housing of the Working Classes, Status of

Public Health Officials, Infectious Hospitals &,c., and excur-sions have been arranged around Edinburgh and its environ-ments. Delegates have been appointed from a large numberof county councils, corporations and local authorities through-out the British Islts.

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THE annual meeting of the British Nurses’ Association willbe held in the Hall of Balliol College, Oxford, on Monday,July 24th, at 12.15 P.m., when the chair will be taken by SirHenry Acland.

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MR. T. H. OPENSHAW, F.R.C.S.Eng., has been electedLecturer on Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical School.