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ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON.-Amongstthe graduates elected to the Membership of the College, at theComitia Majora held on the 1st inst., was Charles EdwardBrown-Sequard, M.D., Paris. The enrolment of this distin-

guished man in the ranks of English physicians will be hailedwith universal satisfaction.

YELLOW FEVER. - The steamer " Portugal," just ar-rived from the Brazils, reports no yellow fever at Rio Janeiroor Pernambuco-ports under the ban of the Portuguese qua-mntine authorities. ’,ABUSE OF COLD DOUCHE IN INSA.NITY.-M. Brocard

has put forth in the Tlaesis de Paris (8th July, 1859) a well-founded objection to the use, or rather against the abuse,of shower-baths and cold douches in the treatment of insanityand of hysterical hypochondriac disorders of the nervous

system. He views them as barbarous methods, capable ofaggravating the mental disorder of the patient, by throwingthem into profound terror, and of causing the system to endurea heavy shock by roughly disturbing the circulation, and pro-ducing a sort of asphyxia. The views of the author are one-sided ; but there is a general conviction that cold baths are notunfrequently abused in such cases, and thus do more harm thangood.RATIONAL TREATMENT OF GOUT.-M. Galtier Boissire,

himself the subject of gout, hereditarily transmitted throughfour generations, explains in an interesting monograph the reme-dies which he employs. His treatise is rather skilful, minute,and well contrived, than novel. So also his treatment. Pro-

phylaxis-abundant drink, onlysomuchof coffee, tea, or liqueursas may facilitate digestion, mixed vegetable and animal diet,the former element predominating ; therapeutics-sulphate of,quinine, colchicum, alkaline drinks, baths, and frictions. Hisfavourite alkali is bitartrate of potash ; the colchicum he alter-nates with quinine, giving only thirty drops of the tincture eachday.PUBLIC HONOUR TO DR. LESCARBAULT.-This gentle-

man, whose remarkable perseverance and ingenuity in astro-nomical research were crowned by the discovery of a planet,has been rewarded by the Emperor of the French with thehonorary distinction of Commander of the Legion of Honour.England has yet to learn the necessity of recognising publicservices other than of a military character.

BLOOMSBURY COUNTY COURT, JAN. 24TH;.—DE CoR-DOVA v. BARKER, OTHERWISE DE Roos.-This was an actionbrought by the plaintiff, resident at Jamaica, and proprietorof a journal, published in the West Indies, named De,Cordova’s Advertiser, and issued daily, against the defendant,whose name is Samuel Barker, but who, under that of Walterde Roos, professes to cure a certain disease, of 10, Berners-street, Oxford-street, to recover the sum of £ 20 odd for twelvemonths’ advertisements in the said paper.-Mr. Dod, solicitor,Great Portland-street, appeared for the plaintiff; and Mr.Robinson, barrister, instructed by Mr. Williams, of Alfred-place, for the defendant.The case had previously been entered into, and was adjourned

in consequence of defendant’s non-attendance on a subpoenaissued by Mr. Dod, for which omission a penalty of £10 wasimposed, and which he (defendant) had paid into Court. Thedefendant was now present; and in answer to the questionsput by Mr. Dod, said he did order, by a person whom he un-derstood to be the London agent of plaintiff, the insertion ofhis advertisements in the paper named, a copy of which hewas to receive by every mail. He had not since received asingle copy; and believing that such a paper was not in exist-ence, refused when called upon to pay the amount. His ad-dress was 10, Berners-street, and it was a corner house. Hisname was not De Roos, but Barker; but on entering thebusiness, in 1848, it being his first appearance in such a line,he adopted, instead of his own, his youngest son’s (whowas not yet out of his teens) Christian names-" Walterde Roos," in which he still continued to practise. His brothermade up the pills and other medicines for the patients, butwas no partner in their sale. He always paid his creditorswhat was due, when, if they demurred at the coin offered, theyhad the privilege of taking it out in physic. (Laughter.)

Mr. Dod here produced the defendant’s advertisement, cutout of plaintiff’s paper, which latter could not be brought for-ward entire, although every exertion throughout London hadbeen made to obtain it.

Mr. Robinson, on behalf of his client, here submitted thatno proof had been given of the debt claimed being owing; and

his Honour suggesting a nonsuit to that course, Mr. Dod con.sented, for the produce of requisite witnesses, the Judge (Mr.Lefroy) upon that saying that he should remit one half of thefine which he had imposed upon defendant-viz., .610, andorder the other X5 to be given to Mr. Dod in part payment ofhis client’s expenses.-Judgment entered accordingly.ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.—Dr. J. M. M’Culloch, Dumfries,

delivered a lecture in the Merchants’ Hall, Glasgow, on the20th ult., under the auspices of the University Abstainers’Society, Dr. Joseph Bell, lecturer on Clinical Medicine to theRoyal Infirmary, presiding. Dr. M’Culloch contended thatalcoholic drinks were, in every form and quantity, deleterious.Alcohol was, in fact, a brain poison, and it was the duty of theindividual to abstain from it, and of the Government totallyand immediately to suppress its manufacture and sale. TheChairman, who said he had been a total abstainer during hisforty years of professional career, expressed his concurrencewith the views of the lecturer, as also did Dr. Jas. Gray, whostated that he, too, had entirely abstained from drinking alco-holic beverages during all his professional life.THE DEFORMED SKULLS OF WROXETER.-Mr. Wright

announces that he has brought to town the whole of the de.formed skulls found at Wroxeter, which have been the subjectof so much discussion, even amongst those who have not yethad the opportunity of carefully examining them, and thatthey are temporarily deposited in the rooms of the EthnologicalSociety. They will be exhibited at that Society on the 15thinstant, when the discussion elicited will probably afford anauthentic conclusion as to their real character. The prevalentopinion at present amongst those who have examined them is,that the deformities are the result of gradual pressure, thebdhes having been greatly softened during their impaction inthe clayey earth.HEALTH OF LONDON DURING THE WEEK ENDING

SATURDAY, JAN. 28TH.-The mortality in London last weekwas higher than that recorded in any previous return since thebeginning of the year, the number of deaths having been 1386;

while the corrected average would have given only 1291. Acomparison of the results of the last two weeks shows thatfrom zymotic diseases in the aggregate there was no increase;that the mortality from "constitutional" diseases remainedexactly the same, and that there was an increase from "local"and also developmental " diseases. Under the head " localdiseases" the deaths by affections of the nervous system rosefrom 123 to 139; those by diseases of the heart rose from 53 to65; those by diseases of the respiratory organs from 357 to368; and by diseases of the digestive organs the deaths rosefrom 52 to 62. While there is an increase which is not incon-siderable in the total number of deaths, it is satisfactory toremark a decrease last week in small-pox, and also a continueddecrease in scarlatina. The deaths from the former diseasewere 26; 2 of these occurred in one family in the London-roadsub-district. From scarlatina, the deaths in the last threeweeks were successively 62, 48, and 33. Last week there were11 from diphtheria. Nine infants died from syphilitic disease;and no less than 16 from suffocation, apparently by accident,and all or for the most part in bed. Two children, one of theage of six weeks, the other seven weeks, and belonging to thesame family, were suffocated in bed, the former on the 7th andthe latter on the 17th inst. The registrar of the Kent-roadsub-district returns three children, belonging to different fami-lies, who were " accidentally suffocated in bed," two on the17th and one on the 23rd. Two persons died from privation.

Obituary.DR. AYRE, OF HULL.

WE had to record, on the 21 st ult., the death of Dr. Ayre, ofHull,-one of those fathers in the profession who link the pastgeneration with the present. We are enabled this week to

present our readers with a brief sketch of his life, character,and labours.

Joseph Ayre (or Eyre, as the name was more commonlyspelt in former days), was born in 1781, at Lynn, in Norfolk.His father was a younger son, and had worked his way to amoderate independence as a shipowner. His mother-a womanof good judgment and considerable natural ability-was left awidow at thirty-four, with a family of eight children, of whom

! Joseph, then scarcely more than five years old, was the youngest.

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Of his early years little is known, except that he is said tohave been a fair, delicate child, gentle and loving, full of gene-rous impulse, and, as a boy at school, of great activity, fear-lessness, and courage. At fourteen years of age he was sentto sea, having been removed from school just when he was be-ginning to appreciate instruction. During the next sevenyears, when he most needed the counsel and guidance of afather, he seems to have been unsettled as to the direction ofhis future course. Several occupations were suggested, tried,and given up in succession. Beginning as a sailor, he endeclhis minority as clerk in a mercantile office. A short time after-wards the merchant failed; and the year 1803 found youngAyre in his twenty-second year, without any business or pro- fession in view, but with his little patrimony at his own dis-posal. This was the turning point in his life. The choice layentirely with himself; and he decided on the study of medi-cine. With the sanguine confidence which never forsook him,he determined to invest, if need be, the whole of his littlecapital in his medical education. He had no fears for thefuture if this could be successfully completed.After a few months of preparation with a medical friend, we

find him spending the session of 1803-4 as a student underCline and Astley Cooper at Guy’s, and Haighton at St. Tho-mas’s Hospitals. In the autumn of 1804 he went to Edin-

burgh, and continued his medical studies under the Monros,Gregory, Hope, Home, Rutherford, Duncan, and Barclay.We have heard it remarked by their contemporaries that heand the late Dr. Armstrong were close friends, and almost in-separable companions, during their college course. Both gra-duated in 1807. The following year Dr. Ayre settled in Hull,where, shortly after, he was elected, as colleague with hisfriend, the late Dr. Alderson, physician to the Hull GeneralHospital, and was appointed also to several other public insti-tutions.In 1824 he removed to London, rejoining his friend Arm-

strong, and continued there, with a fairly successful and ex-tending practice, till, his health failing, consequent upon asevere injury to the head, he was compelled at first to refrainfrom work for more than a twelvemonth, and ultimately toleave London altogether. He returned to Hull in 1831, where hewas for many years an alderman in the town, and chairman ofthe Sanitary Committee of the Board of Health; and after hislabours in the cholera districts in 1849, the governor and guar-dians of the Incorporation of the Poor presented him with apurse of one hundred guineas, as an acknowledgment of theirsense of the value of his services. Within a few weeks of hisdeath, he was gratified by the intelligence that, on the 2nd ofNovember last, he had been elected to a fellowship of theCollege of Physicians.

Dr. Ayre is well known as a medical writer. His first pub-lication was one on " The Disorders of the Liver," publishedin 1818; and his next "A Treatise on Dropsy," published in1826. Both these works passed through several editions, andboth have been translated into German. Their highest praiseis the remark lately made, that many of the views of pathologyand treatment, then advocated as new, are those which at thepresent day generally, if not universally prevail.Of late years Dr. Ayre had become still better known to the

public from his labours in the treatment of Asiatic cholera. Itwas towards the close of 1831 that he was sent with Dr. Long-staff as a deputation to Sunderland and Newcastle to witnesscases of cholera, and report upon the disease, which had thenfor the first time appeared in England. So early as 1818, hehad indicated what he thought ought to be the treatment of akindred disease, and during this visit to the north he success-fully applied his theory to the treatment of a case entrusted tohis care by Dr. Clanny, and so introduced the practice withwhich his name has since been associated. In 1832, when thecholera visited Hull, Dr. Ayre was at work night and dayamongst the poor in the cholera districts, and had the gratifi-cation of finding that the success of his plan of treatment ex-ceeded even his most sanguine expectations. In the followingyear he published a work upon the subject, and the columns ofTHE LANCET contain many interesting and valuable communi-cations from his pen, recording the results of his experience.In 1849, on the outbreak of the cholera at Hamburgh, he

immediately went thither, and spent some time in inspectingthe hospitals, and observing the results of the various methodsof treatment there in use, and returned to Hull fully confirmedin his former views, both as to the mode of treatment and thenon-infectious character of the disease; on which last point, in1832, he stood almost alone.The last treatise he wrote was a memoir read before the French

Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1857, and sent in with up-

wards of 150 others, in competition for the legacy left by M.Breant for him who should discover an efficient means for thecure of cholera. The members of the Academy selected Dr.Ayre’s paper as that which seemed best to fulfil the conditionslaid down by the testator ; but they declined to award theprize till a yet larger eiiseinble of facts should be adduced inproof of his treatment being a specific. This memoir, with thereport of the Academy thereon, was published in June last byMr. Churchill.

In Dr. Ayre, the profession has lost one of the most activeand energetic of its older members. Naturally of quick per-ception and retentive memory, ardent in the pursuit of know-ledge, with an acquired habit of indefatigable industry, withevery leisure moment devoted to reading, it is not surprisingthat his mind became enriched by a vast store of information,gathered, as it was, not only from the literature of his owncountry, but from that of France, Italy, and Spain, with thelanguages of which he had early made himself familiar. Hewas of retiring habits, and though he wrote much, yet whenhe wrote, it was not because he wanted to say something, butbecause he had something to say. In setting forth his views,he was apt sometimes, perhaps, to rely too much on his ownconviction of their truth, and to disregard the possible pre-judices of his readers. His mode of treating cholera had provedsuccessful in his own hands and in those of many of his friends.His great desire was, that others who confessed themselves ata loss, and without confidence in any plan, would fairly andfaithfully give his plan a trial, and then publicly record theresult. " Try it faithfully and perseveringly," he would say," or not at all. At any rate, don’t make me responsible forthe result of the partial or imperfect trial."He died of disease of the bladder, which seems to have been

coming on for some few years, causing great suffering, whichoften, during the last six months, amounted to almost in-tolerable agony. His characteristic energy and love of studyremained with him till within a few days of his death. Duringthe intervals of ease, his mind was occupiecl with the highestof all subjects. His favourite work was Bishop Butler’s

"Analogy," which he esteemed as taking the highest rankamongst uninspired compositions, and he never wearied ofhearing it read to him.His sufferings increased in intensity till his frame sank from.

exhaustion; and though they failed to wring from him a murmur,yet they made him welcome death, because he looked beyondit. It came on the 15th inst.So closed a useful, honourable, and laborious life, " leaving

footprints on the sands of time."

MEDICAL DIARY OF THE WEEK.

MONDAY, FEB. 6......

TUESDAY, FEB. 7 ...

WEDNESDAY, FEB. S

THURSDAY, FEB. 9

FRIDAY, FEB. 10.....

SATURDAY, FEB. 11

’ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL.-Operations, 2 P.M.METROPOLITAN FREB HOSPITAL. - Operations,

2 P.u.EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SOCIETY.-8 P.M. Dr. R. F.

Foote, "On Quarantine in the East."ODONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8 P.M.MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8i P.M. ClinicalDiscussion.rGUY’S HOSPITAL.-Operations. 1 ½ P.M.WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL.-Operations, 2 P.M.ROYAL INSTITUTION. - 3 P.M. Prof. Ocven, " On

Fossil Reptiles."lP ATROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-8 P.M.(MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.I ST. VIARY’S HOSPITAL,-OpeYaflOitF, 1 P,bS.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL. - Operations,2 P.M.’I ROYAL ORTHOPÆDIC HOSPITAL. - Operations, 2

P.M.I NORTH LONDON MEDICAL SOCIETY. - 8 P.M.Annual Meeting and Election of Officers.rST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.CENTRAL LONDON OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL.

Operations, 1 P.M.LONDON HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 ½ P.M.’ GBEAT NORTHERN HOSPITAL, KING’S CROSS.’’ Operations, 2, P.M.I ROYAL INSTIT1:TION. - 3 P.M. Prof. Tyndall,L " ON Light." ’WESTMINSTER OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL. - Opera-

tions, 1 ½ P.M.ROYAL INSTITUTION.-8 P.M. Prof. T. H. Huxley,," Un Species and Races, and their Orig-in."ST. THOMAS’S HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 P.M.ST. DAPTHOLOMEW’s HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1 ½

P.M.KING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL.-Operations, 1½ P.M.I CBARiNGr-cRoss HOSPITAL.—Operations, 2 P.M.ROYAL JxsTiTCTioN. - 3 P.M. Dr. Lankester,i "’.’n the Relations of the Animal Kingdom to-L the Industry of Man."